SECONDFRONT
The
SALISBURY POST
FRIDAY April 30, 2010
3A
www.salisburypost.com
Cunningham savors local flavor at Hap’s campaign stop BY MARK WINEKA mwineka@salisburypost.com
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham brought his jobs message to Salisbury Thursday, but for a lunchtime crowd at Hap’s, he mainly pressed the flesh and spoke frequently of his Army experience in Iraq. “Let’s put the first Iraqi war veteran in the U.S. Senate,” Cunningham said more than once to the voters he met over hot dogs, hamburgers and soft drinks. Some of the first diners he spoke with Thursday were a collection of employees from the Hefner VA Medical Center on their lunch break. The discussion quickly turned to care for veterans. “You all need the resources to take care of them,” agreed Cunningham, a Lexington attorney and former state senator for Rowan County. That
multiple-county district has since been redrawn. Speaking later with a fellow Army Airborne veteran, Cunningham immediately recognized the man’s 2nd Infantry insignia, and they traded some background on where they had served. Cunningham trained as an Army paratrooper and earned a Bronze Star for his work as a military prosecutor in holding military contractors accountable in Iraq, where he spent a year. Cunningham remains a captain in the U.S. Army Reserves. In the Democratic primary Tuesday, Cunningham faces five others: Elaine Marshall, Ken Lewis, Susan Harris, Ann Worthy and Marcus W. Williams. In the Republican primary, incumbent U.S. Sen. Richard Burr is trying to best Larry Linney, Brad Jones and Eddie Burks in Tuesday’s balloting.
Cunningham said Thursday was the launch of his final “barnstorming” through the state before the primary. Staffers have labeled it the “Jobs for North Carolina Tour.” Earlier Thursday, Cunningham held an event in Charlotte in which an 18-wheeler served as a backdrop. The 18 wheels on the rig represented the 18 times Burr had voted for bills that sent N.C. jobs overseas, Cunningham said. Cunningham’s wife, Elizabeth, said adding Hap’s to the schedule was her husband’s idea. Asked if he had ever eaten a Hap’s hot dog before, Cunningham said, “Oh, yeah.” When he thought of places with “local flavor,” Cunningham said, “This was the first place that came to mind.” He ate his hot dog Thursday with
See CUNNINGHAM, 4A
MARK WINEKA/SALISBURY POST
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham of Lexington (blue shirt) and his wife, Elizabeth, share a laugh with a lunchtime crowd outside of Hap's on North Main Street Thursday.
WISHING FOR THE OLD TOWN WELL Police seek
suspect in August rape Staff report
MARK WINEKA/SALISBURY POST
Historic Salisbury director Jack Thomson, left, peers into the hole of the old town well with Kenneth Robinson, director of public archaeology at Wake Forest University, along with Mary Kate Wagner. The well has a depth of about 10 feet to the point where it has been filled in.
Team to dig for clues to original structure BY MARK WINEKA mwineka@salisburypost.com
Rowan Public Library has called in archaeological help from Wake Forest University to determine where the original structure may have been positioned that covered the 250-yearold well on its site. Kenneth Robinson, director of public archaeology at Wake Forest, set out grids next to the well Thursday and used ground-penetrating radar to measure various levels of compaction in the soil, possibly indicating where the posts were located for the original cover. Find those post holes, and the library will have the dimensions of that first structure. The data collected through the radar device Thursday will be taken back to the university for processing, analyzing and creating a map. Robinson and his student assistant, Mary Kate Wagner, plan to return next Wednesday for an excavation of the site that should provide even better information. Robinson said Thursday the radar was a “good, preliminary way” to find where the posts were, besides giving clues to the location of other things. Often, these town wells had aprons next to them of brick paving or pottery shards in the highest-traveled and wettest areas. The radar shows anomalies in the soil, and the old postholes would be a type of anomaly. The digging of a posthole disturbed the natural soil, and when it was pulled out, the fill would be of a different color and compaction. Sometimes even artifacts are found in those holes. Thanks to an anonymous donor, the library was able to call in Robinson. It eventually will rely on experts and timber framers at Old
The old town well, tucked in a corner of the Rowan Public Library site, still has a granite cap from one of its incarnations and parts of a forged iron assembly used to lift and lower buckets for water. Kenneth Robinson, right, here speaking with Jack Thomson, will return next week to excavate the site in search of the postholes that surrounded the once-sheltered well. Salem to construct a well cover from the Federal period that would most likely be close to what residents saw in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The well is a significant part of Salisbury’s early history. Lord Cornwallis and his British troops camped near the well and surely refreshed themselves with water from it. A young Andrew Jackson also drank from the well, considering he practiced law in Judge Spruce
Macay’s office less than a stone’s throw away. Jackson later would become the country’s seventh president. This well would be about the only thing Jackson would be familiar with today. In Salisbury’s early days, residents and visitors often relied on street wells scattered throughout the town. The well on the library site apparently provided water through the 19th century and until Salis-
bury’s municipal system was in place. “I bet you Daniel Boone drank out of it,” Rowan Public Library Director Jeff Hall said, noting how close Boone’s Salisbury business dealings would have brought him to the well. Hall said the well also had to be “a major watering spot” for people traveling on the Great Wagon Road through Salisbury. The street wells commonly employed a rope, bucket and windlass system. This one has long been closed with brick walls and a granite top, which probably was from its last days of use. Imbedded in the granite are forged iron remnants of the windlass system (with crank). The well hole goes down about 10 feet and currently is filled with some trash. The late Rowan County historian James S. Brawley often argued that the “Jackson Well” should be restored and put back into working order. “An undertaking of this kind would be one more great tourist attraction for this colonial city so rich in history,” Brawley wrote in 1962. Historic Salisbury Foundation is helping the library with the project, even lining up a backhoe that will be used in the dig next week. The well is thought to date back to around 1760. Hall said a second well covering was of a Victorian vintage (indicated on 1896 Sanborn maps). the library also has good photographic evidence of former covers. Hall guesses the original covering would have been about 14by-14 feet with a pyramid-shaped roof. A more elaborate example of the Federal-styled structure can be found in Williamsburg, Va., he said.
A 55-year-old man who lives on the city streets is being sought in connection with the 2009 kidnapping and rape of a 25-year-old woman. The Salisbury Police Department has issued warrants for Robert Theodore Gibson for first-degree rape and first-degree sexual assault. Chief Rory Collins said the rape occurred Aug. 12, 2009. A woman walking to a friend’s house cut through an empty lot at Cemetery and Long streets. She told police she heard something behind her and then GIBSON was confronted by a man with a knife who threatened to kill her. She said the man forced her to an empty shed where he held her all night, raping and beating her. The victim was treated at Rowan Regional Medical Center. Police recently identified Gibson as the suspect. Anyone with information on Gibson’s whereabouts is asked to call the Salisbury Police Department at 704-638-5333 or call 911 and give the suspect’s location.
Livingstone commencement first of season Staff report
College graduation season starts this weekend with commencement exercises planned the next several Saturdays. Livingstone College’s commencement starts at 10 a.m. Saturday at Memorial Alumni Stadium. In case of inclement weather, the event will be moved to Varick Auditorium. Mike Jackson, chairman and CEO of AutoNation, Inc., the nation’s largest retailer of new and used vehicles, will be the speaker. Also taking part in the ceremony will be the first four students from Livingstone’s Summer Bridge Program to earn their degrees: Lakia Wright, Anthony Morrison, Leroy Smalls and Dymekea Bellamy, who finished her degree in three years. Summer Bridge is a program for students who have academic deficiencies in high school and wouldn’t otherwise be eligible to enroll at Livingstone. They must successfully complete an intense summer program that includes classes in English, math, history, computers and theater, as well as early morning workouts, before being provisionally admitted as freshmen. Other area commencement exercises are: • Pfeiffer University, 10:30 a.m. May 8, in the Merner Gymnasium on the Misenheimer campus. Robert Hill Jr., president and CEO of Acosta Inc. in Jacksonville, Fla., will deliver the commencement address. • Hood Theological Seminary, 10:30 a.m. May 15, with a worship service and communion for graduates at 8:30 a.m. Dr. Jonathan T. Howe, executive director of the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, will be the seminary’s commencement speaker. • Catawba College, 10 a.m. May 15 at Keppel Auditorium on campus. A speaker has not yet been announced. • Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, 10:30 a.m., May 22, Cabarrus Arena & Events Center off N.C. 49, Concord.