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History of Snow Camp, North Carolina
In 1781, the snows of February were deep and heavy. Travel was difficult, and by the time the British reached Cane Creek in southwestern Orange, they were forced to halt. Near the Cane Creek meeting- house stood Simon Dixon’s grist mill, and adjoining it, the stone house in which the miller and his wife lived. Lord Cornwallis decided to establish a camp here and ordered his men to move the Dixons to a neighboring home so he might use their house as his headquarters.
Dixon, himself, was not a Tory, but he moved quietly and left the house to the British. The British tried to run the grist mill but there was not a miller among them, and it was said that Simon Dixon had jammed the mill wheel so that it would not operate. Another interesting story is told about Lord Cornwallis and Mrs. Dixon. Shortly after the family moved from the house, the General heard a loud argument outside of his door, and opened it to find two sentries talking with the miller’s wife. “What is the trouble?” asked Cornwallis. The old lady boldly informed him that she had left her favorite pipe in the house and that she had returned to get it. Gallantly, Cornwallis escorted her inside and helped her search until she located the pipe, and then showed her out once again.
For several days the Loyalists camped at the mill. Seventy beef cows were seized from local farmers and slaughtered in the nearby field, and benches were dragged from the Cane Creek meeting house on which to cut up the meat. Rails from Simon Dixon’s fences were used by the British as fire wood. Behind them the Tories left much desolation and the hatred of people who might have been their friends.
Cornwallis, himself, it is said, named the settlement “Snow Camp,” which has remained its name until present day.
A group of hunters from Pennsylvania were said to have visited this section about 1748, and to have camped on the spot now known as Snow Camp. They cut trees for shelter and firewood and established a camp in the snow. The next year several of these Pennsylvanians brought their families and settled at the site of the first camp.
Simon Dixon built his grist mill at Snow Camp in 1753, which during the Revolutionary War became for a time the headquarters of the British Army. The Cane Creek Friends Meeting, one of the oldest in the county was established in 1751. Cane Creek derived its name from the heavy growth of cane along its banks.
The plank road from Snow Camp Fayetteville brought new importance to Snow Camp in the middle 1800’s and a number of famous academies and churches grew up in proximity to the village. In 1835 a cotton mill was erected and continued operations until near beginning of the present century. Furniture making was carried on, and a foundry and tan yard were established. Machinery was installed in the foundry in 1886 and woolen mill was begun, later it was transferred to another building, and ceased operations in 1912 when the building burned. In this mill were manufactured all-wool “jean” and suiting from which the clothing of many families were made, and spun wool yarn for use in knitting socks.
Several other mills were more recently established at Snow Camp or nearby. The village had a Masonic Hall, and later a calf club which aided in the beginning of the dairy interests of the community. The citizens of this section led the temperance movement against whiskey, and one of the earliest temperance societies in the South was formed there in 1833.
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