Day 66 of 110: Early Chapter Works

Continuing the story....

     The Chapter has done good work  in the years since its organization, and has taken its place in the State as an outstanding Chapter, in placing North Carolina in the front rank in D.A.R. work. The recording secretary's books show much educational work along historical lines, in papers contributed at each meeting, familiarizing the members with North Carolina's glorious history, her part in the Revolution and the deeds of her brave sons and daughters. In this sketch though only outstanding events can be noted, as limited space has been given.

     In January 1908 while Mrs. J.L. Ludlow was regent, the name of the Chapter was changed from Salem Centennial to General Joseph Winston in appreciation of his fine military record during the War for Independence. Our City also had been named in his honor.

     In 1908 Mrs. Patterson was elected Vice-President-General for North Carolina, the first D.A.R. from the State accorded this honor. During her term of office the State gave one of the pillars to the portico of Centennial Memorial Hall. Plans were begun by the chapter to mark the grave of the old Cherokee Chieftain Junaluska, who with his braves fought with General Jackson against the Creeks in the Battle of Horse Shoe Bend. His grave is in Clay County marked by a native bolder [sic] with bronze tablet, the plot surrounded by an iron fence. Suitable exercises commemorating the event were held there in the Autumn of 1910.

Pictured above are members of General Joseph Winston Chapter marking the grave of Junaluska in Clay County, NC in November 1910.

 

     In 1911 Mrs. Wm. N. Reynolds was elected State Regent serving three years very acceptably in the ever-widening scope of business-like management, giving unstintingly of her time and generously of her means to forward the work.

     While she was State Regent one of the first of the old pioneer trails was marked, The Boone Trail, or the Old Wilderness Road, leading across our Mountains through Tennessee, Virginia, to Kentucky, then called The Wilderness. To find this old trail was an undertaking by that name it had become only a memory to the oldest inhabitants a tradition handed down from father to son. It took almost two years to locate and mark it. Four States participated in the work, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. Mrs. Patterson, a native of Tennessee, was made Inter-State Chairman. At the completion of the work a Granite Bolder [sic] with bronze tablet at Cumberland Gape [sic] marks the culmination of the work. Representative D.A.R.s from the four States were present at the unveiling exercises. We think we can claim, without boasting, that much of the credit for being the first to mark one of the Old Colonial Trails, in this section of the Country, belongs to Mrs. Patterson and Mrs. Reynolds.