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MCLEANSVILLE — When Helen Paisley Sockwell began gathering stories and information from McLeansville residents almost seven years ago, she thought she was just compiling a church history.

But what began as a project for Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church grew into much more.

Sockwell recently published “Life, Lore & Legend of McLeansville.” The book is a much-needed, comprehensive history of the town, said the retired history and English teacher.

“Nothing had ever been written about the area except for little snippets here and there,” Sockwell said. “I want the people to have a sense of community and an understanding of their heritage.” McLeansville is “an important place, even though not a big-time place.”

The book, which is almost 500 pages long, is divided into 36 chapters. Most pages include photographs or other images.
Sockwell designed the book herself, having learned quite a bit about layout during her 20-odd years leading the yearbook class at Eastern Guilford High School.

“I’ve tried to make it entertaining,” she said. “It’s not just dry facts. I couldn’t teach that way, and I didn’t want to write it that way. I tried to interject as much humor and anecdotes as I could.”

She interviewed elderly residents, scoured old newspaper articles, used public and private archives and begged to borrow people’s old family journals and diaries.

“In many ways it was a labor of love, and at the same time it was an exercise in frustration,” she said. Some of her work was built upon information gathered by Timothy Mullis, who was working on a history of McLeansville when he died.

Sockwell had the satisfaction of proving some local lore — such as the fact that Andrew Jackson, the man who would become president, opened his first independent law practice in McLeansville at the corner of Bethel Church and McLeansville roads.

“I’d heard it all my life,” she said. “It took me six months ... to find that documentation.”

And some lore will remain just that. Sockwell, a lifelong resident of McLeansville, heard countless times that Wild West stars Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill visited the town, but Sockwell “could never absolutely, definitively say they came to McLeansville to put on a show.”

The book begins with a chapter with some basic information on the settling of the town by Scots-Irish around 1750 and the Revolutionary War.

It covers the upheaval and great involvement of local people in the Civil War.

“The area really grew economically after the railroad came through” in the 1800s, Sockwell said. The town had factories that manufactured pipe organs, cigars and coffins as well as “little general stores that carried everything under the sun,” Sockwell said.

“But basically it was a farm community and stayed a farm community,” she said.

Sockwell devoted a large section of the book to the history of local schools.

“Education was a big deal in this community,” Sockwell said.

Although many of them were farmers, residents recognized the
economic benefits of an education and also wanted their children to be able to read the Bible.

The book includes chapters on local doctors, blacksmiths, sawmills, mines, the post office, tobacco, dairy farming, the Lions Club, the McLeansville Wildlife Club and the arts. It also includes some history of neighboring towns, Sedalia and Whitsett, and the Friedens community.

Sockwell included 15 interactive pages in the book where people can record some of their own family’s history.

“They can hand down family information to their children and grandchildren,” she said.

The book costs $55. To purchase a copy, call 697-0361 or e-mail HSockwell@aol.com.

Contact Jamie Kennedy Jones at 449-4610 or jamie.kennedy @news-record.com.