Lenoir County,NC, Letter :Rouse/Hodges - History of Wheat Swamp Church ****************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non- commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be repro- duced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations.   Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access.   Copyright © 2000 by Francis R Hodges. This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives. by Francis R Hodges fhodges@flsouthern.edu ========================================================= 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