Nick
Dalton's
Halfway
House
Thai's where the action
uas a century or so ago.
By ZEB DENNY
Every time the Nick Dalton House
was mentioned in Grandmother Den¬
ny's presence, she said, with a wist¬
fully nostalgic glint in her eyes:
"That’s where my feet did the talk¬
ing.”
Grandmother — bom Ellen Gordon
in 1841 and married in 1867 to Byrd
Denny, a veteran of Lee's Central Vir¬
ginia battles — was referring to the
widely known and popular dances that
were held in the ballroom of the Nick
(David Nicholas) Dalton home, which
was built on a high knoll above the
Little Yadkin River in Stokes County,
about twenty miles north of Salem.
The ballroom, where Grandmother
and dozens of other girls of Stokes and
southeastern Surry counties gathered
to relieve the traumatic and tragic at¬
mosphere created by the War Between
the States, consisted of the entire third
floor of the twenty-two room dwelling.
That Ellen Gordon — still an
auburn-haired, brown-eyed beauty
when 1 knew- her in the early years of
this century — would be a guest in the
Dalton home was a natural outcome of
a business relationship. The Nick
Dalton place and the home of Squire
Gordon. Ellen's father, both served as
stage stops on the Salem-Mount Airy
Road until the railroad took their busi¬
ness from them in 1887.
Stagecoach Stop
However. Nick Dalton was either
more industrious or more talented than
my great grandfather Gordon, and
grew in affluence and influence to a far
greater degree than my ancestor. In the
first place, the Dalton home stood
about halfway between Salem and
Mount Airy (known in the early days
as The Hollow), thus giving Dalton the
advantage of location, in relation to the
stage traffic, over Squire Gordon,
whose home was eight miles farther
north. While Squire Gordon served the
stage line only by keeping a change of
horses as the stage line needed them.
Nick Dalton catered to the appetites of
the travelers and lodged them, in addi¬
tion to furnishing the line with fresh
horses.
But Nick Dalton, whose home be¬
mill. a distillery, a wagon shop, a har¬
ness shop, a tanyard, a blacksmith
shop and forge, and a large general
store.
For his personal use he had a large
feedbarn. forty horse stalls, a carriage
house, several granaries, a two-tiered
smokehouse, and quarters for his
numerous servants and field hands.
Whiskey and Tobacco
The village complex — which had in
the beginning grown up around the
Boyles' Store Post Office — eventu¬
ally took the name of "Dalton." Atone
period in its life, the village contained
forty-three buildings either built or
owned by Dalton and his family.
"...Ail Hood before the foofworn field-stone slob thot still serves os the front doorstep ... I heord the
f .Idled tunes, the stomping boots of the boys-in-groy on leove from the bottlefields ... os the Dolfons ployed
host ... in the grond ond grodous style of the
его
. . ."
came widely known by travelers as
"The Halfway House." was not con¬
tent to limit his interest to feeding the
passersby and supplying horsepower
for the stages. He branched out. ex¬
panding into many diversified enter¬
prises.
According to existing data and
legend, Dalton, after beginning his
farming operations along the banks of
the Little Yadkin River in 1840. in¬
creased his holdings until he owned
3.000 acres of land, a tobacco factory
with a hydraulic press for manufac¬
turing "plug." a factory for making
boxes to ship the tobacco in. a flour
Dalton grew most of the raw mate¬
rials for his manufactured products.
He used the fertile bottom lands along
the river to grow the grains for his
w'hiskey. and the steeper slopes to
grow the apples for his brandy. On the
gray-soiled uplands, he raised the fine
quality tobacco that went into his
"plugs." In the rougher terrain, not
suitable for cultivation, he raised his
pork and beef, slaughtering, according
to legend, two beeves each week just
to feed his servants and hired help.
Not only did Dalton grow the to¬
bacco and grain that he turned into
manufactured products, but he and his
THE STATE. DECEMBER 1978
26
