Old State Road and Island Ford Road

The following article was donated for use by Mary Rink Harbinson.
It is unsure which of the local papers it came from and what year it was published.
However, it is from a section called "Just Kidding", written by Sylvia Kidd.

Many Maiden residents are not aware of it, but in busy East Maiden there is the little recognized site of the oldest crossroads in Catawba County, the virtually unknown intersection of two of the state's most famous early roads.

The two roads are the Island Ford Road and the old State Road. Both date back to Revolutionary War days, and the both are known locally as routes of travel for a group of British soldiers captured and held prisoner by General Daniel Morgan and Colonel William Washington.

In historic records it is pointed out that this group used both the old State Road route as well as the Island Ford Road.

In 1782, the latter part of January of that year, the 500 British prisoners, 700 to 800 horses, 100 captured wagons, and other war booty were marched under Morgan's 850 men along the old State Road from Quaker Meadows, south of the South Mountains, along the old Laurel Road and down into Catawba County.

Old records we have poured over indicate they stopped briefly at the intersection of these two famous roads in what is now East Maiden, at a Bolick place. Local historians of some decades past recorded here that a Widow Bolick lived in a small house fronting what is now the Lincolnton highway just a short distance from the intersection.

The troops used this location as their stop-over point, before sending the prisoners on to Island Ford.

Old local history indicates the Widow married a Tory, Captain Cumberland, who was later killed at the battle of Ramseur's Mill, a few miles on down at Lincolnton.

Few people seem to pay attention to historical notations about the old intersection. According to records, the location of the two roads was almost in exactly the same spot as the present roads - one running north and south, the other east and west.

The trail of the Island Ford road, north from the intersection, passed near St. James Church, followed the same general route which is now the paved road that crosses Highway 16 at Tucker's Service Station and thence by Bethany Church, Claremont and the old Bunker Hill Bridge.

The old State Road was approved in 1767, according to records, and extended right through what is now the community of Maiden. In fact, some evidence of its path can be seen under some of the Maiden store buildings.

Both the routes were first buffalo and Indian trails, and were later widened into passable roads for wagons and other vehicles. The portion of the Island Ford road south of Maiden and the west portion of the State Road through Maiden were paved about 1923. Other sections of the two roads, now secondary rural roads, were paved more recently.

These two roads were the first and most important east-west and north-south routes in Western North Carolina in a colonial time when this section was utterly remote, wild Indian territory with the settled communities still confined to the coastal plain.

The two old roads, now part highway and part country lane, were significant to the growth and development of the county and the entire Western Carolina area.

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