443 
Creektown. 
The founders, discovered near, the , original site o£ thi: 
rown a great natural curiosity. Two creeks that wound 
about to the north and. west.o£ the town crossed each 
other, one being very swift and the other sluggish. The. 
swift: ...flowed easily oyer the slower one, as could he 
proved by launching a piece of bark o^i either, limpid 
wave, which Avould sail ga3dy oyer with the faster stream 
or sink under with the slower, to reappear lo,wcr down. 
In after years when the town site was moved, they, 
chose; a situation within the entrance of the creeks, and 
to it they gave the name of Creektown. It -is believed 
that tlie reason this town and other settlements in the' 
same colony progressed in civilization and statesmanshij. 
so niuch faster than .some others was on account of the 
lightwood knots, which they procured in- imlimited quan- 
tities ,rom their pine forests. These furnished the settlers 
vvith_ abundant and cheerful light at night, thus promoting 
reading and sociability. 
Matters Military. 
The founders of the town were, Scotch and had .sprung, 
from, races and clans which weire 
chivalric and warlike, so quite early 
in its history they set about the for- 
mation of a militarj'- company. Now 
companies in other towns might be 
called the Bhies, the Grays or 
some other conventional name, but 
these people followed no such prec- 
edent; their company was named 
the Independent Company. The uni- 
form was bine with gilt trimmings 
and taU hats with, i-ed and white 
plumes. . The ranks were kept filled 
with the best citizens, and the}' turned 
out with enthusiasm on the Fourth . 
of July, Washington's Birthday and 
other anniversaries. 
. When a good many military com- 
panies had beeir formed in the other 
towns of the State, the members of 
the Independent Company were 
afraid that their officers might be of 
no more consequence than those of 
any other; in other words, that any 
newly made captain or lieutenant 
would rank with them, so they pre- 
sented their grievance to the Legis- 
lature, which body, in due time, made 
a' law that all the captains of this 
company should henceforth be ' 
majors, while the lieutenants should 
be captains, and so they are up to 
the present time, no other company 
in the United States enjoying such 
lionor as theirs, i . ,. • 
There is one fact in the history of 
the company that deserves "honor- 
able rrientibn;" At. the time of the 
.Old War, when the honor of the new : 
cot-intry was.: insulted by the older ■ 
and stronger 'power, they prorpptly 
met and olfered their services to the 
Go^'ernment, wheretipon every man 
I if them hired a substitute and then 
w^ent to war himself, thus doubling 
I lie strength of the organization. 
In the piping times of peace which 
followed, on each .first of May the 
whole town turned out to the crown- 
ing of the Queen of May. Then the 
company would go to. the Young 
Ladies' Seminarir in the town, and 
escort the Queen, with her maids of 
honor, her crowner and other at- 
tendants- to the hill that lay west. 
The men made a brave show, clad in 
white trousers, with their red and 
white plumes waving gayly from 
their tall chapeaux. On the breezy 
liill top there was a grove where an- 
cient oaks formed Gothic arches over 
the grassy sward. In the midst of 
it a throne was erected and decked 
\\'ith flowers and evergreens. There, 
supported by the military, the May 
Queen was crowned, with her crown- 
er anid scepter-bearer on either side 
and her little nymphs in front, ma- 
king a charming pictiu-e. Their sweet 
voices echo down the halls of time, 
their modest loveliness is seen 
through the vista of years. Ah", me ! 
but "they lived and joyfttlly fulfilled 
llieir destiny, and ever-changing time 
rolls on. ' : - . 
The Independent Company having' now rOunded out 
more than a century, is considered to be the oldest mili- 
tary organization in Jhe United States, although it is 
true there is a company in Boston that sets up clairns 
*to equal,, if not greater, antiquity, but no one in this 
part of the country pays any attention to them. Of 
course not ! 
Where the Waters Grossed. 
In old times tlie street tliat went north from the 
market house ended in a square that was called St. 
James. In the middle of it was the c&urt house. A 
Avide, green street stretched out from this square 
and seemed to end mysteriously in a kind of jumping-off 
place. This is the beginning of the glen 'where the waters 
cross. A steep path leads down to a bridge. You cross 
it and follow the path in its windings, and you find that 
vou are in the hollow of a picturesque dell, shaded with 
pines that are forever sighing, and so many flowers greet 
the eye that it seems as if tiie wood nymphs must have 
made' a .garden there. In springtime, when the foliage 
is most iDeautiful, the yellow jasmine entwines and gar- 
lands each tree and shrub. There are Awards of it, bushels 
of- it, ropes of it, swaying in the soft air and exhahng 
its^tibtle fragrance. In May the woodbine thrives, the 
wild .-ivy ' (J^atmiay with Its wealth of bloom, all grow- 
ing and bloss6nling — a lovers' walk of nature's own plant- 
ing! And everywhere was the sound of rippling waters. 
• On rnany a night when the ihoonlight was shimmering 
on- the' ripples,- the mUsic of a soft laugh, the murmur 
of a voice/ of the gleam of a white dress, would betray 
the presence- of a. party of young folks late in returning 
fro-ni- -a picnic; 'or -talcing a moonlight stroll under the 
:^ines. Aftei" these mysterious waters crossed, they bent 
around a sjdA-ati island, then meeting they flowed boldly 
down, washing the foot of a flower-decked slope called 
Mount Rosa, and iriingled their volume with 'the river. 
Plank Roads and Steamboat. 
As time, rolled on trade increased. Strings of canvas- 
covered wagons whitened the roads that led to the 
difltercnt points of the compass. As many, as 20O; would 
pass a given point in an hotir. These wagons- were 
enormously high in the front and back, and correspond- 
ingly sway-backed in the middle, and drawn, by four or, 
six mules, the driver a.stride the leader, wearing bells. 
A gladsome "ting-a-ling" they made of a frost}' ■ morning 
as- they came do-svn the hills in imposing . processions, 
A CLUMP OF WHITE BIRCH. . „ 
■ fSce " .\n Indian Kcvprie.") 
bringing- a-11 .kinds of j^mtnti'y- • produec - and luxuries.. 
Cotton, too, poured in from' the South; the creeks were 
dammed up and harnessed to machinery; mills were 
built, and the old town seemed entering on a career of 
endless prosperity. Astonishingly soon, loo, after the 
discovery of the great Oliver Evans, the people of Creek- 
town began to build boats to navigate their river; -so 
early, indeed; iii the history of steam was it, that half a 
century ago the ancient i-tcamlioat Amoretta was said "to 
be "the oldest steamboat in tlie United States." Alter- 
nating with others, it made regular trips to Mornington, 
at the mouth of the river, starting fifteen minutes after 
sunrise, but the obliging captain- Avould wait for you 
if you let him know before hand you were coming. The 
little steamer would that back gallantly out into the 
stream, the red wheel, at the stem throwing up the water 
in torrents, the engiii^s complaining, "Chuckalunck e---^e, 
chuckalunk 0 — o," and presently it would proceed - on 
its way down stream with dignit}', followed by the-^ad- 
miring gaze of such of the inhabitants as happened to 
be abroad at that hour. A canal was also dug about .the 
time of the Erie Canal. ;Tt went around the rocks :^3|d 
rapids that impeded navigation up the river,, and was^ in- 
tended tQ do for Creektown on a small- scale what_the 
Erie did for New York. But for some unexplained 
cause work was stopped- when it Ayas near completion. 
It is not known at this day why water was neVer turned 
ipto the canal, why boats did not ply busily up. and down, 
or wny tne patient mme did not plod . its carefully 
smoothed tow path. But the canal itself is always crop- 
ping up in the most unexpected places, a/ fragment here 
and there, with sides moss-gro wn and tinkling ' .water in 
the bottom, at such angles to each other that you would 
wonder how the ends could ever have been pieced to- 
gether ; . . 
.\fter this, the era of railroads came in. The city 
fathers met and discussed the question as to whether 
they would have a railroad. It was decided unanimously 
in the negative. Plank roads were the thing, said they. 
Five plank roads could be built for what one railroad 
would cost, besides all sorts of objectionable people 
would mtrude themselves by way of the railroad. Plank 
roads brought -people who were able to own their own 
teams and had something to sell. Plank roads to the 
liack country and a Hne of steamboats down the river; 
what more could one want? And plank roads it was* 
four of them radiating from the market, duly provided 
with toll houses and sign boards bearing aloft the legend. 
"Five dollars fine for locking a wheel 
on. the plank track of this road," 
■ : But, alas! other people built rail- 
roads if they did not. Bars of iron 
soon bound the different parts of the 
State and crossed their plank roads at 
various angles and places, and re- 
garded them not. The railroads bore 
rushing trains that carried awav the 
trade from the old borough ;' the 
-ivhite-topped wagons with their 
iangling bells came in diminished 
numbers, to bring the butter and the 
rinples and the honey and the pbultr>-. 
The town thereafter enjoyed a season 
of dignified repose. 
The Ambient Hills. 
Seen from the tower of the town 
hall, as from any elevated point in 
Creekrown, the entire horizon is 
Ijounded with an unbroken line of 
hills, which, clothed in a perennial 
growth of pine, show green or blue, as 
they are near or far. So, the town lies 
in H bowl, of which the wooded hills 
form the rim. Surely the land is 
ble.sscd from who.se hills gush- riever- 
failing springs of water ! No one has 
i!ver counted the springs of Creek- 
town, but they, like the creeks, are 
.immipresent. and in size are from lit- 
tle disks of silver set in emerald moss 
to one that is large enough to supply 
the town with water. This the in- 
habitants titilized at a very early date, 
using pine logs for water mains, and 
. soon abundant crystal streams flowed 
from hydrants made of upright logs 
furnished Avifh plug and .spigot, being, 
no doubt, the oldest waterworks of 
this kind in the United States. Some- 
times a stone arch in a bank holds the 
spring around some floAver-studded 
turf kept green by the runlet. 
.A.nother is a melancholy and eerie 
place indeed, o'erhung with cedars 
and poplars. Nearby is the old grave- 
yard for persons of color, and here the 
friends of the departed would finger 
after their melancholy task was done 
and , refresh themselves and their ani- 
mals. Then we find one clear spring 
in the corner of a lady's garden, and 
over it a picturesque summer house. 
.Another lady, a good Samaritan, has 
curbed her spring Avith. stones and 
hung a dipper for the thirsty way- 
farers. This one is on the: edge of a 
llower-decked terrace. Then the 
springs in the little dooryards of the 
poor should not be forgotten ; welling 
up from pebbly beds with carefully 
brought stones placed around, and a 
well-scoured gotird hanging from a 
convenient shrub. They are precious 
possessions, that neither gold nor gents 
could buy. .A.nd yet another springs 
out joyfully from the green bank, as if 
glad to be free from the confining 
water veins. All around, as far as the 
vision extends, are vines, vines on 
arbors and trellises laden, with the. pur- 
ple clusters; this is in a celebrated 
vineyard and nearby are the spacious wine A'aults. Al- 
ways pure, sAveet and cool, their sources too far down 
in the secret places of the earth for any harmful thing 
to reach them, they remain forever, a precious gift from 
nature to those who dAvell within the hills. 
Where in the whole United States, save in Creektown,' 
could one find almost within sight and hearing of the 
market place a sylvan glen containing an enchanted 
spring? The spring lies under a hill, by a bend in- the 
creek, the water coming boldh- from an opening in the 
r<ick. The Avater is peculiarly cool and sweet. A draught 
of it w ill Avork a spell, so that, no matter how far one may 
roam, at times he will feel a mighty desire to return to 
listen to the eA'er-present murmur of its creeks, to see 
the .sunset once more behind the western hills, and having 
this desire so strongly, he will return. Whether one be 
native or foreign, with him the charm is just the same. 
And now in these end of the century days the old town 
I Vvith modern imnrovements) still rests safe within its 
encircling hills, lulled by its winding ever-present creeks. 
Let us hope that the peculiar character of the place may 
not be subA'erfed, and that it may not sink to a melancholy 
fate among the conventional and comriionplace, 
Josephine Bryan Wort«. 
Creektown, North Carolina. . 
