The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1883-09-22
AMONG THE PINES.
MOORE COUNTY IS PROGRESS AND
INDUSTRIES.
A Glimpse Through Forest at Busy
and Rich PeOPle--Some OF their Char-
acteristics.


acteristics.
Special Correspondence 2ftte Chronice.
BLUES CROSSING, Sept. 19.-It has not
been many years since Moore county was
considered one Of the remote regions Of
the State. So long As it was without
railroad it was dicffiult of access Its pop
ulation was comparatively sparse, its great
natural products were not within reach of
the markets. and the people lived much as
they did half hundred years ago. Every
man owned his home, and the most of
them owned very large tracts OF timber
land. They were independent and happy,
but very far away from the rest OF the
world. They were good Presbyterians-
the most Of them, at least-and every man
served God a long way from his neighbor.
Deer and wild turkey were abundant, and
these, too, claimed no small share of the
mems devotion. Moore was in the back
woods, but it was county with a good
history, and with good people, for all that.
Now. however, Moore county exports
more dollars worth Of Patnral Products,
perhaps, than any other county in the
State. To their contentment the people
have added riches, and to their riches
greater energy. The wholesale merchants
of Raleigh will bear witness that their
largest and best patrons, best in qualities
Of heart and of purse also, live and thrive
along the Raleigh & Augusta Airline.
There is no comparison between the to-
tai amount Of local freight carried each
way on this road with that carried on any
other that runs from Raleigh. OF course
it almost entirely consists of lumber and
naval stores, but few other industries in
the State are more profitable to the oper-
ators and none other is so profitable to the
railroads.
The building Of this railroad to Hamlet
through Moore illustrates the healthy eff
<>f S1,sf.n rJC
on their Industries. There is more cash in
Moore county to-day than in any other
county in the State that has no greater pop
ulation, and the value of property con-
tinually appreciates. Timbered land ada
cent 0 the railroad cannot now be bought
at all, and that at reasonable distance
brings good price. Just before the road
was completed DR.. Hawkins and other
gentlemen, who were associated with him,
bought large tracts of land near the line.
which now constitutes the greater part OF
the section from which large shipments of
the products of the pine are made. AL
though this was an enormous speculation
and yielded the speculators large profit,
the most of the land was bought the second
time for price that was ludicrously low.
What manifold profits there are in
pine tree. 1t is as rich as it is graceful,
and as versatile in its uses as it is monoto-
nous in its music. In the first place it has
for centuries enriched the earth with its
leaves. The turpentine-operator, who in
boldness is the equal of a Chicago grain
speculator and has good hand for gamb
ling on next years prices, makes enormous
fortunes (and often loses them) from the
tree, without making its music cease or
without doing very great damage to the
timber Then the lum herman, who is \
spoiler OF the. country. comes and yet he
leaves enough wood to pay for the land
if it could be got to market for reasonable
freight charges.
The day has not yet come, though it is
coming, when the lightwood knots will be
converted into tar, and when spirits of tur-
pentine will be distilled, by a finer process
than the Que used now, from boughs and
knots.
After the turpentne men and the lum-
bermen have done their worst and gone,
the land is rich in possibilities, although
they leave it naked-Cousin Sally billiard
fashion. The cotton planter will come
one of these days and the Devils Gut will
run through corn fields instead Of Juniper
swamps.
In those days, however, two peculiar in
habtants Of this region will be no more ;
Of the country will be greatly changed.
These are the s'turpentine nigger' and the
"pine rooter'' The turpentne niger
do you suppose he'd handle a hoe? New
er !! But he'll handle a jug as dextrously
as he handles 'spuller" or manages
''scrape.'' He ''gets religion " sometimes
but he gets drunk oftener. He don't work
more than four five days ont of seven,
and spends the others devotedly at the
bar. Many a Saturday night at some of
the stations on the rnilroad, King Rum
rules the colored brother. and his white
neighbor now and then acknowledges the
same sovereign. Yet the turpentine darkey
- ;.,I fo11 4 I,
rights and dares maintain them.
The other peculiar citizen of the pine
woods, who like his biped kinsman, spends
all his time in companionship with the
majestic pines, is the pine-rOOter,-a hog,
at least distant descendant of the hog,
whose qualities are yet swinish as the
qualities Of those which ran down the preci-
pice into the sea. His ears are midway be-
tween the end Of his nose and the end of
his tail. Indeed he is all nose. It is said,
whether truthfully or not | shall not un
dertake to say, that he can drink from a
juy. He was born with a natural antipa-
thy to big pines and with an unconquera-
BILE love for the roots of small ones. He
digs hole almost deep enough to bury
himself head-foremost and gets as the fruits
of such labor pine root as large as your
finger.
When these pass away. as deer and
turkey are already going, Moore will con-
tlnue to be a solid county OF excellent cit
izenship and of great wealth, even after
three kinds of men have got rich here,
viz the spectators, the turpentne men
and the lumber men. Cotton will grow
precisely as it grows now in the Cape
Fear region, which was once covered
densey with pines and is now covered
thickly with cotton. Melons grow as we'll
in Carteret. The agriculturist will be the
last and best man and the richest of them
all it he manages we'll.
There is rOom-say this in Boston-for
$4,000 energetic men in Moore. The Yam
kee will not be alone who comes. They
have been here. Especially do consump-
tives find the pure dry air and the resinous
smell Of it check if not cure. A great
sanitarium has been talked of at Manly
It ought to be built. 1t would pay. 1t
would do good.
Jackson's Springs, too, tor Moore, also,
has springs now the difficulty about the