Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Laboring for the Confederacy


A couple of weeks ago, I posted information on a member of the 40th United States Colored Troops who is buried in the Hardin Cemetery in Avery County. There is another interesting grave at this cemetery. It is the grave of Peter Hardin. There are not a lot of "facts" concerning the life of Peter Hardin. It seems that Hardin was a slave, possibly park Creek Indian. He was owned by Jordan Council Hardin, the same man who ran the Cranberry Iron Works for the Confederacy. As the local story goes, Peter Hardin would take a load of iron-ore down the mountain to Morganton once a month. The Iron-ore was then taken by train to some facility (possibly Salisbury or Charlotte) to be turned into munitions of war for the Southern war effort. Once the war ended and the 13th Amendment   was adopted in December 1865, Hardin continued to live in Cranberry and work at the Cranberry Iron Mines. The cemetery where he is buried is named for him.

2 comments:

Anthony Hawkins said...

Thankyou Michael,we tend to forget about men like Peter Hardin.They also gave all and need to be remembered!

Dr. Stephen Miklosik said...

Micheal--
Thanks for this little Tidbit. Like Anthony said we tend to forget about people like Hardin and they definitely need to be remembered.