[piano intro] - Next on North Carolina Weekend, join us from the Bentonville Battlefield State historic site, as we highlight Hands on History.

We'll tour the new Fort Fisher Visitor Center.

Visit the Brady Jefcoat Museum and reenact a Battle in Waxhaw.

Coming up next.

[soft music] - [Narrator] Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music fades out] - Welcome to North Carolina Weekend, everyone.

I'm Debora Holt Noel, and this week we are visiting places around the state for some great Hands on History.

I'm at Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site in Johnston County.

160 years ago this area was the site of the last major battle of the Civil War where the confederates tried to stop the advance of the Union Army led by major General William Sherman as he marched through the Carolinas.

We'll explore the site more throughout the show.

But first, did you know there are 28 state historic sites in North Carolina?

Wonder which one is the most popular?

A couple of hints.

It's located in Kure Beach, it was key to the Civil War and it has a brand new visitor center.

Let's join Rick Sullivan for a walk through the Fort Fisher Visitor Center.

- Fort Fisher was America's biggest sandcastle ever.

Fort Fisher was an earthen fort because that was the material available to build Fort Fisher and also it had the side benefit of being a superior material to brick and masonry and stone with the advancements in artillery.

- [Rick] That's because sand was really good at absorbing the artillery bombardments that were happening here at Fort Fisher more than 160 years ago.

[canon fires] But when it comes to designing and building a new visitor center to detail what happened here, the more hardened building materials have been used to create this highly functional and modern facility that can handle the massive tourist traffic today.

- There are 27, I believe, historic sites throughout the whole system, by far we have the most visitation.

Our visitation finally broke a million visitors a year in 2021, and that was up from what I saw in 2007, which was around just under 600,000 visitors a year, and I've watched it climb over the years.

From an architectural standpoint, if you haven't noticed, this building was very much designed with the views in mind with all the glass and all the windows and the vistas, and we wanted something fairly modern.

This building is three times the size of the old building at 23,000 square gross feet.

It also has many more amenities.

We have expanded the size of the exhibit gallery.

We have a activity hall that is available for special events and rentals.

[guns firing] - [Rick] On the day this story was filmed, Fort Fisher was observing the 160th anniversary of the fall of the fort.

On that day, January 15th, 1865, the fort was overrun by the Union Army, thus cutting off Confederate access to Wilmington's Port.

Just a few months later, the Civil War was over.

- At the time the fort fell, General Sherman was running roughshod throughout the South.

General Grant was battling General Robert E. Lee outside of Richmond and Robert E. Lee and the army in northern Virginia kind of had their backs against the wall.

And Lee himself had said that, "If Fort Fisher falls, "I cannot sustain the Army, that we are finished."

- [Man] Mark!

- [Rick] Here at Fort Fisher, there are no admission charges to walk the grounds, walk inside the earthen mounds, visit the scenic ocean front trails, and to go everywhere the Confederate and Union soldiers would've gone back in the 1860s.

But the best starting point is the Visitor Center, also free of charge, where you'll get the background information about the site and what happened here.

- Our mission statement is to preserve and interpret this historic battlefield for present and future generations.

And our specific goal here at Fort Fisher, and we have been hammering away at this for years now and it fed into the creation of our new exhibits, was that we want Fort Fisher to be a place where any American and anybody from anywhere in the world really can come here and go through our exhibits and go through this site and find some sort of a human connection across time that connects with them.

[upbeat music] - Fort Fisher State Historic Site is at 1610 Fort Fisher Boulevard South in Kure Beach, and it's open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

For more information, give the site a call at 910-251-7340. or go online to historicsites.nc.gov to find out more.

If walls could talk, an 18th century log cabin in downtown Wilkesboro would tell the tale of family, of freedom, and of pride by an entire county for its builder.

His name was Robert Cleveland and the impact he had on our country is something the entire town wants everyone to know.

[soft music] - Robert Cleveland came to North Carolina with several of his family members in the 1770s.

They were from Northern Virginia.

They settled all along the Yadkin River valley area.

- [Deborah] Cleveland's first order of business was to buy land and build a home.

- [Jason] The Robert Cleveland house stood on Parsonville Road on Lewis Fort Creek and the family cemetery was about 800 feet further up the road.

- [Deborah] By the late 1770s southern campaigns of the Revolutionary War had begun and Robert proudly served as a captain for the Patriot cause.

- And one of his first duties was to go with the Wilkes County militia, the Surrey County militia westward where they met up with some over mountain Tennessee troops, or in what now is Tennessee.

And when they ended up at the Battle of King's Mountain in October, 1780.

- [Deborah] In that battle, Robert served under his brother, Colonel Benjamin Cleveland.

- He was the one who was known to take the horn, the ox horn, and to call the men to come for the what would be the muster before they went up to King's Mountain.

- [Deborah] It was a decisive victory for the Patriots and one that's often called a turning point in the war.

Robert returned home to Wilkes County a hero, and it's the physical residence he returned to that generations since have fought to save.

- This was built in 1779.

Robert Cleveland and his 17 children lived here.

[Jason chuckles] - [Deborah] At that time, most homes in the area were roughly 17 feet by 17 feet square, making Cleveland's home much larger, as stated in its first tax listing in 1798.

- That tax list lists this house as being 18 feet by 36 feet, two stories with a plank roof.

This was the fifth largest house in the entire county.

So that makes this a landmark.

If people are wanting to find a place to meet, to conduct business, to handle government matters, it was built during the Revolutionary War.

They might've had meetings about strategy.

This would've been a place where they could meet.

- [Deborah] The home remained in the Cleveland family until the 1930s when it was sold and then sat empty for 50 years, - [Jason] Started seeing the house fall apart.

You know, if we don't do something, we have to save it.

- [Deborah] Funds were raised from state and local interests to dismantle a home and move it 12 miles from its original site to Wilkesboro where it was reconstructed next to other historic properties and opened as a museum in 1987.

- [Jason] Stepping inside of the Robert Cleveland house, it does take you back in time.

- That's how people were making their clothes.

- Yeah.

- And it is a way for us to teach and preserve local history.

- [Deborah] All from two rooms on the first floor and one large room upstairs.

- So imagine in the wintertime, whichever kids came up to bed first, they got the beds closest to the fireplace at the far end.

Whoever was last would get the bed farthest from the fireplace.

- [Deborah] Today the home provides tours and demonstrations for those wanting to learn about Cleveland as well as what life in the home was like all those years ago.

- I do that with food ways, talking about food, open hearth cooking.

It's a way to teach young people and older people the skills that our ancestors had, the necessity of certain things that they had to have to survive.

And it's part of who we are.

- A part the citizens of Wilkes County don't ever want to be forgotten - Because it's fun to learn about history.

- It's just an important building because it's real.

It's real and it's still working.

[uplifting music] - The Robert Cleveland house is at 100 East Main Street in Wilkesboro.

To plan your visit, give them a call at 336-667-3171. or visit wilkescountytourism.com.

Here at the Bentonville Battlefield State historic site, there's a small museum with maps and artifacts from the battle.

Be sure to check it out when you visit.

Brady Jefcoat was what you would call a Renaissance man.

He could build just about anything and he was interested in just about everything.

Well, one day, Brady came across an old photograph and he decided to take it home and so began the Brady Jefcoat Museum of Americana and we sent Rob Holliday to Murfreesboro to check it out.

[old timey music] - [Rob] If someone ever tried to create eBay in one physical space, it might look a little something like this.

- Stamp machines.

- Washboards.

- Lawnmowers.

- Curling iron.

- Antique radios.

- Chandeliers.

- [Man] Dr. Pepper.

- [Rob] But this isn't a collection you scroll through, you stroll through it, and that could take a minute.

- There are approximately 17,000 individual items here in the museum.

- Yes, 17,000 items# It's enough to fill three floors of this former high school.

Even the stairwells have parts of the collection on display, but the size and variety of those contents are only part of the appeal.

- We have hundreds of collections here from one man.

Anything that interests Mr. Jefcoat, he collected - [Rob] Mr. Jefcoat, Brady C. Jefcoat to be precise, was this museum's namesake, and he built his collection long before anyone had heard of the internet.

- He went to yard sales, he went to auctions, he went to the state fairgrounds a lot on Saturdays and collected some things there.

- [Rob] Did he ever.

This collection that took decades to assemble includes items that stretch back centuries.

This water clock dates to the 1600s and this English Tudor canopy bed from the 1800s.

But this is the Jefcoat Museum of Americana, after all.

So the overwhelming majority of things here are from the United States.

[twinkling music] - [Colon] He liked musical stuff a lot.

- [Rob] And the dozens of music boxes, photographs, and radios that fill several rooms are proof.

If you think CDs and eight tracks are vintage, check out these metal discs for music boxes and wax cylinders.

[indistinct singing from wax cylinder] - [Colon] This is a wax cylinder machine that was made by Thomas Edison.

- [Rob] There are also dozens of butter churns, irons, mostly manual, but also some electric models, telephones, and toasters, dishes and door knockers, and plenty of antique wooden laundry equipment.

- When you turn the wheel, it's rotating the agitator up and down and changing directions.

A very big advancement over a washboard.

- The kitchen part of the basement down here I find interesting.

The Scandinavian tile cook stove, it's mint condition.

It's beautiful.

- [Rob] Throughout its collection, the Jefcoat Museum provides a window into multiple phases of American life before the modern age.

In business and the home, and even uh... Business at home.

Most items are pretty ordinary, but there are a couple that have had brushes with fame.

- This courtship couch over here was on the movie set "Gone With the Wind", the House of Ill Repute scene in "Gone With the Wind".

- [Rob] And this hall tree once held the hat of President Harry Truman while he was staying at the Blair House in Washington.

That wasn't the only interaction Mr. Jefcoat had with the nation's capitol.

- The Smithsonian wanted bits and pieces of his collection and so did the state museum.

But his stipulation was, "Display all of my collection all of the time."

- [Rob] And that's how all 17,000 items wound up in northeastern North Carolina at a place that could accommodate every piece and give visitors a sense of what life was decades and centuries ago.

- It's quite fascinating how we take for granted modern day appliances.

It's worth the trip to come to Murfreesboro, North Carolina to see this vast collection in history and the stories behind each item.

[old timey music] - [Deborah] The Brady Jefcoat Museum is at 201 High Street in Murfreesboro and it's open on Saturdays from 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM and on Sundays from 2:00 to 5:00.

For more information, visit their website at thejefcoatmuseum.org or give them a call at 252-398-5922.

This is the Harper House on the side of the Bentonville Battlefield.

And during the battle, this served as a hospital for wounded troops on both sides.

This house was recently restored and the site offers tours.

Now, if you're looking for that special architectural element for your own home, Theresa Litsky takes us to Architectural Salvage in Greensboro, a warehouse that's filled to the brim with all sorts of treasures.

[upbeat music] - Architectural Salvage's statement is Saving Worn Architectural Treasures.

We consider us a SWAT team because we come in and save treasure.

[upbeat music] - Oh, just anything you would find in an old house that can be used again, it's great.

It's much better than new.

- We take donations from the community and surrounding area and we bring it in here.

We sell it back to the community at a nominal price and all of the money, the proceeds for it go back into the preservation community.

- [Theresa] They also attempt to salvage entire properties before they're demolished.

- We try to save those buildings and when there's just no other options, we go in and save the small elements that we can so that they can be reused back in the community.

- [Theresa] And everything is brought to their more than 20,000 square foot warehouse on Huffman Street.

- And it is full and it is jam packed on a regular basis.

- The big sellers here, mantle pieces, doors, plumbing supplies.

- Windows are one of our largest donated items and they're also one of the most frequent items people come in looking for.

We have all different types of panes of windows and we also carry the window weights.

- We have lumber back there.

- [Haley] Flooring, heart pine, handsaw, and lumber.

- We even have some furniture.

- Anything from children's beds to storage and architectural drafting tables.

We have antique chairs and tables.

If we come over this way, you can see all of our hardware, anything you can imagine.

So those little pieces that, in a historic home, maybe break, we have replacements for those.

- I'm looking for a base for a weather bank.

I want something repurposed and old because it's a very old weather bank.

- We also have columns and shutters and other like cornices and things like that.

Anything we can take off of a house or a commercial building, not just homes, we'll take it.

- [Theresa] Even if it's in rough shape.

- Yes, we'll take anything damaged is just, for me, character.

And also we might take a tub that has absolutely no feet and then the next week get feet that fit it.

- [Theresa] That said, there are a few requirements for what they can accept.

- We kind of stick with the National Park Service and the Secretary Interior's 50 year rule for what is considered historic.

- But anything past the seventies is really just a case by case basis.

If it's a nice hardy wood door from the 70s and the 80s, okay, fine, let's go forth because it's a reusable material.

Whereas aluminum doors from the 80s, not so much.

The only real things that we don't accept is paint.

Paint has a shelf life.

- [Theresa] So the question isn't simply why should you look for the things you want or need from a salvage store, but also why not?

- Well, you're preserving history, number one.

Why would you buy something new when there's something already available that will probably look better than what you can find as a reproduction?

Not to mention it has character that the reproduction doesn't have.

- It's just more interesting.

It's more beautiful aesthetically and it's more beautiful for the earth.

- This is a form of recycling, number two.

You're keeping it out of the landfill.

- I think we averaged one year about 10 tons out of the landfill.

- It is made for everyday homeowners, college kids, anybody that likes a historical aesthetic, this is your store.

- And I also just like the idea of continuing an object's history.

We are all stewards of these objects.

We might technically own them by the law, but we are just stewarding this object to last another 100 years.

[uplifting music] - [Deborah] Architectural Salvage of Greensboro is at 1028-B Huffman Street in Greensboro, and they're open Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

For more information, give them a call at 336-389-9118 or go to preservationgreensboro.org.

This red oak tree here at Bentonville is called The Witness Tree because it overlooked the actual Civil War battle.

Isn't it amazing?

Well, this year America celebrates its 250th birthday, so it's a great time to remember and talk about our revolutionary past.

Let's take a trip to Waxhaw where a passionate school teacher and other lovers of history are teaching about The Battle of the Waxhaws.

[rhythmic drumming] - I don't know if you're aware, you're probably aware if you've done a lot of stuff in the Charlotte area, why the Charlotte Police Department has a hornet's nest on their police cars.

It's because it was considered a hornet's nest of revolutionaries, or hornet's nest of patriots.

And Waxhaw, part of its charm is recognizing that patriotism, recognizing that history and cultivating and maintaining it as best they can.

And we have a great festival coming on this weekend at the Museum of the Waxhaws that will be honoring that history with some reenactments and some costume players.

And just a great chance to get a look back at history in a very four dimensional, vibrant living kind of way.

- For the first time ever, we are bringing the Battle of the Waxhaws to life.

So we are having a reenactment and living history weekend with over 100 reenactors from all over our region and different, even, states coming in to truly bring alive the Battle of the Waxhaws which happened on May 29th, 1780.

And it's such a huge, significant event because that was also a turning point in the American Revolution.

- After the surrender of Charlestown, or Charleston today, to the British in 1780, this group under a Colonel Buford, was American colonial soldiers.

They hadn't made it to Charleston in time for the battle.

And they were on their way back up to North Carolina.

General Cornwallis heard that there was this continental group in the vicinity and he sent a Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton after him.

So this is where Tarleton caught up with Buford.

Tarleton was coming up the Old River Road and Buford was in front of him by a few miles and Buford knew that Tarleton was coming up and he set up a defensive line across this field.

But his men were in a single column, one column of soldiers.

He had about 350 men in his command and Tarleton coming up with about about 120 horsemen.

And they quickly overran Buford's men held their fire till they were only 10 yards away, the British.

And that wasn't gonna stop a cavalry charge.

They were on them within seconds and it was a very closely fought battle.

Cutlasses, bayonets, very brutal, very bloody, all over in 15 minutes.

This area, as I mentioned before, was settled by the Scotch Irish.

Many of them were sitting on the fence.

They wanted to remain neutral during this whole war.

But the cruelty that was exhibited against the continental forces by the British drove them off that fence and they joined the local militias.

The the rallying cry was "Give them Tarleton's quarter."

This was truly the Alamo moment of the Revolutionary War.

It turned the tide against the British.

- Around one, two lines, there you go!

Two lines!

Alright.

- People are not taught this, I actually I'm a teacher.

So, and we try to bring the history alive, but there's just not enough time.

So it's great to have families of all ages come out and truly live the history.

[upbeat music] - So to actually participate as a reenactor, we're walking in our ancestor's shoes.

My ancestors are in these battles as loyalists and patriots.

So when we get to do this, it's hard to explain how amazing it is when you think, wow, my ancestor walked right here and I'm doing exactly what they did almost 250 years later.

- Yeah and then the flip side is if you like camping, we camp.

If you like food cooked over an open fire, we cook food over and open fire.

If you like to shoot cannons or if you would like to shoot cannons, we shoot cannons and muskets and you get a sense and a feel for a time period where you can put the cell phone away and really disappear and clear your mind and take a vacation to a time period that has otherwise been lost except to books, and maybe film.

[upbeat music] - [Deborah] The Battle of the Waxhaws Reenactment weekend is June 6th through the 8th at the Museum of the Waxhaws.

That address is 8215 Waxhaw Highway in Waxhaw.

The museum is open on Wednesdays and Fridays and some Saturdays.

For more information, give them a call at 704-843-1832 or go to museumofthewaxhaws.org.

Well, that's it for tonight's show.

We've had a fascinating time exploring the Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site.

If you're a history buff, it is definitely well worth a visit.

And if you've missed anything in tonight's show, remember you can always watch us again online at pbsnc.org or you can find us on our YouTube channel.

Have a great North Carolina Weekend, everyone.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [soft music] - [Narrator] Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of Barrier Island Beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[piano outro]