That the advent of the rural telephone, the phonograph, the automobile and other appurtenances of civilization is not incompatible with the existence of picturesque negro folk lore was found by a party of visitors a few days ago to the vicinity of the historic Hezekiah Alexander house—the oldest and most pretentious house of the Colonial period in the county—three and a half miles east of Charlotte.
Sequestered from the main highways in a nook of the countryside, with alluring glades and picturesque forest around it, the old plantation is a strikingly interesting place.
Over beyond the great rock-build residence, in the edge of the field surrounded by woods with dense undergrowth, two of the visiting party ran across a negro cabin where a garrulous old negro woman and her even more talkative daughter, Lily, black as the ace of spades, related many weird things.
Often, they said, strange voices were heard down along the branch in the dense woods between the cabin and the “big house.” The voices were sometimes heard at night and sometimes in daylight. They said the noises came from ghosts of whiskey makers, who used to make whiskey down on the branch in the old days, “way back in slav’y time.”
A glance at the surrounding forests and the spooky, jungle-like contour of the forest included even the skeptical about the existence of ghosts that anything might take place here.
White Made Whiskey
The old negro woman related that back in the old days, an indefinite number of years before she was born, that much whiskey was made by white folks in the forest along the branch and that ever since that, from time to time, the laughter and loud talking of mysterious voices could be heard.
Another weird tale, which the women spun for their visitors, had to do with the incident of more recent years. Frequently people of the neighborhood see a headless horse go galloping across the field and into the woods and tattoo of his ghostly hoofs can be heard as he disappears into the forest or over across the hills. The story is that many years ago a little boy of the neighborhood got seriously hurt in an accident and that his brother was put on a horse and told to gallop with all speed across the country for a doctor. The horse became exhausted and fell dead, and now and then since that time the ghost of the horse races about the country, sometimes with his rider and sometimes without the rider. But the horse never has a head, and, being unable to follow any given direction, he gallops about, sometimes this way, sometimes that way.
Strange to say, there are no prevalent ghost tales about the old plantation house although it dates back to pre-Revolutionary days. It was completed in 1774 and was the home of Hezekiah Alexander, one of the six Alexanders who signed the Mecklenburg declaration of independence. The stories have to do with incidents about the plantation but not about the house itself.
Polk Shot Wife
The stories connected with the house itself are for the most historical incidents that have been printed from time to time, in historical papers and documents in Mecklenburg county. One of them has to do with a son of Col. Thomas K. Polk, one of the conspicuous figures of the Independence incident, who read the declaration from the court house steps in Charlotte on the morning of May 20, 1775. The story is that young Pol, who married “Beautiful Mary” Alexander, daughter of Hezekiah Alexander, shot his young wife as she was leaning over the cradle where their baby lay. It was explained as an accident due to the discharge of young Polk’s gun, which he was engaged in cleaning. The story has it that Mrs. Polk’s brothers were never satisfied that it was an accident and that they always mistrusted him after that. The son of Thomas Polk is credited in the tradition of the day with being much of a “roustabout” and many tales are told of his escapades about Charlotte, then a small village and the countryside.
Another story told the visitors in connection with the old house was an incident of the Revolution. During the Revolutionary days the old Potter’s Road, one of the main arteries of travel between North and South, ran past the Alexander homestead and soldiers and travelers were always passing. Once a party of foragers sent out form Charlotte by Lord Cornwallis when that British general maintained headquarters in Charlotte, went out on Potter’s road and visited the Alexander home. Disregarding the protests of the people of the household, one of the party, a Tory, went into the cellar and was carrying out jars of honey and other delicacies when a party of Americans came in sight.
Tory Makes Escape
It is still pointed out where the Tory dropped a jar of honey on the big square rock before the cellar door. He fled inside the cellar and up a stairway to the first floor and then to the second and third floors with the Americans pursuing. To the surprise of the pursuers the Tory squeezed himself through a small window and leaped from the third story to the ground.
After the manner of most homesteads of the Revolutionary day, the house is built on high ground a short distance from a spring or near a branch. Over the spring at this place a strong rock house, about 15 by 20 feet is built, two stories high. It still stands in excellent repair, so far as the stone part of it is concerned, though the joists and other inside timbers are decaying. The spring is built over with rock and the stream from the spring runs through the rock spring house in a trough that has been used for more than 145 years as a place to keep milk and other household goods cool in summer.
Both the old plantation house itself and the spring house near it are built of solid hewn rock and it is supposed some or all of the work was done by slave labor. The inside timbers of the dwelling house itself are the same as those when the house was completed, it is said. The house and plantation now belong to Mrs. Rachel Hunter Reid, wife of the late Joseph Reid. Mr. and Mrs. Hagler and family occupy the house now.
From The Charlotte News, July 17, 1921. The photo was taken in 1936 by a Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South and is available at the Library of Congress. See: File:Hezekiah Alexander stone house, Charlotte vicinity (Mecklenburg County, North Carolina).jpg - Wikimedia Commons
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