The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-09-05

Home Of the Heroine, Wayne
County

Our able contemporary, the Whining
ton Messenger. always writes delight
fully Of the old days in North Carolina,
and we think it has done more teaching
OF state history than has any other
paper of our great commonwealth.
In speaking of the recent celebration
of the battle of Moore's Creek, we think
however, that it Is incomplete, mas
much as it does Dct give sufficient scope
to the most noted characters connected
with the battle Of Moore's Greek, name
~, Colonel Ezekiel Slocumb and his
wife, Mary. =
Colonel Slocumb was in the army.
and his wife, Mary, was at her home,
Pleasant Green" in Wayne county,
only a few miles from this city. Soon
after she had gone to bed, on the night
Of the battle Of Moore's Creek, she
dreamed that she saw her husband
covered with his o%vercoat, dead ON the
battlefield. Ordering the saddle put
on her horse, she rode alone through
the darkness for sixty miles, until she
learned there had been a battle, found
the troops, saw a man dead on the field
with an oVercoat yer him which she
recognized as her husbands, but on
dismounting ascertained that it was not
her husband who wa dead under the
coat, but the heroic Grady.
} When she went on her memorable
ride to Moore's Creek she left at home
her baby, Jesse Slocumb, who in time
became a member Of congress, and died
while serving his people in that capa-
city, and is buried in the COMPRESSION
al cemetery at Washington.
In those days there were no railroads
and his remains could not be brought
home.
Colonel Ezekiel Slocumb, one Of the
heroes of the revolution, was the father
of Jesse, who was the father Of the late
Major J. G. Slocumb, of this city, the
father of our esteemed townsmen.
Captain Thomas w. S1ocumb, J. c..
Slocumb and Junius Slocumb.
Colonel Ezekiel Slocumb and his
wife, Mary, are buried at the old home
stead, Pleasant Green" not more than
thirty steps from the Wilmington &
Weldon railroad between Dudley and
Mt. Olive, in Wayne county, in full
view of the passing trains.
pleasant Green" was once a mag
nificent old place, and on n occasion,
Ga iIIiSll OlllCCI, SOIOucl 1dllCCOH, IL
marked to Mrs. SIocu1nb, "After the
war is over what a grand estate this
will be for one of our British noble
men," Mrs. Slocumb Indignantly re-
piled, "Six feet by two, for a grave, is
the only part of this estate any Eng
lishman will ever own"
The Messenger will note that it was
from her home at pleasant Green"
near this city, that Mary Slocumb made
her historic ride to the scene of conflict
above referred to, and these lines are
written not for the purpose of paling
a single laurel ON the brow of the
Gradys but to maintain the chivalry
OF a Wayne county family, the Slo-
cumbs, who, though modest in the ex-
treme, have, through every generation
of the NAME, furnished patriots and
statesmen, i'm war and in peace, that
have done their country service and
shed lustre on THE manhood of the
south. And today-and with the first
to go-young Ashby Slocumb, son OF
Captain T. w. Slocumb, is bravely
holding his life in the balance under
arms and in daily battle in the pesti-
lential Philippines for the maintenance
of his country's prowess and the honor
of his country's 1ag.-Goldsboro Argus.