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Names on this Page:

Foushee Nelson        Gean Albert        Gean Cynthia Harmon        Harmon Cynthia       

Jean Albert        Jean Cynthia Harmon        Williams Lucy Jane Gean

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Fayetteville        McQueen        Moore's Schoolhouse        Morrisville        North Carolina

Pittsboro        Orange County 

Misc:        Lower Raleigh Road        North Carolina Railroad        Plank road  (type of construction)

Southern Railroad        stage coach

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2                                                Memories of a Long Life

Chapter One

 THE OLD STAGE HORN

             My father was raised in Orange County, and the place where I was raised, south of Pittsboro, was on and near the public road, some would say the Fayetteville or McQueen road.  Anyway, it went to Fayetteville, and I heard an old man, one that lived to be one hundred and sixteen years old, say he was a little chap running around, so little he had on one loose garment, as he ran out to see the red coats.  I remember the old man but he has been dead many years, but I cannot forget that old man and my childhood days after my father got a farm that would make enough so that he could go with a load of flour to Fayetteville in the fall.  Sometimes there would be four to six wagons of his kinsfolk from Orange, it being a good long drive to get to our house to camp, and we little children would hear the “hello” and hardly ever fail to run.  We loved to hear the bells ringing on the hames of the two lead horses, there were two bells on each pair of horses, and the driver did not have to pop his wagon whip and say “get up,” but the horses were so trained that when they were ready the two in front just gave their head a shake and all started.  Oh, such music!  I do love good music, but I never expect to hear any that sounds sweeter to me than the stage horn or the bells on the horses, or the geese going south when cold weather was coming on.  Even our mother would go out to see them go by, they went all in a row, one right behind the other, all singing, and it was music, too, too good not to hear.  Those days are all gone, never to return.

 

            The Plank road was not built at that time, and there was but one railroad in North Carolina, called the North Carolina, now the Southern.  Morrisville was the nearest depot or stopping place, and all the mail or people traveling that were coming to Pittsboro or anywhere in the neighborhood from Morrisville came on a stage coach drawn by four horses.  It was closed up in cold weather and the driver had a seat high up in front.  He had a bugle horn, and most people would say, “Stage is coming, I hear the horn.”  Mr. Nelson Foushee was the man who was the driver then.  He came up what was then called the lower Raleigh road in the evening and it seemed he knew about the time our school turned out at Moore’s schoolhouse.  He would begin to blow his horn, and all the children came running to get out to the road or in sight so they could see Mr. Foushee and hear him blow his horn.  If we got out to the road and he saw us he would wave and commence blowing, and no piano was ever as sweet to me or any of