Thursday, January 29, 2015

'State News From Currituck to Cherokee' Jan. 13, 1903

“State News From Currituck to Cherokee,” from The Progressive Farmer, Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday, January 13, 1903

Items of Interest Gleaned from Our Correspondents and Exchanges

Troy Examiner: Teachers for the public schools are scarce in this county. Well prepared teachers are I demand, and this should be an inducement for teachers to prepare themselves thoroughly for this profession.

Salisbury Sun: Unity Township School District No. 4 is the first in this county to vote a special school tax. The election held this week resulted in an overwhelming majority for an additional tax of 60 cents on the poll and 20 cents on the $100 worth of real and personal property.

New Bern Journal: 40,000 birds were killed recently on the North Carolina coast for millinery purposes. They were mostly sandpipers. A society of ornithologists recently met in Philadelphia where this report was made. More strict laws regarding the killing of song-birds are needed.

The Washington Gazette and Messenger notes that a movement is already on foot to fittingly celebrate the 200th anniversary of the settlement of the town of Bath in 1905. Bath is the oldest town in the State and “it occupies,” says the Gazette, “the same position in the early history of North Carolina that Jamestown does to the State of Virginia.”

Durham Herald: Dr. H.F. Linscott, a member of the faculty of the University, died at his home in Chapel Hill Tuesday morning at an early hour. He had been extremely ill but a short while, and his death was a great surprise and shock to all of his numerous friends.

Quite a number of deer are being killed in Granville County this season—more than for years. It is nothing unusual for one of these animals to be brought into the city over the Oxford and Clarksville road.

Mooresville Enterprise: Mr. J.K. Valley, who is engaged in getting out poplar timber for shipment, has brought to this place for loading a large number of logs, several of which contain about 1,600 feet of lumber. The entire lot will average 1,200 feet to the log. These big logs will be shipped to a firm in Glasgow, Scotland, where they will be converted into various wares and into little wooden cups that are used by the merchants all over this country for vessels in which butter, lard, etc., is measured and weighed.

Colonel Olds: In May, 1899, Dr. C.P. Ambler of Ashville and Judge William R. Day of Cleveland, Ohio, went trout fishing in the beautiful “Sapphire country.” So impressed was Judge Day with the beauty of the scenery, the grandeur of the forests and the mountains, and the rare beauty of the artificial lakes which give the name of that region, that he readily fell in with Dr. Ambler’s idea that the National Government should step in to secure control of the region and preserve it for all time in its natural condition. Forest and Stream, a well-known weekly, says that from that fishing excursion dates the great movement to establish the Appalachian Park. Forest and Stream has further to say: “The outlook is bright for favorable action by Congress at the coming session. The Appalachian Park promises to be an assured fact. When the full history of the movement which led to its establishment shall be written, the first chapter must be begun with that chance Sapphire angling trip which proved to be so momentous.”

Lumberton Robesonian: At the election held in Sterling’s Township, in the Bloomingdale district, for the purpose of securing additional tax levy for public schools, those favoring the increase carried the day. In the Bethesda district the election was lost by six votes. It is, however, gratifying to know that even in this district, of the votes cast there were more for than against the tax. The difficulty was that the voters didn’t turn out. Bloomingdale’s good example will be followed by other districts in the county.

Greensboro Record; Hon. Lucius F.C. Garvin, who has just been elected the governor of Rhode Island, is a Democrat and lived in Greensboro before the war. HIs mother came here from Knoxville, where the now Governor was born, his father dying when he was six years old, and married the late Wash. McConnell. She was a teacher in Greensboro Female College. Mr. Garvin went to school at New Garden, but left here before the war and afterwards served in the Union Army. Many still living here remember Mr. Garvin. He is now 61 years of age.

There are 293 newspapers in this State. Of these, 28 are dailies—9 morning, 19 evening, with a total circulation of 45,575, or an average of only 1,700 each. There are 180 weeklies, with 266,461 circulation, an average of 1,480 each. There are 20 semi-weeklies, with 26,730 circulation; 44 monthlies, 61,175; 8 semi-monthlies, 28,025; 5 annuals, 198,350 (four of them almanacs). There are 142 Democratic, 17 Republican, 22 independent, 3 Populist, 9 Baptist, 4 Methodist, 5 Presbyterian, 12 educational, 2 literary, 4 medical, 2 agricultural, 2 textile, 1 industrial.

Exchange: The figures concerning the consolidation of public school districts, made public by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joyner this week, are important. There were reported as being in existence on October 1st, 5,447 white school districts, 2,385 colored and 21 Croatan, a total of 7,853, which is a decrease of 262 since July 1st last.  This shows splendid work for a three-months period. It means for the consolidated districts better teachers, because they can be better paid; better school-houses, longer terms, and, in general, a stride forward in the grade of public instruction. Let this good work go on.

Next week Prof. T. Gilbert Pearson of Greensboro, the Secretary of the Audobon Society, will leave for the North Carolina coast to look after the protection of birds during the building season next spring and summer. That is the time when the bird murderers, the most ruthless of slayers, shoot the terns and gulls and other coast birds to sell their skins to New York feather dealers. The Audobon Society will this year have game wardens on the various islands and other breeding places, and break up this sort of thing. If the Legislature will only make some needed changes in the law regarding protection, and if (most important of all) the local officers will enforce the law, the best results will follow. Millions of birds have been slain on the coast, the old ones mainly for the feathers, while the young starved to death. It is a very pitiful thing. And there were North Carolinians among those murderers. The writer knows of one who feels compunctions of conscience for what he has done.

Charlotte Observer: A minister who was visiting the highest rank in his church was the late Rev. Dr. D.C. Rankin, editor4 of the Missionary, a magazine of the Southern Presbyterian Church, who died in Seoul, Corea [Korea], while traveling in the East. He was a native of Guilford County, and it is said that his ambitions were aroused and his life moulded, in a large degree, by Dr. Calvin H. Wiley, the father of the modern public-school system in North Carolina. That great educator was not only working in behalf of the school system in general, but he had an eye ever alert to find scholars in embryo. Another man who “discovered” a boy destined to make a name for himself in this State is Rev. R.L. Patterson, now of High Point, formerly of Morganton, and the lad is Artist Randall, in the front rank of portrait painters, and who walked all the way from the western part of the State to Chapel Hill, where he worked his way through to graduation.

Tarboro Southerner: Recently one or more of the State papers suggested that Union County was better sup-plied with telephones than any other county. If Edgecombe is not the best, the Southerner is much mistaken. Only one township out of the 14 is without a telephone. Only one village throughout the county, Sharpsburg, is without one. In whatever section of the county one goes, he is never more than three or four miles from a telephone. Not only is every village and hamlet so provided, but in the county a score or more farms have telephones connected with the main system. There are exchanges, exclusive of this place and Rocky Mount, at Battleboro, Whitakers, Dr. Speight’s, Lancasters and Crisp. Edgecombe is not behind in many things. Just now a peanut factor will knock another ancient bump off.

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