The "Goophered Grapevine."

    South of the area where the Normal School was originally located on Gillespie Street, is the area where the Chesnutt family owned a farm, and which is described in Chesnutt's story.

We drove out of town over a long wooden bridge that spanned a spreading mill-pond, passed the long whitewashed fence surrounding the county fairground, and struck into a road so sandy that the horse's feet sank to the fetlocks. Our route lay partly up hill and partly down, for we were in the sand-hill country; we drove past cultivated farms, and then by abandoned fields grown up in scrub-oak and short-leaved pine. and once or twice through the solemn aisles of the virgin forest, where the tall pines, well-nigh meeting over the narrow road, shut out the sun, and wrapped us in a cloistral solitude.

    On the map, note the site of the bridge, pond, and fair grounds. The account of the wheels getting stuck in the sand is indicative of the sandy terrain, the feature that earns for this region the name, the "sandhills."

See map of area

Continue with Tour

Back to index