Agenda - 08-25-1997 - C2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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o28 improvement trends. The community is furthermore significant in the area of Social History as well as that of Ethnic Heritage for its role as a mecca for Black string band musicians and the square dances they accompanied between the years of 1930 and 1947. The overall period of significance for the community lies between the years of 1880 and 1947. The earliest physical vestige of building activity in the community,other than the crossroads itself, is represented by the ca. 1880 John Paisley Hughes House()and Hughes-Greene House(). The other activities which have justified additional areas of significance for the community, including those agricultural and social,were occurring as late as 1947,the year which marks the National Register criteria for events to have occurred fifty years ago in order to have achieved historic significance. Criterion A: Orange County Exploration and Settlement--Late Nineteenth-Century Rural Crossroads Communities Throughout the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century,Cedar Grove served as a commercial, social, and educational center for surrounding agrarian families. It was one of about a half-dozen such rural crossroads communities that evolved in Orange County during this period. In addition to Cedar Grove,the communities of Caldwell,Oaks and White Cross emerged at this time. Most of the crossroads communities established in the nineteenth century that remain extant in rural Orange County exhibit a repletion of insidious modern intrusions which have diluted the original fabric resulting in a loss of community identity and definition. Thus,most of these crossroads have suffered a loss of commercial as well as social viability and no longer function as true communities. The community of Cedar Grove,along with that of Caldwell in the Little River Township in the northeastern county,are the most intact examples of the rural crossroads community in the county. The function of these small rural communities was rooted more in social interaction than in economic objectives. For example,farmers during the ante-bellum period typically purchased major goods in Hillsborough,the economic center and county seat of Orange County;however, they continued to patronize the local general store not only to conveniently purchase staple goods but to interact with neighbors. Thus,the way of life in these rural communities was centered around the interactions and gatherings of family and neighbors rather than economic trade. These social gatherings took place in the general stores,but in school buildings and churches which were typically the more prominent buildings in the community (Johnson 1937,pp.98-9). i