(I will read most anything – I draw the line at cereal boxes – so reading a Civil War history was no stretch and I would probably like reading it again. And I’ve read a lot about local history, Wake County and Wake Forest, so I was struck by two familiar names in this book. The sketch below was first a message in the note that I send to all Gazette subscribers on Wednesday evenings.
I’m reading This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place by Mark L. Bradley, and I’ve been struck by two place names that were repeated as waves of retreating Confederate troops and advancing Federal troops headed for Raleigh: Gulley’s Station and Hinton’s Bridge.
Hinton’s Bridge near Milburnie certainly was named for the Hinton family which descended from Col. John Hinton who moved into the eastern part of Wake County and built a log house with a door above head height to deter marauding varmints and humans. The family acquired land and slaves, built houses and married into almost every Wake and Johnston family that owned more than five acres.
And Gulley’s Station on the North Carolina Railroad, a vital link in those days, was surely named for the Johnston County forebearers of Wake Forest’s N.Y. (Needham Yancey) Gulley. I was struck by his name when I first read it years ago and then developed a great regard for the man as I read more.
After graduating in 1879 from Wake Forest College with a master’s degree, Gulley taught school in Raleigh and Smithfield and then began to read law under E.W. Pou, the training for lawyers at the time. He became a licensed lawyer in 1881 and in 1882 moved to Franklinton where he taught and became the principal of the public school at the same time he began a law practice. As an apparent sideline, he was the editor of a newspaper, the Franklinton Weekly. He was also elected in 1885 to the N.C. General Assembly.
In 1893 the Wake Forest College trustees decided to establish a school of law, and N.Y. Gulley became its first and (then) only professor. It was not an instant success. In fact, there were no students all that first year even though Gulley drove his buggy from Franklinton to Wake Forest once a week to give free lectures about law in hopes of attracting someone. There was just one someone in the summer of 1894, but that fall 12 students enrolled. By 1905 Gulley was the dean of the School of Law and had an assistant instructor.
He served on the county board of education for many years and fought in the legislature to improve public education. He helped revise the state’s statutes. But his real stature was in the classrooms.
Gulley had a better won-lost record than any Wake Forest athletic team for almost a quarter century. For 23 years every student in his law classes passed the state bar exam on the first try. They made headlines, and so did he.
Although Gulley and his family lived on Faculty Avenue (North Main Street) for many years in the white Victorian that was Dr. George Mackie’s office for many years and has just been donated by James Mackie to the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society, he also had a farm near Forestville. His Forestville Dairy on Forestville Road sold milk in and around town, and he retired there in 1938. However, World War II disrupted his plans and he returned to teaching until his death in 1945.
One of his sons, Donald, followed his father through Wake Forest College and the School of Law and was a lawyer in Wake Forest for years. He was also the elected judge for the Recorder’s Court in town for years. (Recorder’s Court was the forerunner of today’s District Court.) He and his wife, Sybil, built the rock-faced house on Durham Road, selecting each rock themselves, and the house remains in the family. In 1950 Sybil Gulley and Inez Black, wife of a college professor, purchased The Wake Weekly and published it for four years before selling it to the Bob Allen family.
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2 Responses
Carol, Amazing writing of the history of this town. I hope that our Wake Forest History Museum is archiving this in some way. I guess all towns have interesting histories, but ours seems to have more than its share. Don’t want to loose this history as all our farms and other historical places turn into rows and rows of wood and cement and those people living in those dwellings have no idea of what came before.
A little update for readers: The Wake Forest Birthplace Society sold the white Victorian house at N. Main and Walnut several years ago to the Cook family who did the restoration that now houses their business, Utilitiy Service Agency. The litttle white block building on Walnut Street behind the house was built by James Mackie, Murray Greason, Jr. and I. Beverly Lake, Jr. as James’s “Pop Shop” where the boys, all about 10 years old, sold Cokes and candy to college students attending tennis matches where the Calvin Jones House now stands. At the time James Mackie was the youngest person in the country (possbly the world) with a license to sell Coca-Cola.