The old Joe Hauser lot, in my childhood, was occupied by Mrs. Traudel Kearny and Mrs. Betsy Hauser, both widows. Mrs. Kearny had two sons, Sandy and
Wesley, and one daughter, Delphine, who married Ackerman. They lived, I think, near Friedberg. Wesley was apprenticed to my father, E.C. Lehman, as a
shoemaker when his father died, and was always very good to his children and a good church goer and sexton.
Mrs. Gertrude Kearny was probably a daughter of Joe Hauser, and I think Betsy was the widow of Solomon Hauser and made snuff in the 40’s and 50’s.
Later, Mary Hauser Norman (Peter Hauser’s daughter and Michael Hauser’s sister) married a widower Norman in the country. When he died she drifted
back to Bethania and lived in Wesley Kearney’s shoe-shop, between the Hauser home and the old yellow house, till she died.
Uncle William Lehman said the old Hauser house was earlier than the Jacob Lash house. Augustus Oehman must have lived in it or torn down the old
house, after the Kearney’s were gone.
Next below this house was the Old Oehman house. Gottfried Rinedholdt lived there with Mrs. Oehman, just opposite the present church.
Old Mr. Oehman was a Russian, unusual, but very dainty and nice in his ways. His wife was Johanna Rights, one of the earliest teachers of Salem Academy,
and a very talented woman, playing piano and the Church organ, and teaching school in Bethania almost till her death. I saw her once and well remember
her. Her teaching was all that some of our people had, such as my aunt Maria Butner (Mrs. Brunert), Rev. Walter Grab’s mother Amerlia Stoltz and others
who were well educated for those times.
She had three daughters, Mrs. Aline Burkhard of Friedland, Mrs. Friebele (Hedwig Oehman) and Mrs. Alvin Butner (Clarinda Oehman, Anna Butner’s
mother) and Rinehold, a son.
On the lower corner of that lot belonging to the church (in my time it was a sort of meadow garden for the resident minister and probably at first was part of
the Square laid out in the middle of the place.) The first place of worship in Bethania stood in this low ground till the rain washed so much soil against the
door, a so-called Congregation House or Gemein House was built on the opposite side of the street on higher ground and served as ministers house, and
the second story as a Church, till the new and present Church was erected in 1809. My grandmother always spoke of the building as the “Gemein Haus” as
long as she lived.
Next to the Oehman House came what I first knew as the Dr. Wilson house next above O.J. Lehman’s present house. Uncle Willian Lehman said it was first
the Gottlieb Ran house, and then Dr. Geo. F. Wilson, then William Stoltz, and last, to his sons and grandsons after his widow’s death in 1915. Dr. Wilson
came to Bethania as a young doctor and was said to have come from Michigan. I well remember his regular horseback and saddle-bags practice. My latest
recollection of him was as a stout, gray-haired man, who came to our house when my sister Sallie was born and ate supper then on that Easter Sunday
evening.
Later the family moved to Yadkinville where Mrs. Wilson’s brother, Theophilus Hauser lived.
Dr. Wilson married Henrietta Hauser, half-sister to Mrs. B. Jones (Kate’s mother). Heinrich Hauser was her father. Her brothers were F.C. Hauser of
Yadkinville and Alex Hauser of Kentucky, whom I once saw, a fine looking man.
Their children (Dr. Wilson’s) were four boys: Henry, a doctor; Virgil, a preacher who died at Pfafftown; George was hurt by a fall from a careless nurse and
could never speak but grew to be a tall man, and died at Yadkinville; and Reuben was well known during the Civil War.
The girls were Louisa, (Mrs. Joe Bitting), Mary (Mrs. Joyce) who died young and left one daughter, Percy, and Julia (Mrs. Bitting) of Texas. I almost grew up
with them and was much attached to them all. They were a superior family. They owned many slaves who lived in a large house in the yard. Nathan, our
coloured man, when he was whiteheaded, married Milly, a good-looking colored girl of some seventeen years--the first wedding I ever witnessed as a child.
Later when the family moved to Yadkinville, Nathan, who owned a horse and buggy, used to go to see her, at first every two weeks, and later every four.
When they were freed he moved there altogether, and could hardly make a living by working and stealing. He was finally put in jail because of it, and just
taken out to die, poor old fellow. He was a good darky if he did try to poison our family several times. He was a Hard-Shelled Baptist and believed that after
being immersed, you could do no wrong. Whatever you did was God’s will, and therefore right. He could preach and pray and sing and steal and get drunk,
all was right, My father bought him of a Mr. Zimmerman and it was said Nathan had helped him out of the world by strangling him, ---the marks were said to
have been seen on his throat; I am unable to say how much is true.
Dr. Wilson had young medical students reading under him and living in this house several times. One of these was Dr. Sam Masten, who later became a
dentist, and lived here in Salem.
Dr. Wilson had his office and Drugstore (for in those days doctors had to furnish all the medicines--drugstores were unknown) in the two small rooms at the
north side of his house, to the right of the passage as you entered the front door. To my childish eyes it was almost an enchanted realm. Later, when Dr.
Mock boarded at William Stoltz’s he occupied those rooms; later, he married in 1862 and Paulina and he spent the first year of their married life there. As
our next door neighbors, the place was always interesting to me.
Now comes our own house, at present occupied by O.J. Lehman and family. Uncle William had the first occupants down as Mr. Kremer and Jacob Shore.
(This Jacob must have been Grandmother Lehman’s brother who had married Catherine Hauser in 1787.) Next to live in it was John Christian Lehman
(Grandfather) who died in 1840; next, my Father, Eugene C. Lehman, who died in 1857; and last, his son, O.J. Lehman, who moved in after our mother’s
death in 1868.
As I first remember the house, it was built like most of the other houses-- out of heavy logs and with a long porch entered from the north end. The front door
was very heavy, made of double slate, or pieces, diagonally. You entered a sort of passage used for a kitchen; only one chimney in the middle, a mass of
brick, one long fireplace in this kitchen, and another on the opposite side opening into the large sitting or living room. Back of this was the bedroom with a
door leading into the sitting room. My grandfather’s house, as I remember it and Uncle Daniel Butner’s (now Robert Butner’s) were built on the same plan as
was Uncle William Lehman’s till they first changed it.
Just before my sister’s birth, in 1849--it may even have been the year before-- my father had changes made. The house was modernized. Two chimneys,
each with two fireplaces were built at each end of the house, thus giving a fireplace to each of the four principle rooms. Instead of one long passage or
room, we had a room just to the right as you entered; back of this was kitchen and dining room combined, with one door leading into cellar and with one to
flight of stairs upstairs. Thus giving five doors in this small room. A back porch was also added at the south west end of which my Grandmother had her
room. I do not know when that was built. A small frame shop joined the north room of the house, where my father, and presumably my grandfather, with his
three boys, had worked as a shoe-maker. In those early times every body had to learn a trade, and it is still a notable German trait, worthy of emulation.
Sometime later the shop was moved away from the house and the door closed up.
When Nathan was bought, he lived in this shop, for he too was a shoe-maker.
Later another changed was made; an addition was built to the north end of the back porch for a kitchen and a room back of that for Nathan’s occupancy.
This was torn down, I do not know when, as I was away during those later years.
The first well was on the north side of the lot, beyond the shop, and a second one on the south side of the Swelling House. For a time an ice-house was
made out of this north well, but later it was filled up.
I have thus minutely described changes, thinking some of the family might, some day, be interested in it.
Next to the Lehman house came the home of my Grandfather, H.H. Butner. The house is now entirely gone, and Dr. Strickland has built a new house on the
lot. Uncle William Lehman only calls it the “Berot Lot”. I suppose then my Grandfather was the next. His house was built like I described ours; however was
not at all repaired and was not changed, except that an addition for dining-room and kitchen was built, opening like ours, from the north side of the back
porch. His yard was large and contained an immense wood-pile, out-house, corncrib, smokehouses, bake-ovens, negro houses, and on the south, just
leaving enough room for a driveway between it and the house, there was a large gun-smith house. On the west side was a Blacksmith shop; and at the front
a gun-smith shop where he had three long benches, and where he worked with his two sons, Ed and Frank.
Albert, from the beginning, showed a distaste for manual labor and wanted an education. So his father sent him to school, first to Salem, and then to
Nazereth, Pa., where he acquired a good education and came home to teach, first at Salem, then a short-while at Bethania. Then he drifted about, to
Whitesville, Columbus County, N.C., where he started a wine-making business. Finally, he came home once more in 1873, I think, and settled there the rest
of his life, teaching. He died in Bethania, nearly 93 years of age, June 25, 1914. Jamie Kapp bought Grandfather’s lot but sold it again to George Hauser
who sold it to Dr. Strickland.
Grandfather’s lot had a good many apple trees on it, especially red June apples, which were a great joy to us children. I remember too a large cider press at
the back end, near the barn, where delicious cider was made. Grandfather had a number of colored slaves too: Lucy, with a large family, Jeanette
Clementina, Melvina Adeline, Jane Edith, Angeline Chloe, Irene, Robert Erwin. Then too, old Archibald, Louis, Squire,--a mulatto. It was a great pleasure to
slip off and eat with them. Things tasted better than at the white folks’ table. Grandfather Butner gave my mother a colored girl Adeline, or “Dump”, and to
my aunt Maria she gave Jane, who returned all of her kindness to her by trying to poison her. Indeed she did kill her step-daughter, Anne Grunert, and her
own baby, still-born. So, my aunt never quite well again after those experiences, died July 12, 1869, with a still-born baby. Her little son, Jamie, aged not
quite two years died in 1870.
Next came the Joe Transou lot. A good well stood on the sidewalk just between the Gun-shop and Mr. Transou’s house. John Transou, Uncle Joe’s father,
lived there before him Uncle William says. Probably the first house was log house just below the house as I first know it. The log house was then used as a
loom or weaving house by Uncle Joe’s wife, Aunt Lizzie, and later he bought a colored man, Ben, who lived in the house. Uncle Joe had a wagon shop, just
below this house where he worked with his apprentice boy Billy Stoltz, who later married Martha Purcelle, and lived in the old Dr. Wilson house next door to
us.
Uncle Joe’s house was the last house on the west side of the street when I can first remember, but later, Levin Grabs, the oldest of Mr. Christian Grab’s
family of boys, married Eveline Flynt, Sandy Flynt’s daughter, (who lived in the country, beyond the William or Edgar Leinbach’s farms). He then (Levin) built
himself a house on the next lot and a Blacksmith shop nearer the creek where he lived till his death. He had three girls named Susan (Mrs. W. Clayton),
Mollie (Mrs. A. Fogle), and Frank (Mrs. Rufus Transou).
Later Mr. Gottleib Sides bought the place for his wife, Cousin Mat Butner Sides, though he died in Kernersville before he ever moved here. Cousin Mat lived
in the house till she had it pulled down, and built herself a newer and more commodious house a little lower down.
Then Mr. Griffith bought the section of the lot between her and Uncle Joe’s former wagon-shop, and built himself a new, modern house, just between, and
opposite the old Lehman and Butner Store, where he was employed. His wife was Pearl Transou, daughter of Rufus Transou.
Beginning on the right hand or east side of the one street of Bethania, the first old land-mark was Uncle Daniel Butner’s Blacksmith Shop and Coal Shed, on
a hill, where he labored faithfully assisted by a colored man-- old Lawson, or Uncle Laws, as we called him.
Then came the Stage road to Salem and next the Lehman and Butner Store put up in 1836, and still going on.
In time Uncle Daniel’s shop disappeared and the Tobacco Factory of O.J. Lehman and J.H. Kapp took its place. The factory was active till Mr. J.H. Kapp’s
death in 1896. Then, in the division of property the factory fell to the Kapp heirs, and was by them sold to Mr. Boger who made a dwelling house out of it,
pulling down the tall smoke stack. For two years, about 1918, the Kapps gave the factory free of rent to the county for a Public School House. Then the
county bought the Pythian Lodge on the other side of the street above and somewhat in the rear of the old Wilson house (now owned by Stoltze’s) where a
good grade and high school building was erected.
The Lehman Store building, as has been stated, was begun in 1836 by H.H. Butner and his son-in-law, Eugene C. Lehman, who conducted a fine mercantile
business there. Before that time, George Hauser had had the very first store in Bethania. George Hauser had married my Grandmother Lehman’s sister
Magdalena. I remember seeing her only once, when I was quite small, as she visited my grandmother. Then John Christian Lash put up a store at the upper
end of town which went on under his sons, I.G. and T.B. Lash till during the Civil War.
Meanwhile, the old Lehman and Butner partners died, and a younger set came along; F.A. Butner and O.J. Lehman. About 1871 or 1872 J.H. Kapp entered
the firm and was a partner in an extensive business until he died in 1896. They had five stores at one time and a large Tobacco Factory, but at Mr. Kapp’s
death the business dwindled until about 1898 or 1899. O.J. Lehman sold out to the Stock Co. which does no seem to be doing much. A roller mill was also
started east of the store by O.J. Lehman and Butner in 1899, and is still in operation.
Uncle William Lehman says of this store lot, it had belonged to Hanke and Beckel. Of them I know nothing. They had passed away before my time.
When I was quite a little girl I remember going to a poor one-story log-house, with one door front and one window, rather dilapidated. The occasion was the
death of Peter Hauser. I remember the weeping of his daughter Mary who afterwards went to her brother Michael Hauser, near Friedberg, and then married
a widower, a Mr. Norman. After his death she drifted back to Bethania and, known to all as Aunt Mary Norman, lived in Wesley Kearny’s former shoe shop.
I remember seeing old Uncle Peter Hauser, a venerable, gray-haired man, sitting in front of his humble dwelling. This house stood about where Uncle Ed
Butner later built himself a house where he lived a year or two after his marriage. The first year he lived in the lower part of Aunt Susy’s and Caty Strup’s
house just above the church. Cousin Mat was born there. I helped them move down to their house. Later, Uncle Ed sold the house and lot to Uncle Sam
Strup who moved in from the country about a mile beyond Shore-town, where he and his brother, Ephriam Strup, Veny’s father, lived.
After Uncle Sam’s death, Will Strup, his son, lived there, and now I think his son lives there. There was an interval before Uncle Sam Strup moved to town,
when the empty house was rented by different parties. Mr. Mitchell Richmond and his wife lived there a while; she died there of erysipelas. Dr. Williams had
his office there a good while and perhaps others; but I remember these well. Since that time, however, it has been in the Strup family.
The Tom Schaub house came next. Uncle William Lehman said Michael Kirschner first lived there then Elias Schaub, then Tom Schaub. My memory only
reaches Thomas Schaub’s occupancy. He had a tall shop on the south side of the lot, with a row of Lombardy Poplars along there. On the second floor of
his shop he made and repaired carriages and buggies. He had a large platform on the south end where he dried his painting of carriage and buggies.
There were a long flight of steps and a sort of plank extension on each side to roll down his vehicles. My aunt Maria Butner and I used to go up there at
night to view the stars as we studied astronomy. It was a capital place.
One night we sat up there waiting till after midnight to see Jupiter rise, and he was fine, too.
On the lower floor of his shop Mr. Schaub made half-bushel measures, etc.
Later he moved to Mount Airy and then Mr. Alex Grabs owned the place. It seems to me I used to hear something of a Basil Gaither Jones who lived there.
We had some Greek and Latin books with his name in them, but my knowledge of him is too vague and misty to amount to anything.
Charley Leinback, (Mr. Lewis Leinbach’s grandson) bought the Alex Grabs house and lived there with his wife, a Boger. Alex Grabs lived alone there a good
while after his wife died and, finally, he died at a good old age in 1916 at his daughter, Laura’s, Mrs. Reid. His other daughter, Emily, married a Holder and
lived in the country.
About Mr. Keischner, I remember also he lived alone as an old bachelor or widower, I do not know which, in a poor little house beyond Shoretown. A
schreyer lived not far from him, in a similar manner. He was very filthy and dirty and seemed to us children to be deranged. They both seemed to be very
poor and peculiar. Virgil Wilson dressed up and went to the Kirschner funeral in the Bethania Church, because only seven men went; and a few days
before, I think it was, Issac Conrad, a rich man from the river, had such a large funeral Virgil would not go at all to his, although he was a relative.
Uncle William Lehman’s house came next, though I know Solomon Transou and family had lived there before him, but bought a large plantation and moved
out about seven miles beyond where Lewisville now stands. After a time his wife got so homesick for Bethania, especially after her sons, just grown, died.
Constantine Thaddeus and [T]rephonius Emil were their names, so her husband finally sold his place to Dr. Stimson and with his wife, two youngest girls,
Adeline and Mary Ann, came back to town and bought Uncle Henry Lehman’s house, now Mr. George Porter’s. Antoinette, his oldest daughter, had married
Issac Conrad, and was now a widow with three children living on a large plantation beyond the Shallow ford, near Huntsville. I once visited there with Mr.
Transou, my aunt, mother and little sister. Mr. Transou had a number of negro slaves. He was a very smart man. Original, gifted and peculiar.
Uncle William Lehman had a large shop south of his present dwelling which I think was Solomon Transou’s wagon shop, and later Uncle William and Uncle
Henry had a Tailor shop there. It may be that Uncle Henry first lived in the Tom Schaub house as I remember some such idea. Abraham Transou, Solomon
Transou’s father, lived there first. He had two daughters, Mrs. J.C. Blum and Magdalen, a spinster, who died in Salem in the little house occupied by Veny.
Egbert Lehman succeeded his father as owner of _____ Strup homeplace and greatly improved things.
The next place was the Hege place. Christian Hege was the father [of] Lizzie, who married Uncle Daniel Butner, and Mrs. Traudel Werner, Mary, who married
Sam Hauser, and lived up near the Little Yadkin. _____ther Hege brother was the father of Mrs. Daniel Welfare, Mrs. Adam ____ and Mrs. Betsy Rights,
Christian and George Hege, all of whom lived and died in Salem.
After Uncle Daniel Butner came his son Alvin, then Robert his son Raymond and two girls, Bertha and Lola. Robert’s grandmother was Johanna Rights,
married Oehman, one of the first teachers of Salem Female Academy and a gifted woman.
Here again I have a faint idea without much foundation, that Staubers used to live between Uncle William’s house and Uncle Daniel’s and had to move up to
the old place just this side of the Stauber-Peddycord farm. The old Stauber homestead was there; I went there with my grandmother Lehman to visit her old
friend, Elizabeth Stauber, then a bed-ridden widow. I picked up many little fragments in these visits which I can scarcely account for. Mr. Sam Stauber then
lived on a farm, a mile further on, where Tobias, his son, first lived before he moved to Bethania. He had a large still-house there, too.
The present, Stauber-Peddycord-Ebert place was then occupied by a large brick house and a large brick store owned by Jacob Conrad and later inhabited
by his widow and her married daughter, Mrs. H. Lemly and family. The house was set on fire and burned to the ground by one of the negroes, as were two
large dwellings and some out houses. Then the Lemlys moved to Salem, and Mr. S. Stauber bought the place and built a new frame house.
Sometimes people had to move from town just for some little technicality that seems trivial to us.
Uncle Daniel Butner owned several slaves, old Lucy, Lawson, and Henry, who was born there and raised like a white child.
Next came the Grabs Lot in which I think the very first house in the place was built in 1759. Gottfried Grabs, his wife, and little son William moved into it.
This, I think, must have been the log house next to Uncle Daniel Butner’s. In my time Christian Grabs and his wife, Susan Transou, lived in a newer house
facing the Congregation house, gable end to the street and porch facing north. The two houses were connected by a frame addition, from the window of
which Mr. Christian Grabs used to blow a horn every day, quarter before twelve. Then the farmers in the fields around would come home to dinner. Mr.
Christian had a brother, Johnny Grabs who lived up on Crooked Run - Edwin Grabs’ father.
Mr. Christian’s sons were Levin, William (Rev. Walter Grab’s father) Alexander, James and Edward, the youngest who died of Typhoid Fever 1862,
unmarried, at the age of 22. He was my childhood’s friend and playmate.
Old Mr. Grabs owned some negroes: Jake, Louis, Manny and Tildy all that I knew of. He had a still-house too, on the side of the Old Graveyard walk. In the
early days, it is said, there was one on almost every lot. I remember only two, one on the Conrad lot where the last schoolhouse stood before the late High
School Buildings were erected.
After the James Grabs family left Bethania, Mr. Speas bought this lot; Mr. Bruce Anderson, his son-in-law, lives there.
Then came the so-called Congregation House, minister’s residence and second place of worship till the church was finished in 1809. Then it became the
parsonage until 1852, when the present parsonage was built and it was torn down. I made several drawings of it from memory and these are the only ones
in existence.
The next house above the church was a double-house, the old Samuel Strup house, where my grandmother Butner, Lohanna Salome Strub, was born and
lived; she married H.H. Butner, my grandfather, and died about 1852. Her sisters were Mary, who married Mr. Belo of Salem, father of Edward, Louis, Levin
and Louis, who later married Bishop G.F. Bahnson and Carolina R_____ and Theresa Siddal.
Aunt Susy and Caty Strup lived in the old home till Aunt Caty was left alone. She then moved to her nephew, Levin Strup, till her death, and the old house
became his property. He sold it to Henry Stoltz who built a new frame house on the lot.
There were three Strup brothers, besides the four sisters, Samuel, Ephriam and John. Samuel and Ephriam lived in the country on farms beyond
Shoretown. Ephriam, who first lived in the old Bethania home moved out there and died, leaving three children, Florine (Mrs. George Porter) Henry and
Eugene who died during the late war. I went to see Uncle Ephriam on his deathbed and can just remember it.
Samuel later moved to the Ed Butner house in Bethania and died there. John lived and died in the neighborhood of New Philadelphia, or thereabout. We
never knew much of him. His son, Ephriam, was a neer-do-well and died some years ago in Salem. Aunt Susy Strup lived with her mother in the old house
until she died. Aunt Caty meanwhile had gone to live in the Salem Sisters’ house, with Misses Hannah R_____ and Caty Stauber, oldtime milliners and cap
makers. When Aunt Susy was left alone Aunt Caty came back to live with her until her death. In the meantime, their brother Ephriam must have lived in the
lower, the old house, till after the birth of his oldest child, Florina. Later Edward Butner married Mary Wolf and lived there until after Cousin Mat was born;
she and Forinda were both born there.
The old houses have their memories; it is no wonder, the old cling to them.
The next house was Elias Shaub’s. Issac Lash lived there first, Uncle William says. He was Uncle William’s sponsor. Issac Lash was a son of Abraham Lash
who lived out northwest of Bethania, near where F. Lash later built h is home. Later I know of an Issac Lash who married Mary Transou, sister to Uncle Joe,
and Mrs. C. Grabs, Aunt Betsy Strup, Aunt Salome Strup--These Transou girls were my mother’s good friends and next door neighbors.
A fifth sister, Henrietta, married Ben Spaugh and lived in the country near New Philadelphia, or Friedberg. Issac Lashs and Spachs were both well-to-do.
Lash’s lived near Spachs. Later their daughter Malvina married Constantine Hege, Rosa’s parents. They had several sons, ----- and Henry Lash. I went to
school for a short time with Henry Lash. He was very handsome.
Among my schoolmates at that early day, with Mr. H. Reude and Uncle Albert as teachers in the old Congregation House were, Col. J.W. Alspaugh, Jo.
Williams of Panther Creek, Lamb Reynolds, Nick Williams and John Carr Connelly, William King of Lexington, a bad one, the two Shepherd boys, Hambleton
and Will, and two Brietz boys, Henry and Ed or “Kid”, as he was styled, Constantine Stolts and some others. That was in the early ‘50s. [1850’s]
All this disgression came from Issac and Henry Lash. Now, to return to Mr. Shaub. He had a large shop with high wooden steps, and gun-smith shop at the
south end, and a Jewellers shop at the north end. Between the shop and house he had a flower garden and a long “white Bee Palace” where he got a lot of
honey. I taught his daughter music in the house a good while.
Mr. Shaub was killed about 1882 by his horse running away with him near Crater’s Mill.
He, my father and Mr. T.B. Lash were the only people in Bethania that seemed to care for the education of their children. Together they built a small
schoolhouse on the old Conrad-Livingston lot. My father did a good bit of the carpenter work with his own hands, I remember seeing him up on the roof,
covering the small belfry in which the school bell hung. Our former room door, before our house was repaired, served as a door for the schoolhouse.
It was in Mr. Elias Schaub’s house that Gen. Stoneman spent some time while the Union troops were passing through Bethania in that memorable Easter
week of April 10, 1865, and Mr. Shaub’s horse was the only one in the place not taken.
Mr. Shaub had quite a tragical death. Coming home as usual from his and Mr. Crater’s mill with his buggy and Bill, his horse, he was found dead by the
roadside, I think it was in 1881. The horse was entangled in his harness and in the bushes not far off.
The next house above Mr. Schaub’s, now occupied by Mrs. Sarah Butner, Uncle Albert’s widow, was originally Sadler or Henry Hauser’s, Benjamin Hauser’s
father. He, Sadler, was standing on his porch, talking across the street to Mr. Abram Conrad, when he fell dead of apoplexy. Lord Cornwallis spent the night
in the house on Feb. 9, 1781. As far as we know, Norman[?] Reich, a painter, owned this house next. Then it would seem as if there must have been an
intermediate owner. Then Levin Strub, Reich’s son-in-law lived there and after the latter moved to Panther Creek, Albert Butner was the next occupant.
The next house on the north side of Lash’s lane was owned by Uncle Henry Lehman in my day. I still remember his old log house with long porch, as they all
used to be, but it must have been changed to its present from in 1846 or 1849. Uncle William, My father, and Michael Hauser, it seems, lived in Uncle Henry’
s house first. Whether he built it or not, I do not know. Uncle Henry owned some negroes too. Pricilla, who had two children (Adaline and Reuben) was sold
to a trader for some wrong-doing. She was our Nathan’s wife, and t was hard to leave her two children here. I think, too, she had a baby that she took with
her. Nathan later married Milly, a young girl of Dr. G.F. Wilson’s. I wrote the names of 25 of his children in his large Bible for him. He probably had more
that he failed to remember.
Uncle Henry became a member of the firm of Lehman-Butner-Lehman. I remember listening to the three partners talking over the new name and how it
produced a laugh when I put in my child voice, “Why, people will think another Lehman has come into the world.”
Uncle Henry later went to Stoney Ridge to take charge of a branch store there. That business grew, though all the goods had to be hauled through the 16
miles of rough roads by Mr. Samuel Stauber and others.
All the goods had to be hauled from Fayetteville, N.C. to Bethania and it was a gala day for us children (who were, of course in everybody’s way) when 7 or 8
wagon loads of goods were driven up to the Bethania store and unloaded. Then all the men came up to Grandfather Butner’s and our house to eat a big
dinner before going home. Then all the newly bought dishes and wares had to be washed and placed, goods priced, and all of which our children eyes took
in fully as did the making of Quinine Pills., etc.
Uncle Henry did have a poor little house to live in up at Stony Ridge. His wife complained and fretted, though I hugely enjoyed my two-weeks visits up there
and even went rabbit-hunting with Peyton. Later, then, Ellen would come down and spend weeks with me and we grew very fond of each other.
By and by Uncle Frank Butner went up to help Uncle Henry, and later on, his wife, Aunt Betsy, fussed and fretted at him until he withdrew from the firm and
moved out to Brookstown, buying the Issac Conrad, Sr., house and farm and setting up a small store for himself. This was not very successful venture, and
gradually things went down as they did, in fact, everywhere during and after the war. The old people died and the younger members were scattered.
Mr. Soloman Transou bought Uncle Henry’s Bethania house and moved his family to town, as has been stated. The girls, Adelaide and Mary Ann, married
and left, the old people died and Mr. George Porter bought the place.
The next house is now occupied by Dora Stoltz. I think it was the old Adam Butner homestead when Grandfather H.H. Butner and his seven brothers and
sisters were all born there. The boys were: Christian, Herman, Adam, Abram, Daniel, John, Thomas, Jacob and Betsy, who married a Holder away out in
Indiana. The first named of course we knew well. Uncle Adam, Daniel and John lived near Friedberg; Jacob, up on Crooked Run; Tom we only knew of
vaguely as the father of Billy and Henry, and he died young. Billy was taken and well-raised by Uncle Daniel. Henry was taken by Uncle Henry Lehman, but
either they missed it in his raising or he was no good, for he drifted away, joined the Union army and finally died at his brother Henry’s.
Grandfather Butner took a sickly little fellow, Jacob Edward, I think was his name, but he died quite young and must have been a little brother of Billy and
Henry. Billy married Mary Kearny.
Uncle Abram also moved to Indiana and died there leaving one daughter, half of whose property was divided among his N.C. kin in 1915.
After the mother of all these children, Maria Butner, (I think) she was originally a Stoltz nearly related to Samuel and Const. Stoltz died, great grandfather
Adam married the widow Frey, a little bit of an old dried up woman who was always carefully tended by grandfather till she died, for he said she was so good
to her step-children. I remember he used to go after her in the Easter week, at Christmas, and bring her to Bethania on horseback. She had one daughter,
Mrs. Cox (whose husband at one time kept the poor house) by her first husband, and one son, Michael, (Kim and Calvin Butner’s father). He was a good
man, but not much force, and died young on his little farm adjoining J.G. Kapp’s.
After the old Butners died out, Parmenio Stoltz, son of Simon Stoltz, who lived on the opposite side of the street, lived in the house.
The next house was long the last house in town, on the right or east side. Grandmother Lehman’s first husband, Frederick Hauser, lived there, but evidently
did not live a great while. I do not think she could have been very happy in that marriage, for we children often tried to make her talk about it, but she never
would.
In my time, Aunt Traudel (Gertrude) Stoltz (she was everybody’s aunt) lived there, a widow. She had one daughter, Harriet, who died young. Aunt Traudel
was an original character. Her maiden name was Leinbach (Lewis Leinbach’s sister) and she lived there alone, always having a pet dog, manufacturing
snuff, which was then largely used by old ladies and gentlemen. She also raised silk-worms, and sold sewing-silk of beautiful colors. We children loved to go
for snuff, for she always gave us something; great lucious pears, red June apples in their season, but always something. She was very fond of music, too,
and had several music boxes, a musical clock, and the like. I think Kasper Stoltz, a brother of Simon, was her husband. After her death, Dr. Sandy Hauser
owned her home a good while till he moved up the country.
Later, William Grabs, father of Rev. F. Walter Grabs lived there. Since the death of his father’s second wife, I do not know if Rev. Walter Grabs owns or
rents it or has sold it. Now, a house has been built above it by Mr. Porter for his daughter’s family.
The house opposite Aunt Traudel Stoltz’s was slightly built and occupied by a shoemaker, T.C. Johnson, a Squire, who raised a family of rather bad boys:
Will, Henry and John. They left the place and never knew what became of them.
The next house going down the west side of the street was the old Simon Stoltz house. His wife, Sallie Stoltz, was a short, jolly woman. I never knew her
husband---he died before my time, but I knew the rest of the family.
There were two boys, Parmenio and Alfred, and two girls, Wilhelmina and Amelia. Wilhelmina, the older, married Thomas B. Lash and they lived in a white
house on a hill northwest of Bethania. Rufus lived in the old Stoltz home but died young. Isabel married William Glasscock. Sanford Reich made long trips
south and from one of them he never returned.
Mrs. Amelia supported herself and her two children by teaching school. Finally, after a number of years, she was fully assured of her husband’s death, and
married William Grabs, who had been devoted to her for years. She had two children by him, Minnie and Rev. F. Walter Grabs.
Uncle William Lehman said the Stoltz home was built by Mrs. Jones’ father, Abram Conrad, that he had a store there, and then the Dr. Shuman lived there
before Simon Stoltz.
I know just below the house was a small house with barred windows, but when I can first remember, Louis Lash, who became crazy from over study, lived in
that house by himself. He wandered about, talking aimlessly, but later, after I came to Salem, he became dangerous about setting fires to buildings and had
to be placed in the asylum in Raleigh, where he died years ago.
The tavern came next, built by George Hauser. Then Mrs. Jones’ Grandfather, Henry Hauser
*(Note: Dr. Lehman is wrong; Henry Hauser was the father of Mrs. Jones’ half-sisters and brothers, her father having been Abram Conrad) John Grabs,
William Lash, and lastly, I.C. Lash and T.B. Lash, all kept the Tavern at different times, according to Uncle William’s account. Some years ago it was torn
down.
Then came Lash’s Store, still standing in a dilapidated form, but in its time the only store as kept by John Christian Lash. Uncle William said the store was
built by Hauser.
John Christian Lash had many business interests; the store, a Tan yard on the right of the lane going west, where a large willow tree stood, a large farm,
many negroes, much cattle, a saw mill, and a grist mill said to have been bought of Abraham Lash by John Christian Lash for his two youngest boys, I.G. and
T.B. Lash.
There was an old dwelling house at the mill, inhabited in my early days by T.B. Lash’s miller. It is probable that Abraham Lash lived in that house when he
operated the mills.
In 1841, the cigar business was begun and employed a number of colored hands, male and female. L.H. Livingston traveled all over the South with those
cigars, and I.B. Chitty was the last to be connected with it. Adam Snow had the store until about 1863 or ‘64 when he left and died in Bakersville, N.C.
John Christian Lash had three wives and three sets of children. The first set were Mrs. Sallie Transou (Solomon), Mr. William Lash and Louis Lash. The
next were Mrs. Elizabeth Conrad (Jacob) Mrs. Abram Conrad (Phillipina), first Mrs. Henry Hauser and Mrs. Kate Jones grandmother, and the last I.G. and I.B.
Lash.
The Lash dwelling-house was remodeled, in my childhood, to its present form. Mrs. Wilhemina Lash lived there after her husband T.B. Lash died. Lily lived
there a while, and after the, Miss Margaret Miller, after her death Egbert Lehman owned the place, John Moore having bought the store.
The next house below the Lash House was originally lived in by Henry Hauser, then Abram Conrad, who married his widow, then by Livingston, Ruede, O.J.
Lehman, Rev. E.P. Greider, Strickland and lastly, Dr. Speas.
In my early recollection there was a large log-house next below the present house, but Conrad’s Negroes lived there. That was probably the first house on
the lot. A Still-house stood right on the land. Later, Conrad’s Still-house, as it was called, was moved to the left-hand side of the road, about half-way
between Bethania and the Dr. Jones’ place on the hill beyond the creek. Conrad’s mill stood on the creek a little farther east. It was burned down by
deserters about 1865, and nothing now remains of it. Mr. Abram Conrad lived with his daughter, Mrs. Jones, till his death.
The Old Yellow House comes next in order, going downtown. Uncle William told me it was built by the Church for Mr. Kluge, who came to Bethania as
assistant to the Rev. C.T. Pfohl, who became unable to fulfill all of his duties. He said, too, that the upstairs was used as a schoolroom and as a meeting-
house until the Congregation House was finished.
Later it was rented to different people. My parents lived there a year or more after their marriage. Their son., O.J. Lehman, born there. Later, Wolle
[Wolfe?] live there (Rev. Peter), Sam Hauser, Sandy Kearny, Alvin Butner, Rawlins, and I know not how many more---Askermon.
Mrs. Rufus Transou’s house now stands on the lot. Henry Lehman owned it for a time. We cultivated the garden but later it changed hands often.
This brings us again to our starting point, the old Joe Hauser-Kearny lot, just opposite the church.
These are my recollectons, supplanted by what Uncle William Lehman, told his daughter-in-law, and which she wrote down, as he gave them.
*(The source of this information is unknown)
HOUSES IN BETHANIA OF THE OLDEN TIME - 1916
Emma A. Lehman
Past Head of the Department of English
Salem, NC 1916
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