A friend in New Bern, N.C., recently sent me an issue of the Raleigh News & Observer that he found in his family's old papers. The newspaper's date was November 5, 1898. A front-page article was about a large white supremacy meeting at the Craven County Courthouse in New Bern.
Craven County
“I Desire to find my Children”
A project called Last Seen—Finding Family after Slavery has been documenting the efforts of African Americans to find their families and other loved ones after the American Civil War. Most of the documents that the project has collected and put on-line are newspaper notices like this one about a family in Perquimans County, in northeastern … Continue reading “I Desire to find my Children”
“The Forgotten 29”– The Sit-in Movement in New Bern
The sit-ins in New Bern began on March 17, 1960. Led by the Rev. Willie Hickman and the Rev. Leon "Buckshot" Nixon, a group of 29 African Americans, mainly high school students, came in the front doors of two downtown businesses, the Kress Department Store and Bob Clark's Drug Store, and sat down at the lunch counters.
Working in the Logwoods: Photographs from Coastal North Carolina
I must have heard that phrase a million times when I was younger: “we were working in the logwoods.” Old men would say it again and again when they remembered their younger days on the North Carolina coast. They talked plenty about farming and fishing and raising families, but they talked just as much about “working in the logwoods.”
Ricky Moore’s Saltbox Seafood Joint Cookbook
Chef Ricky Moore's new cookbook is out and I think he's written the finest seafood cookbook you’ve ever seen and probably ever will see if you’re like me and love the flavors of the North Carolina coast.
The Immigrants
I never grow tired of looking at them: the faces in these old photographs. They are immigrants that settled in eastern North Carolina in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They came from Russia, Syria, Lebanon, Norway, Greece, Poland and many other far-off lands.
The Quaker Map: From Harlowe to Mill Creek
I recently found this map in an old book called The Williams History: Tracing the Descendants in America of Robert Williams, of Ruthin, North Wales, who Settled in Carteret County, North Carolina, in 1763. The map describes a largely forgotten group of Quaker settlements that flourished on the North Carolina coast more than 200 years ago.
“I Will Always Remember that Walk”
“One of the first things that I remember was my Pappy waking me up in the middle of the night, dressing me in the dark, all the time telling me to keep quiet. One of the twins hollered some and Pappy put his hand over its mouth to keep it quiet.
A Civil Rights Milestone– Pamlico County, 1951
Today my Black History Month tour of eastern North Carolina’s civil rights history concludes with a look at Pamlico County and a historic civil rights lawsuit that was filed in 1951. Few people today remember this part of our history, but African American citizens in the little coastal village of Oriental filed one of the first lawsuits in the U.S. calling for black and white children to go to school together.
A World Built of Oyster Shells
Earlier this week, I wrote about the historic use of oyster shells for constructing roads on the North Carolina coast. But coastal people didn’t only use oyster shells for road building. Particularly before the Civil War, they also used oyster shells as an important source of lime. Burnt down in kilns, an incredible tonnage of oyster shells was used in making cement, mortar, bricks, wall plaster and whitewash.
The Oyster Shell Road
Children, a bicyclist and a toll keeper visiting at a toll station on the Shell Road between Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach, N.C., circa 1900. Oyster shells had been used for building and improving roads and cart paths since earliest colonial times, but the oyster boom that began on the North Carolina coast in the 1880s drastically increased the tonnage of shells available for road construction.
Martin Luther King, Jr. from Edenton to the Blue Ridge
Here on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I thought I’d share a historical document from one of the most famous civil rights events in American history, the campaign to end racial segregation in Birmingham, Alabama-- and also talk a little about Dr. King's visits to North Carolina.
The Birth of a Plantation Empire: New Bern in 1800– Susan Johnson’s Diary, part 6
This is part 6 of my series on the diary that Susan Edwards Johnson wrote on the North Carolina coast in 1800 and 1801. At this point in her story, she's spending time at her cousin Frances Pollock Devereux's home in New Bern while her husband is overseeing the construction of gristmills and lumber mills on Peter Mallet's lands on the Black River.
Women Reading– Susan Johnson’s Diary, part 5
After her husband returned to the Black River on Nov. 27, 1800, Susan Johnson remained in the town of New Bern, N.C., for nearly a month without him. She was the guest of her first cousin, the wealthy heiress Frances Pollock Devereux, and her husband, John Devereux. Susan’s diary describes many of the ways that she spent her time in New Bern during that month. Above all, Susan read. She read constantly. She read on her own, aloud to others and practically at all hours.
“Immigrants– We get the job done!” — Susan Johnson’s Diary, part 4
This is the 4th part of my look at the diary of Susan Edwards Johnson, a Connecticut woman that visited the North Carolina coast in 1800-1801. I found the diary at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, Conn. Susan Johnson remained in the town of New Bern, N.C., from the 24thof November until the 21stof December, … Continue reading “Immigrants– We get the job done!” — Susan Johnson’s Diary, part 4
Tea with Aaron Burr’s Aunt– Susan Johnson’s Diary, part 3
At the Connecticut Historical Society, I continued to read Susan Johnson’s diary from her visit to the North Carolina coast in 1800 and 1801. Today, in part 3, I'm looking at her visit with Aaron Burr's aunt Eunice in New Bern.
“My Cousin Mrs. Devereux”– Susan Johnson’s Diary, part 2
After leaving her home in Stratford, Conn., Susan Johnson arrived in Suffolk, Va., on the 22ndof November, 1800. The next morning, she re-boarded the stagecoach and headed south into North Carolina for the first time.
Susan Johnson’s Diary– “On the Borders of the Great Dismal Swamp”
Last spring I visited the Connecticut Historical Society when I passed through Hartford, Conn. I was headed to my niece’s home in New Haven, but I couldn’t resist stopping for a few hours: the Society’s holdings include an extraordinary collection of early American historical manuscripts and I wanted to see if any of them might shed new light on coastal North Carolina.... I was only there for a day, but I found a real treasure that I would love to share here— a remarkable diary that was kept by a Connecticut woman when she stayed in coastal North Carolina in the very first decades after the American Revolution.
Florence
The whole world is underwater. The places where I grew up, the places where I lived as a young man, the places I have been writing about all my life. The places where people I love live. The places that fill my dreams. Richlands and Trenton, Newport and New Bern, Wilmington and Lumberton, Engelhard, Belhaven, Washington. I am thinking about you all. I am keeping you in my prayers. I am holding you all in my heart.
The Color of Water, part 7– From Ocean City to Rainbow Beach
This is part 7 of my special series called “The Color of Water.” In this series, I’m exploring the history of Jim Crow and North Carolina’s coastal waters, including the state’s forgotten history of all-white beaches, “Sundown towns,” and racially exclusive resort communities. Today-- African American and Indian beaches.
On Albemarle Sound– Runaway Slaves and the Sea
Welcome back to the Belle of Washington. We left Elizabeth City early this morning and came down the lovely waters of the Pasquotank River. Now we're passing the Little River and, up on its northern shore, the little hamlet of Nixonton. I’ll say more about Nixonton’s history in a second, but first I think this is a good time and place to talk about runaway slave advertisements because there are some especially interesting ones that refer to Nixonton.
New Bern, N.C.– The Last Ram Schooner
The ram schooner Edwin and Maud in New Bern, ca. 1935. She is resting at Union Point, where the Neuse and Trent Rivers come together, probably at the wharf for the J.A. Meadows Company. In the background, we can see the Trent River Bridge.
A Shad Camp, Neuse River, ca. 1890– The Men Singing as They Fish
A shad fisherman’s camp on the Lower Neuse River, possibly at or near James City, N.C., circa 1900. Fishermen constructed their huts out of cedar limbs or another supple hardwood and thatched them with saltmarsh cordgrass or black needlerush. Typically they bound them together with yucca fibers. These round huts with conical roofs were a spartan home away from home for shad fishermen and, occasionally, for their families.
Pitch Pines and Tar Burners: A 1792 Account
I recently found an historical account that I think might be the best description of tar making in North Carolina that I have ever read. An English merchant named Holles Bull Way wrote it in his travel diary when he visited coastal North Carolina in 1792. He did not publish those excerpts from his diary until 1809, though, when the article that I found appeared in the Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts, Great Britain's first monthly scientific journal.
Benjamin Labaree’s Journal– A Yankee Teacher in Trenton, N.C., 1821-22
When he was 19 years old, in 1821, a young teacher named Benjamin Labaree left a small town in New Jersey, made his way to New York City and took passage on a ship bound for Washington, N.C. His first impression of the North Carolina coast could have been better. “I should not like to teach in that town,” he later wrote, “everything looked so untidy and neglected. Dead animals were to be seen in the travelled streets.”
David Cecelski 