ROCKINGHAM - Monday night, May 21st, found the auditorium of Rockingham City Hall about half full. Society members, guests and the general public were there to hear Mr. J.A. Bolton speak about the life and times of his local ancestral family, the Ewing.
“There is a place in upper Richmond County that is dear to my heart,” said Bolton. “No, there are no large buildings or fancy landscapes, but lots of white- flint rock, clay land and cut-over timber - a place that seems to stand still. The few curvy, hard-top roads that remain were first dirt trails that were traveled by oxen, mules and horses pulling wagons and buggies. The cold running water of Mountain. Creek still makes its way through the hills and valleys of what is the start of the Uwharrie Mountain Range to its effluent into the Pee Dee River.”
Indians lived and traveled through this area until the early 1700’s. As the Indians left the area and moved west, white settlers from England, Scotland, Ireland and some from Germany applied for land- grants. This area would later be called the Capel Mill or upper Mountain Creek section of Richmond County.
This area flourished until around the times of the American Revolution when a lot of the residents were still loyal to the King of England. They were called Tories or Loyalists and some had sworn an oath to the King before entering this new land.
After America won its freedom from England, a lot of these families who were loyal to the King either lost their land or moved on. One of these families was Allen and Flora McDonald who eventually moved back to Scotland.
This was the area of Richmond County that the John Ewing family, ancestors of J.A. Bolton, moved to in the late 1700’s.
John Ewing came from the British Isles and landed in Philadelphia, Penn. around the 1760’s. Like it is today, immigrates were a little shunned and just about all good farm land in the area had already been taken.
John and his young family moved on to Maryland and started farming but later found even more land was available in Anson or later Richmond County He hitched-up his two oxen to a wagon, tied his milk cow to the back, loaded his family and they all headed south on the Great Wagon Road to Carolina. There they settled on their 600 acre homestead.
Bolton went on to tell about how life on a pioneer farm might have been. How John F. Bolton married Celeste (Kate) Ewing in the middle 1800’s and that the Bolton family lived on and farmed the old Ewing site for several generations thereafter.
Bolton still owns 66 acres of the old Ewing place. He hopes somehow his daughter and her family can hold on to this family property. That they will appreciate how much the dream of living and working your own land meant to her forefathers in the new country they called America.
The Richmond County Historical Society meets at Rockingham City Hall the third Monday night of the month (which just happens to be TONIGHT, June 18th) at 7 p.m. and the public is invited.
The June program will be presented by Scholar John Peacock Ph.D. The program will be about the life and times of Confederate Lt. General James Longstreet: Scalawag or Scapegoat?
