Description: Photos were taken on April 11, 1934 of Reverend Thomas B. McCain (left) with Nicodemus "Demus" Taylor on right.

Rev. McCain was a retired minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and leading figure in Southern Pines.

Taylor was the founder of Taylor Town, a community for freed slaves, Moore County, near Pinehurst, NC.

He was said to be more than 100 years old and was a well-known caddie at the Pinehurst golf course, and a turpentine worker in Moore County.

These photographs were taken during the "Old Slaves Day Reunion" celebration in Southern Pines, NC.

Photographs source: Thursday, April 12, 1934 Paper: Greensboro Daily News (Greensboro, North Carolina) Page: 3.
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Taylortown History

Nicodemus “Demus” Taylor
was born in March of 1825 in Carthage, Moore County, NC, and died in December of 1934 in Taylortown, Moore County, NC.
At one time he was owned by the brother of President Zachary Taylor.

Demas married Laura Williams who was also born in Carthage and they had three children:
Robert Lee Taylor. 1861–1952
Bernice G. Taylor Lassiter, 1885–1947
Elnora R. Taylor Adams, 1895–1938

In the early 1900's Nicodemus "Demus" Taylor purchased land from the Tuff's family in hopes of beginning a town for the workforce of Pinehurst.

Demus was a descendant of the western African tribe Ebu and his grandfather was one of the first Africans to be enslaved and brought to the new world. The town, originally called Old Settlement, was later renamed Taylortown in honor of its founder.
Demus had another claim to distinction, as he was one of the first Black golf caddies in the country.

Further development of the town continued through the efforts of Demus's son, Robert, who helped to found a school, which he called Academy Heights, for the settlement's children.
He also operated a small cafe that served as a gathering spot for the settlement.

During the 1990's the county's year round school was built at approximately the same location and was aptly named Academy Heights, in tribute of the early school.

Taylortown was incorporated in 1987, due to the efforts of its citizens, including Geneva McRae. Ms. McRae, a graduate of Academy Heights High School, served in WWII, helped supervise New York State Employment Service and, after retirement, returned to Taylortown, where she served as mayor for two terms.

The legacy of Demus and Robert Taylor is reflected by present day residents through their strong sense of community and pride in the town's heritage.
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Newspaper article:

Black Town Outgrows Role At Pinehurst\ Caddies Are Becoming Rare On Pinehurst Golf Courses

But Taylortown, which provided the caddy corps, survives. It no longer wants to be known as caddytown.

BY Jim Schlosser\ Staff Writer-News & Record, Greensboro, NC. Jun 19, 1999 Updated Jan 25, 2015

Taylortown is so quiet this week you can almost hear putts falling into the cups at the U.S. Open being played across Highway 211 in this resort town.

A visitor might assume that Taylortown's silence must surely be because the town's men are at the Pinehurst No. 2 course, caddying in the Open.

In 1938, a writer described Taylortown - founded in about 1895 for black people by former slave Demus Taylor - as ``Caddytown.'

The 500 or so men and boys who caddied the courses at Pinehurst then came from Taylortown and another nearby Black community, Jackson Heights.No more.

Only about 85 caddies remain at Pinehurst's eight golf courses, and half of them are White. Most of the pros in the Open brought their own caddies to Pinehurst.

Only three Pinehurst-based men are caddying in the tournament, and two of those are White. Jiles Barrett, a third generation Taylortown resident and brother of town mayor Ulysses Barrett, says residents aren't as dependent on Pinehurst as before.

The town now produces doctors and lawyers. If the town seems quiet, maybe it's because many residents are at work at a variety of jobs in various towns in the Sandhills.

Many of the first Black people to hold this or that job in Moore County came from Taylortown.`

`My father caddied, although he did other things, but he didn't let us caddy,' the 50-year-old Barrett says. ``I thank God now that my parents didn't let us. If we had started, we might still be doing it.'

Barrett realizes stories are being written during the Open that romanticize the Pinehurst caddies of the past - men and boys who brilliantly could tell distance from fairway to green and read breaks in putts.

The pay was good, the work day short. Afterward, they had plenty of time to drink and play cards. Sadly, Barrett says, when many of these men grew old and couldn't walk the courses anymore, they had become alcoholics.

They were without Social Security benefits. They had not paid Social Security taxes on the cash they had received from golfers. Some old caddies became disorderly and hurt Taylortown's reputation. They died in wretched poverty.

Pinehurst caddies are so hard to find now that TV and press reporters are making do with a long retired bag carrier, Robert ``Hardrock' Robinson, 85, a dapper dresser who showed up at the Open the other day in a brightly colored suit.

Everyone in Pinehurst this week has been honoring the memory of Donald Ross, the golf course architect who died in 1948 after designing Pinehurst No. 2 earlier in the century.

Robinson is one of the few remaining people who knew Ross. He caddied for him.``He was a fair golfer. Hit one good, then bad. Ben Hogan was the best I ever caddied for,' Robinson says, referring to the great golfer from Texas, who won his first pro tournament in Pinehurst in 1940.

The most famous of Taylortown's caddies was the late Jimmy Steed. Steed would take off from Pinehurst one week a year to caddy for Sam Snead in Greensboro. With Steed advising Slammin' Sammy on yardage and directions of putts, the two won eight Greater Greensboro Opens (now the Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic).

Steed talked bluntly to the rich White golfers whose bags he carried. In a 1976 interview, he recalled how disappointed he was when he was first assigned to caddy for Snead in a tournament in the 1930s.

Snead was just starting as a pro. Steed wanted a well-known pro.`I ain't never heard of you,' he told Snead. After watching Snead for a few holes, however, Steed knew he had found a winner.

Caddying in Pinehurst and elsewhere has been made obsolete by golf carts, which started becoming popular in the 1950s, although a Pinehurst resident had one as early as the 1930s. The restored cart is now displayed in the clubhouse.

Pinehurst and Taylortown are separated by a strip of two-lane asphalt, N.C. 211. Both have sandy surfaces and many tall long-leaf pines. Otherwise, similarities are few.

Pinehurst is one of America's richest communities. Founder James Walker Tufts hired the nation's best known landscaping firm to map out the town. As a result, Pinehurst resembles a park of long-leaf pines, magnificent magnolias and lovely laurel oaks. They shade narrow, winding streets and the inviting sandy paths that serve as sidewalks. The V-shaped village business district has no empty store fronts. Razook's, a fur store, has locations in only two other cities, ritzy Palm Beach and Greenwich, Conn.

Demus Taylor and his son, school teacher Robert Taylor, couldn't afford landscapers when they bought the land for their new town from Tufts. The community of Black people helped build the resort and keep it going, supplying servants, caddies and laborers needed for the hotels and golf courses.

Demus Taylor was born in 1823 and at one time was owned by the brother of President Zachary Taylor. When freedom came after the Civil War, Taylor prospered as the Paul Bunyan of the Sandhills. At 6 feet 4 inches tall, he could fell 100 trees a day, legend has it.

A photo in the Tufts Archives in Pinehurst shows him holding the ax he bought for $1.25 and used for more than 40 years.

Taylor, who lived to be more than 100, was well off as an old man. So it came as a surprise when word spread around Taylortown that he had borrowed $100 from Albert Tufts, a member of Pinehurst's founding family.

Taylor had wanted people to know of the loan. According to papers in the Tufts Archives, he borrowed the money to show fellow residents of Taylortown that he was the only Black man in Moore County who could borrow money from the Tufts family.

Today, relations between Taylortown and Pinehurst appear cordial. The Pinehurst Fire Department has a contract to protect Taylortown. The employees club, made up of White and Black employees of the Pinehurst Resort and Country Club, is named for Taylortown resident Tom Cotton, another former slave, who caddied and in his final years, walked the streets and paths picking up trash to keep Pinehurst pristine.

Even though Taylortowners aren't caddying this week, some are working in other capacities at the tournament. But it's easy to detect in Jiles Barrett's words that tensions exist between the two towns. He says Taylortown people had to fight for the return of the name Academy Heights, the school in Taylortown.

When schools were integrated, White leaders in Moore County changed Academy Heights to Pinehurst Elementary School. It took a protest to get the name changed back. Barrett says White people don't want to be associated with anything that smacks of Taylortown.

The new Olmsted shopping center on N.C. 211 is within Taylortown's corporate limits. The center pays taxes to Taylortown. But the White ownership insists on promoting the center as part of Pinehurst.

Barrett says people should be proud to be linked to Taylortown. Patriotism there runs high. That is apparent in the town cemetery, a clearing in the pines entered from a sand road. Many veterans are buried here, proud men who wanted their gravestones to list the modest rank they earned in America's segregated armed forces of the past.

The old shacks that housed many in Taylortown - visible in photos in the Tufts Archives - are gone. The houses today are modest and mostly well kept. The biggest house is the one Demus Taylor built long ago.

The present owner is fixing it up. A town hall is being built to replace the trailer that now serves that purpose.

Saturday morning, as Pinehurst was filling up with Open spectators, Main Street in Taylortown was empty except for James Ghoston, who was driving a riding lawn tractor with a wood wagon behind. Ghoston, who was born in Taylortown, does odd jobs for people.

He says the town is better than before. Troublemakers of the past are either dead or gone away. ``It's nice and quiet, not like it used to be,' he said. Was he going over to Pinehurst later to join the crowd watching the Open?

No, he said, he'd probably watch it on TV at home. He said he doesn't get over to Pinehurst as much as before.