10 thoughts on “Where In The Heel?, Part XX”

  1. Cherryville it is. Sort of a hard one to start the new year, wasn’t it?

    If Cherryville was incorporated in 1881, I wonder why 1889 is on the seal? This image comes straight from one of the local government documents for Cherryville.

    Let’s complicate things a bit…here’s the information from the North Carolina Gazetteer:

    Cherryville, town in nw Gaston County. Post office est. here in 1847 as White Pines. Named changed to Cherryville in 1865; inc. 1872. Named for a row of cherry trees planted along an old rail fence parallel to the post road. Produces textiles. Alt. 971.

    Hmmmmm….wonder what all of the dates mean?

  2. Perhaps that was the first year that Cherryville was known as the “City” of Cherryville (rather than the village/town/hamlet/etc.)?

    Or…

    It was just incorrect at the time. If you notice on the town of Cherryville’s website, the date on the seal is 1881. (http://www.cherryville.com/cityseal1.jpg)

    But what is the reason for Prof. Powell’s strange date…it would be unlike him to have been off by 10 years, it seems.

  3. Clark’s comments remind me yet again how dependent we all are on the Gazetteer, perhaps the most visible of Bill Powell’s amazing shelf of North Caroliniana. Where would we be without you, Mr. Powell? Happy New Year and many thanks!

  4. The last time I was in Chapel Hill, Mike Hill (who is doing an update on the Gazetter) talked about the discrepancies in dates between establishing, incorporating, etc. I don’t know all of the distinctions. Maybe we can get Mike to write in and explain.

  5. Kevin, It was actually me who was doing the incorporations/foundings etc. (much to Mike’s chagrin because I came up with a list of about 40+ changes that he should make to the almost-in-print Gazetteer update!) Anyway, this would not aply to Cherryville, necessarily, but what I found was that only 6 towns were incorporated during the colonial era. What Powell’s assistants turned in to him as incorporation were actually establishments–if you read the documents, many actually say “until such time as the town be incorporated.” That would indicate to me that the towns were not incorporated! Anyway…I have come up with a chart of all of the towns that had some sort of legislative establishment through 1790. I can email it to anyone intersted when I get back to work Tuesday. All the list really does is provide an order to which towns were legilatively established or authorized to be laid out. It doesn’t alter what towns can claim–such as New Bern being settled in 1710 or Salisbury being created by the county courts in 1755–it is merely the 1st legislative action associated with each town.

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