THE first Mecklenburgers, according to historian D. A. Tompkins, "were producers. They believed than any work, so it was faithfully and honestly done, was worth doing, and that manhood was more than wealth. Mecklenburg could have existed comfortably cut off from the rest of the world. That makes a people feel independent . . .
WITH so much evidence, as has been presented, of Charlotte's solidarity in all matters pertaining to the general good, it is no wonder that fraternal, welfare, civic, social, and patriotic groups which sprang into being in the twentieth century found in the city a receptive spirit. Such organizations are so plentiful today it is hard to realize that they are of relatively recent growth. Histories and old city directories hardly mention them.
These groups are important because of the tremendous impact they have made on all phases of the city's life.
EVER since Dr. Ephraim Brevard assisted in writing the resolutions which were unanimously adopted as the Mecklenburg declaration of independence, physicians have taken the initiative in maintaining a high state of health and happiness in Charlotte and vicinity. The active lists of members and officers of Charlotte, churches, civic clubs, welfare organizations, and country clubs for any period includes a high percentage of doctors and dentists. In his very readable History of Mecklenburg County Medicine(1929) Dr. C. M.
BY 1960, so many people had been attracted to the Piedmont section of North Carolina that the area within a 75 mile radius of Charlotte had a larger population than an equal area around Atlanta or other southern cities several times the size of Charlotte. As the center of this rich trading territory, Charlotte necessarily became "the crossroads of the Carolinas."
THE discovery of gold in Piedmont Carolina began the first of three important epochs which differentiated the industrial history of Charlotte from neighboring communities. For it was gold, the selection of Charlotte as a railroad junction, and the building of a network of converging highways which made Charlotte great.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, Charlotte was the gold-mining center of the United States. The official figures for domestic sources of gold in the United States for the 50 year period prior to 1848, are:
Virginia $945,294.00
Postal Service in Charlotte
THE earliest postal service to Charlotte, provided by traders and travelers, was highly erratic and expensive. Julia McNinch Slear, writing in the Charlotte Observer on November 25, 1934, pointed out that it was scarcely better than that reported before the beginning of the Christian era in the Books of Job, Esther, and Jeremiah.
By October 1, 1794, however, the Federal Post Office Department considered that Charlotte, with its 325 people, was large enough to justify the opening of a post office.
IN HIS History of Mecklenburg County and the City of Charlotte, D. A. Tompkins gives biographical sketches of eighty men who were prominent in Mecklenburg during and shortly after the Revolution. The most frequent phrase in these sketches is, "he was educated at . . . ," and among the eighty, four were graduates of the College of New Jersey, later Princeton University.
FROM its earliest beginning, Mecklenburg has attracted a churchgoing people, and its society has long been church-centered. But even so, the growth of Charlotte's religious groups in more recent years is remarkable.
SINCE its birth two hundred years ago the crossroads village that was once known as Charlottetown or Charlotteburg has grown into the largest city in the Carolinas and one of the most important industrial and distribution centers in the nation. One of the distinctive features of this growth has been the thoroughness with which newcomers have been assimilated. An observant writer once said: "One adopts Charlotte ways or one does not, in which latter event, one soon moves on." And many did, both native born and newcomers.
IN America there were centuries of frontiers. The Piedmont frontier of the Carolinas was first described by an explorer sent out, in 1670, by Governor Berkeley of Virginia. To this traveler, John Lederer, belongs the credit for opening the trading path used later by the colonists of Virginia for trading with the Indians of the Carolinas. Originally known as the Occoneechee Trail, the Catawba Trading Path became, in the first phase of exploration and settlement, the most important route through the Piedmont.