CONTRIBUTED

The North Carolina and Moore County Community Foundation have granted $500 to help pay the cost of replacing the shingled roof on historic Joel McLendon Cabin near Carthage.

The 1760s-era cabin is owned by the Moore County Historical Association and is the oldest dwelling on its original site in Moore County. The cabin shares the 3.4 acre site with the 1820s Bryant House, also owned by the MCHA at 3361 Mt. Carmel Road. The MCHA has authorized work to begin on the cabin roof. The total project is estimated to cost $4,000. Other sources of funds will be used, including proceeds from a ticket sale through early December for a chance at a project, using the grant and other funds being raised through raffle ticket sales through Dec. 4.

Joel McLendon came from a family of Scots who migrated to North Carolina prior to 1696. Joel McLendon was one of several family members who migrated to Moore County, then part of Cumberland County, received a grant of 200 acres on both sides of Buck Creek, later renamed McLendon's Creek. By 1760 he had built a cabin and a grist mill, and cleared much of the land for farming. Joel McLendon gave his name to Joel Road when a Cumberland County Court ordered a road built in 1764 joining an existing one in front of the property to Cross Creek (now Fayetteville) around Vass, running westward into what is now Montgomery County. Joel McLendon was appointed an overseer to the construction. A portion of today's Mount Carmel Road in front of the property still follows the path of the original 1764 Joel Road.

In 1787, McLendon sold the land to Robert Graham, whose daughter married a Bryant. The Bryant son built the Bryant House adjacent to the McLendon Cabin around 1825. The Bryant family lived in the larger house into the 20th century. In 1969 it was donated to the MCHA by the family of Flossie Bryant Davis. The Bryant House inhabitants always used the cabin as their kitchen.

Both the cabin and the house are open to visitors on the second and fourth Sundays, June through September, from 2 to 4 p.m. Both dwellings are decorated with Christmas ornaments authentic to the 18th and 19th centuries and to visitors on Dec. 4 and 5, from 1 to 4 p.m. this year.

For more information on how to donate to the repair of the cabin, call (910) 692-2051.