By Walter D. Siler
The tragic disaster at the mine of the Carolina Coal Company at Farmville in this county, which occurred last week, has focused for the time being public interest in a section and an industry that for many years seems to have been forgotten by the outside world. However, authentic records disclose the fact that coal was discovered in the immediate vicinity of the recent catastrophe more than 150 years ago, and was being mined, in a small way, if not prior to, certainly during the Revolutionary war.
John Wilcox, a prominent and influential citizen of Chatham, and it’s first representative in the Colonial Assembly, owned the lands in the vicinity of the mines now operated both by the Carolina Coal Company and the Cumnock property prior to 1775,and operated a blast furnace in the neighborhood of Gulf, where coal was then produced. General Green, as his army marched through this section after the battle of Guilford Court House, impressed or took a quantity of iron from the Wilcox furnace, and as late as 1830, the records show that his estate was endeavoring to collect pay therefor from the Federal government. It is historically interesting to note that the Wilcox furnace and mining machinery were set fire to and destroyed by Fanning’s Tory bandits in the closing days of the Revolution.
Colonial and State records recount instances where citizens filed petitions with the Governor and the War Board asking for exemptions from military and militia duty upon the ground that they were necessary laborers at the Wilcox furnace and mine.
In a letter written by Professor Olmstead from Chapel Hill in 1820, he says:
“We have it in our power to say that coal has been discovered in this section, and that a bed of considerable extent has been opened not far from Gulf on Deep River.
“It is about 50 years since this coal bed was first discovered. Mr. Wilcox, an enterprising gentleman, proprietor of the Old Iron Works at Gulf, took some pains to have it opened, and to introduce the coal into use.
“It, (the mine near Gulf) was known in the Revolution, and a Report made to Congress, respecting it, is still extant.”
Peter Evens, who then owned the plantation in the great northward bend of Deep River, including the village now known as Cumnock, began mining coal on his property there, then called Egypt, about the year 1830.
In the year 1851, the Egypt plantation was sold to L.J. Haughton and Brooks Harris. Soon afterward, Harris acquired the Haughton interest, and in the year 1853 sank the Egypt shaft, which was the most important single piece of development work undertaken in the Deep River Coal fields prior to the Civil war. This shaft pierced the Cumnock coal bed to a depth of 430 feet, but continued to a depth of 460 feet. After changing hands for several times, in the year 1854, the Governor’s Creek Steam Transportation and Mining Company became the owner of the present Cumnock property, and operated this mine until after the Civil War, when the name of the corporation, by an ordinance of the Constitutional Convention of 1886 was changed to the “Egypt Company.”
H.M. Chance in his report on North Carolina Coal Fields to the Department of Agriculture (1885), says of the Deep River Coal fields:
“Coal was dug from open pits for black-smithing in the Deep River coal field early in this, if not in the last century, but no systematic attempt was made to open the field for market until the slackwater improvement of Deep River. The next attempts were made upon the completion of the railroad from Fayetteville to Egypt and Gulf. Operations were most actively pushed in the period immediately preceding the Civil War. During the war, coal was mined at Farmville (present Carolina Coal Company mine), Egypt (present Cumnock mine), Gulf (present Deep River Coal Company mine),and the Evans place, and shipped by river to Fayetteville and Wilmington, where it was used by blockader runners.”
Following the Civil War, the Cumnock property had a checkered history; ownership frequently changed, and no one appeared to be able to operate it at a profit. In 1870 the mine was closed down and remained flooded until the year 1888, when it was re-opened and operations again commenced. From then until the year 1902, the holding corporation managed by Samuel J. Langdon and Samuel A. Hensley, experienced many misfortunes; was involved in much litigation growing out of the personal differences of these financiers and mine operators, and suffered from two most disastrous explosions, one of which occurring in the year 1895, resulted in the loss of more than 40 lives and another in the year 1900 when more than 20 operatives were killed. These explosions and added financial difficulties necessitated the closing down of the mine until 1915, when it passed into the hands of the Norfolk-Southern Railroad Company, and was rehabilitated under the name of the Cumnock Coal Company. The output secured by the operations of this company was used for railroad purposes. In September 1922, the property was purchased by the Erskine-Ramsey Coal Company, and since that time has been operated by that corporation.
Of the three separate developments in present or recent operation, the Cumnock mine, the Carolina Coal Company, and the Deep River Company’s location is the property upon which coal was first discovered, originally known as the “Horton mine,”andwhile the Carolina Coal Company did not begin operations at Farmville until 1921,coal had been produced there in a small way since the early days, and for many years the father of our popular countyman Mr. R.R. Seagroves, supplied a considerable local demand, and shipped to various points in the state coal mined from this location.
This original Cumnock was called LaGrange, but was changed to Egypt, due to the fact that Peter Evans, the owner of the farm, was a large producer of corn, and so many people journeyed to his plantation to purchase this grain, that Peter Smith, a Scotchman, spoke of their going down to “Egypt to get corn,” and the owner was so pleased with the remark that he afterward called his place Egypt. The name Gulf was given to the early settlement at a sharp bend of Deep River by boatmen who found there an unusually deep portion of the river between shallows formed by the dikes where they cross the stream.
Within the years intervening between the time when John Wilcox began the first development more than a century and a half ago, and the present, disappointment, financial disaster, tragedy, and romance and intrigue have all mingled with efforts of the ambitious spirits, who have sought to bring the hidden treasures of the Deep River Coal Fields to the light of day, and a true history of this section, penned by a capable writer, would be more interesting than a popular novel.
From the front page of the Chatham Record, Pittsboro, N.C., Thursday, June 4, 1925, O.J. Peterson, editor and owner.
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn85042115/1925-06-04/ed-1/seq-1/
