donbosco
Inconceivable Member
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- 3,548
Here's something that I wrote about that part of the country.
"My brother has always been a fan of country roads and the unbeaten path. That fondness for ‘Blue Highways’ is one of only a very few things that we have in common in fact and something we inherited from our Momma and Deddy. Soon after I earned my driver’s license he taught me a true ‘back way’ from #Bonlee, #DeepChatham to #ChapelHill. The route was a meandering one with only very short runs on Highways 64 and 87 and the rest left to official four-digit State Roads with historic and locally significant names. I drove this way countless times as I tried, often desperately, to bridge the two worlds of my youth. Bonlee is certainly my homeland and roots go deep in Chatham but in Chapel Hill I actually found my truest Home.
Out of Bonlee you go down on Rives Chapel Baptist Church Road where Tick Creek bottoms out and after winding three or four miles through that “goodliest of land” you emerge onto Highway 64 where after less than a mile you turn left onto Bowers Store Road. Crossing 64 the land rises and at the top of a hill with a clearing and a view in all directions you take a right onto Henderson-Tanyard Road till it dead ends into Castlerock Farm Road where you turn right. Some of y’all may know Henderson-Tanyard because of The Shakori Hills Festivals.
One of my many personal landmarks along the way is a house that for decades has been the parking spot for a truck that has painted on it ‘Billy “Crash” Craddock.” Google Earth tells me that it is still there (642 Castle Rock Rd) after all these years. Craddock was born in Greensboro in 1939 and was a country and rockabilly phenom. He kicked off his career at 18 - a heart throb designed to challenge Elvis - and became a star in Australia. “Boom, Boom Baby” was a #1 hit for him there. Now 85 according to his Facebook page he was still performing as recently as last June in Star, NC. Listen/Watch his classic performance here:
https://youtu.be/F5KAMWnCByM?t=2
At the end of Castle Rock Farm you come up on Highway 87 and go left until you turn right on Brown’s Chapel Road which becomes Chicken Bridge Road. Along that quarter mile stretch you’ll see one of the two North Carolina Historical Markers dedicated to Captain Johnston Blakeley. (Anybody from Carrboro/Chapel Hill ought to be able to make it home from there - shame on you if you can’t). Here’s the entry for the Chatham Blakeley marker: https://ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=H-10
Here’s ‘The Rest of the Story’ on Blakeley and his marker. On May 1, 1814 ‘The USS Wasp’ set sail commanded by Johnston Blakeley of Rockrest, Chatham County and @UNC, with the mission to harass the British navy and shipping (War of 1812). Many victories followed but ‘The Wasp’ was lost at sea-Blakeley was honored posthumously. See here: https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../johnston-blakeley-war-of-1812...
I wondered about Blakeley for many years - There is also a marker to the captain in Wilmington (it bears the code D 37 and has smaller lettering than it should as it has been knocked down multiple times and replaced I am told-). Here is the entry for that Blakeley marker: https://ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=D-37
For many years I confused Blakeley with James Waddell, a Confederate ship’s captain honored with a sign in downtown Pittsboro. For good measure here’s the Waddell marker entry: https://ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=H-17
As for Blakeley as you can see, there are indeed two different markers. I’ve got no explanation.
NCPedia has a fuller account of the story of Blakeley and the exploits of ‘The Wasp.’ https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/blakeley-johnston more intriguing to me is Blakeley’s pre-maritime life. As a student (1797-99) at UNC he headed the Philanthropic Society and his portrait hangs in New West Hall on campus there.
In his honor a poem was penned and published in ‘The North Carolina Magazine’ in 1855, Volume 3.
No more shall Blakeley's thunder roar,
Upon the stormy deep;
Far distant from Columbia's shore,
His tombless ruins sleep;
But long Columbia's song shall tell,
How Blakeley fought,
how Blakeley fell.
Unfortunately Greensboro-born Crash Craddock (1939) as of yet has no historical marker.
"My brother has always been a fan of country roads and the unbeaten path. That fondness for ‘Blue Highways’ is one of only a very few things that we have in common in fact and something we inherited from our Momma and Deddy. Soon after I earned my driver’s license he taught me a true ‘back way’ from #Bonlee, #DeepChatham to #ChapelHill. The route was a meandering one with only very short runs on Highways 64 and 87 and the rest left to official four-digit State Roads with historic and locally significant names. I drove this way countless times as I tried, often desperately, to bridge the two worlds of my youth. Bonlee is certainly my homeland and roots go deep in Chatham but in Chapel Hill I actually found my truest Home.
Out of Bonlee you go down on Rives Chapel Baptist Church Road where Tick Creek bottoms out and after winding three or four miles through that “goodliest of land” you emerge onto Highway 64 where after less than a mile you turn left onto Bowers Store Road. Crossing 64 the land rises and at the top of a hill with a clearing and a view in all directions you take a right onto Henderson-Tanyard Road till it dead ends into Castlerock Farm Road where you turn right. Some of y’all may know Henderson-Tanyard because of The Shakori Hills Festivals.
One of my many personal landmarks along the way is a house that for decades has been the parking spot for a truck that has painted on it ‘Billy “Crash” Craddock.” Google Earth tells me that it is still there (642 Castle Rock Rd) after all these years. Craddock was born in Greensboro in 1939 and was a country and rockabilly phenom. He kicked off his career at 18 - a heart throb designed to challenge Elvis - and became a star in Australia. “Boom, Boom Baby” was a #1 hit for him there. Now 85 according to his Facebook page he was still performing as recently as last June in Star, NC. Listen/Watch his classic performance here:
https://youtu.be/F5KAMWnCByM?t=2
At the end of Castle Rock Farm you come up on Highway 87 and go left until you turn right on Brown’s Chapel Road which becomes Chicken Bridge Road. Along that quarter mile stretch you’ll see one of the two North Carolina Historical Markers dedicated to Captain Johnston Blakeley. (Anybody from Carrboro/Chapel Hill ought to be able to make it home from there - shame on you if you can’t). Here’s the entry for the Chatham Blakeley marker: https://ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=H-10
Here’s ‘The Rest of the Story’ on Blakeley and his marker. On May 1, 1814 ‘The USS Wasp’ set sail commanded by Johnston Blakeley of Rockrest, Chatham County and @UNC, with the mission to harass the British navy and shipping (War of 1812). Many victories followed but ‘The Wasp’ was lost at sea-Blakeley was honored posthumously. See here: https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../johnston-blakeley-war-of-1812...
I wondered about Blakeley for many years - There is also a marker to the captain in Wilmington (it bears the code D 37 and has smaller lettering than it should as it has been knocked down multiple times and replaced I am told-). Here is the entry for that Blakeley marker: https://ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=D-37
For many years I confused Blakeley with James Waddell, a Confederate ship’s captain honored with a sign in downtown Pittsboro. For good measure here’s the Waddell marker entry: https://ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?MarkerId=H-17
As for Blakeley as you can see, there are indeed two different markers. I’ve got no explanation.
NCPedia has a fuller account of the story of Blakeley and the exploits of ‘The Wasp.’ https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/blakeley-johnston more intriguing to me is Blakeley’s pre-maritime life. As a student (1797-99) at UNC he headed the Philanthropic Society and his portrait hangs in New West Hall on campus there.
In his honor a poem was penned and published in ‘The North Carolina Magazine’ in 1855, Volume 3.
No more shall Blakeley's thunder roar,
Upon the stormy deep;
Far distant from Columbia's shore,
His tombless ruins sleep;
But long Columbia's song shall tell,
How Blakeley fought,
how Blakeley fell.
Unfortunately Greensboro-born Crash Craddock (1939) as of yet has no historical marker.
