- Title
- Our State
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-
- Date
- February 2002
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Our State
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tarjieel
towns
Warsaw
History trucks a parotic of patriotic fenvr in this Duplin County town
that lies just minutes away from all five Tar Heel military bases.
by Susan I.. Comer
Intermingled with carnival rides
candied apples and a day off from
school for a young Dan McNeill
were military floats, marching units,
and some truly eye-popping sights —
flv-oveis from Seymour Johnson Air
Force Base, paratroopers from Fort
Bragg, and Camp Lejeune Marines in
rigorous rows of dress blue. "I probably
thought it was just the way all of
America did." says McNeill, recounting
boyhood memories of Veterans Day in
his hometown of Warsaw.
But. of course, not even- town in
America is ensconced by some of the
largest military installations in the
world. I asi November. Warsaw cele¬
brated its SI st Annual Veterans Day
celebration, making it the oldest consec¬
utive Veterans Day celebration in the
country. With all five Tar Heel military
bases — Fort Bragg. Pope Air Force
Base. Camp Lejeune. Cherry Point, and
Seymour Johnson — |ust minutes away.
It’s no wonder this town of 3,000 takes
its patriotism so seriously.
Dan the man
Warsaw welcomed home a favorite
son on Veterans Day 2000. Serving as
that year’s parade marshal was none
other than Lt. Gen. Dan McNeill,
once just a wide-eyed kid in the
crowd, now commander of the I Nth
Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg. The
sense of community in Warsaw, he
says, played no small role in getting
him there.
"I'd sav that I clearly knew the differ¬
ence between right and wrong." says
McNeill. “It was imprinted on me grow¬
ing up in Warsaw. That’s not to say I
always did right. I suspect I was as
much a hellion as anybody at some time
in my life, but I always knew there was
a reckoning."
And. today, when he gets the inevitable
jokes because Ins hometown shares a
name with the capital of Poland — “You
don't look Polish. Your name doesn't
sound Polish." — he falls back on
lessons learned in Mrs. Farnor’s eighth-
grade North Carolin.i-historv class.
The naming of this south¬
eastern Coastal
«к
Plain hamlet, you
see. makes for a
pretty good
story.
where local resident Henry Moore was
laying out lots along the line. Shortly
thereafter, the area came to be called
Moores ville.
Coincidentally, popular at the time
was Thaddeus of Warsaw, the bio¬
graphy of Tadcusz Koscius/.ko, a Polish
national hero who aided America dur¬
ing the Revolutionary War. particularly
in the Battle of Saratoga. Locals soon
adopted the book title as an affection¬
ate nickname for their stationmaster.
By I X47, the community was referred
to as “Warsaw Depot." and upon
incorporation in 1855, was officially
named “Warsaw."
Station in life
During the 1830s and ’40s, settlers in
Duplin and surrounding counties farmed
the rich soil and harvested resin from
the plentiful longlcaf pine forests to
manufacture such naval staples
as turpentine,
tar, and
N
Thaddeus
of Warsaw
The area that is now Warsaw was
first settled around 1825 as a stage
depot stop on the old Fayetteville to
New Bern road, but the impetus that
created a town was the rail line built
from Wilmington to Weldon in 1838.
That year, stationmaster Thaddeus Love
arrived at the Duplin County depot
pitch.
The railroad
stations along the
Wilmington & Weldon served as collec¬
tion and distribution points for goods
produced. Thus. Warsaw grew slowly,
but steadily; a post office was created in
1855, a Baptist college in 1856. By
I860, cotton and grains had exceeded
naval stores in economic impact.
18 ( hit state February 2002