“HEMBY BRIDGE….The namesake of a community in Vance Township, this present day structure spans the north fork of Crooked Creek just downstream from the remains of Eli and Dawes Hemby’s old corn mill.”
“Spans Crooked Creek“
“Hemby Bridge Gained Name From Family”
By JOHN BYRD
Staff Writer
Monroe Journal
“Hemby Bridge, that quiet community in Vance Township near the Mecklenburg County line is named naturally enough after a bridge.
The bridge spans the north fork of Crooked Creek years ago according to a Hemby Bridge resident who’s been around for something most of the land on both sides of the creek was owned by Dawson Hemby, father of the late Torrence Hemby.
Dawes, as he was called, operated a corn mill built by his father Eli a few yards up stream the site of the present bridge.
Houston McClain, Indian Trail, who’ll be 82 in November and who still works a good mule on his patch of land near the bridge, can remember when Dawes Hemby operated the mill. Part of the mill’s stone race is still there today.
“Dawes Hemby was a young man then.” said McClain who must have been quite young himself. “He lived in Indian Trail, and he owned all this land around the creek. I’ve lived here for 45 years and have been coming down here ever since I can remember, which is 65 years back.”
The mill was built before McClains memory, but he can remember when there was just a ford across the creek in the shallow water downstream. “I was raised in Mecklenburg,” he said. “But my daddy traded in Monroe, and we’d come through here. The first bridge laid right over the water. There’ve been several bridges and all of them were called Hemby’s Bridge. In time, the community that surrounded the corn mill became known as Hemby Bright
A check of the deed books in the courthouse shows that the Hemby’s owned around 1000 acres in the area as far back as the 1840’s and it was after this that Dawes Hemby built the first bridge. “ As for the creek I don’t know how it got its name, said McClain “Cept that its crooked.”
