UNION COUNTY, NC - NEWSPAPERS - Calvin Broom Article - 1914

MR CALVIN BROOM WRITES OF HIS TRIP TO ROBESON COUNTY

     I helped to build a courthouse at Lumberton 65 years ago when I was 
a boy of nineteen.
     When I arrived in town I observed a wonderful change in the place, 
but the thing I was looking for was to find someone who knew me, when was 
a boy, I laid about one-fourth of the brick in the old courthouse. I 
called for some of the oldest men in the place and found one white man and 
one colored man who remembered the boy from Waxhaw.
     Others gathered around me and all were glad to see the boy’s white 
beard.  They would have me go to see the place where I worked 65 years ago.  
The old courthouse has been torn down and a new one erected.
     I was something of a wrestler then and the colored man remembered 
a wrestling match when I threw down big, Croatan, the champion of 
Robeson County.
     After looking over the place and talking to many people about old 
Lumberton, I left for Bunyan Broom’s farm, twelve miles away.  When 
we got there we found the best crop I had ever seen. The farm is laid off 
in square blocks, from five to ten acres in a block, and the rows are as 
straight as a gun barrel.
     The best of all, when the neighbors found that the boy of 65 years 
was there, they begin to whisper around and said "We’ll give him a 
picnic."  They went to work and bought a fat pig, got an expert man to 
barbecue it, then they went to town and bought ice, lemons and sugar 
and made lemonade.  The table was set under a large oak in the yard.  
The ladies brought well filled baskets.  We all had enough and there 
was plenty left.  It was all in honor of the boy of 65 years ago.
CALVIN BROOM
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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by
Anne Bradford  bunyon@tiac.net
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