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North Carolina Open Thread: Ghost town story, Duram lead problems, Asheville Superfund cleanup [1]

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Date: 2023-08-13  

This blog is a weekly feature of North Carolina Blue . This weekly platform gives readers interested in North Carolina politics a place to share their knowledge, insight and inspiration as we take back our state from some of the most extreme Republicans in the nation. Please stop by each week. You can also join the discussion in four other weekly State Open Threads . If you are interested in starting your own state blog, weekly to occasionally, I will list your work below.

WRAL, Heather Leah, Multiplatform producer, 8/9/2023

Many of North Carolina's manmade, recreational lakes have entire ghost towns hidden beneath their surface. However, one lost town in particular has an incredible story of a clever woman who escaped slavery in the 1800s and became a fugitive brewer that created beer so memorable it's still honored by brewers today.

The town where she lived in freedom, making a living on her beloved ale, was known as Rock Landing. Oddly, unlike the mill towns and farmland that we so often find beneath lakes, Rock Landing was apparently known for being pretty metropolitan for its time, according to Steven Lassiter Green-Hockaday, a historian who has been doing research on the role of the Underground Railroad in Rock Landing.

"It was supposed to be the next New York or Philadelphia," said Green-Hockaday. "Rock Landing was at the beginning of the Roanoke Canal, which was a big deal in 1817."

This would have made Rock Landing a center of shipping in North Carolina, bringing in wealth and people from all over the country.

It also made the town an ideal place for those escaping slavery to hide – because the Roanoke Canal and Roanoke River in Halifax County are both known for their major roles as 'freedom roads,' helping enslaved men and women escape slavery from this area of the state. Even today, Halifax County is the only place in NC with three registered historic sites on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. These are places where visitors can touch tangible remnants of this painful and powerful past.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/13/2186953/-North-Carolina-Open-Thread-Ghost-town-story-Duram-lead-problems-Asheville-Superfund-cleanup

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