Lenoir County,NC, Letter :Rouse/Hodges - History of Wheat Swamp Church
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Copyright  2000 by Francis R Hodges. This copy contributed
for use in the USGenWeb Archives. by  Francis R Hodges  
fhodges@flsouthern.edu
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From:  N. J. Rouse
        Rouse & Rouse
        Attorneys and Counsellors at Law
        102 * S. Queen Street
        Kinston, N. C.

To:     Mrs. Julia Hodges
        LaGrange, N. C.

1 August, 1934

Dear Cousin Julia:

                I deeply regret that your letter of June 18, coming as it
did when I was very busy in Court, was overlooked until by chance I saw it
again today.  I am now trying to make amends by writing you promptly after I
have discovered your letter.

                I could probably have been of more service to you if I could
have talked with you personally about some of the events of the past for
there is much that might be said, but entirely too lengthy to write here;
but the bare outline that I am undertaking to write you now I hope will be
of some service to you in the preparation of your sketch of Wheat Swamp
Church.

                My recollection of Wheat Swamp Church extends back to about
1867 or 1868, for it was to that church that my father and mother regularly
went on the second Sunday of each month, accompanied, in my earliest
recollections, by my brother and me and as they became old enough, by my
sisters, the family when full grown requiring for transportation over the
seven miles distance a phaeton drawn by two horses, when mules were not
used.  Second Sunday, winter and summer, saw the Rouse family traveling to
and from Wheat Swamp during my entire boyhood.  It was seldom that a
blizzard in winter was too severe to encounter and, as I remember, never in
summer did the mercury ascend high enough or the sand grow deep enough to
interfere with this pilgrimage.

                When I first saw the church it was comparatively new, though
not just built, probably then twenty-five or thirty years of age; there
stood across the road on the side where the graded school building now
stands and a little distance east of the school building and nearer the
road, the old church which had succombed (sic) to the "corroding tooth of
time" and to my memory only or rather principally, manifested the location
of the pulpit which was a tall affair and stood as does the present pulpit,
in the west end of the church.  Besides the pulpit, my memory only pictures
now decayed timbers lying prone and bearing witness to the distant days when
christian hands built them into a church building.  How far that old
building extended back into the past, I do not accurately know, but I think
to those rugged days beyond the Revolutionary War, for it is my
recollection, or rather my understanding that the site of Wheat Swamp Church
is one of if not the oldest site for christian worship in the entire
confines of Lenoir County; and our good cousin, Albert Parrott, maintained
that it was a historical fact, certainly a historical legend, that the
original worshippers took their guns with them in attendance upon divine
worship to defend themselves if occasion arose, against the savages known as
the Cotechney (Contentnea) Indians who roamed in large numbers, the forests
between the present site of Kinston and Snow Hill and surrounding country.
However this may be, the old Church went back into the distant past beyond
the actual memory of anyone now living or of their parents; so that it may
truly be said that old Wheat Swamp is a sacred spot to the Disciples and to
christians generally for there, for many generations the cross has been
upheld by many heroic creatures of the past.

                Of course, as a boy I could only be expected to remember
personally a rather small coterie or circle of the friends of my father and
mother, and among them those who stand out before my recollection most
clearly are Simon Hodges and his wife Persis; John T. Daly, your father;
Walter Kennedy, Miller B. Creech, Richard B. Taylor, James M. Mewborne,
Alexander Wilson and others whom I might name if I thought it over for some
time.  They usually gathered at the church a half hour or more before
services and talked over current topics until the preacher had arrived and
some voice on the inside raised the opening hymn, How Firm a Foundation,
There is a Fountain, or like familiar tunes, during the singing of which the
brethern (sic) from the outside and the sisters, if they had lingered, went
promptly into the church, the men scrupulously sitting to the left and the
women to the right of the main isle (sic).  To have failed to act according
to this custom would doubtless have caused very general comment if it had
not startled the entire congregation.  It was at one of those pre-sermon
conferences under the shade of the trees at Wheat Swamp that the first
cotton reduction cooperative agreement that I ever heard of was entered
into; your father, my father and about a half dozen other farmers agreeing
among themselves to help curtail the acreage for the succeeding year by
reducing 25 %; and as the conference broke up and the conferees were
entering the church to hear the sermon, one of the participants (not your
father, not my father) smilingly said to a young man who was accompanying
him in the church when asked how much he would reduce next year replied that
he was going to increase his 25 % and let the others do the reducing.  This
has been the bane of crop reduction the intervening years until the
Government took a hand.  This incident will only serve to give you a glimpse
of what has been occurring before the sermon at old Wheat Swamp during the
generations gone by.

                As I recall the first pastor whom I knew of at Wheat Swamp,
that is in the late 60s and early 70s, was Gideon Allen of Farmville, a
brother of N. J. Allen, formerly a resident of Institute Township, a good
brick-mason.  I wish I could give you a complete roster of the fine
preachers of the past who have served during my recollection as pastors of
old Wheat Swamp.  Doubtless the following is not complete, but these names
come to my memory now:  George Joyner, Dr. Henry D. Harper and while I am
not sure they were pastors, frequently preaching here, Joseph H. Foy, John
J. Harper and Josephus Latham.  Your own recollection will supply a number
that I have not named as faithfully serving the church during your
recollection.  I have only tried to bring out of the past names which
possibly some have forgotten or never known.  In no sense must this letter
be deemed anything more than suggestive of what one might write concerning
so great a church as Wheat Swamp, for I think it can truly be said that when
consideration is given to the long existence of this church and to the
people that have composed its membership for the period of probably nearly
200 years of its existence, that no one agency in the county of Lenoir has
done more to elevate its citizenship and to bring the people of the county
to that high standard of appreciation of the value of christianity and of
the transcendent importance in life of trying to follow "the way," as
pointed out and inculcated by our Saviour
than has old Wheat Swamp church.  In this connection due weight and
importance must be given to my full meaning which is that from that source
has gone out throughout the entire county during the years that have gone
by, to the worthy and influential and beloved people who have had their
membership there, the finest precepts and example in the respects referred
to which have permeated the entire county.  This influence can not be valued
in dollars and cents or accurately computed, but imagine what the county
might have been but for the fine people that that during the generations
past have lived within the radius of territory and who have been taught the
principles of christianity there and my meaning will appear when I say that
the influence of the church has been great and outstanding and will be
handed down to the generations that are to come afterward.
        
        I have probably written you too much; as you see it is of the utmost
general character, not intended to be an accurate history, but I hope it may
be of some service to you in accomplishing your task in writing a history of
old Wheat Swamp Church.

                With best wishes always,

                                Sincerely yours,

                                N. J. Rouse

NJR/MH