Imagine the Scene

The Log College

From the lot, walk to the paved trail into the park that parallels Cornwallis Drive closest to the lot entrance. Turn right, and stay to the right, passing the rock outline of a foundation on the left. According to the most recent archaeological studies here, those piles most likely mark the Caldwells’ second home built sometime between 1790 and 1800.[1]

Continue down the sidewalk to the rock monuments on the left. Go to the second one, for David, which incorrectly states their home was north of here. Face the lawn to your right.

Building materials and household artifacts found in this immediate area in 2009 suggest a domestic structure is in front of you in 1781, possibly the first home of the Rev. David Caldwell and his wife, Rachel. If so, it is “a double cabin, or a log house, with a chimney in the middle, an outer door to each apartment, and a communication from one to the other.”[2] The second floor houses his 1767 “Academy,” later called the “Log College.” The college “served as a boarding-room academy, a college, a theological seminary, and one of the few schools on the frontier anywhere.”[3] Caldwell was also pastor of the Alamance and Buffalo Presbyterian churches, and a physician.

Around the house are several small log cabins the students live in. A “large brick oven” is steps from the house, and a smokehouse is nearby. The house sits within a fence, probably made of vertical planks close together, with a front gate. Caldwell owns the 275 acres surrounding you, including several farms.

Eight or nine enslaved people took care of the buildings and students during the war. After Caldwell’s horse was stolen by three men claiming it was for the army, he asked one of those men, the enslaved Tom, to steal it back that night. He did!

A War of Words

Look directly toward the parking lot. The closest tree across the lawn, where the grass gives way to dirt, was in the center of a colonial road running left to right.[4] If this is the house location, the gate would be within your view near the modern lawn edge in 1781.

Caldwell is a well-known Patriot (“Whig”), not only because he is an outspoken advocate from his pulpits for independence, but he had served in the 1776 convention in Halifax that created North Carolina’s first state constitution. There was an additional incentive for militia and Redcoat scouts to seek out Rev. Caldwell. Cornwallis put a £200 bounty on his head, today worth around $37,000.[5]

Caldwell built a shack on North Buffalo Creek two miles from here to use as a hideout whenever Tories came looking for him. The stream running through the modern Bicentennial Gardens to the south feeds into Buffalo Creek, so named because wild buffaloes still roamed the region when Europeans first arrived.

In Fall 1780 a rider shows up at the door seeking a rest stop, Caruthers reports. He is carrying letters from Gen. George Washington to the Continental commander in the South.[a] Rachel tells him she will feed him, but he should sleep elsewhere, because she is under constant harassment by Tories. Sure enough, the food is barely out before Loyalist militia (part-time soldiers) show up, apparently having heard of the stranger’s arrival. Rachel quickly ushers the courier out the back door and tells him to hide in a nearby thickly leaved, but thorny, locust tree, perhaps to your left or behind you. The Tories surround the house. Once they are done searching, he climbs down the far side of the trunk and escapes.

Contrary to some sources, the British army did not approach and leave the Battle of Guilford Court House on the nearby road, much less camp here before the battle. (See the Battle of New Garden for the actual route.) But detachments roamed the area foraging and seeking out Patriot leaders with Tory help.

Caruthers says a domestic servant is working in the yard on Saturday, March 11, 1781. (Likely enslaved, her name is lost to history.) The servant hears a commotion in the distance and stands on the fence to see the cause. Soon after, a group of militia soldiers arrive at the gate. They ask her to get the landlady, claiming to be Patriots seeking David’s medical help. (Militia on both sides wore everyday clothes, not uniforms.) What this band doesn’t know is what she had seen in the distance from the fence: the red coats of some regular British soldiers traveling with them! Either this party was Loyalist militiamen, or Redcoats in borrowed clothing. Rachel comes out to greet them, but the servant manages to warn her. The soldiers repeat their request. Rachel says she must check on a child, goes back in the house, and warns visiting Patriot neighbors. They escape out the back door while she goes back to the gate.

The soldiers announce they are taking over the house. (Given that the main army was miles away, this suggests the men were probably Tory militia, though it could have been a British detachment.) Over her protests, they invade the house and either order or allow her and her eight children to move to the smokehouse.

Caruthers picks up the story: They “there passed a day with no other food than a few dried peaches and apples, till a physician interposed, and procured for her a bed, some provisions, and a few cooking utensils. The family remained in the smoke house two days and nights—their distress being frequently insulted by profane and brutal language. To a young officer who came to the door for the purpose of taunting the helpless mother, by ridiculing her countrymen, whom he termed rebels and cowards, Mrs. Caldwell replied, ‘Wait and see what the Lord will do for us.’ ‘If he intends to do anything,’ pertly rejoined the military fop, ‘’tis time he had begun.’” When she asks a soldier for protection, she is told “she could expect no favors, for that the women were as great rebels as the men.

“After remaining two days, the army took their departure from the ravaged plantation, on which they had destroyed every thing; but before leaving Dr. Caldwell’s house, the officer in command gave orders that his library and papers should be burned. A fire was kindled in the large oven in the yard, and books which could not at that time be replaced, and valuable manuscripts which had cost the study and labor of years, were carried out by the soldiers, armful after armful, and ruthlessly committed to the flames. Not even the family Bible was spared, and the house, as well as plantation, was left pillaged and desolate.”[6] Presumably the stolen goods were taken to Cornwallis’ army, now camped at Deep River Meeting House, a day’s march to the southwest.

Two days later, the Battle of Guilford Court House was fought a few miles directly north, easily heard from here. Rachel apparently spent the day in prayer with women of the Buffalo Creek congregation in one of their homes. After the battle, David helped tend to the wounded. There is a monument to him on the battlefield.

Close Calls

Months before and after the two main armies left the area, Loyalist and Whig militias fought a civil war within the Revolutionary War. Caldwell was a hunted man.

One time he sneaks back home, Caruthers says, only to have Tory militia surround the house again. He is dragged out to the yard and held under guard while the Loyalists steal whatever they can find of value inside. A neighbor woman, a Mrs. Dunlap, comes out, leans down to him, and loudly whispers a question to him, “asking if it was not time for Gillespie and his men to be here.” One of the guards overhears her, as she intended, and demands to know what she meant. Apparently Gillespie is one of the Patriot militia commanders known to be vicious to Tories, most likely Capt. Daniel Gillespie of the Guilford County Militia.[7] Panic ensues, and the Tories flee, leaving behind Caldwell and their plundered goods!

Another time a Loyalist decides to take a fine tablecloth Rachel especially likes. She grabs it and enters into a tug-of-war with the man. When he begins to win she asks if there is no man who, having wives and daughters of his own, will stand up for her. One is shamed into doing so and makes the thief let go.

Tories show up at the door late another night. They tell Rachel they are Patriots and need to find her husband to treat wounded peers. Erring on the side of compassion, she tells them where his hideout is. Almost immediately after they leave, she realizes they tricked her. She spends the night in fear and prayer. Fortunately, the reverend was away from the hut when they arrived. In fact, he was never captured despite the many attempts.

Graves

David and Rachel were buried about a ten-minute drive from here. To pay your respects, read the “Historical Tidbits” section below before you leave, and then:

1. From the parking lot, turn right on Cornwallis Drive.
2. Drive 3.6 miles to Church Street.
3. Turn left, and drive 0.5 miles to 16th Street.
4. Turn left into the circular driveway in front of Buffalo Presbyterian Church, and park.

Walk to the left of the sanctuary. Go through the arched walkway to the back of the building, veering slightly left around the rear. Turn left and walk to the parallel lines of low bushes, which outline their plot.

Rachel is on the far left, and David is to her right. They probably lie at normal depths below “table markers” put up by a son, common memorials of the day built to look like tombs.

After the war, Caldwell also served in the Hillsborough convention to consider the new U.S. Constitution in 1788. He turned down an offer to be the first president of the University of North Carolina, but received the university’s first honorary degrees.[8] He is credited with preaching a sermon at the post-Revolution courthouse in Greensboro that convinced Guilford County men to volunteer for the War of 1812. He continued preaching in the churches until age 95, and died at 99 in their second home likely marked by the rock outline at the Historic Park.

Rachel largely disappears from the historical record except as assisting David with the college and raising their nine children, three of whom may have had mental illnesses.[9] At least three others died as infants. Rachel died at 81, less than a year after David.