Rowan Museum Inc.

10/10/2026

The rain has made it impossible to hold our 18th-century militia muster at the Old Stone House today. Hopefully, we'll see you at our Listening Session at the Museum on Tuesday!

10/08/2026

🎟️ WIN TWO FREE SPOTS! 🎟️

We’ve been so excited by the response to Murder, Mystery, & Mayhem that we want to give something back!

ONE WINNER will receive TWO free spots for our October 16 tour at 7 p.m.

To enter:

1. 👍 Like this post
2. 💬 Comment below and tell us who you’d bring!

Want to help spread the word? Share this post with your friends!

The winner will be chosen at random and contacted Tuesday, October 13.

A few things to know:
• One winner will receive two spots.
• The prize is for the October 16, 7 p.m. tour.
• Winner must be available to attend that date.
• Ages 13+ are encouraged.
• No purchase necessary.
• The winner will be contacted directly by the official Rowan Museum Inc. page.

Good luck, and thank you for all the excitement around Murder, Mystery, & Mayhem!

10/07/2026

The Lincoln County Militia is coming to the Old Stone House this weekend for our 18th-century militia muster! They will be on the grounds Saturday, October 10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, October 11, from noon to 4 p.m., with displays of militia service and everyday life in Revolutionary North Carolina. Bring the family and see how backcountry men lived and served as the Revolutionary War ramped up in the colonies.

This is a free educational program; donations are appreciated.

10/05/2026

YOUR INPUT MATTERS.

What would you like to see from your museum?

Rowan Museum is hosting a series of Community Listening Sessions to hear directly from the people we serve. We’ll be talking about upcoming projects and plans for the museum, but most importantly, we’ll be listening to what you have to say.

Your feedback can help shape the future of Rowan Museum.

Our first session:

📅 Tuesday, October 13
🕡 7:00 p.m.
📍 Rowan Museum
202 N. Main Street, Salisbury

Light refreshments will be provided.

Additional listening sessions will be held October 22, November 1, and November 4 at locations throughout the community. Times and locations will be announced as they are finalized.

Registration by email is recommended but not required.

📧 [email protected]

Come share your thoughts. Tell us what you want from your museum.

10/02/2026

MURDER, MYSTERY, & MAYHEM IS COMING TO DOWNTOWN SALISBURY.

Some of Salisbury’s most fascinating stories aren’t the ones you hear every day.

This October, join Rowan Museum for Murder, Mystery, & Mayhem, a 90-minute guided walking tour through downtown Salisbury featuring real stories of murder, scandal, intrigue, and the darker side of local history.

Four opportunities to join us:
• October 16 at 7 p.m.
• October 17 at 7 p.m.
• October 23 at 7 p.m.
• October 30 at 9:15 p.m.

$15 adults | $10 children
Ages 13+ encouraged
Hot chocolate included

Each tour group is limited to 15 participants.

📞 704-633-5946
📧 [email protected]

Registration is required by phone or email.

Are you ready to hear the stories hiding in the shadows of Salisbury?

10/01/2026

Are there pirates buried at Thyatira Presbyterian Church? Let's look into it...

09/19/2026

The Old Stone House is showing off the red of those new cedar shingles this morning just in time for Germanfest. We get started at 10am!

09/18/2026

We have two very special musical guests helping us turn Germanfest afternoon into Germanfest evening tomorrow night. Come out and see us!

09/15/2026

Don't forget this special History Club collaboration with the Rowan Public Library tonight in the Stanback Room!

SALISBURY — When Gretchen Witt heard Julia Beard Garrett speak about her mother’s experience as a codebreaker in World War II, she immediately wanted to share the story with Rowan […]

09/09/2026

Who gave the land the city of Salisbury is on and is counted as our founding father? It wasn’t James Innes or Francis Corbin, who had streets named after them, and it wasn’t one of the Scots-Irish families that would come to run most of the politics. It was actually a man that was jailed for debt in Maryland in 1740 and had issues with money and conning people for the rest of his life. James Carter was his name and he only got out of jail in Maryland because the colonial assembly passed a special act for men who could not pay their way out of debtors prison and would otherwise, as the act put it, "inevitably continue Prisoners for Life." Once free, he worked west into the Shenandoah Valley, built mills in Augusta County, Va, and by 1747 he and a few partners — Morgan Bryan, Squire Boone, John Dunn, Hugh Forster — had settled on a plan. Carolina land was cheap and fertile, the Granville land office wanted settlers, and the wagon road was starting to carry settlers into the Yadkin Valley.

The plan worked for Carter for a few years. Rowan County was cut off from Anson in 1753, and on March 21, 1754, Carter walked into court as deputy surveyor with a warrant for 635 acres to create the county seat. Granville's agents granted that land to Carter and Forster as trustees the next year, and the two of them conveyed better than a hundred Salisbury lots to different buyers between 1755 and 1762. He sat as one of Rowan's early justices of the peace, won a seat in the General Assembly in 1754, and obtained a major's commission in the Rowan County Militia. Carter would come to own 6,674 acres of land. During this time, he shows up in the Register of Deeds making the first two recorded Slave transactions, selling enslaved people to his daughter Mary and her husband Jonathan Boone, brother of Daniel Boone.

Then the French and Indian War slowed the land trade, and Carter's creditors caught up with him. The assembly found in 1757 that he had been entrusted with £500 proclamation money to buy arms and am******on for Rowan and had never accounted for it. He lost his commission as justice of the peace and his militia rank. His seat with the General Assembly was lost that November, and by the spring of 1761 he had sold nearly all his land at auction. He kept one tract on Potts Creek, where he died in 1765. You’ve probably heard of Squire Boone, John Dunn, and possibly Morgan Bryan, but the troubled man who actually helped lay out and sell the land for the city of Salisbury has been all but forgotten.

For more information about James Carter, check out Robert W. Ramsey, "James Carter: Founder of Salisbury," North Carolina Historical Review 39, no. 2 (April 1962): 131-139.

Photo from the Register of Deeds showing James Carter's signature on the sale of Vol to Jonathan Boone in 1756.