184 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

however, who were over half the :population, were provided for
by their masters.

What has been written has referred only to the regular allo-
pathic practice. Homeopathy, though Hahnemann had done
and suffered in behalf of his principle of simdlia for thirty
years or more, was not known here. The Thompsonian Botanic
practice, in which number six figured conspicuously, was repre-

sented by Dr. W. H. Buffaloe, who held forth on Second Street,
near what is now called Meginney’s corner, as the successor of
one Dr. Foy who had engaged in similar practice about this time.

The county poorhouse throughout the forties stood on the
square bounded by Fourth, Walnut, Fifth, and Red Cross
Streets. It was located near the center of the square and was
the only house within the area. But the “Poorhouse Square,”
as it was called, was not the only one upon which a single build-
ing stood on guard, as it were, to all the space around. The
‘“Thunder-and-Lightning House” occupied in 1840 a similar
position on the square bounded by Fourth, Orange, Fifth, and
Dock Streets. The peculiar name attached to the building, it
has always been supposed, was because of its having several
times received the bolts of the elements. On the square upon
which the First Presbyterian Church now stands there was in
1840 but one house occupied by white people. That was the
building, pulled down a few years ago, which stood immediately
in the rear of the church and which was purchased, with the
land upon which the house of worship stands, from the late A.
H. VanBokkelen. The house now owned and occupied by Capt.
John IF. Divine, was owned by Mr. Aaron Lazarus in 1840 and
was the only dwelling on that square. The greater part of the
square, all owned by Mr. Lazarus and known as the Lazarus
lot, was a delightful grove, where, by the kind permission of the
owners, Queen of May celebrations were held. Possibly other
localities might be cited like to these, but it is unnecessary. The
town was not compactly built and some not yet in their seventies
remember picking chinquapins where the synagogue now stands,
gathering persimmons in the “Old ’76” lot on Ann between
Front and Second, or picking low-bush huckleberries on Church
near Fourth. Here and there all over the present city are
dwelling-houses that were built many years before 1840. On
Market the present residence of Dr. A. J. DeRosset is one of
them—in 1840 and long before occupied by Dr. A. J. DeRosset,
sr. Opposite, on the southwest corner of Market and Third,

Early Years 185

still stands the house which was the headquarters of Lord Corn-
wallis in 1781. The building on the northeast corner also dates
back a hundred years or so—so the building adjoining on the
east and others in the same locality. The present residence of
Mr. M. Cronly and some others on that square go back many
decades; indeed, one might count a full half score between
Orange and Ann, Fifth Street and the river. So on the west
side of Second Street between Market and Dock are houses that
carry us back to the days of yore. In 1840 Mr. Murdock
McKay lived in one, a Mrs. Bishop in another. Around the
corner on Dock going towards the river are two residences of
the kind we are speaking of. It is not necessary to mention
others; they can, when built of wood, easily be distinguished.
Whenever the sides are built of common three-inch cypress or

juniper shingles they go back almost certainly well on to a cen-
tury in age—sometimes over. The brick store on the southwest

corner of Front and Princess, occupied by I. H. Weil, and the
wooden buildings on the southwest corner of Market and Second
Streets along the southern line of Market, known as the Betten-
court property, might be termed fire repellers. The flames have

surged around them time and again but have never left even the
smell of fire upon them.

The buildings mentioned, and others, have been more or less
modernized from time to time, sometimes to the extent of entire
transformation. But the dwelling-house on the southwest corner
of Fifth and Orange Streets, now owned and occupied by Rev.
Daniel Morrelle, in 1840 the residence of Gen. Alexander
MacRae, and years before that of Mr. Davis, the father of Hon.
George Davis, is very likely more nearly now what it was one
hundred years ago than any other residence in the city.

Before we leave this subject let us call attention to the fact
that on the organization of St. John’s Lodge of Masons, say
one hundred years ago, they occupied the old Brown building
on the south side of Orange between Front and Second Streets.
The lodge was afterwards removed to the corner of Front and
Chestnut Streets—southwest corner—and again to Front near
Red Cross, where early in 1841 the building was sold and con-
verted into a hotel kept by David Jones—not the proprietor of
that dread place so well known to seamen as “Davy Jones’s
locker.” In the same year, 1841, the lodge found rest from its

wanderings in its present location on Market Street.
One of the most noted buildings of “auld lang syne,” which