Robeson County NcArchives News.....Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Glare Murder 1902
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Robesonian  Tuesday September 9, 1902, Page 3, Column 2 1902
THE STORY OF THE MURDER OF MR & MRS STEPHEN GLARE AS TOLD BY A GREAT GRANDSON IN 
1902

Three Days in Camp With the Robeson County Chain Gang.
 
To the Editor of The Robesonian.
 
   Camp life has always had its charms for me and the time spent with the gang 
was not an exception to the rule.  I went down to where were located at Gum Swamp 
on the 27th day of August, and found confined there nine men all stalwart, able-
bodied and ready for duty.  I was surprised to find the work so near completed.  
The dam that is today built through Gum Swamp is of untold value to the citizens 
living on the opposite side from us and will stand for ages as a monument of the 
progressive spirit of the grand old county of Robeson.  There are two things of 
special interest to any one visiting in that locality, one is the house now 
occupied by the gang.  I was told by Mr. Stephen Pitman that the house was 
supposed to be at least two hundred years old.  Mr. Pitman is a great grandson of 
Stephen Glare, the man that built the house, and is 76 years old.  Glare was 
murdered there more than 120 years ago, he and his wife, by a negro woman they 
owned and whom they had promised freedom at their death.  But the remarkable 
feature of the house is it excellent state of preservation.  There are few houses 
in Robeson county that have been standing 20 years that are half so sound as that 
one.  One other thing I would mention before I close is the Hellgren farm, I had 
heard of the farming that was being done in Globe Swamp so much until I was 
anxious to see it, so in company with Mr. Oscar Hellgren, on the afternoon of 
September the 7th, I set out for a stroll through his farm.  After about a two 
hour journey, panting and tired I returned to his house feeling that I had been 
richly repaid for my trip.  I will venture to say there is no other farm in 
Robeson county that will produce half so much corn per acre as Mr. Hellgren’s.  
His crop has been estimate at from 60 to 90 bushels per acre.  He told me that he 
thought that he raised two tons of oats on 1 ½ acres and thinks he will get 40 
bushels of peas per acres this time.  Mr. Hellgren said when he commenced to 
clear land in that swamp that his neighbors laughed at him and told him after he 
has spent $15 per acre that they would not give him 50 cents per acre for his 
land with all he had done to it.  But he being a foreigner and an educated man 
went forward with his work.  The first year he made 30 bushels of corn per acre 
without being plowed or hoed, in fact he only planted.  He has five acres worked 
the same way this year and I am sure it will produce from 20 to 35 bushels per 
acre.  Mr. Hellgren now has 40 acres in cultivation in the swamps and refused 
$4,000 for his possessions.  Mr. Hellgren is a Sweds having come from near 
Stockholm to this country.  He now has a brother in Alaska, he having traveled 
all other the United States and part of Canada says Robeson is the best place yet 
to live.
                                                E. S. W.

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