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Davidson County Commissioner Max Walser (left) and Tom Magnuson sit and
talk on a berm from the Hillsborough trading path after hiking to the
edge of the Abbotts Creek section of High Rock Lake Tuesday afternoon.
(Donnie Roberts/The Dispatch)
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By WILLIAM KEESLER
The Dispatch
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Max Walser calls this place in the woods "the cloverleaf."
The Trading Path, a route used by Native Americans thousands of years ago,
comes from the Trading Ford at the Yadkin River about eight miles to the west.
At this point on hardwood company land in Cotton Grove, the path splits in two.
One part changes into a road that European settlers of North
Carolina utilized to go east toward Fayetteville
and Wilmington
in the early 1700s. The other part changes into a road that they utilized to go
north toward Hillsborough and Petersburg, Va. Less than a quarter-mile away,
the two roads, which are mostly leaf-covered indentations in the ground now,
lead to fords across Abbotts Creek.
"This is a big deal,"
said Walser, a Davidson
County commissioner.
"This is Interstate 85 out here."
Walser was there Tuesday afternoon with three other men - Tom Magnuson,
executive director of the Hillsborough-based Trading Path Association; Bill
Phillips of High Point, a former state assistant secretary of crime control and
public safety during Jim Hunt's gubernatorial administration and, like Walser,
a member of the Trading Path Association board; and Sim DeLapp Jr., a history
lover and former Davidson County commissioner.
The nonprofit association is trying to identify the fords used by early
inhabitants and settlers in crossing the county's many streams and then to map
the old walking paths, pack horse trails and wagon roads between the fords. But
after finding what appear to be the footprints of old houses on this site down
a muddy unpaved timber road off Hunt Road, they have spent extra time here.
Magnuson found the place by drawing lines on a map between the Trading Ford and
known trading path locations to the north and east. "There were a number
of landmarks and we just connected the dots," Magnuson said.
When a group gathered there to explore on a weekend in early December, Walser
spied a white oak, a favored shade tree, near the trail intersection and went
to check it out. At the base of the tree he discovered an old well, and nearby
he found a rectangular pattern of flat rocks that appear to be the cornerstones
of a former structure.
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 Walser drops a rock into an old well he discovered on the property near
the trading path. (Donnie Roberts/The Dispatch)
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It could have been a house but because of its proximity to
the trails, Walser said, "I want to believe it was a tavern." A
couple of old handmade bricks could be seen nearby on the ground Tuesday.
Magnuson noted that there are three or four white oaks within 100 feet.
"Each one of them was probably a house site," he said.
Also nearby is a patch of blue-violet periwinkle flowers, which often indicate
the proximity of a cemetery. Walser searched widely for the cemetery Tuesday
but failed to find it.
The others headed down the Hillsborough road to where it runs into Abbotts
Creek, now part of High
Rock Lake
and much broader than it would have been in the 1700s. Magnuson said John
Lawson, North Carolina's
surveyor-general, probably used the route after a visit to the Trading Ford
area in 1701, before what was initially a walking path became a wagon road 30
or 40 years later. Lawson chronicled his visit in a book.
The men then headed down the wider and more heavily eroded Fayetteville road to the creek. Magnuson said
he has asked Duke Energy for permission to look on its land for the trading
fords on the opposite shore.
"You want to visualize what it looked like," said DeLapp.
"That's what keeps us walking."
Magnuson said they have found a similar settlement area on Potts Creek in the Jersey Church
community to the west.
When he launched the project last fall, Magnuson said he planned to spend a
year identifying the fords and a second year mapping the paths, trails and
roads. But the project is running a few months behind schedule. Magnuson said
he plans to canoe the Yadkin
River from Clemmons to
the I-85 bridge near Spencer looking for fords next month. He also plans to
look for fords on Leonard's and Swearing creeks.
Higher-than-expected fuel costs have been a problem, Magnuson said. After an
association board retreat this coming weekend in Louisburg, he said, he hopes to renegotiate
the $10,000 contract with Davidson Vision for the mapping project.
He said he is talking with people in several places, including Petersburg,
Va., Lawrenceville,
Va., and Moniseep in Warren
County, N.C., about preserving other sites along the Trading Path.
Walser said it's important to identify such sites for the sake of history, to
determine if they have potential for tourism and to have a chance of preserving
them from development.
"It may wipe them out anyway," Walser said. "But if you identify
them, you have a chance."
William Keesler can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 221, or at
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Copyright 2006 The Dispatch
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