It must have been early in 1999 when I started making expeditions beyond our perimeter with Irving Wonder. We just wanted to see what was there. It was the Spencer tract that instigated the explorations. Our deed for that tract was filed on April 23, 1999. I remember Mr. Spencer asking how long we needed to close after we had come to terms. He suggested, "90 days should be enough, shouldn't it?" It was during that 90 days that I dug deep into the records and landscape all around the tract. I already had a pretty good idea where most of the borders were. I found a Black Gum tree that was marked. It was a corner to the Crooks' tract. You can see it in the section about obtaining land on Mr. How's page. I read about it in deeds going back a century, I knew it was there. Mr. Crooks' spot sits between the Spencer tract and what we now call, our peaceable kingdom. Louise Powell's land was fairly evident to the south as was Mr. Warta's land to the north. But there were some things that didn't fit, there was a gap.

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        I couldn't find a deed that lined up with the mystery land, there were no tax records. Who owned it? No one seemed to know and I was intent on finding out. Luther, I don't remember his last name, was the man at the Alexander County Tax Office who ran the mapping department. I knew him a little bit from getting maps, I asked him about it. He had been there for many years at that point. He not only knew about the tract, he went to his file cabinet and produced a deed!

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        It was a "Timber Deed" from 1950. It did not sell the land, it sold the timber. I'm not sure where Luther got it. I don't think it was recorded but it was evidently filed, in the sense that someone stuck it in a file cabinet, years prior. The property was owned by J. R. Bowman. It's boundaries were described as follows:

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        "Beginning at a rock corner in Moses Austin's line east forty-one poles to Daniel Bowman's corner a black oak - Thence south with said Bowman's line seventeen poles to a pine Bowman's corner on Wittenberg's line - Thence west with Wittenberg's line forty-one poles to a pine stump in Barnhill's line - Thence with Barnhill's line to the beginning corner seventeen poles containing four acres and a quarter..."

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        Those names sounded familiar, especially Moses Austin. I knew he was the county's first registrar of deeds. Of course there were many Moses Austins, I suppose there still are. Still, I was pretty sure the description was copied from deeds past. I had seen that a lot in my research. Unless there is a new survey, many times the metes and bounds from the previous deed were used. This can happen over and over, so often times it was impossible to tell when the actual survey happened and who the adjoining land-owners were at that time. 

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        Soon after, while going through the files of  "Falls Manufacturing Company" I found another reference to the tract, this one was recorded. Fall Manufacturing Company was the entity that built Rink Dam in the early 20's. Rink dam impounds the Middle Little River before it empties into the Catawba River. The endeavor required FMC to buy up all the land to be flooded. It also required "Water Rights Deeds" for any land connected to the river or the creeks that flowed into it. The complex agreements have always existed because while the spot doesn't move, the water does. It's a resource no one has an exclusive right to. The documents for all of this were extensive. Just the list of the deeds acquired is pages long. J.R. Bowman is one of them. 

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        Rock Creek flows from north to south through the tract to the Middle Little River so a deed was needed. It was recorded in 1925. It describes the tract:         "Beginning at a rock corner in Moses Austin's line ... " It was the exact description use in the 1950 deed.

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        I now had the name of the owner and a description of the land but I did not know what happened to Mr. Bowman or why he wasn't presently listed as the owner. I kept walking. We were about to close on the Spencer tract and my interest was peaked. There were four acres adjoining that were seemingly up for grabs. I realized how correct that assumption was when I saw the fresh survey markers. Our neighbor Mr. Crooks surveyed and claimed the mystery land.

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        As it turns out, that was a good thing. I was blissfully unaware of the efforts of a man named Frank Thomas. Mr. Thomas was the surveyor who almost bought the Spencer tract. You can read about that incident in David Spencer's section. The plan was to buy the Spencer tract and the Wittenberg's river tract. He would access the river via Starnes Lane through Spencer and to the peaceable kingdom. He had already surveyed the Wittenberg tract and divided it in half. Mr. Crooks was in on the deal and was going to buy half of the river tract which would enable Mr. Thomas to move forward on developing the other half. This would have been in 1994 before I even knew the river was there. 

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        It almost happened but Mr. Thomas got a little greedy and angered the Wittenberg heirs. I never met Frank Thomas but I wish I could have. Evidently he did his due diligence as a surveyor and had a good grasp on the old deeds. He may have had records that I did not. He definitely knew about the mystery land and it was included in the plat he made from his survey. That did not sit well with the Wittenbergs because the price they agreed to did not include the mystery land. I am not certain if they knew who owned it or if they thought the family owned it. Either way, the deal fell through.

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        I have a copy of the plat with the mystery land and the division line. I found two trees on the river bank that were marked. The marks were facing each other and the trees were about 20 feet apart. In the middle was a stake, I had to dig to find it. It had all the signs of the posterity of old borders but it was Frank Thomas in 1994. It was a line that never existed and would never come to pass. It is on the plat and I have that for you in the gallery below. 

 

        I still don't know what documents Mr. Thomas had. I contacted his wife after he died and she was very nice but could not find any records. I linked a few items together and made some assumptions. I can see how he got there but I don't know how he did. He may have had a document I have yet to find. I still do not know how the Wittenbergs acquired that particular tract. 

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        The deputy registrar of deeds at that time was Jean Starnes. She was always very helpful when I came in to pour through old records. I got to know her. The timber deed from 1950 was from JR Bowman to the loggers. One of those loggers, Guy Starnes, was Jean Starnes' late father. She was able to tell me a little bit about it. I don't recall whether it was an issue with the other loggers or with JR Bowman but Guy Starnes never got paid. Jean was born in 1939 and remembered the Bowmans. As she told it, they moved to California around 1947.

 

        When Mr. Crooks claimed the mystery land, he did so by simply selling it to himself but he did not guarantee hisself that he was the rightful owner. Such deeds are called "Quit-Claim" deeds. He paid the back taxes and waited for the statute of limitations to grandfather in his purchase. JR Bowman died in 1966 but as I understand it, the tax bill had been outstanding since 1982. It is reasonable to assume Mr. Bowman paid taxes on the land from California until he died and then someone else paid them until 1982. His wife, Espy, died at age 38 in 1938 giving birth to twins, the twins did not survive. I wrote a letter (in the gallery below) to JR Bowman. It came back stamped "return to sender". I think taxes fell through the cracks and were forgotten until Mr. Crooks claimed the land.

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        John Robert Bowman inherited land from DM Wittenberg in 1918. Here's the line: "I will and direct that Robert Bowman shall have that tract of land known as the Riley Austin Place and that tract of land joining the Riley Austin place." The will can be read by clicking Mr. How's button at the bottom to DM Wittenberg's section on Mr. Who's page.

 

        I deduced that Riley Austin was Moses Riley Austin who was the nephew of Moses Austin, the county's first registrar of deeds. the 1860 census lists Moses Austin as living with his brother James who was Riley's father.  I also discovered a deed from 1840 where Jesse Starnes sold 50 acres to Moses Austin. That 50 acres includes the what we now call the Spencer tract. It was all starting to fit. The mystery land sits on the southern border of the Spencer tract that Moses Austin once owned and maybe still did when he was living there with James and Riley. In 1918 the Spencer tract was called the "Riley Austin place." The "land joining the Riley Austin place" was the mystery land. JR Bowman sold the "Spencer" tract on July 10, 1946 to brothers Rob H. and Jerry O. Smith for $1000.

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        I later learned that Jerry O. Smith was a Postmaster for the Wittenberg post office in 1901. I had been on a quest for quite some time trying to locate where it was. One day in the history room of the Alexander County Library, I found a picture of an old log Wittenberg community post office. The book said the picture was from a Robert Tannihill  who was a descendent of postmaster Smith. In those days, when a postmaster retired a new postmaster didn't typically move in and take over. Instead the post office moved. The picture in the book was a different post office in a different location despite it's name. I learned this from searching out and finding Mr. Tannihill. He lives in Winston-Salem and was coming to town for the 50 year reunion at Lenoir Rhyme College. We met for lunch. He gave me a copy of his own book. That post office was nearby and it was interesting to learn about it but it was the wrong one.

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        I digress. Now I knew where the Riley Austin Place was and how it made it's way to us. I knew the mystery land was the "land joining the Riley Austin Place". I surmised JR Bowman moved away, sold the timber and someone paid taxes until 1982. But that was it, I didn't know what, if anything, about that tract was special or why it wasn't just part of the Riley Austin Place as opposed to being separated. I was convinced the description for the mystery land was used from a previous document because I was convinced the Moses Austin mentioned was the first registrar. Moses was long gone by the time his line was referenced in the timber deed or the water rights deed 25 years prior. I confirmed he owned the land just north of the mystery land from the 1840 deed when he bought it from Jesse Starnes. That record eluded me for a while because it was filed in Caldwell County. It was before Alexander County existed. I felt like there was still something I was missing.

Those answers came later, out of the blue.

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        Daniel Hayward Wittenberg, the patriarch of our spot's provenance, died on June 12, 1865. One week later, slavery was outlawed in Texas and was commemorated as "Juneteenth." Two months prior on April 14, Abraham Lincoln was shot. Daniel's will can be read by clicking Mr. How's button at the bottom of his section on Mr. Who's page. In it he leaves his son David 370 acres but does not describe it. Daniel had already divided and allotted his land to his children by deeds over a year earlier on February 3, 1864. The Civil War was raging. It was the day General Sherman began his "Meridian Campaign" against southern infrastructure.

 

        The deed to David is recorded in book B on page 318 in Alexander County. It describes 370 acres with metes and bounds. I've drawn it out and know where it is but I had not read far enough beyond that description. The deed is in the gallery below but I'll excerpt it here:

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         "Also one other tract joining the above beginning at a rock corner in Moses Austin's line east forty-one poles to Daniel Bowman's corner a black oak.... containing four acres and a quarter" It was the exact same description as the 1950 timber deed and the 1925 water rights deed.

 

        There was one more revelation that brought it all together, it was in David's will. The entire will can be read by clicking Mr. How's button at the bottom of  David Wittenberg's section on Mr. Who's page but here's the payoff:

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        "I give and devise to my sons David and William all of two tracts of land One tract containing three-hundred and seventy acres The other four and 3/4 acres being the mill place the place on which I now live...."

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       Mystery solved. We know Daniel H. Wittenberg had two mills, a bhur mill on the Middle Little River and a flax mill on Rock Creek. The mystery land was the site of the flax mill, David Wittenberg lived there. It could be that he grew up in that house with mom and dad, Catherine and Daniel. Today, there is no trace. If there was anything left, it was likely destroyed when the land was logged in 1950. If only the unassuming spot could talk.