Wayne County, NC - Heritage Series

Reprinted with permission of the Mount Olive Tribune and cannot be 
reproduced without permission. 
Transcribed by Linda Harmon.

                       CHERRY DALE IS RESTORED

Our Heritage
By Claude Moore
November 15, 1991

   Cherry Dale, located on the old Warsaw-Clinton Road three miles northwest 
of Turkey, is one of the early surviving landmarks in the Turkey community.

  It was built in 1832 by a bachelor, Lewis Moore and has been occupied 
since that time except for the four years prior to the recent restoration.  
It has recently been restored by Mr. And Mrs. Floyd Smith who are formerly 
of Warsaw.  We hope to get it on the National Register of historic buildings.

   The house has four rooms upstairs and five rooms downstairs.  The 
original kitchen was separate from the main house and long ago disappeared 
as have the old barns and slave houses.  I moved the smokehouse to my museum
and we will eventually place our "hog killing artifacts" there.  The timbers
in the house are from the heart of longleaf pine and the original bricks in 
the chimneys were made by hand on the place.  The building style would 
probably be modified Early American.

   After Lewis Moore died, the place passed to his brother, John T. Moore 
(1803-1852) and then to his daughter, Sallie E. Moore (1849-1935).  She 
married the Rev. John L. Britt (1849-1901) and then the house went to their 
son John L. Britt and then to his wife, Lizzie Seay Britt.  She left the 
place to me and I sold the house and house lot to the present owners.

   For a number of years the Spring Vale post office was kept here and the 
mail was brought by the stage coaches running from Fayetteville to New Bern.
Old Spring Vale Presbyterian Church stood a few hundred yards west of the 
house and old Beulah (Ten Mile) Church organized in 1813 is just a mile to 
the north on the old Raleigh road.  The place was named Cherry Dale because 
when the house was built there was a grove of cherry trees nearby.

   In March 1865 when General Judson Kilpatrick's Yankee Cavalry were camped
at Mount Olive, one of his brigade commanders, Brig. Gen. Smith Atkins made 
a foraging raid in the Turkey neighborhood and he and his staff spent one 
night at Cherry Dale at Mrs. Maria O. Moore was a widow and two of her sons 
were with the Confederate Army in Virginia.  One son, Lewis, was at home 
recovering from a wound which he received at the Battle of Spottsylvania 
Courthouse.  The Yankee doctor dressed the wound and gave him medicine and 
gave some coffee to the family.  When the Yankee left they carried off the 
cows, chickens, hogs, and corn.

   Cherry Dale has been brought to life again by Mr. And Mrs. Floyd Smith.
They did much of the restoration work themselves. It is good to see this 
historic building so well appreciated.

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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Linda Harmon <lharmon@ex.oci.pcc.edu>

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