Truckin' on the Western Branch

Ernest “Ernie” F. Hardee Ernie Hardee grew up on his father’s farm in Hatton Point. He attended the Churchland schools briefly until a mischievous incident with a mouse in the teacher’s desk sent him packing to military school. He spent summers on the farm.

His father, Carl L. Hardee, was originally from Greenville, North Carolina, and, according to Ernie Hardee, was a fine businessman.

In the late 1930s, he bought about 400 acres that extended from Hatton Point Road back to Cavalier Forest. A family named Griffin had owned the property during the Civil War and may have been the original land grant owners. Two pre–Civil War graves were on the property when Hatton Point was developed. He was a gentleman farmer, and it was the Lilley family who actually farmed the property. Cedar Lane got its name from its cedar-lined mile-long run to Hardee Point. When he sold most of the farm—up to West Norfolk Road and over to Briarwood— he kept 14 acres on the point reaching into the Western Branch and I developed Carlton Court. Developers carved three other developments from nearby parcels of the farm— Hatton Point Estates, Hatton Point Farms, and Westwood—that ran up to Coleman Nursery. Hatton Point Road led to the Suburban Country Club, which was razed in the 1980s to make way for the Cypress Cove Condominiums.

Ernest “Ernie” F. and Tracey Hardee. Image by Sheally

George Pittman George grew up on Hatton Point Road and his father worked for the Hardees.

Hatton Point Road was all gravel until I was seven or eight years old. In the 1920s and 1930s, there was, on Riveredge Drive at Wise Beach, an amusement park and swimming beach on Faulk’s property. The property had been owned by a man named Wise during the Civil War.

In 1954 I was in Miss Virginia Lankford’s first grade class at Churchland Elementary and in the Mayday celebration there. We all had to have a costume. The boys were supposed to be squirrels, and I was supposed to dance around the Maypole with Sylvia Porter, a cute little redheaded girl. I was looking forward to it. But on Mayday Sylvia was sick, and I had to dance by myself—a lonely squirrel.

I graduated from Churchland in 1965 with Mo Whitlow and Jimmy Hawks. We had a 45-person track team with a great record—didn’t lose in 45 dual meets. The coach was Ken Burgess, a great man who died two years ago,

I used to bottle hunt back in the Peachtree section named for Confederate Captain Walker Peachtree who had a plantation where the Peachtree development is now.

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