Peter Hairston (ca1695-1780) was born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland and emigrated to America in 1729. His great grandson, Peter Hairston married Alcey Perkins, niece of Elizabeth Perkins (Letcher), fought in the Revolution, moved to Saura Town in Stokes Co., NC in 1786 and bought Cooleemee in 1817. Peter Wilson Hairston (1819-1886) a later descendant built the plantation house and fought in the Civil War. He married twice: (1) Columbia Stuart and (2) Fanny Caldwell. Includes an alphabetical list for all slaves owned by the Hairston family.
As the country enters a new era of conversations around race and the enduring impact of slavery, The Hairstons traces the rise and fall of the largest slaveholding family in the Old South as its descendants—both black and white—grapple with the twisted legacy of their past. Spanning two centuries of one family’s history, The Hairstons tells the extraordinary story of the Hairston clan, once the wealthiest family in the Old South and the largest slaveholder in America. With several thousand black and white members, the Hairstons of today share a complex and compelling history: divided in the time of slavery, they have come to embrace their past as one family. For seven years, journalist Henry Wiencek combed the far-reaching branches of the Hairston family tree to piece together a family history that involves the experiences of both plantation owners and their slaves. Crisscrossing the old plantation country of Virginia, North Carolina, and Mississippi, The Hairstons reconstructs the triumphant rise of the remarkable children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the enslaved as they fought to take their rightful place in mainstream America. It also follows the white descendants through the decline and fall of the Old South, and uncovers the hidden history of slavery's curse—and how that curse followed slaveholders for generations. Expertly weaving stories of horror, tragedy, and heroism, The Hairstons addresses our nation’s attempt to untangle the twisted legacy of the past, and provides a transcendent account of the human power to overcome.
As a child, Ever Lee Hairston faced one disappointment after the other. A product of share-cropping parents and raised on one of the biggest plantations in the South, Ever allowed those disappointments to diminish her self-confidence and sully her self-esteem. Not to mention, that for years, the young Ever hid a terrible secret, which she hadn’t told anyone – not her family, her friends, her teachers, and as she got older, even her employers. Ever Lee didn’t want to accept that she was slowly losing her eyesight. As darkness began to envelop her, and inspired by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ever eventually decided to stop feeling sorry for herself and face her fears. Through two turbulent marriages, a host of setbacks, and a life that was getting harder and harder to manage, Ever encountered defeats, but was determined not to be defeated. Now, decades after she lost her eyesight, her powerful story is one of inspiration and ambition....and helping others realize their lives have purpose as they reach their full potential in spite of any obstacles in their paths.
An Imperfect God is a major new biography of Washington, and the first to explore his engagement with American slavery When George Washington wrote his will, he made the startling decision to set his slaves free; earlier he had said that holding slaves was his "only unavoidable subject of regret." In this groundbreaking work, Henry Wiencek explores the founding father's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman. Washington was born and raised among blacks and mixed-race people; he and his wife had blood ties to the slave community. Yet as a young man he bought and sold slaves without scruple, even raffled off children to collect debts (an incident ignored by earlier biographers). Then, on the Revolutionary battlefields where he commanded both black and white troops, Washington's attitudes began to change. He and the other framers enshrined slavery in the Constitution, but, Wiencek shows, even before he became president Washington had begun to see the system's evil. Wiencek's revelatory narrative, based on a meticulous examination of private papers, court records, and the voluminous Washington archives, documents for the first time the moral transformation culminating in Washington's determination to emancipate his slaves. He acted too late to keep the new republic from perpetuating slavery, but his repentance was genuine. And it was perhaps related to the possibility--as the oral history of Mount Vernon's slave descendants has long asserted--that a slave named West Ford was the son of George and a woman named Venus; Wiencek has new evidence that this could indeed have been true. George Washington's heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced portrait: now we see Washington in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Gabrielle Hamilton, bestselling author of Blood, Bones & Butter, comes her eagerly anticipated cookbook debut filled with signature recipes from her celebrated New York City restaurant Prune. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE SEASON BY Time • O: The Oprah Magazine • Bon Appétit • Eater A self-trained cook turned James Beard Award–winning chef, Gabrielle Hamilton opened Prune on New York’s Lower East Side fifteen years ago to great acclaim and lines down the block, both of which continue today. A deeply personal and gracious restaurant, in both menu and philosophy, Prune uses the elements of home cooking and elevates them in unexpected ways. The result is delicious food that satisfies on many levels. Highly original in concept, execution, look, and feel, the Prune cookbook is an inspired replica of the restaurant’s kitchen binders. It is written to Gabrielle’s cooks in her distinctive voice, with as much instruction, encouragement, information, and scolding as you would find if you actually came to work at Prune as a line cook. The recipes have been tried, tasted, and tested dozens if not hundreds of times. Intended for the home cook as well as the kitchen professional, the instructions offer a range of signals for cooks—a head’s up on when you have gone too far, things to watch out for that could trip you up, suggestions on how to traverse certain uncomfortable parts of the journey to ultimately help get you to the final destination, an amazing dish. Complete with more than with more than 250 recipes and 250 color photographs, home cooks will find Prune’s most requested recipes—Grilled Head-on Shrimp with Anchovy Butter, Bread Heels and Pan Drippings Salad, Tongue and Octopus with Salsa Verde and Mimosa’d Egg, Roasted Capon on Garlic Crouton, Prune’s famous Bloody Mary (and all 10 variations). Plus, among other items, a chapter entitled “Garbage”—smart ways to repurpose foods that might have hit the garbage or stockpot in other restaurant kitchens but are turned into appetizing bites and notions at Prune. Featured here are the recipes, approach, philosophy, evolution, and nuances that make them distinctively Prune’s. Unconventional and honest, in both tone and content, this book is a welcome expression of the cookbook as we know it. Praise for Prune “Fresh, fascinating . . . entirely pleasurable . . . Since 1999, when the chef Gabrielle Hamilton put Triscuits and canned sardines on the first menu of her East Village bistro, Prune, she has nonchalantly broken countless rules of the food world. The rule that a successful restaurant must breed an empire. The rule that chefs who happen to be women should unconditionally support one another. The rule that great chefs don’t make great writers (with her memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter). And now, the rule that restaurant food has to be simplified and prettied up for home cooks in order to produce a useful, irresistible cookbook. . . . [Prune] is the closest thing to the bulging loose-leaf binder, stuck in a corner of almost every restaurant kitchen, ever to be printed and bound between cloth covers. (These happen to be a beautiful deep, dark magenta.)”—The New York Times “One of the most brilliantly minimalist cookbooks in recent memory . . . at once conveys the thrill of restaurant cooking and the wisdom of the author, while making for a charged reading experience.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
This award-winning, lavishly illustrated history displays the wide range of North Carolina's architectural heritage, from colonial times to the beginning of World War II. North Carolina Architecture addresses the state's grand public and private buildings that have become familiar landmarks, but it also focuses on the quieter beauty of more common structures: farmhouses, barns, urban dwellings, log houses, mills, factories, and churches. These buildings, like the people who created them and who have used them, are central to the character of North Carolina. Now in a convenient new format, this portable edition of North Carolina Architecture retains all of the text of the original edition as well as hundreds of halftones by master photographer Tim Buchman. Catherine Bishir's narrative analyzes construction and design techniques and locates the structures in their cultural, political, and historical contexts. This extraordinary history of North Carolina's built world presents a unique and valuable portrait of the state.
Now in paperback Complete biographical record of Stuart's staff plus Fascinating tales of Civil War life Forward by Adele H. Mitchell, editor of Southern Cavalry Review Major General J. E. B. Stuart, brilliant commander of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, was completely committed to his staff. Stuart's gifted leadership unified his troops, and the men remained touchingly loyal to him. They Followed the Plume gives a behind-the-scenes look at the friendships and rivalries of Stuart's men, using service records and previously unpublished letters to substantiate the compelling biographies of 52 staff members.
There are many stories about the history of the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina (including Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point) that even the natives have never heard. Join longtime Piedmont Triad resident and writer Alice E. Sink on this journey to uncover those out-of-the-ordinary historical truths that rarely appear in books. Learn about the nightclub in High Point that once hosted the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington and the famous short story writer O. Henry's connection to a Greensboro drugstore. Have you heard the story of Lexington native John Andrew Roman, put to death on circumstantial evidence, or the local World War II fighter plane pilot who flew eighty-two missions to prevent German fighters from attacking American bombers? These fascinating true tales featuring towns throughout the region will delight and inform readers of all ages.
