Davie County Mavericks: Four Men Who Changed History

Davie County, in the forks of the Yadkin River, produced several sons who climbed to national prominence. Daniel Boone learned to hunt along Bear Creek before blazing trails through the Appalachian Mountains. Hinton Helper grew up on the same piece of land, in a slave—owning family, before writing one of the defining antislavery books of the antebellum era. Peter Ney arrived in Davie County after escaping the Napoleonic Wars and influenced a generation of children as a schoolteacher. Thomas...