Carthage, North Carolina

Carthage is the county seat of Moore County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,775 at the 2020 census, up from 2,205 in 2010. Carthage is named after the ancient city in northern Africa.

History

The town was the home of the Tyson & Jones Buggy Company, a predominant cart and buggy manufacturer in the late 1800s. A common local story is that after the closing of the Tyson Buggy Company, Henry Ford was interested in buying the old plant and converting it into a car assembly line. According to the legend, the owners refused to let Ford buy the plant. He moved on and built his first plant in Detroit, making it the center of auto manufacturing. This story is often repeated despite a lack of evidence, and it runs contrary to the life of Ford, who was born and raised in Detroit and started his businesses there. A few years after being closed, the former Tyson Buggy plant burned down.

Another common local story is that the town was originally selected as the site for the University of North Carolina. Supposedly, city leaders did not want the university built there. City leaders purportedly told the state that Carthage was on too steep of a hill for locomotives to climb and that access to the university would be limited if built there. This often-repeated story does not account for the fact that locomotives were not invented until two decades after the university had been built in Chapel Hill.

The town has an annual event in spring called the Buggy Festival. This event is used to showcase the history of the town and features music, hot rods, old tractors, old buggies made by the Tyson Buggy Company, and crafts from potteries in the surrounding areas. The festival is held in the town square around the Old Court House, recognized as a historic landmark.

Tyson & Jones buggy factory partner William T. Jones was born the son of a slave and her white owner in 1833. By the time of his death in 1910, William T. Jones was one of the prominent business owners in Carthage. He rubbed elbows with the elite, white, upper class in Moore County during the 1880s, dined with them, threw elaborate holiday parties where most of the guests were white, and even attended church with them. Both of his wives, Sophia Isabella McLean and Florence Dockery, were white. Dockery was the daughter of a well-to-do Apex family.

James Rogers McConnell (March 14, 1887 – March 19, 1917), a resident of Carthage, flew as an aviator during World War I in the Lafayette Escadrille and authored ''Flying for France''. He was the first of 64 University of Virginia students to die in battle during that war. McConnell was flying in the area of St-Quentin when two German planes shot him down on March 19, 1917. He was the last American pilot of the squadron to die under French colors before America entered the war in April 1917. Both the plane and his body were found by the French, and he was buried at the site of his death at the edge of the village of Jussy, and was later reinterred at the Lafayette Escadrille memorial near Paris upon his father's wishes. McConnell was commemorated with a plaque by the French government and a statue by Gutzon Borglum at the University of Virginia, as well as an obelisk on the court square of his home town of Carthage.

The J.F. Cole House in the Carthage Historic District, J.C. Black House, Daniel Blue House, Bruce-Dowd-Kennedy House, Carthage Historic District, Alexander Kelly House, and Moore County Courthouse are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Geography

Carthage is in east-central Moore County. North Carolina Highways 24 and 27 pass through the center of town as McReynolds Street (to the northwest) and Monroe Street (to the southeast), leading west to Troy and southeast to Fayetteville. North Carolina Highway 22 enters Carthage on McReynolds Street with NC-24/27 but turns south in the center of town onto McNeill Street. Highway 22 leads south to Southern Pines and northwest to Ramseur. U.S. Routes 15 and 501 pass through the southeast side of the town on a bypass; the combined highways lead northeast to Sanford and south to Aberdeen.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town of Carthage has a total area of , of which , or 0.55%, are water. The town sits on a ridge which drains north toward Little Creek and southwest toward Killets Creek, both tributaries of McLendons Creek, a north-flowing tributary of the Deep River. The southeast part of town drains toward Dunhams Creek, an east-flowing tributary of Cranes Creek. The entire town is within the Cape Fear River watershed.

Climate

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 2,775 people, 967 households, and 497 families residing in the town. Carthage is currently growing at a rate of 1.58% annually and its population has increased by 19.50% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 2,205 in 2010. Spanning over 7 miles, Carthage has a population density of 397 people per square mile.

The average household income in Carthage is $59,183 with a poverty rate of 11.67%. The median rental costs in recent years comes to $727 per month, and the median house value is $173,900. The median age in Carthage is 43.3 years, 37.5 years for males, and 47.5 years for females.

Notable people

* Lucean Arthur Headen (1879–1957), African-American aviator, inventor, and entrepreneur
*Andrew Johnson, 17th president of the United States; lived in Carthage during his teenage years
* Mable Parker McLean (1922–2012), academic administrator

2009 shooting

On March 29, 2009, a man named Robert Stewart shot and killed eight people and wounded two others at the Pinelake Health and Rehab Center of Carthage. Seven of the victims were elderly patients, with ages ranging from 75 to 98 years old. The eighth was a 39-year-old registered nurse who worked at the facility. The gunman, Robert Stewart, exchanged gunfire with a local police officer, wounding him in the leg before he himself was wounded and taken to a nearby medical facility.Eight dead in Carthage nursing-home shooting
- WRAL.com, March 29, 2009.

See also

* Moore County substation attack

References

External links

*
Moore County Chamber of Commerce

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Towns in North Carolina
Towns in Moore County, North Carolina
County seats in North Carolina
Populated places established in 1796