1830-1854
Fayetteville was nearly destroyed by fire. Not once, but twice, during this 25-year period. The trial of a woman accused in the poisoning death of her husband drew widespread notoriety, with some of the leading lawyers of the day on opposing sides in the case.
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Footnotes
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Population
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QUOTABLE
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'The Six Cotton Factories employ a capital of $350,000, consume nearly 4,000 bales of cotton, and give employment and support to probably 1,000 to 1,500 persons.'
-- An 1842 summary in The Fayetteville Observer of the county's growing textile industry |
'Lord Jesus, have mercy upon me.'
-- Among the last words spoken by Alexander C. Simpson as he was dying in agony in 1849, according to testimony in the arsenic-poisoning murder trial of his wife, Ann K. Simpson |
'I think it about the poorest place that I have ever seen for a man to make a support.'
-- Jones Fuller, in an 1838 letter to his brother Elijah Fuller, describing Fayetteville
'There is a story handed down by the old-timers of Fayetteville that before John Kelly died at a ripe old age he instructed that his body be placed in a lead coffin filled with alcohol and laid in a vault which he had prepared in a burying ground he had given to the Catholic church near the point where Big Rockfish Creek flows in the Cape Fear River. This was done but the road to the burying ground was rough and at some point on the road a crack was forced into the casket and alcohol ran out. During the Civil War it is said the lead coffins of Kelly and his wife were confiscated by the Confederacy and moulded into bullets.'
-- John A. Oates, from his 1950 book, 'The Story of Fayetteville and the Upper Cape Fear'
'The Depository of Provisions for the supply of sufferers by the late fire, is established on the second floor of Hall & Johnson's large Warehouse on Gillespie street, under the superintendence of Thomas Sandford -- where those who can pay for such provisions as may be necessary, may be supplied on reasonable terms, and those who cannot pay, may get supplies without money.'
-- C.P. Mallett, in an official notice offering aid to victims of the 1831 fire
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