During the quarter of a century that I served as editor of the Richmond County Daily Journal, I often felt the need for a narrative history of the county. Valuable information about the development of the county’s industries and institutions was available in my friend J.E. Huneycutt’s History of Richmond County and from other sources, but there was a need for a book that went back to the beginning and told how the county was settled and how it evolved into what it is today.

With this book, John Hutchinson has satisfied that need. In its pages we learn when Richmond County was settled, by whom it was settled, and how those settlers lived. The book takes those early settlers and their descendants through the Revolutionary War, the development of large-scale agriculture based on slave labor, the Civil War, Reconstruction and into the age of industrialization.

The relevance of those early years to life in Richmond County is established early in the book when we learn the names of the original settlers. They were Covingtons, Webbs, Coles, Walls, Crawfords, Robinsons and McDonalds, family names still common and prominent in this county.

The first major wave of settlement along the banks of the Pee Dee River in what is now Richmond County came in the mid-1700’s. They evidently came into a goodly land. A Swiss map-maker, John Collet, gave a glowing description of the Pee Dee back country in 1769. Here’s some of what he had to say:
 

"The soil is rich, fruitful and fit for every production, such as Indian Corn, Wheat, Barley, Oats, etc, Any sort of Fruits, such as Apples, Pears, Apricots, Nectarines, Peaches, etc. grow very soon and in such abundance that they feed their hogs with them, all sorts of grains and garden plants thrive also in great soil...."

Sounds nice, but Collet should be taken with a grain of salt, since he also wrote, "It is Common to see men a hundred years old working in the woods like Young Ones."

The land was undeniably attractive and drew a large influx of settlers, most of whom intended to till that rich soil to provide a living for themselves and their families. Small farms were the rule in the early days; less than 12 percent of the pre-Revolutionary settlers owned slaves and fewer than two percent owned more than five slaves. The plantation economy did not develop until later when cotton became the crop of choice.

The section on the Revolutionary War reveals that it was primarily a civil war in Richmond County. Neither the British nor the Patriot armies spent much time in the county, but throughout the war there were constant skirmishes between local Patriots and Tories.
The Patriots came out on top, of course, and the county’s leading Patriot, General Henry William Harrington, became the county’s leading citizen after the war.

Harrington Square in downtown Rockingham is named for the General, a wealthy and educated planter, who had a large plantation along the Pee Dee River and extensive landholdings elsewhere. Harrington engaged in many agricultural experiments and was largely responsible for introducing large-scale cotton farming to the county.

Harrington was also involved in establishing a couple of Richmond County traditions that continue to this day. His dispute with Duncan McFarland developed into the county’s first full-scale political feud. And that feud in 1799 produced the first claim that a local election had been stolen.

Hutchinson’s history is a work of scholarly research, but a very readable prose style makes it easily accessible to the reader. Ample endnotes document his sources and demonstrate the breadth of his research. The narrative is moved along smoothly by a clear, concise prose, spiced with occasional flashes of understated wit.

As well as learning of the major developments that shaped the evolution of Richmond County, the reader picks up tasty little historical tidbits. You will learn, for instance, that the Hailey’s Ferry fire, which destroyed that Pee Dee River outpost, was likely started by an oil lamp kicked over during a bout of illicit passion. You’ll read about the Richmond County farmer who willed his still to his two daughters, one of whom was named Temperance. The book’s title, No Ordinary Lives, is appropriate.

This is a book that both entertains and enlightens. I think you’ll enjoy it.

 -- Glenn Sumpter, Former editor,
  Richmond County Daily Journal