More than 50 years ago, a high school history teacher named Morgan Harris and his students at Mattamuskeet High School created what I believe are the only surviving maps of four lumber mill villages in Hyde County, N.C.
The Road to Makatoka: Logging the Green Swamp, 1910-1930
This is a selection of historical photographs depicting the Waccamaw Lumber Company's logging and lumber operations in Columbus and Brunswick counties, N.C. They date to the early 20th century, sometime, I would estimate, between 1910 and 1930. They are now preserved, and available for the general public to see, at Duke's David M. Rubinstein Rare Book … Continue reading The Road to Makatoka: Logging the Green Swamp, 1910-1930
The Italian Workers: The Life and Times of the Immigrants who Built North Carolina’s Railroads
In 1920 an Italian immigrant named James Torsigno-- a railroad construction worker-- was unjustly accused of murder in Belhaven, N.C.. His case opened a rare window into the world of the thousands of Italian immigrant laborers that were building railroads in North Carolina in the early 20th century.
The Trouble at the Woodville Convict Labor Camp
Today I am excerpting a passage from a Ph.D. dissertation by Dr. Susan Thomas at UNC-Greensboro. The excerpt focuses on a convict labor strike in Perquimans County, N.C., in 1935 that played a key role in ending the practice of flogging prisoners on chain gangs and in the state's prisons.
The Migrants in the Potato Fields (New Version)
I discovered another forgotten chapter in eastern North Carolina's history while I was exploring the Farm Security Administration (FSA)'s photographs at the Library of Congress-- it is a story about the migrant farm laborers that worked in Camden, Currituck and Pasquotank counties in the last years of the Great Depression.
Minnie Bruce Pratt in Fayetteville, 1975
The celebrated poet, feminist and LGBTQ+ activist Minnie Bruce Pratt passed away earlier this week at the age of 76. To honor her legacy, I’d like to share an excerpt from an oral history interview about her years in Fayetteville, N.C., in 1970s.
At the Boundary between Land and Sea
This is an absolutely iconic photograph of life on the North Carolina coast at the turn of the 20th century. Taken in July 1909, the photograph shows a man standing in a horse-cart on Bogue Sound, east of Swansboro. He is tossing a watermelon to another man who is standing on a scow-built freight boat called the Little Jim.
“For all the Poor People”: Notes on Sarah E. Small & Her Run for the U.S. Congress in 1965
Sarah E. Small of Williamston, N.C. was the first African American woman in North Carolina history to run for the U.S. Congress. When she ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1965, she may even have been the first black woman to do so in American history.
The Magic Lantern Man
In 1893 and 1894, a young African American showman named I. P. Hatch criss-crossed the North Carolina coast and beyond. Using a device called a stereopticon, he shared images of the world's wonders with overflowing crowds from New England to Florida.
The Wreck of the Edward Luckenbach
The ocean-going tug Edward Luckenbach wrecked just north of the North Carolina-Virginia Line on Good Friday 1915. Fifteen men drowned that day. One of the two survivors was the second mate, Cicero Goodwin, of Cedar Island, N.C.
The Griot of Topsail Sound
Curtis Hardison’s new book Griot: The Evolution of Edgecombe tells the story of a little African American community near Topsail Island called Edgecombe. Hardison grew up there, and his book chronicles his extraordinary journey in search of the community’s roots.
Memories of Plymouth: A Justice Crusader Goes Home
Civil rights attorney and activist James Williams began our tour of Plymouth, N.C., on the banks of the Roanoke River. He had come home, and he had invited me to accompany him on a tour of the small town in Eastern North Carolina where he was born and raised.
Minnie Evans: A Journey from Trinidad
I recently found a transcript of a 1971 interview with Minnie Evans, the African American visionary artist from Wilmington, in which she described her ancestors' journey from slavery in the British colony of Trinidad.
“All this Land is Called Pantego and Neus”
A 1730 map of the NC coast that I found in London reminded me that we can learn a lot from what is on maps but sometimes even more from what is not on them.
“I Never Ask for Anything”: Stories from Rose Hill
In the 1970s, the writer Reed Wolcott fit into life in Rose Hill, N.C., in some surprising ways. She went to prayer meetings. She loved to sit on a porch with a crowd of other women telling stories and shelling butterbeans. She was hard-nosed, and she had a taste for bourbon.
“One Book of Plants Very Lovingly Packt Up”: Searching for John Lawson in London’s Natural History Museum (Part 3)
At London's Natural History Museum, Dr. Mark Carine led my wife and me to the plant specimens that John Lawson collected on the North Carolina coast in 1710 and 1711.
“One Book of Plants Very Lovingly Packt Up”: Searching for John Lawson in London’s Natural History Museum (Part 2)
In the weeks after John Lawson's death, his “one book of plants very Lovingly packt up” found a new home in James Petiver’s herbarium in London.
“One Book of Plants Very Lovingly Packt Up”: Searching for John Lawson in London’s Natural History Museum (Part 1)
When my wife and I were in London last summer, we visited the Natural History Museum to see the collection of plants that the naturalist, explorer, surveyor and sometimes fur trader John Lawson sent to the English naturalist James Petiver in 1710 and 1711.
A Winter on Pine Island: Reading Lillie Baum’s Diary from 1904
Now preserved at the Outer Banks History Center in Manteo, Lillie Baum's diaries give us a rare glimpse at the long arc of a woman’s life on the Outer Banks in the first half of the 20th century.
My Journey into the Past
Sairyusha, a publishing house in Tokyo, Japan, has just put out a collection of my historical essays called Amerika Higashi Kaigan: Umoreta Rekishi o Aruku, which translates into English as My Journey into the Past: Stories from North Carolina.
The Rose Hill Poultry Workers Strike of 1968
The Rose Hill poultry workers strike of 1968 was one of the unsung chapters in the story of the black struggle for justice and equality in Eastern North Carolina.
The Linnean Society’s Venus Flytrap
Here at the Linnean Society in London, I have found an extraordinary treasure from the North Carolina coast: the first written record of the Venus flytrap in history.
The Revolt of the Lint Dodgers: The Lumberton Cotton Mill Workers of 1937
Today I am exploring the story of a historic strike and union organizing campaign that occurred in Lumberton, N.C., in 1937. That story involves more than a thousand cotton mill workers and a legendary champion of social justice struggles named Myles Horton, the co-founder of the Highlander Folk School.
Where They Remember
My daughter and I recently visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. It is the nation’s first memorial dedicated to the victims of racial terror and lynching.
The Jack Roach Indian Medicine Show
For decades, the Jack Roach Indian Medicine Show wandered the backroads of the North Carolina coast.
David Cecelski 