THE STATE
Page Five
November 1 1, 1933
MURPHY— the End of Main Street
No
к
T II CARO
LINA'S "Main
Street’' bo* an
added significance to
every Tar Heel. It means
more than just the main
“drag" in the old honir
town. It means Slate
Highway Number Ten.
that ribbon of hard-sur¬
faced road crossing all the
state and extending more
than 600 miles from At¬
lantic. on the coast of
Carteret County, to the
North Carolinn-tloorgin
line in the southwest cor¬
ner of the state.
Down at the end of
Main Street lies Murphy,
county seat of Cherokee
County.
The majority of Tar
Heels know of Murphy
and Cherokee County
from hearing speakers
proclaim "From Mai Itl'O
to Murphy, from Curri¬
tuck to Cherokee.”
Just a couple of weeks
ago, I came up Main
Street from the western
end, through a beautiful
river valley, and spent
an evening and part of
the next day in Murphy.
Down there at the end of Main Street
I found an interesting community, and
a county, located in one of the most
picturesque settings of any in the state,
in the land of the Cherokee Indians
and near the mountain country known
as the “Land of the Noon-day Sun."
For a most enjoyable, instructive and
interesting visit, I am indebted to Mr.
C. W. Savage, hale, hearty and robust
at the age of 65, who, with his brother,
operates the Regal Hotel on the central
square in Murphy, really the end of
Main Street.
A native of Stokes County. Mr. Sav¬
age nevertheless is a historian carrying
with him a storehouse of knowledge of
the past and a faith in the future of
Murphy and Cherokee County. Mr.
Savage, cane in one hand and pointing
with the other, showed mo many of the
points of interest in his mountain valley
town of almost 3,000 population.
We will use Mr Savage’s own words
in describing the city and the county
COMPARATIVELY few North Carolinians ever hove
visited Murphy. You ought to go up and see it some
time. Mr. Erwin tells you in his article of some of the
many things of interest you'll find up there.
By ROBERT A. ERWIN
North Carolina Manager of the United Press
The court house at Murphy — termed by mony os the
handsomest in North Carolino
and their chief claims to fame.
"Murphy has the only blue marble
courthouse in the United States and
probably in the world,” said Mr. Sav¬
age. as he guided me down the -trect
from the Regal Hotel. “This court¬
house is a beautiful structure and was
constructed in 1925. The front step-
are marble and tlm bases of the columns
are polished by the seats of many pant-
— the pants of the loafers wlm sit and
talk or look down the street to see what
is going on.
“The Ten Commandments are en¬
graved on two white marble slabs em¬
bedded in the walls of the Superior
Court room. The witness chair sits in
front of the slab bearing the command¬
ment, "Thou Shalt Not Rear False Wit¬
ness.’ There is a beautiful eight-point¬
ed star in white and blue marble em¬
bedded in the renter of the courthouse
door downstairs."
The Cherokee County courthouse at
Murphy is one of the largest and most
beautiful in the state, if not in the
whole United State., and
was built of native Chero¬
kee County marble.
Mr. Savage, standing
on the Main Street of
Murphy, pointed to a
mountain side not far
away and directed my at¬
tention to (ho only giant
pyramid monument in
the United States. There¬
in lies a story.
“This town was started
in 1835 and was named
for Archibald I). Mur-
phev. father of public ed¬
ucation in North Caro¬
lina.” Mr. Savage re¬
counts. “It was first
known as Huntersville,
after a man named
Hunter, whom General
Winfield Scott found op¬
erating a trading post
when lie came here to
drive out. the I ndiuiis. His
full . . was Archibald
Russell Spence Hunter,
lie came hero and settled
as a trader among the In¬
dians. Dr. Hitchcock,
surgeon inGenernl Scott's
army, married Hunter’s
daughter and built
я
home
near the bank of the Ili-
wassee River, acre-- from the bridge,
now the edge of Murphy. I>r. Hitch¬
cock remained here and a few years
later his wife and a daughter passed
away. He buried them on the moun¬
tain side near his home and later went
to San Francisco.
"His granddaughter, a Mr*. Covt.
spent most of her life abroad. While
traveling in Egypt, among the pyra¬
mids, she conceived the idea of a type
of monument she wanted to erect over
her grandparents' grave* they had
been dead almost
10»
years. She died
three years ago last winter but before
she died she made a will, leaving $10,000
to erect a marble pyramid monument to
stand over her grandparents’ graves.
It is 25 feet high, 15 feet square at the
base, and was erected and dedicated this
past August, three year* ago. Also she
required in the will that a granddaugh¬
ter from Texas come to Murphy and
receive the monument when it was fin¬
ished and unveiled. Murphy had one
(Continued on page twenty-two)
