Page:The North Carolina Historical Review - Volume 1, Number 1.pdf/14

12 The pendulum begins to swing back, and all the conditions are more favorable for the beginnings of a new era in the relatively neglected States of the Atlantic seaboard. As we enter upon what in my opinion is destined to be a very memorable time of economic readjustments, with a revival of rural life as its most marked and most desirable feature, the position of North Carolina is exceptionally favorable.

This is true because of the geographical position of the State, its greatest resources, its capacity for well-balanced and permanent forms of agriculture; but especially it is true because it has not yet been over-developed as a manufacturing State, and is still a commonwealth of farmers and rural communities, descended by natural increase from the earlier American stock.

I have always been interested in observing local American types, and I am as far from bias or prejudice, perhaps, as any American could well be. Both of my maternal great-grandfathers, of the old Massachusetts stock, were pioneering just after the Revolution in the woods of New Hampshire and Vermont, while my two paternal great-grandfathers at the same time had joined the westward movement, and were in Kentucky. One of these two had sold his land in North Carolina and made his with thousands of other North Carolinians through the passes of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies. The other had gone from the Pennsylvania-Maryland line with the thousands who were flat-boating down the Ohio River. Afterwards, these two paternal great-grandfathers crossed the river from Kentucky and joined the settlers who were founding the State of Ohio.

My own grandfather, a youth of twenty years, was with the southern advance guard in Louisiana at the time of the purchase of that territory by Jefferson. Nothing whatever in the history of the families from whom I am descended was in any way striking or unusual, so far as I am aware. They spread across the country from the southern colonies, the middle colonies, and the New England colonies. Their ramifications extended all the way to the Pacific coast. They helped to bear the burden and heat of pioneering days in many States, as preachers, doctors, editors, lawyers, politicians, traders—but mostly as plain, sturdy farmers. Thus, as I have had incentives