Visit Cary's past through blog entries posted by our history loving members.
It’s the autumn of 1937. A boy is walking through woods on the outskirts of Cary and comes upon a long-abandoned cemetery. He pauses long enough to etch his name into the stone obelisk – Charles Dellinger, 11/2/37, age 15.
Fast forward to 2020. The abandoned cemetery is White Plains Cemetery, the burial ground of the Revolutionary War Patriot, Nathaniel Jones. It is now a well-cared for historic site within the town limits of Cary and is surrounded by a housing development. Olivia Loyack, a young lady who lives next door to the cemetery, takes an interest in the etching and uncovers one of the untold stories of an “old Cary” family, their connection to the Revolutionary War, and their sacrifices during World War II.
The Dellinger family was originally from Lincoln County, NC. Henry Dellinger fought in the American Revolution along with his brother, who had signed the Tryon Resolves in 1775. Several generations later, a descendant, Charlie Lee Dellinger, a railroad employee who worked in Greenville, SC, met and married a local Greenwood SC girl, Ella Pinson. After living and working in Hamlet, NC, a railroad hub, the family moved to Cary with the railroad in the late 1920s. They settled near Ephesus Baptist Church, where Charlie, along with his railroad position, worked as a custodian and cemetery caretaker. Over the years the family grew to include children Charles, Howard, Frances, Eugene, Katherine, Ruth, and Cecil.
Charlie Lee had a patriotic spirit. At age 16, he attempted to volunteer for World War I, but was declined due to his young age. Years later, he attempted to volunteer for World War II after Pearl Harbor was bombed, but was declined again due to his older age and seven children. In raising his children, he passed on his love of country. His oldest child, Charles went to Baltimore after graduating from Cary High School to work for Martin Aircraft. After several deferrals due to his important work for the aircraft industry, he entered the Army in 1943. After training, he was assigned to Italy. In letters that his mother saved and are now treasured by family, Charles wrote home for two specific items: his camera and the book “Rules of Baseball” which speaks of his love for the All-American game. Charles and his brother Howard were talented baseball players, and the family story is that Charles and Howard were pulled out of grade school at Mount Vernon to pitch games for Cary High School! Along with Charles’ letters, the family also has the photos Charles took with his camera in Italy. During fighting in the fall of 1944, Charles was injured and was given the option to return home or rejoin his unit. He returned to his unit, but was killed on January 5, 1945 as American forces broke through “The Gothic Line” on their march to Florence. He was 22.
The story continues. The second Dellinger son, Howard, enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 1943. He suffered from high blood pressure so it took several attempts to pass the physical to enlist! After training at Parris Island and Quantico, he was assigned to Okinawa where he was killed in fighting, just a few short months after his older brother Charles, on June 5, 1945, after US forces had officially captured the island. The three remaining sons, Frances, Eugene and Cecil followed their brothers by serving in the military, and with their two sisters, Katherine and Ruth, lived long, successful lives.
The Dellingers, descendants of a Revolutionary War Patriot…a family with a great love for country…paying the supreme sacrifice for the freedom we enjoy today…their story unearthed through graffiti on the obelisk marking the burial spot of another Revolutionary War Patriot. The story has come full circle.
Author's note: A special thank you to Jane Wydra, niece of Charles and Howard Dellinger who supplied valuable details in a phone interview with Carla Michaels and to Charles and Howard’s siblings, Ruth and Cecil, who kindly gave permission to use family photos in this article.
Long after the wooden structures, houses, barns and out buildings comprising the farms and plantations of the 1700s and 1800s are gone, all that often remains are the hardened gravestones and iron fences marking the spot where the owners and family members are buried and laid to rest. This is the case with the White Plains Cemetery, resting place of Nathaniel Jones, his first and second wives, and seven of his children.
Besides being the owner of 10,000+ acres of land in what would become eastern Cary, Jones (1749-1815) was a Revolutionary War Patriot and served as a Wake County Commissioner, Justice of the Peace, Sheriff, Clerk of Court, member of the General Assembly and delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Hillsborough in 1788. Learn more about Nathaniel Jones.
Descendants of the Nathaniel Jones family visited the cemetery in 1971 during the Town of Cary's centennial celebration. They made their way through the woods that would one day become the Maynard Oaks neighborhood and found the neglected cemetery on a small plot that would one day be situated on Tolliver Ct. in that neighborhood. The Cary Historical Society was formed in 1974 and although there was interest then in conserving the obelisk that marked Nathaniel's burial spot and the box tomb that marked that of his second wife, Rachel Perry Jones, it wasn't until 1986 that Town of Cary staff worked with the Historical Society and Sunsouth Homes, Inc. (the developers of Maynard Oaks and the owners of the cemetery at the time) to put together a proposal to conserve them.
In the meantime, Ann Burns and Irene Kittinger recorded the cemetery in 1981 for the Wake County Cemetery Survey Project and made a return visit in 1982. As they described, the slab atop Rachel's box tomb was no longer intact and Nathaniel's obelisk was leaning. Six or seven plain marble markers were counted inside the cemetery and five slender unmarked stones were found. The foundation was still there for what once held a wall, or perhaps an iron fence, but the fence was gone.
In 1983, Ann and Irene visited two sisters who were third great granddaughters of Nathaniel Jones of White Plains and Nathaniel Jones of Crabtree, and who provided a Bible record of Nathaniel Jones of White Plains and a copy of typed family records. These sources, along with obituaries, provided the information to determine who was buried in the White Plains Cemetery along with Nathaniel and Rachel. Keep in mind, with the exception of Nathaniel's obelisk and Rachel's box tomb, no gravestones in the cemetery bore any legible writing. But with the obtained information, it was determined that Nathaniel's first wife, Millleson Blanchard Jones, was also buried in the cemetery. She died three days after the birth of one of their children. Two of their other children are also buried in the cemetery; both died young, one at age 7 and one at age 2. These two young children both died during the same year, 1780, and are the first members of the family to be buried in the cemetery. The remaining graves contain five of Nathaniel and his second wife Rachel's children, ranging in age from 34 to 76.
In June 1987, the Cary Historical Society engaged David C. Fischetti, P.E. (who went on to play a significant role in the relocation of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse) to provide an assessment of the Nathaniel Jones obelisk, with an action plan for the obelisk's stabilization and conservation. An archaeological study of the cemetery was completed by the N.C. Office of State Archaeology. The Town of Cary and the Cary Historical Society, with support from the Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel, donated funds for conservation work on Nathaniel Jones’ obelisk. They also erected an iron replacement fence around the gravestones. In addition, they restored the collapsed sides of Rachel Perry Jones’s box tomb and covered it with a temporary stone top because the original ledger stone had been displaced and was in pieces scattered throughout the cemetery. The conservation work was completed in 1989 and Sunsouth Homes deeded the site to the Town.
In 2009 - 2010, with funds donated by the Cary Historical Society, the Town and the Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel installed a permanent granite ledger stone for Rachel's box tomb. The ledger stone was engraved with the original inscription, having been recorded in February 1981 by Ann Burns and Irene Kittinger before the original ledger stone was broken into pieces and eventually lost. They also added small marble tablets behind four unadorned fieldstone head markers, behind one unadorned marble foot marker, behind three damaged marble head markers that are missing sections bearing the deceased's attributes (name, date of birth, death of death, epitaph, etc.), and at the head of the one unmarked grave. In addition, they installed an interpretive sign outside the fence. The fieldstones and damaged marble tablets are original to the cemetery and its period of significance. The nine new marble tablets are approximately 2-feet tall, and are comparable to the height of the fieldstones and the lower section of the original marble tablets that mark the various burial locations.
In 2011, Jones family descendants were joined by Town representatives, Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel, Cary Historical Society members, Maynard Oaks residents and Daughters of the American Revolution to celebrate the conservation of the White Plains Cemetery. They laid bouquets of white flowers on each of the graves to honor their ancestors. Watch a video slideshow of the ceremony.
In 2012, the Yates Mill Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution held a commemorative grave marking ceremony and mounted on the gate leading into the graveyard a bronze plaque in honor of Nathaniel Jones. This plaque honors Jones' service as a Patriot during the American Revolution.
Forty-six years after the descendants of Nathaniel Jones trekked through the woods to find their ancestors' cemetery in a state of disrepair, the fully conserved cemetery became an official Cary Historic Landmark in 2017. The Town of Cary designates Cary Historic Landmarks as a way to preserve buildings and sites that are historically, architecturally, or culturally significant to our community. The White Plains Cemetery is certainly that.
You can visit the White Plains Cemetery at 100 Tolliver Ct. in Cary.
The families living on Tolliver Ct. in the Maynard Oaks neighborhood share their cul-de-sac with some unusual neighbors, the deceased members of the Nathaniel Jones family. Tucked between two houses on the quiet cul-de-sac is the White Plains Cemetery, one of the oldest and most historic sites in Cary, likely dating back to 1780. It's the resting place of the Jones family, at one time the owners of land comprising much of present-day eastern Cary.
Who was Nathaniel Jones? Besides being the owner of 10,000+ acres of land, Jones (1749-1815) was a Revolutionary War Patriot and served as a Wake County Commissioner, Justice of the Peace, Sheriff, Clerk of Court, member of the General Assembly and delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Hillsborough in 1788. In 1792, he offered his land to the state for the future capital of North Carolina, but land owned by Joel Lane was eventually selected in nearby Raleigh.
Jones was born in 1749, about the time the first English settlers began acquiring land through grants from Lord Carteret in the part of the state that would become Cary. In 1772, he married Milleson Blanchard in Chowan County; and in 1774, moved to Wake County and purchased land in the western part of the county, what would become Cary nearly 100 years later. By 1811, he had acquired between 10,000 and 11,000 acres, making him one of the largest land owners ever to own land in what is now Cary.
Jones named his house and property "White Plains" because of the many fields of cotton that surrounded his house. His Federal style plantation home, known as the Jones Manor, was located at what is today the southwest corner of Walnut Street and Greenwood Circle in Cary. The house, pictured to the right, was still standing in the 1950s before it was demolished.
Nathaniel Jones was a popular name In Wake County during the mid-to-late 18th century and early 19th century. There were four of them! The two most prominent among the four were Nathaniel Jones of Crabtree and Nathaniel Jones of White Plains. Both owned large tracts of land, one in what is now western Cary around Crabtree Creek (hence the distinction, Nathaniel Jones of Crabtree) and one in what is now eastern Cary surrounded by fields of cotton (hence the distinction Nathaniel Jones of White Plains). These two Nathaniel Joneses were not related, but their two families were eventually connected through marriage when Nancy Jones, daughter of Nathaniel Jones of White Plains, married Henry Jones, son of Nathaniel Jones of Crabtree on February 3, 1813. Henry inherited a house built by his father in the early 1800s that is still standing and is another very historic Cary property, the Nancy Jones house on Chapel Hill Rd., pictured to the left. The house is named for Nancy who outlived Henry by 35 years.
In addition to having large land ownership in common, the two Nathaniel Joneses were political rivals. Both were candidates for the House of Commons during the late 18th century, and their efforts to win a seat generated some negative discourse. Recorded in Raleigh's The Morning Post, Nathaniel Jones of White Plains told his opponent, Nathaniel Jones of Crabtree, "I am going to beat you because your constituents have not any shoes and it is too cold to walk barefooted to Raleigh." Nathaniel Jones of Crabtree informed his constituents about these comments and "when election day come, streams of men could be seen on every road, with corn whiskey in their stomachs and shoes and sticks over their shoulders, their feet naked, hurrahing for Jones of Crabtree. Jones of White Plains was badly beaten."
Nathaniel Jones of White Plains is noted for his last will and testament, in which he requested that his enslaved workers be set free, 50 years before the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation. In his words:
I suppose it will be asked my reason for Emancipating my Negro Slaves (as soon as) the laws of the State will admit or Tolerate it, which reason are as follows:
Reason the first, agreeable to the rights of man, every humane person, be his colour what it may, is entitled to Freedom, when he or she or they arrive at mature years.
Reason the second, my conscience the grate Criterion condemns me for keeping them in slavery.
Reason the third, the Golden Rule directs us to do unto every Humane Creature, as we would wish to be done unto, and shure I am, that there is not one of us would agree to be kept in slavery during a long life.
Reason the fourth and last, I wish to die with a clear conscience that I may not be ashamed to appear before my master in the future world.
Sadly, Jones' enslaved workers were not freed because the law in North Carolina at the time would not allow it.
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