Charles D. Rodenbough

The story of four generations of the Lindsay family in Guilford County, NC 1765 to 1870 and the location on Deep River that is the cockpit of activity from settlement to Regulation to Revolution. The family progresses from a multi-faceted agricultural center to merchant house, to entrepreneur to industrialist but in one branch is destroyed by the Civil War in terms of a single life of promises devastated. This is the story of a family and a location in North Carolina that connected with important moments and personalities in antebellum North Carolina. histor

The novel is set in 1968 when the small southern town of Cascade decides to put on a Sesquicentennial. They hire a mid-western company that organizes such events and the company sends in Devon Poole, a young man who seems enigmatic to the locals. The tragic sequence of national events in 1968 are unleashed in juxtaposition to the Sesquicentennial preparations. Locals do not know that their economic and social fabric is beginning to unravel as they celebrate 150 years. They also do not know that Devon may have an involvement with those national events over which they have no control. It is mystery fiction.

In 1891, retired Union General Theophilus Francis Rodenbough published a genealogy about his extended family which he called "Autumn Leaves From Family Trees." About six generations have passed and the access to broader ranges of research, particularly using the computer, have made possible this update of the General's work For the author it has been the accumulated work of about 60 years. He has expanded the sources and has investigated families who, particularly at the time of emigration, were associated with the Rodenbach/Rodenbough family. This expands the story to a study of a particular category of German immigration to America and its roots in Europe. The Rodenbach/Rodenbough family is covered in 4 generations in Germany and 10 in America. Eleven allied families including: Rockefeller, Hockenberry, Brown, Shatwell, Teel, Letsch, Cline, Silverthorne, Major, Okeson, and Albertson are covered in multiple generations and there are 20 Genealogical charts, mostly German in origin and over 55 illustrations.

Although this is an historical novel, it is based on a factual family and branches of that family with different racial identities. Since this is such a well known family in the South and it had a record of racial mixing during slavery and a shared concern for the Union and racial justice, there are mixed venues in which to examine particular racial attitudes within the family. I have used dialogue to interpret what might have been the discussions within the family but have added Editor's Notes in order to distinguish facts and a Bibliography to identify my sources. There is also a Teaching Supplement available to use in schools or as home study, of interpretive racial history. This method is particularly designed to assist African American children to use the interpretation of history within this family for understanding Justice and to gain greater self awareness and identity. This book is part of the Sauratown Project-Understanding the Flow of Ancestry.

This is an interactive study plan presented in five books using a common format for teaching in schools, homes, and churches. The Bible, the Koran or other faith texts, give a foundation for the understanding of a particular people, thus giving believers roots upon which to build their own images in continuity with their past. This study can demonstrate for African Americans, the flow of their ancestry as a historical continuum. Where genealogical study may find a research roadblock with the last slave ancestor, African Americans find in the flow of their story, the same kind of harmony that the slaves found in the richness of the Old Testament. The value of such an inclusive understanding of the progress of a people of faith, is not limited to African Americans but can be an instrument of educational understanding for any student.

Governor Alexander Martin of North Carolina was one of the most important figures in the colonial and early state history of North Carolina. A 1756 graduate of Princeton, he was the first president of the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina. He served longer as governor of the state than any other person until the election of Luther Hodges in the 20th century. He was conferred an honorary doctorate by Princeton and elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society while he was a U.S. senator. While in the Senate, he fought successfully to open the Senate to the public. He was one of five North Carolina delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He was a friend and protector of the Moravians and other non-conformists. He was the most powerful and effective leader from the frontier region of North Carolina for a quarter of a century. The first chapters of this biography discuss Martin's parents and their high regard for education, his time at Princeton, and his arrival in North Carolina in 1760. The next chapters explore Martin's and Rev. David Caldwell's effort to prevent bloodshed during Governor Tryon's confrontation with the Regulators that led up to the Battle of Alamance, Martin's experiences in the war as second in command of the North Carolina Regiment, his election as senator from Guilford County to the General Assembly in 1777, and his much-celebrated election as governor in 1781. The final three chapters of the book include information about his years in the U.S. Senate, his retirement at his home "Danbury" in Rockingham, North Carolina, his relationship with his family and his very detailed last will and testament. His home, "Danbury," later gave its name to Danbury, North Carolina, in Stokes County, which his nephews helped found about 1848, long after his death.