Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State
Remember Stephen Lee, the Confederate colonel and headmaster whose historical significance was found — on second thought — not worthy of the state highway marker that had stood for 65 years in Asheville?
Now, thanks to some persuasive research by his great-great-granddaughter, the marker review committee has decided — on third thought — to restore Lee to his former perch alongside Tunnel Road.
“Question: Conspicuously missing from the corner of Tunnel Road and Chunns Cove Road [in Asheville] is a state highway historical marker titled, ‘Lee’s School, 1846-1879.’ The silver and black aluminum sign commemorated a school for boys conducted by Stephen Lee, a West Point graduate and Confederate colonel…. Has it been removed for maintenance, replacement or retirement?
“Answer: First of all, the information on the sign was incorrect.
” ‘I got a message from somebody up that way saying Stephen Lee did not graduate from West Point, so that makes one line out of four or five on the sign incorrect,’ said Ansley Herring Wegner, administrator of the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program. ‘And sure enough, he was right. He entered the U.S. Military Academy, where he remained for two years, but he resigned’….
“If something simple is incorrect, like a date, that can be fixed with a kit that cost about $100. But in the Lee case, an entire new sign would cost $1,700.
” ‘The [marker review] committee said this guy just doesn’t qualify for a marker,’ Wegner said. ‘This marker came to be in 1951. Back in that day, less research went into the markers. The process for approving markers was not as rigorous….’
“Lee’s failure to graduate West Point was not the disqualifying factor, Wegner said. While locally important, Lee did not have accomplishments of statewide significance, and his military service was relatively short.
” ‘He ran a school, and he was in the Confederate Army for a very short time — less than a year,’ Wegner said, noting that even some generals or military heroes in North Carolina do not have markers. ‘Basically, as a package, the committee didn’t want to spend $1,700 to put up marker for someone who would not qualify for a marker today.’ ”
— From “Confederate marker to go down forever?” in John Boyle’s Answer Man column in the Asheville Citizen-Times (Aug. 2)
“In 1986, a state proposal to erect a historical marker [to recognize the 1929 Loray Mill strike] failed because Gastonia officials objected to the wording.
“They wanted to omit any mention of the deaths in the strike and include a reference about local citizens defeating ‘the first Communist efforts to control southern textiles.’ The state didn’t like the alternate wording and shelved the project.
“Attitudes changed. In 2007 Gastonia officials asked the state to reopen the proposal — with the same text the state had originally wanted.”
— From “Saving Gastonia’s Loray Mill“ by Joe DePriest, reprinted from the Charlotte Observer (July 5, 2012)
Does the proposed “Greensboro Massacre” marker face a similar decades-long mothballing? Or is City Council about to come up with an acceptable compromise?
“Page Putnam Miller, director of the National Coordinating Committee for the Protection of History, pointed out that in 1993 only 3 percent of the 2,000 national historic landmarks in the United States focused on women….
“According to a 1995 study by the Colorado Historical Society, ‘No markers interpret women or women’s experience in Colorado,’ no woman is the subject of Colorado’s 13 biography markers and no marker ‘interprets women even in a general sense.’
“Some states do better. North Carolina marks more women, including recent history makers like Rachel Carson, author of ‘Silent Spring,’ the book that triggered the environmental movement….”
— From “Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong” by James W. Loewen (2007)
In media eras past, fame was indisputably validated by getting your picture on the cover of Time magazine (not to be confused, of course, with getting it on “The Cover of the Rolling Stone.”)
Although the debut cover of Time (March 3, 1923) depicted a Guilford County native — former House Speaker “Uncle Joe” Cannon of Illinois — the Encyclopedia of North Carolina considers little-remembered Henry L. Stevens Jr. of Warsaw the first North Carolinian to achieve the cover (1932).
From the essay supporting the highway historical marker 2 blocks south of Stevens’ home:
“Thrust into the national spotlight in 1931-32, Henry L. Stevens Jr. led the American Legion through a tumultuous period. Himself a decorated veteran of World War I, Stevens presided over the organization’s convention [in Detroit] in September 1931. Following a personal appeal from President Herbert Hoover, the group voted 902-507 not to support the demands of veterans to cash in the remaining 50 percent of their Adjusted Service Certificates.
“Earlier that year, Congress had overridden Hoover’s veto of a measure to permit vets to cash in half of the bonus, resulting in withdrawal of over $1 billion from the treasury. Stevens bore the brunt of criticism and was burned in effigy. Demands were heard for his resignation as national commander….
“The ‘Bonus Army’ marchers descended on Washington in spring 1932 where they set up camps and eventually were routed by Army troops led by General Douglas MacArthur.”
Stevens, a lawyer and longtime Superior Court judge, died in 1971 at age 75.
A few words with Michael Hill, coordinator of the N.C. Highway Historical Marker Program:
Of the 7 markers approved in the last round, 5 recognize blacks and 1 a Cherokee. Is the marker advisory committee playing catch-up? Is this a formal policy?
How unusual was Gaston County’s decades-long rejection of a marker for the Loray Mill Strike [O-81]?
Also rare are objections by local parties to a marker. Gastonia is the prime example.
In Raleigh descendants of W. W. Holden at one time opposed mention of impeachment on his marker [H-92]. But it stands today, right outside the N&O office, and indicates that he was impeached and removed.
County commissioners in Greene County were not thrilled about the prospect of the James Glasgow marker [F-66] noting that he was convicted on land fraud charges but they did not stand in the way of its placement.
— In the Pilot of Southern Pines, Stephen Smith finds a silver lining in the theft of the historical marker identifying the Weymouth Center as the former home of novelist James Boyd.
— Volunteers in Eden retrieve a sunken 40-foot bateau replica from the Dan River.
— Ben Steelman answers a reader’s question about the checkered tenancy of downtown Wilmington’s old Masonic Temple, aka St. John’s hall.
— Is North Carolina’s official state horse really unAmerican?
— The Asheville Citizen-Times offers a nicely done page of local historical photos. A 1943 shot raises the question: Might there also have been a Colored Transportation Co., or was that purpose adequately served by the back of the White Transportation bus?
— Also in the Citizen-Times: lots and lots of coverage of May Day vandalism. And here an anarchist calls for “Solidarity with the accused!”
— Preservationists set their sights on Edenton’s grand but neglected Pembroke Hall, circa 1850.
— Lincoln County Historical Association impatiently bypasses state historical marker process to honor former Air Force chief of staff.
— Does Penderlea, the Pender County farm community created under the New Deal, belong on the National Register of Historic Places?
— Archives and History publishes 25th anniversary update of “Native Carolinians: The Indians of North Carolina.”
— High school teacher researches “a non-fiction memoir of the 33 mills that were once in Richmond County and the people they affected.”
— The Woolworth’s lunch counter at the National Museum of American History is the setting for a half-hour play, in which an activist of the time briefs potential recruits in nonviolent resistance. (Scroll down.)