Donald Rector, left and Joe Jackson are seen here preparing to launch the “Miss Mount Airy,” their 15-foot motor boat, on the 350-mile trip from Donnaha near the Surry-Forsyth county line to Georgetown, South Carolina, in August 1931. They documented the six-day-long trip with photographs and a number of local newspaper articles. The Yadkin, one of the longest rivers in North Carolina, begins near Blowing Rock and flows 215 miles to join with the Uwharrie River near Albemarle. From that point to the Atlantic it is called the Pee Dee River. All told, it is one of the most important river basins in the southeast, draining an area populated by some 1.2 million people.
Joe Jackson is seen here guiding the motor boat along the edge of the river over one of several waterfalls the men had to navigate or find portage for their boat around dams. Their boat and gear weighed in at 200 pounds so moving it over low dams or taking it out of the water to portage around one of the three large dams on the river at the time, was a physical challenge. The trip Jackson and Donald Rector took in 1931 would be even more challenging today with larger dams and stricter property and wildlife laws.
Bean Shoals is a shallow section of the Yadkin River that kept the river from being practical for commercial navigation. The Yadkin Navigation Company was chartered to build a three-mile canal, like the successful Erie Canal in New York, around Bean Shoals. Work began in 1820 but faltered to a halt by 1825. Today the area is part of the Pilot Mountain State Park and offers secluded areas that are home to an amazing array of wildlife. The trails run along the stone retaining walls, built without mortar, that still stand nearly 200 years later.
In Georgetown the men witnessed the USS Taylor (DD-94) taking to sea. Commissioned on June 1, 1918, as part of the country’s WWI Atlantic fleet, the destroyer patrolled until 1922 when she was taken out of active duty. She was brought back on line in 1930, operating out of Charleston, South Carolina, as part of the Scouting Fleet and used for training. This may have been the day the Taylor set sail to the West Indies to relieve the USS Talbott on Sept. 1 for patrol duties in the Gulf of Mexico. She remained a training vessel into WWII and was finally scrapped in 1945.
The pair recorded their stopping points on the map they carried, noting how they spent the night. The first two nights were spent in their tent pitched along the river. The third was spent in a shack at the ferry south of Mount Gilead. Ferries were still in use well into the 20th century, especially in rural areas where bridges were distant or charged a toll. This picture of Joe Jackson may show the shack where they slept and the ferry operator.
Joel “Joe” Andrew Jackson Jr. attended the Georgia Military Academy before returning to Mount Airy and taking the grand adventure down the Yadkin with his brother-in-law Donald Rector. He worked at the Jackson Bros. department store on Mount Airy’s Main Street and served in the Army during World War II before joining his father, J. Andrew Jackson Sr., and uncle, Reid R. Jackson, in the executive offices sometime in mid-1900s. He worked there with his sister Kathleen Rector who managed the ladieswear department.
Bernard Rector moved his family to Mount Airy about 1910 for work at the granite quarry where he was a stone cutter. Donald C. Rector, the sixth of the Rectors’ seven children, fought alongside his brother Grant in World War I. After the war, Donald got a job at the First National Bank of Mount Airy where he advanced from assistant cashier to president over time. He also served on the board of Workman’s Federal Savings where this photo was made in the mid-1900s.
They used this map, made from a portion of roadmap cut and pasted to two pieces of heavy duty cardboard. They marked their stopping points each night, as can be seen on the inset on the top right showing where they stopped on the third and fourth nights. The locations are barely 25 miles apart. The trip was supposed to take four days but they going was slower than expected and they only managed 100 miles in the first three days. Once past the fall line, the place where the Coastal Plain meets the Piedmont, the river was easier to navigate and they covered nearly 75 miles on the fifth night.
On a hot sunny August day in 1931, at the height of the Great Depression, a whole gaggle of friends from Mount Airy gathered on the banks of the Yadkin River. They were there to help launch two adventurers on an epic journey.
Donald Rector, a 33-year old cashier at the First National Bank of Mount Airy and 22-year-old Joel “Joe” Jackson Jr., who worked in the family’s department store, had planned and mapped out a grand adventure.
They loaded a tent, two cots, fishing gear, and some water-tight containers with food, water, and gasoline onto a 15-foot, flat-bottom open motor boat and headed to the sea.
The 350-mile trip, expected to take four days, lasted six and they apparently got some impressive sunburn. They called home whenever they were able to let friends, family, and the newspapers know they were safe.
“Having the time of our life!”
The Yadkin River has been an important feature in this region for a long time providing fresh water, copious fish, and easy transportation for the Sapona and Saura people who called this region home for hundreds of years before Europeans arrived. Archeologists estimate Native Americans were living on the banks of this river for some 12,000 years.
The Yadkin-Pee Dee watershed drains more than 7,200 square miles in North and South Carolina and continues to be a source of drinking water, irrigation and power generation today.
It also provides many opportunities for recreation from fishing, kayaking, and boating on the river, water skiing on the lakes created by power dams to hiking, birdwatching, and picnicking in the state parks and national wildlife sanctuaries its waters meander through.
Rector and Jackson were part of Mount Airy’s successful business class, a group of inter-related families who established and ran retail, manufacturing, and financial matters in the area. The Great Depression certainly impacted residents of Surry and surrounding counties, but not with the devastating effects experienced many other places.
This may have been due to careful borrowing and expansion practices frequently mentioned in news articles of the day.
Rector, a cashier at the First National Bank of Mount Airy at the time of the trip, would eventually be president of the bank and sit on the board of at least one other bank. The building, at the corner of Moore Avenue and North Main Street, houses the Mount Airy Chamber of Commerce, Visitor’s Center, and Tourism Board today.
Jackson worked at the Jackson Brother’s Department Store, established in 1916 by his father, J. Andrew Jackson Sr. and Reid R. Jackson, his uncle. In time, young Joe would become an officer of the company as well as sit on the Board of directors of the First National Bank with Rector, who was married to Jackson’s sister Kathleen — who also worked at the store.
The Jackson Bros. store was located just southeast of the intersection of North Main and Franklin streets where Mayberry Market and Souvenirs is.
There were already three major dams in place on the rivers in 1931: the 100-foot tall High Rock; Badin; and Spencer. In those places the men, sometimes with the help of power station attendants, had to take the 200-pound boat out of the water and haul her around to continue the trip.
Smaller obstacles were dealt with as best they could manage. One of the men had a camera and snapped photos along the way.
When the men arrived in Georgetown, South Carolina, on Saturday, August 8, they snapped pictures of tall-masted yachts, long freight barges, and the USS Taylor in the busy port. They called home to announce their safe arrival and they made arrangements for the “Miss Mount Airy” to be shipped home on a freight train.
Rector’s wife drove to pick them up and they headed to Myrtle Beach for a more relaxing vacation before heading home and back to work.
We are fortunate that Joe’s second wife, Virginia Burke Robertson Jackson, generously gifted an album containing pictures from this trip and other moments in his life to the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History. If she hadn’t we wouldn’t know this fun and interesting story from Mount Airy’s past. Perhaps there are stories equally as interesting lurking in your home? We’d love to know them if you’re willing to share them with us.
Kate Rauhauser-Smith is the visitor services manager for the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History with 22 years in journalism before joining the museum staff. She and her family moved to Mount Airy in 2005 from Pennsylvania where she was also involved with museums and history tours. She can be reached at KRSmith@NorthCarolinaMuseum.org or by calling 336-786-4478 x228
"original" - Google News
August 31, 2020 at 08:04PM
https://ift.tt/3joPrnc
The original mountain to sea trek? - Mount Airy News
"original" - Google News
https://ift.tt/32ik0C4
https://ift.tt/35ryK4M
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "The original mountain to sea trek? - Mount Airy News"
Post a Comment