The Page Family, Cary NC

I am going to be looking into the King family from Cary but decided to check out the Page Family first!

Native Americans were living around the Wake County area for thousands of years before Europeans settled in North Carolina. The Sissiphaw , Eno and Shakori Tribes were inhabitants to the area.  They say these tribes settled with the Catawaba Tribe in NC and SC due to smallpox and conflict with European settlers around this area.

The Cary area was a Crossroads established to connect Chapel Hill and Raleigh but more importantly the expansion of the North Carolina Railroad in 1856 really sped up the development of Wake County especially in Cary. Cary was made up of mostly English farmers. Tobacco, Cotton and Corn were a big deal around here and thats what  most the settlers grew. Allison Frances Page (Frank) was born August 30th 1824. His ancestor John Page migrated to Virginia from NC and had ties to the Lewis and Clark expedition!

Frank Page was important to developing Cary, his first investment was a water powered mill located in Umstead Park off Crabtree Creek (where i was a couple days ago) the mill was later renamed Old Company Mill. I found some really good photos in the history archive taken in 1937 of the Page Mill (Old Company Mill). Frank really started his wealth operating a lumber mill that went up the Cape Fear River to Fayettville where his headquarters was and went down all the way to the port in Wilmington NC!

Frank Page continued his wealth by building a post office in the late 1850s which was located downtown Cary by Academy street close to the train tracks! He helped establish the town of Cary in 1856 and became the first Mayor, by that time he owned 300 acres in Cary covering both sides of the train tracks. He named the town after Samuel Cary who was a congressmen from Ohio and a officer in the Union Army during the civil war(crazy he would name the town after a Yankee lol)

Frank was a religious man and made Cary a dry town so you couldn’t buy or sell alcohol! His son Walker Page was also well known.. He was a newspaper publisher and a Ambassador to Britain during World War 1! During the Civil War Frank ran his Lumber Mill 24/7 to help the Confederate cause (he thought the war was foolish but owned 4 slaves and I guess understood his wealth was at stake) and soon after the war ended he built a 3 story tobacco factory to rebuild his wealth (most southerners went bankrupt after the war). He built the Walker Page Hotel in 1868. I added original photos of the property and im going to hopefully do a tour of the property soon!

He also built Cary Academy which is not the same Cary Academy that is up and running in Cary today! In 1896 they renamed the school “Cary High School” (where I went to highschool lol), it was one of the first public high schools in NC. I added a photo of the original school.

He was 74 years old when his wife died and decided to start a hobby of riding fast horses. A year after his wife died he remarried Lula McCleod, she was only 37! Frank Died October 10th 1899 and is buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh (we have been there recently but going back to go find him soon). Theres also a couple graves with the Page name somewhere in Umstead Park that we are also going to try and find! (No Coordinates for that one) I’m also going to find the spot where the original Page Mill sat in Umstead Park and also some old stone structures around the old property! I’m going to post some info soon after I do that. I found his family has ties to the Nathaniel Jones Family (White Plains Cemetery) and also the young and King family, I’ll be researching both of them also!!

Hope you guys enjoy!!! Hidden History America – Brice Croneberger Jr 🇺🇸💙❤