Henry F. Shaw Cross Creek Linear Park

Henry F. Shaw Cross Creek Linear Park. . , ❶ Cross Creek and Fayetteville , Cross creek is a meandering two branch waterway rising in the sandy uplands west of downtown Fayetteville and curling toward the Cape Fear River. Cross Creek was thus named by the earliest settlers because it and another stream seemed at times to cross where they meet downstream from here. The first colonial inhabitants settled down in this area where the creek cuts through the flat, pasture-like terrain. Where the fountain splashes today, a marshy island was the site of a corral and slaughtering pen for cattle and hogs., By 1765, the settlement itself was known as Cross Creek. Houses, stores, taverns, saw mills, grist mills, a brewery and a tanyard crowded along narrow streets beside the creek. In 1778, Cumberland County built its third courthouse on the creekside where today's public library stands. It faced the colonial village's first named street, Maiden Lane., When the American Revolution was over, the settlement became Fayetteville, the first place in North America named for the French hero of the war, Gen. Marquis de Lafayette. Orderly streets were laid out and a new courthouse was erected in a square north of the creek. In 1788, an elegant brick "State House" went up a rise above the creek where four new streets intersected., Handsome antebellum residences stood on Rowan Street just north of the creek and on Maiden Lane and Old Street on its south bank. Their back lawns and gardens tilted down to the creek bank., Later in the antebellum period, Baptists erected their first church on a site overlooking the creek, and the manse of the Presbyterian minister was close by., In the 20th century, commercial buildings, industrial operations and parking lots replaced residences. At one time, a planning study proposed dredging the creek to form a lake, using the dredged earth to create a rounded artificial hill or "mound"., In all the change, the creek itself flowed on, little more than a trickle in dry seasons, but a robust rushing stream when water was plentiful., ❷ The Masonic Lodge , Prior to 1788, the Masonic Lodge in Fayetteville was known as Union Lodge. Among other meeting places, the lodge met in a tavern on Green Street. The group would later be called the Phoenix Lodge. In 1793, James Hogg, a wealthy merchant and ardent Mason, bequeathed land to build a lodge. This historic site was in the three town squares in early Fayetteville and was known by the name of Saint John's Square. The original lodge building on this site was replaced by the present vernacular Greek Revival structure around 1858. The lodge occasionally served as a school and theater. During Lafayette's visit to Fayetteville in 1825, he was received as a Master Mason at Phoenix Lodge number 8., [Captions:] , Masonic Lodge, built in 1858, The Old State House, built in 1778, stood on the site where the Market House stands today. It burned down in 1831., Marquis de Layfayette (1757-1834)