So, my daughter called me yesterday from Amtrak, to say she was crossing Ninth Street, heading east. A moment later, I heard the train, passing a few blocks north of our house, heading in to Durham Station. I hear the trains all the time, living in Morehead Hill, working at Erwin Square, biking in between. I heard them a lot in Cary, too, living near tracks, but they mean more here. Durham, after all, is a child of the railroad. Many cities resulted in railhoad stations, but here it was the railroad station that resulted in the city.
Back when there was no Durham, just Durham's Station, General William Tecumsah Sherman got off the train here, following a short ride from Raleigh. He was headed to meet General Joseph Eggleston Johnston, who had recently moved his command from Greensboro to Hillsborough to be closer to his worthy apponent. They each got on horseback - Sherman at Durham's Station, Johnston in Hillsborough, and met near a farm belonging to James and Nancy Bennitt, the so-called Bennett Place where they ultimately negotiated the surrender of Johnston's Confederate army. Meanwhile, a mix of Northern and Southern troops mingled in the neutral zone around the train station, looting J.R. Green's tobacco warehouse nearby. Green thought he was ruined, until the post-war orders started coming in. He was quick to think about branding (things really weren't so different then), borrowed his identity from a mustard jar, and the rest is history. The Bull City was born.
Investors in the state-sponsored NC Railroad contributed labor to its construction and earned shares of ownership in exchange. Of course, it wasn't generally their own labor. Paul Cameron of Stagville Plantation, for instance, put his slaves to work on the line. Here, the law was on his side. During the war, however, his slaves were conscripted for the construction of fortifications at Wilmington, and he ultimately lost them all, as Jean Anderson documents in her history of Durham County. What combination of liberation, casualty, and disease may have been involved is not stated in her book, which simply concludes the account by noting it was a loss Mr. Cameron calculated at $443,000.
It strikes me that if you want to see who benefits most from any given social order, simply check to see who has most of the benefits. One can only hope that they also pay most of the costs. The war, however, was an unsettled time, when winners and losers changed places. Washington Duke, though a veteran of the Confederate Navy who ended the Civil War as a POW, became a Republican thereafter. Maybe this was a poor choice, given the impending end of Reconstruction and the ultimate busting of his tobacco trust at Republican hands, but he did all right.
We were at a Durham Bull's game again tonight (another loss - hard to believe they're #1 in the division, based on what I've seen thus far). This time we drove the half mile or so from home, and as we walked across the American Tobacco complex to our car, after the fireworks, past the milling urban crowd, Tyler's Tap Room, Zen Sushi, Cuban Revolution, and so forth, it struck me: You're not even allowed to smoke here now. This cultural carpetbagger felt a little thrill of victory at that.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Day 16: Vickers Woods
My daily commute on South Buchanan takes me past one of the Pauli Murray murals, with quotes from Duke’s Karla Holloway, among others, paying tribute to the civil rights activist Episcopal priest who grew up in Durham. I can see another of her murals while I’m waiting to cross Chapel Hill Street, one block west, on the wall of the erstwhile Durham Co-op. You can see some of these murals and learn more about the Reverend Murray on the Pauli Murray Project website.
Murray wrote about growing up in Durham in the early 20th century in her book Proud Shoes. She spent at least some of her childhood on the edge of Morehead Hill, in an area then called “the Bottoms,” where the land bottomed out along what is now known as Carroll Street (then Cameron and Shaw Streets). I live more-or-less in the Bottoms, myself, on the last block before Carroll, though Cobb Street didn’t extend that far yet (the earliest map I’ve seen with my block of Cobb dates from 1925).
Nonetheless, she writes about this part of the neighborhood in her book. She called it “Vickers Woods,” a name broadly applied to the undeveloped parts of Morehead Hill owned by William Gaston Vickers. By her time, this would have been a pretty small area, since Morehead Hill was mostly developed and Forest Hills had also come along, just a few blocks below. In any event, she describes an incident that occurred in Vickers Woods in 1917. She and some other children entered the woods below her friend’s house on Morehead Avenue, at the point “where Arnette Avenue ended abruptly in a dump heap.” Pursuing the sound of a child crying, they found where another boy had been shot and killed, apparently by a white man who thought the two boys were stealing watermelons from his patch (the boys, like Pauli Murray herself, were black). I say “apparently” because the crime was never investigated, such being the times.
She called the area from Arnette east “Swelltown Heights,” another common moniker of the time. This was the wealthy, white area. She mentions a color line that appears to have run just west of Arnette, and still does, to some extent. Twenty years later (in 1937), the North Carolina Department of Public Works published a map delineating the “White” and “Negro” sections of Durham, and it holds up surprisingly well to this day, even the bit about how Carroll south of Cobb is white, while north is black. In fairness, these lines are no longer near so firm as they must have been back then. There has been progress, after all.
Murray wrote about growing up in Durham in the early 20th century in her book Proud Shoes. She spent at least some of her childhood on the edge of Morehead Hill, in an area then called “the Bottoms,” where the land bottomed out along what is now known as Carroll Street (then Cameron and Shaw Streets). I live more-or-less in the Bottoms, myself, on the last block before Carroll, though Cobb Street didn’t extend that far yet (the earliest map I’ve seen with my block of Cobb dates from 1925).
Nonetheless, she writes about this part of the neighborhood in her book. She called it “Vickers Woods,” a name broadly applied to the undeveloped parts of Morehead Hill owned by William Gaston Vickers. By her time, this would have been a pretty small area, since Morehead Hill was mostly developed and Forest Hills had also come along, just a few blocks below. In any event, she describes an incident that occurred in Vickers Woods in 1917. She and some other children entered the woods below her friend’s house on Morehead Avenue, at the point “where Arnette Avenue ended abruptly in a dump heap.” Pursuing the sound of a child crying, they found where another boy had been shot and killed, apparently by a white man who thought the two boys were stealing watermelons from his patch (the boys, like Pauli Murray herself, were black). I say “apparently” because the crime was never investigated, such being the times.
She called the area from Arnette east “Swelltown Heights,” another common moniker of the time. This was the wealthy, white area. She mentions a color line that appears to have run just west of Arnette, and still does, to some extent. Twenty years later (in 1937), the North Carolina Department of Public Works published a map delineating the “White” and “Negro” sections of Durham, and it holds up surprisingly well to this day, even the bit about how Carroll south of Cobb is white, while north is black. In fairness, these lines are no longer near so firm as they must have been back then. There has been progress, after all.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Day 12: Bull Durham
So we walked to a Bulls game tonight, my family and I. The fireworks are loud enough at home to scare the cats; we might as well see them up close. Jen got our tickets from a season ticket holder on the Old West Durham listserv, which thus far has proven way cooler than the Morehead Hill listserv, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time. Anyway, we wound up down in front in right field, able to put our beers right atop the Bulls' dugout.
Our bullpen was off to the right, while the visiting bullpen was way off in left field, below the "Hit Bull, Win Steak Bull." I've always heard, during my twenty-something years in the Triangle, that our bullpens were the origin of the word. Makes sense, though it's not quite the case. Assuming you buy the theory that the old Bull Durham ads were responsible for the term, which seems probable, they weren't just used here in Durham; they were found along the outfield walls in ballparks all across the USA in the early 20th century. But, yes, they did originate in Durham, it being Bull Durham Tobacco. But where exactly did that come from?
The American Tobacco Company had something close to a monopoly on tobacco by the first decade of the last century, a monopoly eventually broken up under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Company head James Duke was hell bent on acquiring his competitors, and one of them was Liggett & Myers. Now, Liggett & Myers got Bull Durham Tobacco when they bought out W.T. Blackwell & Company, which acquired the brand from J.R. Green, who got the idea for the brand from his friend James Whitted, who was inspired by a jar of Colman's Mustard, which has a bull's head for a logo (still does, to this day). It's called English mustard now, but it was sometimes known as Durham mustard, since the style of mustard was invented by a woman in Durham, England. The bull logo was presumably a reference to John Bull, a symbol of Britain at the height of its popularity in the mid-19th century, when Colman's adopted it. John Bull's surname, in turn, is probably a reference to the derogatory use of the phrase "les rosbifs" by the French to refer to the British. So, that is the chain of associations that led to me and 10,000 other people screaming, "Let's go Bulls!" time and again tonight (to no effect, alas), while a man in a Bull costume danced in front of me on the dugout.
Our bullpen was off to the right, while the visiting bullpen was way off in left field, below the "Hit Bull, Win Steak Bull." I've always heard, during my twenty-something years in the Triangle, that our bullpens were the origin of the word. Makes sense, though it's not quite the case. Assuming you buy the theory that the old Bull Durham ads were responsible for the term, which seems probable, they weren't just used here in Durham; they were found along the outfield walls in ballparks all across the USA in the early 20th century. But, yes, they did originate in Durham, it being Bull Durham Tobacco. But where exactly did that come from?
The American Tobacco Company had something close to a monopoly on tobacco by the first decade of the last century, a monopoly eventually broken up under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Company head James Duke was hell bent on acquiring his competitors, and one of them was Liggett & Myers. Now, Liggett & Myers got Bull Durham Tobacco when they bought out W.T. Blackwell & Company, which acquired the brand from J.R. Green, who got the idea for the brand from his friend James Whitted, who was inspired by a jar of Colman's Mustard, which has a bull's head for a logo (still does, to this day). It's called English mustard now, but it was sometimes known as Durham mustard, since the style of mustard was invented by a woman in Durham, England. The bull logo was presumably a reference to John Bull, a symbol of Britain at the height of its popularity in the mid-19th century, when Colman's adopted it. John Bull's surname, in turn, is probably a reference to the derogatory use of the phrase "les rosbifs" by the French to refer to the British. So, that is the chain of associations that led to me and 10,000 other people screaming, "Let's go Bulls!" time and again tonight (to no effect, alas), while a man in a Bull costume danced in front of me on the dugout.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Day 10: Durham Palimpsest
On the ride in today, I just beat the morning Amtrak. I wasn't playing chicken with the train, exactly, but I could hear it coming, pulling out of Durham's lovely new station at West Village, so I pushed harder on the pedals. The crossing lights came on just as I was riding over the rails, and this gave me an inordinate sense of accomplishment.
Most of my short commute is on South Buchanan Blvd. This little stretch between Chapel Hill Street and Main is a cross section of the ridge line that runs between Raleigh and Hillsborough, a geologic formation that attracted the North Carolina Railroad back in the 1840s, when the necessities of wood-burning steam engines forced them to consider a midway stop in this vicinity. There was no Durham then. Durham, they say, is the young city of the Triangle: younger than Chapel Hill or even Raleigh, and nothing compared to Hillsborough. So the city's story begins with the tale of two men, one good, one bad, like the story of The Island on "Lost." In this case, we have William Pratt, the tavern keeper whose "grog shop" acquired a reputation as a place where "evil-disposed persons of evil name and fame and conversation... come together," and Bartlett Durham, the country doctor who donated the land for the railroad depot, which was then given his name, an appellation later applied to the new town that sprang up around it (and I always figured we were named for Durham, England).
As the tale is usually told, Pratt held out too long for too much money, and so lost the deal, though G K of the "Endangered Durham" blog (recommended) suggests naming rights mattered little to him, compared to what he was eventually able to sell his land for, as property values rose after Durham Station opened in the early 1850s. The City of Durham wasn't actually established as such until 1869, with the County to follow in 1881 (torn from the right shoulder of Orange).
But of course our history does not begin with incorporation, or the railroad. Pratt and Durham were already there, after all, and the ill-famed region was known as Prattsburg before it became Durham. Before that it was Dilliardsville, for William Dilliard, from whom Pratt bought his land. Dilliard ran a post office along the Raleigh-to-Hillsborough Road, which he started after buying the land from one Absalom Alston. And who before Absalom? Eventually the Indians, like Eno Will, whom we encounter twice in history: first as a vigorous native guide in John Lawson's A New Voyage to Carolina (1701), then as an aging alcoholic in William Byrd's Journey to the Land of Eden (1733). So it goes.
It seems Durham has always had a taint to it, from Eno Will, to William Pratt, to, well, today: always the poor corner of the Triangle. Way back when Julian Carr started his cotton mill here (1884), the Durham Morning Sun rejoiced, "In place of this dark hole of iniquity and infamy, there will be a busy, bustling manufacturing community." But then, of course, manufacturing declined, both textiles and tobacco, and today all the mills and cigarette factories are gone from Durham. I'm often reminded of my native Cleveland here, as I am in no other part of the Triangle.
On the way home tonight, near the corner of CHS and S. Buchanan, I saw an historical marker for Julian S. Carr (the "S" stands for Shakespeare, by the way). According to this marker, which is located on the berm by the accounting firm in the converted church, Julian's grave lies "1/4 mi. S." This places it right in my neighborhood. But where? I paid close attention as I biked, especially when I figured I was "1/4 mi. S." of the marker, but I saw only the houses lining Yancey Street. So, there's a mystery to be solved, another day.
Most of my short commute is on South Buchanan Blvd. This little stretch between Chapel Hill Street and Main is a cross section of the ridge line that runs between Raleigh and Hillsborough, a geologic formation that attracted the North Carolina Railroad back in the 1840s, when the necessities of wood-burning steam engines forced them to consider a midway stop in this vicinity. There was no Durham then. Durham, they say, is the young city of the Triangle: younger than Chapel Hill or even Raleigh, and nothing compared to Hillsborough. So the city's story begins with the tale of two men, one good, one bad, like the story of The Island on "Lost." In this case, we have William Pratt, the tavern keeper whose "grog shop" acquired a reputation as a place where "evil-disposed persons of evil name and fame and conversation... come together," and Bartlett Durham, the country doctor who donated the land for the railroad depot, which was then given his name, an appellation later applied to the new town that sprang up around it (and I always figured we were named for Durham, England).
As the tale is usually told, Pratt held out too long for too much money, and so lost the deal, though G K of the "Endangered Durham" blog (recommended) suggests naming rights mattered little to him, compared to what he was eventually able to sell his land for, as property values rose after Durham Station opened in the early 1850s. The City of Durham wasn't actually established as such until 1869, with the County to follow in 1881 (torn from the right shoulder of Orange).
But of course our history does not begin with incorporation, or the railroad. Pratt and Durham were already there, after all, and the ill-famed region was known as Prattsburg before it became Durham. Before that it was Dilliardsville, for William Dilliard, from whom Pratt bought his land. Dilliard ran a post office along the Raleigh-to-Hillsborough Road, which he started after buying the land from one Absalom Alston. And who before Absalom? Eventually the Indians, like Eno Will, whom we encounter twice in history: first as a vigorous native guide in John Lawson's A New Voyage to Carolina (1701), then as an aging alcoholic in William Byrd's Journey to the Land of Eden (1733). So it goes.
It seems Durham has always had a taint to it, from Eno Will, to William Pratt, to, well, today: always the poor corner of the Triangle. Way back when Julian Carr started his cotton mill here (1884), the Durham Morning Sun rejoiced, "In place of this dark hole of iniquity and infamy, there will be a busy, bustling manufacturing community." But then, of course, manufacturing declined, both textiles and tobacco, and today all the mills and cigarette factories are gone from Durham. I'm often reminded of my native Cleveland here, as I am in no other part of the Triangle.
On the way home tonight, near the corner of CHS and S. Buchanan, I saw an historical marker for Julian S. Carr (the "S" stands for Shakespeare, by the way). According to this marker, which is located on the berm by the accounting firm in the converted church, Julian's grave lies "1/4 mi. S." This places it right in my neighborhood. But where? I paid close attention as I biked, especially when I figured I was "1/4 mi. S." of the marker, but I saw only the houses lining Yancey Street. So, there's a mystery to be solved, another day.
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