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A very small cache with an interesting story in an interesting place. It could be considered either a large micro or a small small. It has a log and a few SMALL trinkets to trade. Plase take size into consideration when trading. It is more the location and story that is interesting than the actual cache.
Also please note - there are flowers in the area, please treat them with respect while you are looking.
The following is reprinted from the book "Piedmont Phantoms", by Daniel W. Barefoot:
FOR WHOM DOTH THE BELL TOLL?
Located in southern Moore County, Aberdeen is named for the seaport of the same name in Scotland. Although the picturesque town was not incorperated until 1893, it was settled more than a century earlier, primarily by people of Scottish descent. Evidence of their early presence can be found at Old Bethesda Presbyterian Church and Cemetary on the outskirts of town.
After Old Bethesda was organized in 1790, the congragation propmptly went to work and completed a sanctuary the same year. The existing white frame edifice, surmounted by a tower and spire, was erected in 1850. Of particular interest is the old church bell, which pealed a ghostly toll during the summer of 1863. That mysterious occurrence was the denouement of a beautiful love story set during the Civil War.
Like many of the residents of Aberdeen in the mid-nineteenth century, Leona Burns and Johnny Blue were Presbyterians who firmly beleived in the doctrine of predestination. And if there were ever a young man and young woman destined to be together, it had to be Johnny and Leona. Born just a year apart, the two had been almost constant companions since childhood. As they grew into teenagers, their infatuation with each other - their puppy love - grew into a serious romance.
On a beautiful, warm afternoon in the early spring of 1861, Johnny, then seventeen, sat close to sixteen year old Leona on the plush, green grass in the shadow of the spire of Old Bethesda. There, Johnny pledged his eternal love to Leona before he broke the doleful news to her. He was going away. Most of the states of the South had already banded together as a nation to fight the United States. It was only a matter of time until North Carolina joined the Confederacy. Every able-bodied male who could shoulder a weapon was needed to go to the aid of North Carolina's Southern neighbors. Johnny was ready to take his place in the ranks of North Carolinians rallying to the cause.
Although Leona was proud of Johnny's willingness to do his duty, she could not mask her sadness and concern. She asked him to promise that he would come back home to her. In a soothing, reassuring voice, Johnny did so. But suddenly, his face took on a somber, melancholy look. As he nodded towards the bell tower, he made a statement filled with ominous overtones: "If anything ever happens to me so as I can't come home, maybe this old bell will ring to let you know I love you true and couldn't help it." After a tender embrace, the time for parting was at hand.
During the first two years, the war was for the most part fought in places far away from Moore County. Like most of the soldiers North Carolina provided for the confederacy, Johnny was sent to the battlegrounds of Virginia and points north. As the war grew in intensity and scope, so did the human losses. Almost daily, lists of killed and missing local boys were posted in Aberdeen. Leona was always there to anxiously scan the list to make sure Johnny's name did not appear. She rarely heard from him by mail. It was not that he no longer cared. Rather, Johnny was not an accomplished writer. On the rare occasion when local soldiers came home on wounded furlough, they would deliver to Leona worn notes written by Johnny and stained with the swaet and grime of wartime campsites.
As twilight descended on a warm summer afternoon in 1863 in the Sandhills region of North Carolina, Leona was taking the butter she had just churned to the springhouse when she heard the sorrowful sound. The bell at Old Bethesda was sounding a slow but loud knell. Leona forgot what she was about and dashed towards the church. With each step she took, the ringing grew louder, clearer. She found it strange because it wasn't Sunday.
By the time Leona reached the church graveyard, she could see that two men were standing in a state of bewilderment outside the church. All they could tell her was that the building was locked tight. Perhaps a child had snuck inside and was plling the rope to the bell.
There seemed to be no end to the ringing. One of the men finally pulled himself up the side of the building, unlocked a window and made his way inside. When he emerged from the church, his face was as pale as his shirt. In a quivering voice, he stammered, "There's nobody in there. That bell is ringing by itself with the rope going up and down with each pull."
His words penetrated Leona's heart like a dagger. There was no question about it now - the tolling bell was a message from her dear Johnny that he would not be able to make it back home. He had kept the promise he had made on that fateful spring afternoon. Crushed by the revelation of the clanging bell, she rushed home, where her aunt consoled the weeping, brokenhearted teenager.
Over the next few days, the grief-stricken girl refused to leave her bed and did not eat or drink. Then a new caualty list was posted, and on it appeared the name of Johnny Blue. He had been killed in action in early July on the rocky Pennsylvania landscape at a place called Gettysburg.
Leona received the grim news quietly. To her, it was not news at all. The next day, she died in her sleep. Family and friends buried her in the cemetary at Old Bethesda and planted a yellow rosebush atop her grave. As for Johnny Blue, he was interred with his fallen Confederate comrades on that faraway battleground.
Since that sad summer day in 1863 in Aberdeen, the bell at Old Bethesda has rung on many occasions, but only when it was pulled by human hands. Some say that its supernatural tolling during the Civil War was a death knell. But if you're a romantic at heart, you will understand that the ghostly ringing was a grand celebration of a special, meant-to-be kind of love that could never die.
FYI:
This cache would count for Page 60 on the North Carolina Delorme Challenge (GCTYE6), and for Moore County on the North Carolina County Challenge (GC19YRC)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
zntargvp