172 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

- Streets, and the Odd Fellows erected a marble shaft to his mem-
ory. His remains and the stone that marked their resting place
were afterwards removed to Oakdale Cemetery.

Mr. Levin Meginney! succeeded M
7 Mr. MeLauchlin in ch
of the school, with Mrs. Richardson at the head of the vivls? a
partment. Mr. Meginney continued in charge until the school
was given up by the Odd Fellows, long after 1850, and then
?

buying the property he convert
ed the school building i
into a dwelling, which he oceupied with his family. ‘The ecto

house still stands, and th
,a e school is continued
of Prof. Washington Catlett. eee

In 1846 a classical department was added to the school.
charge of Mr. Robert Lindsay, a Scotchman and graduate of St.
Andrew’s University, Scotland. He was a thorough classi
scholar, and if proficiency of his pupils is a sential who wil
deny it?—a good teacher, but as a disciplinarian he was a sad

failure. He had not found his place in school teaching, and ~

— 1850, having tried it here and elsewhere until that time
he removed farther South. There he studied law and whi
into polities and became governor of Alabama. While in the
Alabama Legislature, in connection with the Internal Improve-
ment Board, of which he was chairman, we think, he was i el
instrumental in building the Mobile and Ohio Railroad xa
as governor he raised the bonds of Alabama above tho f
other Southern State at the time. seins

We now close with naming the first class 4
School, about the time of Mr. Setausnay eines an
MacRae, Robert B. MacRae, Robert C. Green Tevtin C Bai
lard, John D. Taylor, Owen Fennell, Sidney G. tee: Semel
H. Flanner, William H. Hall, John J. Poisson Washin to “C
Fergus, and John McLaurin. Irving Ballard ia H < M .
Rae afterwards taught in the school. ei Sees

In the classical department under Mr. Lindsay were Sidne
G. Law, Robert B. MacRae, Owen Fennell. Nicholas W.
Schenck, Hardy L. Fennell, Washington Forwis, Alvis Walk 3
William H. Bettencourt, John L. Hill, Fasbaet C. Green He a
M. Drane, James A. Wright, Daniel Newton, John Willian
Kelly, Arthur J. Hill, and John McLaurin. ae

The good work done by the school has been referred to. It
was in its aim and purpose and in its results very like to that

iMr. Meginney’s school is menti
the Chronicles. ; is. mentioned at greater length: dlaswhers. ts

Early Years 173

done by Mrs. Hemenway, under the management, direction,
and control of Miss Amy M. Bradley, something like a quarter
of a century afterwards. Wilmington ought never to cease to

hold both the one and the other everlastingly in grateful remem-

brance. SENEX, JR.

IV.

Before proceeding to weightier matters let us gather up the
loose-lying threads of memorial thought. Our friend aforesaid
reminds us, on the subject of trucking, that the vegetables
brought into table supply in 1840 were very limited. Lettuce
was brought from Charleston, cabbages, as has been said, were
not raised around here, and tomatoes were “love apples,” pretty

to look upon but not regarded as edible. Strawberries, now to
be had in the height of the season at five cents per quart, were

then 25 cents a saucer, and there were few in a saucer—cream,
thrown in. Hopkins, a little more than two miles
hrow north of the New Bern Road,

or strawberries and cream,

however, was
east of the city and a stone’s t

was the resort of courting couples f
which suggests that courting was expensive in those days, at

least to the financial partner of the concern.
And on the subject of the militia: how wondrously they were

equipped—with long guns and short guns and rifles and shot-
ouns and muskets—all flint and steel, for though percussion
caps were invented as far back as 1818, and had become pretty
well known by 1830—Colt using them on his repeating pistols
invented in 1836—yet the United States Government did not
use them before about 1842, and although the army might
easily have been furnished with percussion muskets in the
Mexican War, 1846, General Scott preferred the flint-lock gun,
“considering it dangerous to campaign in an enemy’s country

with an untried weapon.”
Oh, how those flint and steel locks did try the temper and the

patience of the average youth of the days of 1840. See the lark,
well away to be sure, but mounted on a hillock, and his bright

yellow breast exposed invitingly! Snap goes the flint upon the
steel; he winks his eye and whisks his tail and soars away.

That chance is gone, for the day perhaps. And how tantalizing
it must have been in war, in the very heat of the battle, to have
the flint fail to strike fire or the powder to flash in the pan.

 

 

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