America’s Hometown - Fayetteville

Fayetteville’s Welcome Mat is Always Out

by Marilyn Loeser

On a lovely winter day, with temperatures hovering in the 60s, I joined a group of other tourists on an adventure into Fayetteville, North Carolina’s rich and interesting past. The Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex — a trio of attractions including a museum, a Victorian mansion and a Civil War site — is our destination and will help us learn more about this southern city’s beginnings and its journey into the 21st-century.

The Museum of the Cape Fear is a good place to begin. The exhibits are three-dimensional scenes showcasing the 20 counties of southeastern North Carolina.

Displays are all-age friendly — for the historian, casual observer or curious child — and subject matter includes the American Indian, European settlement and the Civil War.

Fayetteville’s History

Walking along the wide museum corridors, I learned the area’s first European settlers were from Scotland, arriving in 1739 by way of the Cape Fear River. The area grew as a center of government and commerce after it became an important inland river port. After the Revolution, with no permanent state capital, the North Carolina legislature periodically met here.

Fayetteville is named after the Marquis de Lafayette. Legend has it that Fayetteville is the only city named for the Revolutionary War hero that Lafayette actually visited — 42 years after its founding in 1783.

In 1789, at a meeting in Fayetteville, the legislature ratified the U.S. Constitution and chartered the University of North Carolina, America's oldest state university.

Arsenal Park

By taking a walkway from the museum across Martin Luther King Jr. Freeway, you’ll find yourself in the four-and-one-half-acre park containing the remnants of the United States Arsenal. Built in 1836 to store arms and manufacture ordnance goods, it was part of a plan to provide more Federal arsenals so that no area of the country would be too far away from an arms depot.

It was constructed of brick and stone. At each of the four corners of its massive walls was an octagonal tower. Today, a ghost tower marks where one of the towers stood. Entry into the arsenal was controlled by use of {place arsenal park photo here}

When President Abraham Lincoln called upon North Carolina to provide troops to help subdue its sister states, the state seceded from the Union and the arsenal was taken under Confederate control.

During the war, the arsenal produced the Fayetteville rifle. At its peak, the arsenal produced 500 rifles per month along with various numbers of other larger ordnance, cartridges, swords and bayonets. More than 100 workmen from the Harpers Ferry Arsenal relocated here with their families after the destruction of the West Virginia arms facility. In the middle years of the war, young ladies of the area also were employed to make cartridges and to serve as clerks.

On March 11, 1865, Union forces under General William T. Sherman destroyed the facility. Sherman took possession of the arsenal which had been stripped of its arms, munitions and useful machinery by the retreating Confederate forces.

What remains today are only a few remnants, a historical marker and the ghost tower.

The Victorian Mansion

The final stop on our history tour was the 1897 Poe House. Tours are offered at specific times and form in the Museum of the Cape Fear lobby next door.

This late-Victorian residence was built for Edgar Allen — no relation to the famous writer — and Josephine Poe, and their eight children. Poe owned and operated a local brickyard and his wife attended to home and family we are told by our knowledgeable guide.

Poe’s brickyard supplied bricks for a number of Fayetteville buildings. The Poe house, however, is made of wood. Architecturally, the home exhibits Eastlake detailing, exterior sawnwork, tongue-and-groove wainscoting and bullseye molding throughout the interior.

Because this was a typical middle class family home, it also offers insight into life for many Americans more than a century ago.

The house was built on land once occupied by the arsenal. In addition to the two-story house, a barn, woodhouse, smokehouse and well house were built on the property.

The house is owned by the Museum of the Cape Fear. Following its recent restoration, it serves as a historic house museum interpreting late nineteenth and early twentieth century social, cultural and family history.

If you go:

Attractions -

The historical complex is one of many historic landmarks, museums and sites in Fayetteville and is a great place to start if you’re looking for an overview of local history.

After gathering a broad understanding of the area, dozens of other attractions help visitors focus a finer view on specific time periods of the city and southeastern North Carolina.

The historical complex is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. It’s closed on Monday.
Guided tours of the 1897 Poe House are conducted Tuesday through Sunday. The last tour is at 4:00 p.m.

Accommodations -

Fayetteville is wedged between Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base, and Interstate-95, making accommodations readily available.

When I stayed in Fayetteville, I chose Doubletree Hotel Fayetteville located just off the Interstate at exit 49 at 1965 Cedar Creek Road.

For more information check the website at www.doubletree.com.

For additional information on attractions and accommodations, check the Fayetteville Convention and Visitors’ Bureau website at www.visitfayettevillenc.com.