Martha Bettis Cooper was a survivor. In spite of the chaos and destruction around it, the city of Leavenworth prospered during the Civil War, and Martha and her family prospered along with it. By November of 1860, about a year after she and her son Drew arrived, she had bought a house lot worth $120. […]
ShareArchive | Building social capital
Seeds of Community, Seeds of Democracy
By Carla Rabinowitz on April 9, 2016 in Baptists, Building social capital, Freemasonry, Frontier religion, Quakers, westward migration
The frontier Baptist churches of the 18th and 19th centuries were self-governing democratic communities. As each new church was founded, its founding members met to draw up a constitution, setting out the articles of belief to which they all subscribed; a covenant, setting out the ways they would treat each other; and a set of […]
ShareFreemasonry and Reconciliation in Moore County
By Carla Rabinowitz on February 27, 2016 in American Revolution, Building social capital, Freemasonry, North Carolina
They saw themselves as building a new republic. But in Moore County, North Carolina, their first task was to heal a community. Before the Revolution, the Masonic lodges of the coastal cities had helped to train the leaders of those cities in the skills of gentlemanly behavior, creating a cohesive elite whose members were bound […]
Share