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Above: The home on the left was the first built and housed Dirk
and Grietje Swart and their nine children. The homes in the
center and on the right, plus six others, were given as wedding
gifts to the Swart sons as they married. The daughter never
married and maintained her residence in the original house.
Photo circa 1925.
Inset: Jeff Simmons with his sons Thomas, left, and Wright in
front of his recently restored home in Castle Hayne. The home
is seen on the far right in the photo above.
and Danie Swart said that without Hugh MacRae and Van Eeden
the American dream may have never been a reality for them.
“The family needed someone to sponsor them. And Hugh
MacRae did that,” Tilden said.
There were destitute years. The family wandered to Greensboro
and then to Invershiel in search of sustenance, but the situation
went from bad to worse. Tilden says that while living on Invershiel
in St. Helena that the family was hungry. Their cow had dried up
and MacRae had forbid them to hunt on the property.
“If it hadn’t been for the Joneses they really would have
suffered.”
The Joneses were their African American neighbors in
St. Helena. They lent them a cow and taught them how to trap
small animals and how to discern edible wild plants and berries.
They taught them how to survive on otherwise infertile land.
“The African American community was key to our survival
throughout the years,” Tilden said.
Later, their thriving dairy and bulb businesses depended on
skilled African American workers that were employed by the Swarts
from the beginning to the end.
In 1912, after excessive work and serious penny pinching, there
was a tremendous shift. Swart, frugal and keen and with the help
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