McCain's barn desecrates Revolutionary War park

By Bonnie Edwards
Olde Kinston Gazette
July 1998

When the roof collapsed last month on the big ugly metal barn which the state built for the remains of an old Civil War ship smack dab in the middle of Kinston's only Revolutionary War memorial park, the people of Seven Springs took it as an omen.

They said the Confederate States Ship (CSS) Neuse is supposed to be in Seven Springs where it was first built, and they traveled to Raleigh last month to tell Betty McCain, the Secretary of Cultural Resources, that they want it back.

Jackie Ogburn, spokesman for the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, said Charles Gaylor of the Wayne County Historical Association and John Peacock of the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce attended the meeting with Seven Springs Mayor Jewell Kilpatrick and Mary Grady, Chairman of the Whitehall Historic Committee.

Ogburn said the meeting with McCain and other state officials was "cordial," but there was no support for the move to Seven Springs. The delegation from Wayne County was told that such a move would require an outlay of funds that the Department would not be able to make. The officials did make a half hearted offer to help the little historic village of Seven Springs promote tourism and to help tell the story of its Civil War history and connection to the gunboat.

Prior to the meeting, Mary Grady told the Olde Kinston Gazette that she considered the downing of the shed a good omen for Seven Springs. "I think it's the spirits of the men who built the ship trying to tell us they want it to come back home where it's supposed to be," she said.

Mayor Kilpatrick also spoke with the Olde Kinston Gazette prior to the meeting. She said it would be the best thing that ever happened to the town of Seven Springs if the Confederate gunboat were moved there.

By dragging the gunboat up the hill (which is happening as the Olde Kinston Gazette goes to press) and plopping it in the middle the Governor Richard Caswell Memorial Park, state officials are contemptuously dismissing an agreement the state made in 1963.

That agreement was between the Governor Richard Caswell Memorial Commission, the Lenoir County Confederate Centennial Committee and the N.C. Department of Archives and History. It was a signed resolution in which the local Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) agreed to allow the Civil War gunboat to be placed on the Governor Caswell Memorial Park property as long as it did not "interfere with the development of the Caswell Memorial."

That signed resolution was the very reason that the remains of the CSS Neuse and its Civil War museum were placed out of sight in the swamp in the first place.

Now, in 1998, state officials have taken the position that the agreement meant nothing and that "Raleigh is under no legal obligation" to abide by it.

"When the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) gets involved, it will be another story, and I think they will get involved," said Kilpatrick. "We need to get the Attorney General to make a ruling on it, but we will work with Betty McCain first."

It is blatantly obvious that not only has McCain's big ugly barn destroyed what little the state has done in the last 60 years to honor North Carolina's Revolutionary War hero and first constitutional governor, but that it's a hurricane trap. It's built like a parachute and in high winds will float like a parachute.

The whole roof has already collapsed once, allegedly because of high winds.

State officials blame the damage to the shelter's truss system on a sudden storm that hit Caswell Memorial Park on the evening of June 9 this year and early in the morning on June 10. A spokesman for the construction crew described it as an intense squall with high winds and heavy rains.

By the way, Olde Kinston Gazette checked with the meteorologist at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, and he said the highest wind speed recorded at the time of the collapse was no more than four miles per hour.

Also, WNCT-TV News did not lead its 6 p.m. or 11 p.m. newscasts with weather on the day of the collapse. Normally, says WNCT Meteorologist Phillip Williams, the newscasts lead with weather whenever there have been any damaging winds in the area.

Any isolated storms should have been noticed at the Kinston Airport and turned into the National Weather Service. The National Weather Service office in Newport has no record of severe weather in Kinston on the evening of June 9 or the morning of June 10.

Also, an unidentified eyewitness described hearing a loud noise when the trusses fell but said there was no rain or wind at the time. And although the Kinston Police Department received reports of isolated storms in the area on the evening of June 9, they had no such reports of high wind incidents at the time of the collapse the next morning.

The $50,000 worth of damage was covered by the contractor's insurance company as "an act of God."

Ogburn was told that the project was at a "delicate stage," about two months into construction when it collapsed. She said the truss system was "not completely stable" because it had just been built. She said the department does not feel there was any flaw or anything wrong in the design, planning or execution of the plan and that it was simply "a time when something could go wrong." Craven Construction Company Project Director Rick Jones said it is not very unusual for the bracing to fall at this stage of construction, but could not point out any similar recent instances of such things happening.

The state decided earlier this year to move the gunboat up on the hill because of irreversible damage it was receiving in the swamp.

Interestingly, the barn offers no more protection to the relic than the shelter it had in the swamp.

McCain's people are saying publicly that the move is only "temporary," but others have said privately that McCain's intentions are to leave the old gunboat in the barn on the hill. There are no immediate plans for a permanent enclosed climate controlled facility which experts say is needed to protect the rotting gunboat from further decay.

The move up the hill has been a controversial one. Many city residents and business owners believe the gunboat and its museum should have been moved to downtown Kinston where it was originally stationed during the Civil War. They point out that a Civil War museum in the downtown combined with Kinston's other historic attractions would help the Lenoir County economy by drawing tourists and their dollars to the area.

For years Raleigh ignored warnings that the gunboat was in jeopardy and was deteriorating. It wasn't until the Neuse River over spilled its banks during the 1996 flood during Hurricane Fran that state officials took notice. The lower part of the 138 year old hull of what had once been a state-of-the-art Confederate fighting vessel soaked for six days in raw sewage water which ironically had originated at Raleigh when that city's sewage system overflowed.

Experts in the field of archaeology told the Olde Kinston Gazette that the "reintroduction" of water in 1996 to the dried and artificially preserved hull of the ship set off a time bomb that would reduce the artifact to a pile of rot within 10 years unless soon enclosed in climate controlled conditions.

The experts explained that once old wood has been recovered from beneath water and dried, any contact again with water starts a dry rot process that will eventually cause the wood to collapse from within itself.

The gunboat is one of only three in the world that have been recovered from watery graves and placed on exhibit for the public. The National Park Service has on display the USS Cairo in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the privately controlled CSS Jackson is in Columbus, Georgia.

When built, the CSS Neuse was a top of the line ironclad. Shipbuilders had incorporated into its design the latest improvements — lessons learned from previously built ironclads.

Experts on ship building say the CSS Neuse was built better than anything the Union had at the time.

They say the old ironclad is a living testament to the talents and abilities of shipbuilders of the era, many of whom were either freed blacks or slaves. One expert says that as many as 30 or 40 of the skilled workers who applied their talents to building the CSS Neuse were believed to have been black shipbuilders who had cut and shaped the timber themselves to form the hull. They were also said to have forged and fastened the heavy metal plates which served as its armor.

Irregardless, McCain's barn is out of place.

The CSS Neuse has absolutely no historic connection to that park, and the state by placing it there is desecrating the memory of North Carolina's Revolutionary War hero and first constitutional governor, Richard Caswell.

It is also obvious that the state is not going to spend any money to move the CSS Neuse back to Seven Springs where she was born.

When a future hurricane blows McCain's barn down again, and if the gunboat is not totally destroyed, maybe then the state will finally do the right thing and build a proper facility for the gunboat and its museum in downtown Kinston where they belong.

We're not holding our breath.