100 years of history
By Carol W. Pelosi
(In 2003, when the Gazette began, I ran a long history series that ambled and jumped and went in different directions but always told the stories of this town and area. There are some corrections because I have learned more history. Here it is, starting with the first article.)
At first it was just Wake Forest College, with students and professors, professors’ families and slaves, living and studying in the former home of Dr. Calvin Jones and spreading out to the outbuildings and even a tent that served as a dining room.
The town, with stores and some homes, was at Forestville, a mile down a dusty road. After 1840, Forestville also had the train station and post office.
The town of Wake Forest only really began in 1839 when the college offered 80 one-acre lots for sale at $100 each except for those on the west side of North Main Street, which were $150. The lots sold slowly, mostly to professors, and by the end of the Civil War there were only 15 homes, one hotel and one store in addition to the college building.
The college sorely felt the lack of a railroad station for its students, and for years petitioned Raleigh & Gaston Railroad officials to move the station nearer the college. Finally, in 1874, after the college paid $3,000, a very large sum in those days, the station was moved, lifted whole onto a flatbed train car and trundled up to a site next to the college. The controversy over the move led to a split in the congregation of Forestville Baptist Church.
In 1879, perhaps spurred by the loss of the station, Forestville was chartered as a town. At that time it had 116 residents.
Not to be outdone, the town of Wake Forest sought and obtained a charter the following year, styling itself the Town of Wake Forest College with a population of 456. It was mapped as a rectangle containing 960 acres. James S. Purefoy was named mayor and there were five commissioners.
James Purefoy was the richest man in town, paying the most in property taxes. At the request of the college trustees, of which he was one, he built the Wake Forest Hotel and a general store next door, which his wife operated, across a street from the campus. After the hotel was built, Purefoy sold his house in Forestville and apparently moved his family into the hotel.
Purefoy and his wife, Mary Fort, had six children. The oldest two sons, Addison and Frederick, both owned general stores in town by 1880; the two daughters were married; and the youngest son, Edgar, had been killed in the trenches at Petersburg.
In the 1870s, James Purefoy purchased a small house and enlarged it. After his death in 1889 the house was inherited by Addison, who in turn left it to his only child, Emma, who married William “Doctor Billy” Poteat, later the well-known president of Wake Forest College. The house, with the later addition of “Gone with the Wind” pillars, is now the offices for the Wake Forest Baptist Church.
The original book of the minutes for that first town board is in the Wake Forest Historical Museum awaiting translation — the handwriting for many meetings is abysmal — and it abounds with references to street names and landmarks that no longer exist. Dr. I. Beverly Lake Sr., born in Wake Forest in 1906, said it seemed the college governed the town with the president and faculty laying down rules.
But in 1908 and 1909, the times were changing. Automobiles, yes; but the burning question was electricity. The Wake Forest College trustees wanted to throw out the coal-oil and kerosene lamps – fire hazards all – and put electric lights in the college buildings.
The problem was that the town needed to have an identity separate from the college to be able to issue bonds for an electric light plant. On Feb. 22, the General Assembly authorized the town to issue those bonds at the same time the bill to recharter the town was moving through the legislature. It became the Town of Wake Forest.
The town board met on March 1 in its new identity, and three apparently newly elected commissioners were sworn in: Charles E. Brewer, C.E. Gill and F.W. Dickson. Mayor Sol J. Allen and Commissioners Z.V. Peed and O.K. Holding already held office. The board voted to adopt all the old ordinances and re-elected W.W. Bobbitt as the town policeman. His salary was $35 a month and he did not receive any fees.
Bobbitt was asked to take a census, reporting the population was 1,225. Gill was asked to estimate the value of the property taken into the town limits by the recent extension. It was not noted where that extension was. Gill said the new property’s tax value was $34.500.
The old minutes, handwritten by the member of the board elected as secretary, was sometimes undecipherable, sometimes entirely missing for a month or more, and in many cases gives more hints than a full story.
However, we know that an election was held on April 12, 1909, on the question of issuing $15,000 of bonds for an electric plant. On April 16 the registrar, E. Allen, and the two judges, W.P. Perry and I. Fort, reported the results. There were 109 registered voters, white males who paid their poll tax. Eighty-eight voted for the bonds and one against.
It was obvious everyone wanted the lights now! At that same April 16 meeting, the commissioners voted to “investigate” having B. Parker Rucker of Charlotte build the plant and four days later they hired him.
The next installment will cover the financial crises and how to double taxes in one year.
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