Early
Residents of Rockford
Thursday, November 17, 2016: 5:00pm
Shelton-Badgett
North Carolina Center for Viticulture and Enology
@ Surry
Community College | Click
for directions
The
cost of the meal/program is $17.50 per person.
Monday,
November 14th is the reservation deadline.
Reservations
can be made by mailing checks payable to the Surry County Historical
Society for the number of persons wishing to attend to group member
David Crawford at P.O. Box 469, Mount Airy, NC 27030.
Contact
information including a telephone number or email address should be
specified along with the sender’s name.
Reservations
also can be emailed to crawforddr@embarqmail.com.
By Tom
Joyce from the Mount Airy News:
A taste of local history as well as dinner will be on the menu for the
annual meeting of the Surry County Historical Society here next week.
The gathering is scheduled for Thursday from 5 to 8 p.m. at the
Shelton-Badgett North Carolina Center for Viticulture and Enology on
the campus of Surry Community College.
Those attending next week’s annual meeting will be
treated to a performance by The Nonesuch Playmakers theater group led
by Brack and Angela Llewellyn of Mount Airy.
They sought to bring its early residents back to life by dressing in
period attire and portraying various individuals in character — saying
things they might have said while highlighted their roles in local
history.
Brack Llewellyn has said this was accomplished through
factual information provided by the Rockford Preservation Society along
with anecdotal material including accounts supplied by descendants of
Rockford pioneers. All this was assembled so Nonesuch Playmakers
members could write monologues for them.
Among the individuals to be portrayed during the
annual meeting are Thomas Ayers, John Thomas Longino, William Polk
Dobson and Henry Speer.
Marion Venable of the Surry County Historical Society
said Thursday that women’s roles have been added for next week’s
performance, which will include the Speer sisters who were notable
residents of early Rockford.
It was prominent as the center of county government,
where court was held and spawned the establishment of hotels, stores,
physician and lawyer offices, a blacksmith shop, a tinsmith, a tannery,
a tavern and a ferry, according to information from Dr. Annette Ayers,
historical society president.
By 1830, a post office was added and a decade later
both Methodists and Baptists organized congregations that shared a
small church.
Rockford was the cultural,
political and economic center of the county until 1850, when Surry was
divided into the present Surry and Yadkin counties and Dobson became
the new county seat.
Cast:
Brack
Llewellyn as
William Polk Dobson
Grant Perry as Thomas
Ayers
David Nielsen as
John Thomas Longino
Brian Greene
as Henry Speer
Angela Llewellyn as
Jennie Speer
Olivia Jessup
as Ann Speer
Joey Marion
as Jesse Lester
Special Thanks:
Costumes
by Chuck Little
and Angela Lewellyn
Tom
Joyce and the Mount Airy News
for his article about
our show
The
Surry County Historical Society
1 Photo
