Most SUMMERS in Guilford County can trace their ancestry to Capt. Peter SUMMERS. He was the son of the first settler in the Guilford County, NC area with this surname, Jacob SUMMERS (b. 1710 Germany - d. 1790 Guilford Co., NC). Jacob's wife was Margaret FAUST (b. 1720 Germany - d. 1810 Guilford Co., NC). Being the first born son, he was named for his paternal grandfather that was left in Germany, Peter SOMERS.
Captain Peter SUMMERS (b. 16 May 1757 Guilford Co., NC - d. 17 Aug 1837 Guilford Co., NC) lived in or near Guilford County and Alamance County, NC and attended Frieden's Lutheran Church. He served as a Captain in the 1st NC Battalion in the American Revolutionary War. The 1st NC Battalion was part of the American Army that capitulated and surrendered Charleston, SC, 12 May 1780. Captain Peter SUMMERS is referenced in the list of the Prisoners of War, under American Major General Lincoln.
Several family sources say that Captain Peter SUMMERS was part of the entourage that escorted President George Washington when he visited the Guilford Court House Battleground, when he was on his Southern Tour.
Married four times, Captain Peter SUMMERS had a total of nine children. I am related through his third wife, Elizabeth WEITZEL (WHITESELL) (b.7 Feb 1776 - d. 27 Feb 1812). This marrige produced three children Abel, Lucinda and Joshua.
Captain Peter SUMMERS reportedly built the first brick house in Guilford County. The Greensboro Record says it burned in May 1962. (I am looking to get a copy the exact article about it.)
Old Ludwick Summers House in Eastern Guilford County
… For His Excellency, The Governor, a Tart Answer
Overlooks Old Mill Site
REEDY FORK RESIDENCE IS RICH IN HISTORY
( Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of articles on old houses in Guilford County. Others will appear in The Record from time to time)
By JOHN A. McLEOD, Jr. – RECORD Staff Writer
The Greensboro Record- 15 Aug 1956
When crusty tough minded Ludwick Summers started to build the race to furnish water power for a sawmill and gristmill on Reedy Fork creek he struck a bed of rock along the course of the projected canal. In those years before the Civil war that presented a formidable problem , but to Lud Summers it was not insurmountable.
The creek forms a loop there. The plan was to cut across the loop and bring water from behind a low dam on the upstream side to the mill on the downstream bank. The canal, some 200 to 300 yards long, would cut through a high ridge to the depth of 30-40 feet from the peak.
Whether blasting powder was available in quantity needed for the job is not known. At any rate, Summers tackled it with fire and water and human muscle and bone.
To break the flinty formation into pieces that could be handled, huge log fires were built on the rock to heat it deep inside. Creek water then was flushed into the cut. The sudden cooling broke the rock which was lugged out by slaves using ropes and barrows.
The dam on the upstream side of the loop and the canal are there today, but water-powered saws no longer bite into big native timber and the stones that ground the grain are silent. A large mill house, weather-blackened and vacant-windowed, stares over the once-bustling area. This mill is not the original, but replaced the first one which was destroyed by fire.
High on a long slope overlooking the mill site is the house Lud Summers built about 1819-1820 and in which he reared his family of eight children. It is two stories high, of frame construction, is painted white, and has four chimneys.
The place was virtually a community within itself. The late Dr. W. T. Whitsett, who compiled much information on the Summers family, said many other buildings were clustered about the main house such as shops and storage barns.
From Greensboro, the place may be reached by going east on Huffine Road (by the polio hospital) several miles until it dead-ends at Apple’s store. Turn left and go about half a mile to the house and mil.
The property is owned by Mrs. J.L. Kernodle of Burlington, who now uses it occasionally as a summer and weekend home. She and her husband went out to the sale of the Summers property some 50 years ago with no idea of purchasing the place, but when the sale was over it was theirs.
(Another Summers house is just across the Alamance County line. It originally stood in Guilford County, but a resurvey of the Guilford-Alamance boundary several years ago left it in Alamance. It was built by Capt. Peter Summers, Ludwick’s father, and was the first brick house built in what then was Guilford County.)
The Summers family of this era – the name also is spelled Somers and Sommers- stemmed from Jacob and Margaret Faust Summers who came to Philadelphia from Germany in 1751 and journeyed to Guilford County by wagon the following spring. Jacob was one of the founders of old Friedens Church and was active in its work, as was his son, Capt. Peter Summers.
Captain Peter married four times and had nine children. Ludwick W. Summers was born Aug. 6, 1795, of his second wife.
Lud Summers was a man of tremendous energy, and unquestionably was one of the most enterprising men of the section during his time. He made a fortune from his six farms, totaling some 8000 acres, his mills, and a distillery. He owned about 100 slaves. All these activities he supervised himself, riding hard on horseback from one operation to another.
If he got a notion in his head, it was pretty sure to materialize –like the canal to the mill. He decided that medical care ought to be at hand, so he employed a physician for himself and the surrounding community and built the doctor office on the home grounds. He also decided that family portraits were in order, so he called in an artist who painted everybody in the family in oils, then painted the doctor and friends of the family.
One story handed down through the generations indicates Lud Summers could be crusty at times. He was standing near the stage road as some of his hogs were being led when the Governor’s coach pulled up and stopped. The Governor addressed Summers, his tone and manner indicating he thought the man beside the road was just a hand on the place, and said he wanted to see the boss.
Summers eyed him frostily, “I’m the boss,” he said tartly.
The distillery was a busy and prosperous operation. The whiskey was hauled to Fayetteville in wagons pulled by eight-horse teams. Hubert Summers, a descendant of Lud, says he has heard his elders recall that “the wagons were on the road all the time”.
One of Lud’s slaves – a wagon man, or teamster, on the whiskey run- once made a deal with a slave trader on the road to run away. The slave agreed to be sold, after which he would escape and receive a third of the price he brought. The deal at that time was viewed actually as theft of a slave.
The slave brought his wagon and team in from the Fayetteville trip. The trader apparently was either on the place or nearby. The slave met him and hid under feed sacks in his wagon for the get-away. The slave was sold in Richmond, Va. His new owner worked him “like a mule” and the trader went his way. Finally, the slave escaped. He lived in the woods on frogs, lizards and whatever came to hand as he made his way southward. He reached the Summers place 2 ½ years after he left.
Lud Summers is said to have whipped him with the flat of a sword. The slave said it suited him- he was so glad to get back home.
| Toughness of fiber was another characteristic. When peter Summers, one of Lud’s sons, returned from the Civil War he found the Yankees had left only one old mule on the place and four prize horses which his wife had spirited away and kept safely in a cove on the creek camouflaged with brush.
Work animals were being distributed in Greensboro to farmers so they could get the soil in production again. Peter saddled one of the good horses and, with a stout stick he chanced to pick up, headed for town to get his work stock. On the road he met a trio of armed Yankee horsetraders with a string of animals.
The leader took one look at the horse Peter was riding and ordered him off, nodding at an old mule in the string which he was giving him for it. The mule had no bridle. The trader dismounted and for a moment was off guard. Summers saw his chance. He dropped the trader to the dust with his heavy stick and routed the other two.
Then he rounded up the entire string of horses and started for home, leaving the injured trader in the road for his companions to aid – if he got aid at all.
Lud Summers is said to have been a devoted member of Friedens Church. He reputedly was the largest contributor toward construction of the present brick church built in 1869.
He died Feb. 2, 1871. His funeral was the first held from the new structure.
..... end of article
Not much is known about Abel SUMMERS except what is mentioned in his father's will. He married Margaret TINDEL / TENDALL (b. 1809 - d. 17 Mar 1877 Guilford Co., NC). They had seven children, one of who was Nathan Madison SUMMERS (b. 14 Mar 1834 - d. 23 Jan 1878). Nathan Madison SUMMERS married Hannah Donell CLARK (b. 20 Nov 1835 Guilford Co., NC - 19 Dec 1899 Guilford Co., NC). She was the daughter of David CLARK (b. 16 Aug 1789 Guilford Co., NC - d. 21 Oct 1871 Guilford Co., NC) and Mary ROGERS (b. 16 Aug 1799 New Bern, NC - d. 30 Jun 1877 Greensboro, Guilford Co., NC).
Nathan and Hannah had a family of five, three sons and two daughters. The youngest child was Nathaniel Ilia (Ira) SUMMERS (b. 16 May 1872 Guilford Co., NC - d. 6 Jul 1951 Granville Co., NC). On 25 Dec 1898, he married Mary Malinda SMITH (b. 13 Feb 1879 Guilford Co., NC - d. 31 May 1951 Greensboro, Guilford Co., NC). To this union was blessed ten children, the eldest of whom was Henry Fred SUMMERS (b. 21 Oct 1899 - 8 Jun 1961 Greensboro, Guilford Co., NC). Mary Malinda Smith was the daughter of Elisha Smith (b. 26 Feb 1822 Guilford Co., NC - d. 2 Nov 1898; Guilford Co., NC) and Malinda LOY (b. 24 Sep 1836 Guilford Co., NC - d. 26 Nov 1917 Guilford Co., NC). Elisha SMITH was the son of John SMITH and Barbary WYRICK.
On 20 May 1923, Henry Fred SUMMERS married Freda Viola CAGLE (b. 3 Jan 1903 Randolph Co., NC - d. 12 Sept 2000, Greensboro, Guilford Co., NC). They had four children, which only two survived into adulthood.
COURT MARTIAL of PRIVATE WILLIAM SUMMERS
"Private William SUMMERS (my 4th cousin four times removed) who had obtained leave to visit home on what he represented as urgent business was also arraigned in due form. The charges and specifications amounted substantially to this, that he went home to see his sweetheart. He was permitted by the Court to defend with counsel, "Long" COBLE appeared for him, and in his eloquent appeal for mercy - in which his legs and arms played the principal part of the argument - he comparedthe prisoner to a little ship, which had sailed past he proper anchorage at home and cast her lines at a neighbor's home. The evidence being circumstantial he was acquitted, but was ever known afterward as "Little Ship" SUMMERS. He served faithfully during the entire war; has anchored properly since and the little "crafts" around his happy home indicate that he has laid the keels for a navy."
from REMINISCENCES of the GUILFORD GRAYS, Co. B, 21st NC Regiment by John A. Sloan, 1883
Freda Viola CAGLE was the daughter of Enoch Eratus "Ras" CAGLE (b. 23 Mar 1881 Randolph Co., NC - d. 21 Mar 1944 Guilford Co., NC) and Sarah Emily SILER (b. 3 Sept 1881 Randolph Co., NC - d. 17 Sept 1969 Guilford Co., NC). They were married in Randolph County, NC, 10 Oct 1901.
"Ras" CAGLE was one of twelve children of George CAGLE (b.28 Jul 1841 Moore Co., NC - d. 15 Aug 1919 Randolph Co., NC) and Mary BIRD / BYRD (b. 12 May 1844 Randolph Co., NC - 3 July 1905 Randolph Co., NC). They were married 9 Oct 1863 in Moore Co., NC.
George CAGLE was the son of Enoch CAGLE (b. Jan 1811 - d. 25 Jan 1871) and Nancy STUTTS (b. 10 Jan 1814 - d. 1884). Enoch CAGLE was the son of George W. CAGLE (b. 1782 - 1864) and Nancy Lucinda BEAN (b.1790 - 1850).