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Second of two parts.

My first article about Deep River Lodge told how Clarence H. Mackay, multimillionaire head of Postal Telegraph Co., bought his first piece of land in Guilford County in 1903 and by 1905 had built Deep River Lodge, using plans drawn for him by the fashionable architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White.

The lodge, in what is now Cedarwood, was surrounded by land used for bird hunting by Mackay, his family and guests who arrived each November on private railroad cars that were parked near Jamestown’s depot.

It is hard to know what effect the presence of the Mackay establishment had on Jamestown. The principal hunting season began in November, but the family also used the lodge at other times.

Undoubtedly, prominent local residents were occasional guests at the lodge. Mackay gave library books, three silk flags and three pictures to the local school at a 1906 commencement exercise.

The lodge probably bought local produce and employed some local people.

A couple of encounters were included in memories Mary Ann Hodgin collected from her grandfather John Henry Hodgin and published by the Historic Jamestown Society in The Farmer’s Advocate and Miscellaneous Reporter in November 1975.

“I remember the Mackay hunting lodge where Cedarwood is today,” John Hodgin recalled. “The Mackays used to hunt on our land on Oakdale Road. They all dressed up in their finery and hunted. They had beautiful horses and were expert huntsmen.”

He continued: “Mrs. Mackay came down to Oakdale Mills one time when I was working in the dye house. She asked me many questions about the workers. I told her I made 8 cents a day. It was not long after that that she went back to England. I think she was interested in us workers. She was a fine woman — more of a woman than Mackay was a man.”

Katherine Duer Mackay was a suffragette and a woman of strong opinions. She left Mackay in 1910, and they were officially divorced in 1914. Clarence Mackay, also a person of strong convictions, did not remarry until Katherine died in 1930 and then married Anna Case.

Of Clarence and Katherine Mackay’s three children, Ellin (the unusual spelling came from her maternal grandmother) became best known. She married composer Irving Berlin, a Jew, in 1926 and was estranged from her father, who did not approve of the marriage. Ellin later wrote about enjoying summers spent at Deep River Lodge (which she incorrectly remembered as being in South Carolina).

In a 1968 High Point Enterprise interview, Jack Armstrong -- son of John Armstrong and nephew of Edward “Ted” Armstrong, who managed Deep River Lodge and was associated with Mackay for more than 50 years -- said the Mackay kennels kept 50 to 100 bird dogs.

(My earlier article incorrectly listed John  Armstrong and Edward Armstrong as father and son. They were brothers. I regret the error.)

Much of the hunting was done on surrounding farmland, Jack Armstrong said. Mackay leased hunting rights on about 30,000 acres of fields and woods.

Ted Armstrong represents one of Mackay’s strongest ties to Jamestown because he continued to live on Guilford College Road until his death at age 75 in August 1948. His descendants still live in that neighborhood.

There is no record of the last time Mackay visited Deep River Lodge. He sold it to the Rodney E. Snow family of High Point in 1937, and the massive frame building was destroyed by fire on Nov. 3, 1950. Mrs. Snow was awakened by the Oakdale whistle at 5 a.m. and smelled smoke. Jamestown firemen were called, but couplings on Snow’s hydrants did not fit their pumping equipment. All that could be saved from the 14 rooms and six baths was some living-room furniture. The massive frame building was underinsured, and it was not rebuilt.

Among the items in James Lutzweiler’s file of Mackay information is an accounting of bequests made by Clarence Mackay. He died on Nov. 12, 1938, and in December the Surrogate’s Court of Nassau County, N.Y., where he lived, received the petition for probate. His will had not been updated, so it still listed property at the lodge and said all of it was to go to his son, John W. Mackay. It included “horses, dogs, guns, harness, carriages, automobiles, wagons, tools, machinery, farm equipment, cattle, livestock, household furniture and furnishings and other strictly personal effects of a similar nature, situated at the time of my death on my estate located near Jamestown, N.C., and known as Deep River Lodge.” Edward Armstrong of Deep River Lodge was to receive $5,000.

Maybe a few of the cedar trees Mackay had planted on both sides of Guilford College Road remain, but most are gone. Really, just the name “Cedarwood” remains a memorial to the Mackay era.

Contact Mary Browning at maryab30@triad.rr.com