CHINA GROVE – An antique high chair handcrafted by a member of the McCorkle family nearly 179 years ago is still in the family and passed down from generation to generation.

Crafted by Samuel Eusebius McCorkle for his eldest son, William Alexander McCorkle, around 1845, this chair began a family tradition and is currently owned by Jeff McCorkle, the sixth generation owner.

Unlike today’s high chairs, this one doesn’t have a tray or other adjustable parts. It’s more like a small chair with a ladder back that allows the child to sit closer to the table, Jeff said.

Many of the McCorkle family’s young children have used the chair, according to Jerry McCorkle, Jeff’s uncle, including himself.

He mentioned that his grandparents had 42 grandchildren and all of them “ate a meal in that chair. I grew up in that chair when I was little because I was the last of eight children. So I sat in that chair a lot,” Jerry said.

He said the chair was born out of necessity, as he was probably a farmer and back then “you had to make a lot of things yourself instead of going to the store and buying them,” like this one.

The chair “looks very well made, like it had some skill in it,” Jeff said. “It’s not crude. It’s simple, but it looks like it had some good skill in it.”

The chair is made from pine, which Jerry said is the hard, middle part of the pine, so it remains functional, Jeff added. The seat is upholstered from red or white oak saplings that are cut, peeled, dried and woven.

As Jeff and Jerry noticed, there is one part of the chair that is different from the rest: one armrest had accidentally broken and needed to be repaired.

Jeff said you could tell it was a little different and Jerry pointed out that one of the arms had rings on it, noting that it was made on a hand lathe while the other had been cut, sanded and planed to fit but had no rings.

Another aspect of the chair that Jeff found interesting is that the rung that so many children have placed their feet on over the years has worn flat and is no longer round as it originally was.

The chair passed through several hands, beginning with Samuel, who is reportedly the grandson of Dr. Samuel E. McCorkle, a minister of the Thyatira Presbyterian Church who was instrumental in the founding of the University of North Carolina. There is a plaque in his memory on Highway 150.

From Samuel the chair was passed to his son William, then to his eldest son, Henry Dewitt McCorkle, then to his eldest son, Clifford Revere McCorkle, and then to Clifford Revere “Bill” McCorkle.

Although Bill had three daughters but no sons, and because of family tradition that passes the chairmanship to the eldest son or grandson named McCorkle, the chairmanship passed from Bill to the eldest grandson, Jeff McCorkle.

Jeff said he saw the chair growing up because it was in his Uncle Bill’s house at the time and was told he would get it one day.

“It didn’t bother me much as a kid,” Jeff said. “It’s not very exciting to watch, so I didn’t think much about it.”

But now that he’s grown up and has the chair, Jeff says as you get older, “you learn to appreciate antiques, and especially the story behind this one.”

He also noted that it means a lot to him and he is “happy to know that my family, my son and my daughter and this generation, seem to be interested in it and in the creation of the work, and that makes me happy. It reminds me of the family legacy.”

Over time, the chair is passed down to Jeff’s son, Slater McCorkle, and then to his son, Memphis McCorkle, who becomes the eighth generation to own the chair.

Jeff said he received the chair at a family reunion in June of this year.

His uncle Bill died a few years ago and his aunt Lois passed the chairmanship to Jeff at the recent meeting in front of the rest of the family, he said.

There don’t seem to be any set rules about when the owner of the chair can pass it on to the next generation, Jeff said, noting that his uncle had the chair and his grandfather was still alive, so he wants to do the same and pass the chair on to his son while he’s still alive and pass it on to him.

“But I want to keep it for a while,” he said, laughing.

Thanks to Dr. McCorkle, Jeff says, they have a good record of family history, and when Jerry told him the story of the chair, the names were familiar to him.

“It kind of makes it real to me, that they were real people and that they had lives and contributed something, and so I knew all those names and some of the things they did over time. But that kind of ties it all together for me and puts everything in perspective.”

The McCorkle family has served the community in many ways over the years. Jeff said many of them were farmers in the past, Bill played a big role in the Enochville Fire Department, his father and Bill are both veterans, his grandfather was in World War II, and he is a retired Rowan County Deputy Sheriff. He also serves on the board of the Price of Freedom Museum in the Patterson School Building.

When asked what it was like to own this piece of history, Jerry said the chair was a listed building and emphasized how important everything in the family’s history was.

As Jeff looked at the chair, he said, “You wouldn’t think anything of it, but it’s definitely old and has a history.”