The Alamance County Historical Association has commissoned and published a new, two-part, history of Alamance County:
 
Shuttle & Plow: A History of Alamance County, North Carolina.

  
To purchase a copy:
One of 60 illustrations in Shuttle & Plow

 This northern Alamance tobacco scene was photographed around 1930 and comes from the N.C.C., Wilson Research Library, UNC-CH

Part One, "Old Allemance," was written by Carole Watterson Troxler, Professor of History at Elon College. William Murray Vincent, Director of the Alamance County Historical Museum, authored Part Two, "Recovery and Renewal."

The work places Alamance County in the context of regional and national history. Using a broad social scope and the conventional break at 1865, the writers connect themes and stories across that artificial boundary. The resulting narrative reveals the continuities that link the socio-political divisions of the ante-bellum Piedmont with the Reconstruction violence by which Alamance and Caswell counties became the storm center of the state.

Shuttle and Plow spans more than three centuries, twice the age of the county carved from western Orange County in 1849. The greater Alamance story includes cultural changes, such the religious dynamics that came to distinguish much of Southern life. Its economic currents range from the Indian Trading Path’s impact on the settlement pattern, to methods of farming and home manufacturing, the functions of crossroads trading and manufacturing centers, transitions to wage labor and commercial farming, and the rise and domination of textiles. Twentieth century refinements and adjustments in the textile industry and farming form a major theme of Shuttle and Plow, along with the area’s increasing economic diversity. Issues and changes in labor relations and race relations are important features of the county’s social heritage.

Readers will find the expected topics treated: the Regulators and the Battle of Alamance are here, along with Wyatt Outlaw’s murder, the cotton mills, and Roots. In addition, there are previously untold stories, many in words left by their actors. Long-standing nettles are grasped, such as the animosity between Regulators and Revolutionaries. Myriad details, some of them surprising, encourage locals and outsiders, established scholars and novices, to do further research.

Of particular interest to family historians are the tables and appendices that amplify the narrative. The following tables appear within the text:

Further, 16 appendices constituting 63 pages help identify and locate 18th and 19th century area residents: Shuttle & Plow: A History of Alamance County, North Carolina has 541 pages, with 60 photographs and 17 maps.

To order, send $40.00 check to

Alamance County Historical Association
7519-C Lindley Mill Road
Graham, N.C.
27253 In addition, the book is available locally at Alamance Battleground State Historic Site
Alamance County Historical Museum
Alamance County Arts Council (Captain White House, Graham)
Alamance-Burlington Area Chamber of Commerce
City-County Magazine
Haw River Historical Museum
Mebane Arts Center
Industrial Paper Plus Top

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Page revised 6 December 1999