How’s your latin? Me, neither. Once upon a time, Latin was a legitimate subject in high school. The language as a subject of study held on until about the 1950s as a requirement of education that tortured students with learning a tongue they would promptly forget as soon as they grabbed that diploma and walked out the doors of their alma mater (which is by the way, a Latin term).
Why do I mention this dead language? Once, and perhaps for the only time, all those classes came in handy when someone, we don’t know who, looked at the phrase “Vestigia Nulla Nitrorsum” and noticed that it made no sense, even in Latin. It would be of no consequence except for the fact that the term, for a time, served as the slogan for Hickory. Until 1985, it was on city seal.
Instead, it should have read, “Vestigia Nulla Restrorsum” which comes from the writings of Horace and loosely means “No Steps Backward.” The city turned to John Blakey, Lenoir-Rhyne’s professor of Latin, who with city attorney Murray Tate, made the garbled phrase inspirational again.
Photo: Two seals, one city.
In 1985, city manager Gary McGee called the error “a little joke around City Hall.” By that point everyone knew the word “Nistrorsum” was wrong (seems it actually is a Latin word but made no sense within the phrase) and something had to be done. The Hickory PD had already figured out the inaccuracy and two years earlier changed the patches on their uniform. Officialdom required that the governing body must publicly acknowledge the mistake. City Council acted, with a ‘so let it written, so let it be done’ decree. While they were at it, they made some other changes, too.
The old seal had wrapped around it at the bottom “Catawba County, NC.” Someone, again we know not who, realized that a small portion the city of Hickory extends into Burke County. The redesigned logo wiped Catawba County from the seal (you can imagine what the rest of the county had to say about that) and substituted “North Carolina.” Oh, they also added “City Of” to fill out the rim.
And yet, they were not done with changes. A five year span was originally part of the seal (1874-1879) which can be explained by some confusion over when Hickory dropped Tavern from its name. Apparently, bills went through the General Assembly in both years turning Hickory into a city with first a 1,000 yard circumference, then a one mile city limit. While all these alterations were going on, the city decided to correct a bunch of other little uncertainties as well, opting for the date when Hickory Tavern was incorporated, which also took a few tries but became bona fide (another Latin phrase) in 1870. That’s the year now proclaimed as the birthdate.
There’s a new book coming out this year that examines how Hickory came to be and how its tavern origin led to the birth of a major sport, written by Harper House Site Manager Suzanne Mayo and the Historian-in-Residence. Look for it in your favorite places to buy books, and stores you don’t like, too. No prior knowledge of Latin will be necessary to read it.
