Bulletin Bicentennial Edition, 1976)
By Jarred Marlowe
In November 1753, a band of Moravian settlers passed through what is now Henry County, Virginia, on the final leg of a long journey from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to their new home in the Yadkin Valley near present-day Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The religious community kept a meticulous diary of the trip, and the entries covering their six days in the region paint a remarkable picture of the land, its people, and the punishing demands of frontier travel.
The group entered Henry County over the mountain near Ferrum, following the Town Creek Valley to Philpott before tracing the Smith River to a wagon ford at the mouth of Blackberry Creek. From there they pushed south along Horsepasture Creek through what is now Preston. On November 6, Brother Hermanus stayed behind to thresh oats for a local farmer named Mr. Johnsen while the others pressed ahead through a stretch of road so narrow the wagon could barely turn. They crossed a creek winding through a swamp roughly thirty times in a single stretch, relying on block and tackle to pull the wheels free from the muddy holes.
By November 7, the company had climbed out of the swamp and faced a hill so steep it had to be taken in stages. A medium-sized creek waited at the bottom, and the road beyond turned slippery enough that the horses could not keep their footing. The wagon was strained in the descent and a board in the body broke. They stopped to make repairs by a creek while Brother Losch scouted the road ahead. From the ridge top they caught their first glimpse of Pilot Mountain across the Carolina line and, heartened by the sight, drove one mile along the ridge before a very steep descent brought them down to Smith’s River. The low, beautiful bottomland along the river was full of wild grapes, which the travelers found very good to eat.
The night of November 8 found them camped at the foot of a hill near the river after Brother Gottlob rode ahead and determined the ascent was too steep to attempt with a loaded wagon. Several of the brethren took the horses half a mile to a meadow, and the company settled in for what they called a comfortable, peaceful night. The next morning was anything but peaceful. Heavy rain had caused the river to rise two feet overnight. Water ran under the tent and the travelers lay in it, unable to escape. With crossing now impossible, the group spent the better part of two days camped in place, drying blankets, darning stockings, mending gear, and buying corn and meat from nearby neighbors who were quite pleased to have paying customers detained so conveniently.
On November 11 the river had dropped enough to attempt a crossing on horseback. One man rode through to test the ford before the wagons followed. November 12 brought more steep hills and a difficult crossing at a creek called Horse Pasture, which had badly undercut banks. Word from locals was that they would scarcely make it across, but grubbing hoes and shovels proved the skeptics wrong. They stopped at noon at Adam Loving’s plantation, purchased ten bushels of corn, and received directions through the first branch of the Mayo River. That crossing took two hours despite the water being lower than usual. Three miles further they reached the main branch of the Mayo, about as wide as Lehigh Creek back in Pennsylvania. They spent their last night on Virginia soil gathered around a single fire, sleeping in the open.
November 13 began at three in the morning when rain drove them back onto the road before dawn. At the Carolina boundary the road crossed a creek two miles from camp. One of the brothers lost his hat trying to retrieve something from a tree over the stream. By afternoon they were picking their way over hills so steep the wagons could barely climb them. That night they pushed on in darkness toward the Dan River, a lone brother walking ahead of the wagon with a pine torch to light the way. They reached the river at two in the morning, twenty-five miles from where they had started that day.
The diary survives as one of the few detailed firsthand accounts of the road through this section of Virginia in the years before the Revolution, and it remains an uncommonly vivid record of the landscape, the hardships, and the quiet faith of the people who traveled it.
Jarred Marlowe is a local resident and historian. He is a member of the Col. George Waller Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Blue & Gray Education Society, and the committee chair for the Martinsville-Henry County 250 Committee. He may be reached at marloweja15@gmail.com.
