By
JOHN IIAKIIEiN
One of North Carolina's
favorite myslery
stories, retold by one off
North Carolina's fa¬
vorite story tellers.
Dr.iwine by John Sink
Chatham Couniy, smilingly known
for a traditional rabbit population,
also has a lively unsolved mystery —
a mystery of nature.
Chatham, an historic couniy, was
settled in 1771 by planters who moved
in from the Cape Fear region. Both
the couniy and the county seat. Pitts-
boro, were named for the Earl of
Chatham, William Pitt, champion of
The Devil's Tramping Ground
colonial rights in the British Parlia¬
ment.
The present Chatham County court¬
house was built at Pittsboro in 1882
at a time when that village was known
as Chatham Court House. Cornwallis
spent a night at Chatham Court House
in the course of his march to Wilming¬
ton after the Battle of Guilford Court
House. David Fanning and his band
of Tories once raided the town while
a court-martial was in progress and
captured forty-four persons as a part
of Fanning's program of terrorizing
that area during the Revolutionary
War period. So Chatham County, rich
in history, looks back over nearly two
centuries of vibrant life.
Against this background we have an
unsolved mystery, a curiosity of na¬
ture that has grown into a legend, has
attracted thousands of visitors to the
scene of the phenomenon, and has
brought forth hundreds of explanations
as to its origin.
We go ten miles from Siler City to
a point in western Chatham County
for the scene of this strange story.
Here we find a cleared path in a per¬
fect circle in a grove of trees on the
L. R. Down property. This path has
existed as far back as the memory of
man — and it has always been just
as it is found today, without so much
as a sprig of vegetation growing in
the pathway. The spot is just off a
rural highway and has no more of¬
ficial marking or designation than a
state highway sign at Harper Cross
Roads, one mile distant, pointing to
the odd spot.
It's the Devil's Tramping Ground,
the Chatham natives say. And the
story is that the Devil goes there to
walk in circles as he thinks up new
means of causing trouble for humanity.
There, sometime during the dark of
night, the Majesty of the Underworld
of Evil silently tramps around and
around that bare circle — thinking, plot¬
ting. and planning against good, and
in behalf of wrong.
So far as is known, no person has
ever Spent the night there to disprove
that this is what happens and that this
is what keeps grass, weeds and other
vegetation worn clean and bare from
the circle called the Devil's Tramp¬
ing Ground.
The cleared spot, surrounded by
trees, comprises a perfect circle with
a forty-foot diameter. The path itself
From the • book "Devil's Tramping
Ground." reprinted by special permis¬
sion of the U.N.C. Press.
is about a fool wide and is barren of
any obstruction — growing or other¬
wise. A certain variety of wire grass
grows inside the circle in a limited
fashion and residents of that neigh¬
borhood say that any attempts to trans¬
plant any of it have met with failure.
Broomscdgc. moss, and grasses grow
on the outer edge of the circular path,
but not inside the eircle.
Persons who visit the spot frequent¬
ly place slicks and stones in the path
and sometimes lie stieks there, anchor¬
ing them with strings across the cleared
band of earth, but the path is always
found clear the next day. This, the
story has it, indicates that the Devil
kicks the obstacles aside on his night¬
ly perambulations.
Many have been the cxplantions
offered for this oddity of nature —
this perfect circle that year after year
ever remains clear of any growth what¬
soever.
One of the oldest and best-known
of the legendary explanations for the
Devil's Tramping Ground is that hun¬
dreds of years ago when many Indian
tribes roamed the section that is now
Chatham County — known then to the
Indians as the Great Flats — the tribes
would meet at periodic occasions in
celebrations and feasts. The spot that
THE STATE, July 11
1953
