On To Virginia!

We left North Carolina this morning, once again heading north. This is one of many similar houses we saw in the state. Dormer windows on a second or third story and a front porch -- almost a requirement for a North Carolina house I think!

We were on Interstate 64 heading north when we crossed the border into Virginia and started seeing signs to check our gas... There was a l-o-n-g bridge and tunnel coming up. Next we saw signs saying that rigs with propane tanks must stop at the inspection station. We pulled off onto the right lane where there was a little hut. A man came out; went around the front of Auntie Violet and wrote down our license number; then he came to the passenger side door, opened it and asked if our propane tank was shut off; I said it was (I ALWAYS shut it off when I pick up the jack pad from that compartment!); he must have believed me 'cause he waved us on without checking further!

It took a bit to get back onto that VERY busy highway, but finally there was enough of a break in the traffic to allow us back on. We started to see signs warning us NOT to change lanes...

And then we were in the tunnel! It seemed pretty narrow...

And then it started getting darker... (there was only one row of lights along the ceiling instead of two!)

Many miles later -- but probably not as many as it seemed, we were out the other side! It sure was nice to see the sky again. Other than the GPS routing us right through downtown Norfolk, we pretty much traveled on tree-lined roads -- you certainly don't see much scenery in the East! As we got closer to King & Queen Courthouse, where the Rainbow Acres Campground is located, the narrower the roads got --

When we got to the Campground which was a half a mile down a dead-end dirt road, the ladies in the office did NOT have our reservation! Fortunately, I had the print-out of the confirmation email. It's a good thing they had several empty spaces. One of the ladies took us around in a golf cart to check out the available sites. We decided on one that was fairly level and wasn't in too dark of a treed area.

Off we went to set up, but when I checked the electricity, there was NO power. The lady from the office called the maintenance man, who was having his day off. He told her to try resetting the breaker. She did, but it kept popping back off. The maintenance man finally came over himself and after checking out the box at the site, decided the breaker was bad. He went and got a new one, replaced the old, and it worked! So almost an hour after we started setting up we finally finished the job.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

The Outer Banks are a thin broken strand of islands that curves out into the Atlantic Ocean and back again in a sheltering embrace of North Carolina's coast.

The islands are connected by Highway 12 which stretches south all the way to Hatteras Island.

Much of the highway stretches through narrow portions of the islands where the sand dunes sift over the road like drifting snow. There are dozers parked alongside the road ready to keep the sand at bay.

Anywhere there is an island wide enough, there are miles and miles of multiple-storied vacation rentals and summer houses --

Many of them are quite fanciful with towers and balconies offering views of the ocean --

At the end of the line (you need to take a ferry to go any further south...) you come to the Cape Hatteras Light Station --

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is an active light; at 198.5 feet, it is the tallest brick lighthouse in the world.

The distinctive spiral paint of the lighthouse make it a daylight landmark. The treacherous waters off the coast of the Outer Banks bear the name Graveyard of the Atlantic. Over 600 ships wrecked here as victims of the shallow shoals, storms and war (including so many sunk by German submarines during WWII that it was known as Torpedo Alley). The Diamond Shoals, a bank of shifting sand ridges often hidden beneath the turbulent seas off of Cape Hatteras have claimed a legion of ships.

In the summertime, visitors are allowed to climb to the top. We did not pay the extra fee to make the climb...

Across the parking lot from the lighthouse, we saw these lovely ladies. They seemed totally oblivious to all the tourists...

 

As  we drove back north on the narrow two-lane road, we caught occasional glimpses of the Atlantic Ocean between the sand dunes.

We saw many people walking on the beaches, but few swimmers. The ranger at the lighthouse said that rip tides were very common.

On the other side, in Pamlico Sound, there were lots of people playing in the water. In one area there were so many kite surfers we couldn't understand how they kept from getting entangled...

 

The whole area of the Outer Banks islands -- except for the eight villages -- is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Heading Towards the Outer Banks

After some discussions with our friend Bill, we decided that we could not leave North Carolina without visiting Kitty Hawk. It was an overcast, sort of foggy day as we moved up towards the northeast corner of the state.

We saw several fields of grain, not quite ready for harvest --

We crossed over the Chowan River near where it entered  Albenmarle Bay --

We saw several fields of this flower, but have no idea what it is --

Most of the way was very nice four-lane state highways --

There were many large areas of day lilies planted along the highways --

Here's another field of those unknown flowers, this one lavender colored --

We have seen many fields of corn as we've traveled through the state. This field is quite a bit further along than most we have seen.

 

As we got past Elizabeth City and turned onto Hwy 158, the road became a two-lane highway. We turned onto Indian Town Road and the road got quite narrow. Six miles later we turned onto  Garrington Island Road which was a VERY narrow two lane road. Auntie Violet had her left wheels smack on the yellow line in the center. As the road came to its end, the lane into North River Campground became very much a one-way road (not sure what would have happened had we met another RV!).

What a lovely surprise the North River Campground was! We are parked in a drive-in site that faces a small lake in the center of the campground. We will be staying one night at the Passport America rate and then the two nights of the weekend at the Good Sam discount rate.

North Carolina Scenes

As we have been traveling around the state of North Carolina, I've really noticed how green it is. Of course, it is spring and it's been raining quite often in the last couple of weeks. It must have been quite a shock to Grandma Haight when she moved out to Washington to help her sister with a new baby (at least that's the story I remember...). Then to marry my Grandfather and live on an eastern Washington dryland wheat farm, where every other year the land around the house would be in dry brown summer-fallow.

After two days of thunder storms and heavy rainfall, the rivers are very full. This is the bridge approaching the former town of Rockford --

The Yadkin River was VERY muddy --

And moving VERY fast --

This is what is left of one of the ruins in Rockford --

Just look how green the area is around it -- there's lots of mowing done by people who live in the South --

Many of the rural roads wind through a mix of evergreen and deciduous trees, which often meet over the top of the road --

We made a Costco run to a store in Raleigh today. We spotted this Fondue Restaurant as we went down the street towards it. Forry even gave up his treasured Polish Dog at Costco to try it out!

We selected a Swiss cheese fondue with a mixture of Gruyere and Emmanthal cheeses with white wine and a little bit of garlic and nutmeg. It was delicious. In addition to the usual bread, they served Granny Smith apple bites and a small bowl full of chunks of raw broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.

We decided that since we hadn't gone out to celebrate our 53rd wedding anniversary on the 14th, we would celebrate it by having chocolate-caramel fondue for dessert. It was also delicious served with fresh strawberries, bananas, bits of brownies, pound cake, cheese cake, Rice Krispy squares and marshmallows. We returned to Auntie Violet with full tummies and happy thoughts.

Rockford Baptist Church Cemetery

 I'll admit I was getting frustrated. I had been trying to find the final resting place of more of the ancestors but wasn't getting anywhere. I finally went to see if I could see how many cemeteries there were in Surry County where I knew they had lived. I lucked out and discovered that there was actually a directory of burials in their county cemeteries that wasn't part of the national directories I had been searching. Sure enough, I discovered that Marcus Alexander York and his second wife Nancy Lee Gadberry were both buried in the Rockford Baptist Church Cemetery near Dobson, North Carolina. They were the great-grandparents of my paternal grandmother, Ethel May Blackwood Haight.

This brick church building was built in 1847 after the original wooden church burned. They also had a second fire in the back portion of this building about twenty years ago which destroyed any records they may have had left.

We wandered towards the older part of the cemetery and soon came upon these two obelisks with "YORK" on them.

The writing on it identified it as belonging to Mark York who died on February 11, 1867. He was my Great-great grandfather.
 

This stone next to it belonged to Nancy Lee "Marcy" Gadberry York, the second wife of Marcus and the mother of Eliza Lavalett York, my Great Grandmother.

That makes Mrs. Nancy York my Great-great Grandmother!

This is the section of the cemetery where the two obelisks are situated --

When I asked the woman who was changing the church sign if she had any information or history about the church, she said she didn't, but said that if we were related to the Yorks, we were probably related to the family that used to have the York Tavern in Rockford. We went looking for the building, but there is nothing there any longer. We did go by this road not very far from the church with Nancy's maiden name.

The nearest large town is Winston-Salem. I think I can remember my Grandma Haight talking about it when I was a little girl...

New Hope Presbyterian Church Cemeteries

What a treasure hunt! I had found the name of the cemetery where some of my earliest American ancestors were buried, but all we had for an address were the GPS coordinates. With lots of back roads, twists and turns, our GPS unit took us to the coordinates, but we could find nothing there. (We found out later that we were probably on the back side of the old cemetery.)

Next we tried using an intersection and that at last got us to the right road and we were able to find the new cemetery of the New Hope Presbyterian Church. Right at the entrance of the cemetery - which is still in use -- is a listing of Revolutionary War Soldiers that were members of the New Hope congregation.

The second name on the list is that of William Blackwood, who I believe is my Grandmother Ethel May Blackwood Haight's direct ancestor. The ninth name down, John Craig, is also in her family line.

This building, the present New Hope Church, is the fifth church building to house the congregation --

Across the road, catty-corner from the church is the New Hope Fire Department. A very nice man who just happened to be at the church, told us to park out-of-way on the left side...

Then walk into the woods alongside --

And there you came upon the Old New Hope Cemetery --

There we found the actual grave of Captain David Craig (this is actually a replacement stone -- the original was broken), who fought with the North Carolina troops in the Revolutionary War. All of the Revolutionary War veterans have replacement stones - some have the original stones as well.

 

Many of the names on the stones are illegible and some of the earliest graves are just marked with stones without names. (It is believed that William Blackwood and his wife Elizabeth "Betsy" Craig Blackwood are two of them.)

There is a stone on the northern side of the cemetery that marks the site of the earliest log church on the site.This area is low-lying and the settlers found it was too wet in the winter for either graves or the church. This cemetery was abandoned in 1869 (when the first graves were dug in the "new" cemetery across the road) although the last burial was in 1897.

According to Journey to New Hope, a history of the church given to us by the kind man who gave us directions to the old cemetery, the Blackwoods, Craigs, Kirklands and Freelands were four Scotch-Irish families that came to America from Northern Ireland on the same boat in 1741.

"During the reign of King James I, Scots were sent by the monarchy to Ulster to solve the problem of Northern Ireland. They were sent to 'civilize' the country, control the unruly Irish, and to industrialize that part of the British Empire. They drained swamps, cleared fields, grew flax, and raised sheep and cattle. As Presbyterians, they displaced Roman Catholics and helped to accomplish the English objective to make the country Protestant. They developed a highly successful linen and woolen trade, which competed with English textiles and resulted in a change in English policy regarding the Ulster Scots-Irish. The Church of England imposed severe restrictions on the Presbyterians, forbidding them to hold civil or military office and requiring tithes to the Church of England, which they did not attend. Economic restrictions imposed by the English government shut Irish goods out of England and closed trade with the colonies. The linen and woolen industries were all but destroyed. Subsequently, the monarchy began to encourage the Scots-Irish to leave for America, and Queen Anne even provided transportation for a number of them to Philadelphia. Finally, successive years of drought and disease destroyed their crops, and they had no choice but to leave. Contrary to common belief, the main reason for the Presbyterians' coming to America was economic, not religious."

"Pennsylvania became only a temporary layover as the Scots-Irish were not welcomed there. Officials of Pennsylvania became so alarmed by the immense numbers of immigrants that the province was virtually closed to their settlement..." "Strayborn, Craig and their followers joined thousands of other Scots-Irish who made the trek from Pennsylvania to North Carolina following the Indian trail known as 'The Great Wagon Road'."