Wayne County, NC - Heritage Series Reprinted with permission of the Mount Olive Tribune and cannot be reproduced without permission. Transcribed by Linda Harmon. CHERRY DALE IS RESTORED Our Heritage By Claude Moore November 15, 1991 Cherry Dale, located on the old Warsaw-Clinton Road three miles northwest of Turkey, is one of the early surviving landmarks in the Turkey community. It was built in 1832 by a bachelor, Lewis Moore and has been occupied since that time except for the four years prior to the recent restoration. It has recently been restored by Mr. And Mrs. Floyd Smith who are formerly of Warsaw. We hope to get it on the National Register of historic buildings. The house has four rooms upstairs and five rooms downstairs. The original kitchen was separate from the main house and long ago disappeared as have the old barns and slave houses. I moved the smokehouse to my museum and we will eventually place our "hog killing artifacts" there. The timbers in the house are from the heart of longleaf pine and the original bricks in the chimneys were made by hand on the place. The building style would probably be modified Early American. After Lewis Moore died, the place passed to his brother, John T. Moore (1803-1852) and then to his daughter, Sallie E. Moore (1849-1935). She married the Rev. John L. Britt (1849-1901) and then the house went to their son John L. Britt and then to his wife, Lizzie Seay Britt. She left the place to me and I sold the house and house lot to the present owners. For a number of years the Spring Vale post office was kept here and the mail was brought by the stage coaches running from Fayetteville to New Bern. Old Spring Vale Presbyterian Church stood a few hundred yards west of the house and old Beulah (Ten Mile) Church organized in 1813 is just a mile to the north on the old Raleigh road. The place was named Cherry Dale because when the house was built there was a grove of cherry trees nearby. In March 1865 when General Judson Kilpatrick's Yankee Cavalry were camped at Mount Olive, one of his brigade commanders, Brig. Gen. Smith Atkins made a foraging raid in the Turkey neighborhood and he and his staff spent one night at Cherry Dale at Mrs. Maria O. Moore was a widow and two of her sons were with the Confederate Army in Virginia. One son, Lewis, was at home recovering from a wound which he received at the Battle of Spottsylvania Courthouse. The Yankee doctor dressed the wound and gave him medicine and gave some coffee to the family. When the Yankee left they carried off the cows, chickens, hogs, and corn. Cherry Dale has been brought to life again by Mr. And Mrs. Floyd Smith. They did much of the restoration work themselves. It is good to see this historic building so well appreciated. ============================================================== 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. The electronic pages may NOT be reproduced 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, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Linda Harmon ==============================================================