Mini road trip: Seeing double

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I'm near the end of a long-weekend road trip to two hobby events: a stamp show in Roanoke VA on Saturday, which I previously visited a year ago, and a model-train show in Raleigh NC today. Tomorrow I return home.

On Friday I made a couple of stops on the way to Roanoke. First was a church in the village of White Plains NC, on a back road a few miles south of Mt. Airy.

It's associated with a famous pair of twins who settled here in the 1800s. They owned two farms near here, raised large families, and donated land for this church. Many of their descendants live in the area.

In the distance you can see the Blue Ridge.

 

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My second stop on Friday was up the road a few miles in Mt. Airy, the birthplace of actor Andy Griffith. When I visited here last year, it was late in the afternoon so the Andy Griffith museum was closed. This time it was open. It has photos and artifacts from his career (props from his TV show, etc.).

Before he got into TV, he worked on stage and in movies. Here's a creepy character from Gilbert & Sullivan:

Outside is a police motorcycle sidecar from the TV show.

Elsewhere in town is a gift shop that reproduces a location in the show. You can take a tour of Mt. Airy in a vintage police squad car.

Andy's boyhood home now operates as a B&B.

Don't forget to take out the trash when you leave!

 

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After doing the stamp show on Saturday morning, I drove to Raleigh in the afternoon. I noticed that an hour's extra driving would take me to Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, where Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant on 9 April 1865, effectively ending the U.S. Civil War. I had already been there probably about 20 years ago, but figured it would be worth revisiting.

The weather was cool (almost chilly), gray and gloomy, with intermittent drizzle and sprinkles. To my mind, it contributed to the wartime atmosphere.

(Larger version here)

The visitor center is in the reconstructed court house, at right in the picture above. The original court house burned down in 1892, and the Appomattox county seat was moved to the town of Appomattox Depot which had grown up around the railroad line a few miles away. This became the present-day town of Appomattox.

Off to the left of the picture above is the McLean House, where Lee's surrender actually took place.

This is also a reconstruction. In the 1890s, speculators bought the house and dismantled it, with the idea of reassembling it elsewhere (Chicago? Washington DC?) as a tourist attraction. That never happened, and the National Park Service had to rebuild the house after World War II.

The visitor center has a large illustration which is claimed to be the most accurate depiction of the surrender, based on descriptions by people who attended it. You can compare it with the reconstructed room in the McLean House.

Because of the weather and limited time, I didn't visit the sites overlooking the actual battlefield. I might pass through the area again this summer...

 

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On my way home from Raleigh on Monday, I basically drove south along US-1 into SC before turning west onto SC-9 at Cheraw. This is one of the oldest English towns in SC, first settled in the 1740s.

Looking down Market Street from 2nd Street. At the left is the Market Hall (1837), and at the right is the Town Hall (1858-60).

In the park just beyond the Market Hall is a statue of Cheraw's most famous son:

The house where he grew up a few blocks away no longer exists. The property is now a park.

 

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As I drove west along SC-9 from Cheraw towards Lancaster, I stopped at a gas station to check my progress in Google Maps. An icon marked the "Buford Battleground" a couple hundred yards to the south of the intersection, so I made the short detour there.

This is the site of a Revolutionary War battle, the Battle of Waxhaws a.k.a. Buford's Massacre, on 29 May 1780. A British force led by Banastre Tarleton overwhelmed a Continental force led by Abraham Buford. Out of the 420 Continentals, 113 were killed, 150 were injured and 53 were captured.

82 of the dead Continentals were buried in a mass grave on the site. A monument was erected in 1860.

Some of the injured were taken to a church about 12 miles away that I visited last year, whose members included the family of future President Andrew Jackson (then a teenager). Some of them died there and are buried in the church's cemetery.

The reputation of the battle as a massacre helped stir up support for the Patriot cause. From here the tide turned to favor the Patriots in the South, with major victories in South Carolina at Kings Mountain and Cowpens.

 

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My final stop was a few miles further along SC-9 in Lancaster, at the headquarters / depot of the Lancaster & Chester Railroad.

I think the line's name changed from "Railway" to "Railroad" when the formerly-independent company became part of the holding company Gulf & Ohio Railways in 2010. Note the black G&O locomotive behind the older blue L&C one, above.

Inside the depot is a nice railroad museum which I visited in 2012.

At that time, it was open only on the first and third Saturdays of the month, and this visit was on Monday, so I didn't try to go inside.

The railroad's first president, Leroy Springs, is a familiar name at the college where my wife and I both taught, because he donated the funds for one of the college's buildings.

A renovation in 1984, just before I first came here, added a columned porch and clock tower, and moved the student center (snack bar, mailroom etc.) here, along with various student-life offices and organizations. It's now the Springs Student Center.

When one of my colleagues-to-be showed me around campus during my job interview in spring 1985, I said something like, "gee, that looks a lot like a train station."

I still visit there regularly, to cool off on my frequent walks around town, as I did today.