Thank you for Clark Cox’s piece on Rassie Wicker. He was a remarkable man.

His “par when it came to collecting historic records” was James McNeill Johnson (1860-1930), who lived when the county as it was being formed. He was also a contemporary of James Tufts, John Blue and James Boyd.

He was a brilliant archivist and had a collection of late 18th and 19th century deeds, land grants, letters, and genealogical histories of early Moore County families. Unfortunately, they were all destroyed in the fire at my house on the night of April 5, 1999.

As I write, I’m looking at a survey he compiled in the early 20th century listing most of the landowners for Southern Moore County. He also marked the two locations of Old Bethesda Presbyterian Church, many of our early spring and creek sites, and the locations of probably half a dozen of our earliest homes. He was an attorney, a surveyor, druggist, historian, poet, author, land speculator and developer.

Richard Schloegl

Aberdeen