New Ruin Tavern

A bit of history

For many years prior to the mid 19th century New Ruin's primary business was as a tavern and was the Saturday night gathering place for dancing to the music of fiddles. Old-timers in the neighborhood were quoted for generations after the tavern's demise as knowing first-hand of the dances, as well as of drinking and gambling at the tavern and of horse races, wrestling matches, cockfights, and gander pulls that took place nearby.

The road from Cotten's Crossroads in Chatham County to the tavern in Wake served as a straightaway race track, a mile in length. People from neighboring communities and, some said, from as far away as Raleigh, raced their horses or came to bet on the events at New Ruin. An 1844 newspaper notice announced that a main of cocks would be fought May 29, "at Jef. Utley's, on the half-way ground between Wake and Chatham," for prizes of "$200 the odd and $10 the battle," and that twenty-one cocks would be shown.

A descendant of John Williams has recorded the fact that a young teacher and minister's daughter, Sarah Adeline Howell, was reluctant to accept his proposal of marriage because his farm was too close to the New Ruin tavern and race track, and that he sold the property and bought land farther away before they were married in 1857.

In 1850, several families living in the vicinity of New Ruin organized a Baptist Congregation and about midway the race track built Olive's or Olive Chapel. Due to the churches influence the bar at the tavern closed down, betting on races stopped. The tavern building became a county store, operated by John Upchurch and his descendants.