36 hours in hillsborough delegates from around the state gathered in Hillsborough for a special Constitutional Convention to meet on the premise — if all went well, they would ratify the “new” US Constitution. But that didn’t happen. Instead, North Carolina became the only state to refuse to ratify the Constitution until provisions were made for a Bill of Rights. That forced Congress to act and act quickly. The Orange County Historical Museum stands today where the 1788 convention occurred. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, William Hooper, lived in Wilmington and owned a large plantation on Masonboro Sound with his family until the British forced him to flee and relocate to Hillsborough. the burwell school house museum The Burwell School Historic Site is the place to hear the story of the Rev. and Mrs. Burwell and their pre-Civil War school which educated young women from across the Southeast for 20 years, including Anne Eliza Ashe and Caroline E. “Cuddy” Cowan from Wilmington. Ashe’s brother Capt. Samuel O’Court Ashe served in the Civil War as did her father, former congressman Major William Shepperd Ashe. Her husband, James Arrington Miller, was a doctor during the 1861 yellow fever epidemic in Wilmington. The school is also a place to learn about a remarkable woman featured in the movie, “Lincoln,” directed by Stephen Spielberg. Elizabeth Keckly, born into and growing up as an enslaved member of the Burwell family went on to buy her freedom (and her son’s) as a maker and seller of fashionable gowns and millinery for women. As a freewoman in Washington, DC, she became Mary Todd Lincoln’s modiste, close friend and confidante. A link to the Keckley memoir from the Gutenberg project can be down-loaded in a variety of formats: www.gutenberg.org Visitors to the Alexander Dickson House can visit the building where Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston worked to bring the next war to an end in April 1865 after Appomattox. A nearby classic Federal-era plantation home built in 1815, the Ayr Mount estate, offers visitors the same country vistas enjoyed 200 years ago. Its original owner, William Kirkland, named the house in honor of his birthplace, Ayr, Scotland. Today Ayr Mount is privately owned by Richard H. Jenrette and open to the public as a house museum. Scotty Washington is assistant director of the Orange County Historical Museum. Clockwise from top: The one-room school house interior. The brick school was located behind the family’s Federal-style main house. 78 WBM may 2014
Wrightsville Beach Magazine May 2014
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