Anson Hotel Fire
1868 - July Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for Anson County:
It is
ordered by the Court for the information of those who succeed us and the
living present alike that the following be made a part of the records of
this Court:
On Thursday morning, April 2, 1868, between twelve and one
o’clock, a fire occurred in the town breaking out near the store house
of J. R. Hargrave, then unoccupied except as a depot for some cotton,
which rapidly extended to the store houses occupied by Morton’s Brewery
and the Anson Hotel, destroying them; thence communicating northward
burning the store houses of S.W. Cole, A. E. Bennett and Jesse Edwards,
involving the Court House, the entire records of the Superior Court, the
most part of those of the County and Equity Courts, and the line of
buildings extending thence eastward to and including the jail and
kitchen, where by great efforts and the blessings of Our Heavenly
Father, it was stopped. About 32 buildings were destroyed. In
consequence of the loss of the Court House, the Court met at the Baptist
Church within the corporate lands of the Town of Wadesborough.
- Remarks from the memory of Risden F. Bennett recorded Sept. 13, 1912.
Minute Docket N./79 -NCA
I transcribed the
above account from original court records (at NC
Archives) of Anson some time ago.
Myrtle Bridges hbridges@postoffice.worldnet.att.net