Jack Conard: To long-time residents, “old” Cornelius is simply “Cornelius”

By Dave Yochum
If the past informs the future, as the saying goes, then we should be more careful about what’s left of Cornelius history. It’s fast disappearing in big ways and more subtle ways. For example, the correct way to pronounce “Jetton” (as in Jetton Road) is J’tun with the accent on the second syllable. In light of the extraordinary increase in our population, the number of long-timers who know how to say the family name are minuscule compared to the number of newcomers who say J’ton, rhymes with on.

But there’s a difference, and it’s an important, since it matters how one’s name is pronounced. One should be aware that long-time, multi-generation residents of Cornelius refer to the old part of town as Cornelius; newcomers, of course, refer to the original Cornelius as “Old Cornelius.”

Generations of Mount Zion Methodist kids knew there was at least one spring back behind the outdoor sanctuary where Revolutionary War soldiers slaked their thirst. It was plowed over earlier this year by the developers of Antiquity.

Distinguished gathering: Men of Smithville many years ago. Can you identify any?

Look on an old map and you’ll see Bethel Church Road was called River Road before Duke Power dammed the Catawba River.

James E. “Jack” Conard Jr. knows all these things well. He lives in a house built sometime before 1905, the year Cornelius was incorporated. He grew up playing up and down Main Street, and hiking down River Road with the Boy Scout troop at Mount Zion.

More importantly, he is one of a handful of people actively trying to preserve the town’s past. He has thousands of old photos filed away, preserved as best he can in the confines of his own makeshift museum, a house that looks like it could suffer in a stiff breeze.

But it’s home and it has been home to members of the family for three generations. Almost every square inch of the interior walls are decorated with old photos and magazine covers and even calendars from car dealers in the Packard era.

The kitchen is the nerve center of this combination research lab, archeology exhibit and art show. Conard is the curator, having started as a boy collecting this and that, a church bulletin here, an old newspaper there. He researches families through graveyards, census data and personal interviews.

1944: Atwell Motor Co. calendar

He stores electronic images of photos on a personal computer, next to a phone, a flatbed scanner and a view of his back yard, the scene of many Labor Day parties. There is no air conditioning, but thanks to screen doors and full-grown trees, the house is comfortable. He turns WDAV off when opera kicks in on Saturday.

On a recent summer morning Conard is excited to learn that a member of one of the oldest families in Cornelius is still quite alive, albeit in a nursing home in Charlotte. He is making plans to visit her, with photos in need of proper names and a little background.

“What I’m working on mainly is getting names on pictures, stories on people, who was married to who and who worked where,” Conard says. Fascinating stories abound. The scion of a plantation family, Clifton Eugene Smith, saw to it that black families had sufficient land for their own community, now known as Smithville.

Conard’s father moved here from Thomasville and worked for the sheriffs department for many years. James E. Conard was part of the Mecklenburg County rural police in the 1950s.

Jack Conard Jr. remembers the Confederate Reunion held for decades on the grounds of Mount Zion the first week in August. Once the last Civil War reunion was held in 1949, a carnival came every year, setting up on the ball field near Legion Street. Like most every youngster in Cornelius, Conard would save money all summer and spend every penny when the carnival was in town.

Halloween came next and the seven Caldwell sisters went all out. Conard says they dressed up like witches and served hot chocolate from an old cauldron in front of their house on North Main where Patrick Joseph & Associates is now located. Out of the seven sisters, only two were married, so the tradition lasted many years. Christmas was a quieter affair, with the annual Christmas parade being a newer phenomenon.

Conard says the parade started in the late 1980s, when he started wanting to preserve Cornelius history. In 1989, he began meeting with a group of Cornelius people who have breakfast every Saturday at a fast-food restaurant and visit with each other. Now, 20 years later, some are in their 80s and Conard himself is 62 and not particularly well. He has recently had quadruple bypass surgery. Recovery has been slow.

Conard still goes, despite a cough that indicates fluid in his longs. “It’s a good way for me to ask them questions about things I can’t remember. There are less and less of the old timers around here anymore,” he says.
Time is running out to collect the stories and photos and put them in a safe place. Some people want Conard’s photo collection to go to Davidson College. Some have suggested UNC-Charlotte, which has appropriate preservation capabilities.

It’s been a two-decade labor of love. What happens if he is hit by a car tomorrow? “No telling,” Conard says. He and his mother (“Don’t mention her name or she’ll be mad.”) are the only members of the family left.
“There’s no way to preserve anything anymore,” he says.

History in Cornelius

While there is a small historical exhibit at Cornelius Town, some serious history is collected in the “Smith History Room,” a sizable collection at Mount Zion Methodist Church. Named for Miriam Whisnant’s parents, Mary Reid Smith and Clifton Eugene Smith — the benefactor of Smithville, the collection is open to the public by appointment.

Mrs. Whisnant, who spent five years on the Historical Commission, says the huge influx of people from other parts of the country means there’s less interest in town history than there might be. Everyone’s sense of roots is somewhere else, it seems.

Indeed, a proper town museum is not high on the agenda at Town Hall.

The first step toward a town museum is to collect “all of our treasures and stories, so as not to lose them,” says Mayor Jeff Tarte. “We need to find a place of safe keeping until we can publicly display them at some future date. We need somebody to step forward and take on this critically important task.”

To visit the Smith History Room, call Mount Zion at 704-892-8566.