----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Ww4411@aol.com Cc: REATON@DOT.STATE.NC.US, BPOVERTON@DOT.STATE.NC.US Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 15:11:13 EST Subject: Check out SAVE OUR HISTORY! Message-ID: <18a.10f3d6dc.2afec5e1@aol.com> Click here: SAVE OUR HISTORY! PLEASE READ AND HELP! HELP SAVE THE SCHMIDT/SMITH FAMILY CEMETERY!!! Salisbury, N.C. It is 188 Years Old!!! One of Rowan County's first German settlers George Michael Schmidt/Smith 1727-1814 is buried in the cemetery....He was the second generation of Schmidts, came directly from Germany at age 5 with his father Peter Schmidt. He was an appointed Justice who attended the first court ever held in Rowan County in June of 1753 (listed on page 16. of the Rowan History book) before Salisbury existed to help pass an ACT that would designate the site of the new Town and the name. He continued to serve as a Justice of the Peace with considerable duties, as the government of colonial Rowan was to a great extent in the hands of the justices of the peace when acting as the county court, the court of Pleas and Quarterly Sessions. He was one of the first taxpayers of Rowan County (1759 List found in the walls of the old Court House in 1944 by Wm. D. Kizziah, Register of Deeds) He served in the 1759 Rowan County Militia along side of Daniel Boone to fight the hostile Indians in the area to protect the citizens! Please help preserve his cemetery "The George Smith Cemetery" as listed in the archives, along with his descendants. Email the D.O.T. with your concerns! The D.O.T. is currently running an ad in the Wednesday Salisbury Post for 4 consecutive weeks to notify all relatives to call or contact his office, please do so! We must act fast and request a meeting with them. Ronald Eaton's Phone number listed in the newspaper article of 11-1-02 336-760-8737 (his assistant said to call collect) and his email address is: REATON@DOT.STATE.NC.US Thank you to all that can respond to the D.O.T. and also forward on to other relatives! Wanda T. Williams *Copy of Anne Brownlee's concern about the I-85 Widening below: Please Read, it is Excellent! Hi Folks! I've been quiet for a while, so if I may re-introduce myself, I've been doing a lot of research on historic sites near the Trading Ford (Yadkin River, Rowan and Davidson counties, NC). I have a website here: http://home.webkorner.com/whigkid/tradingford/index.html It's been very exciting. Everything I look into out there turns out to be like finding something old in the attic, and when you start rubbing the dirt off, there's an "Antiques Roadshow" undiscovered treasure underneath. There is a wealth of historic sites (from Native American, through early settlement, the Revolutionary and Civil Wars) still existing and worth being preserved. Unfortunately, Raleigh (NC Department of Transportation and State Historic Preservation Office) is saying "that dirty old thing"? Many of these sites are endangered by the proposed I-85 widening project. I believe we, as a people, have the wisdom, vision and resources to find alternatives which will meet our transportation needs without losing our irreplacable history. (There's always more than one way to do things.) Kudos to Dan Patterson for getting the ball rolling and informing our fellow netizens. And to all who sent emails supporting a public meeting. NCDOT has agreed to a meeting which is yet to be scheduled. This is Dan's brainchild, so please let him know if you'd like to participate. <dantana@carolina.rr.com> In the meantime, I've webbed up a "help save our historic sites" page: http://home.webkorner.com/whigkid/tradingford/save.html >From there, there are links to: - a statement of the impact the proposed highway construction will have; - a synopsis of what's being done; - a list of things you can do, including sending an email in support of preservation of these sites, a banner for your website, and handy-dandy mini-posters and bio-degradable bumper stickers you can print. Please bookmark this page and check back for updates. I'm sending this to the Davidson and RowanRoots rootsweb lists. Please help by passing this on to other lists and, oh, everyone you know. :) Families all over the nation had roots in Rowan county, and our history is important to all of them. Let's not celebrate our 250th anniversary (1753-2003) by seeing vital historic sites destroyed. Best regards, Ann Brownlee (my main email address is whigkid@webkorner.com)