Friday, July 31, 2015

Heavy Rains Ruin $10,000 Crops at State Hospital, 1914

From the Thursday, July 23, 1914, issue of the High Point Review

Raleigh—The recent storm which broke all records for downpour of rain, barring July 30, 1888, wrought its worst destruction upon grounds of the state hospital and the estimate of losses there is $10,000.

Walnut creek, which has never been seen so badly overflowed, backed upon the hospital grounds and flooded portions of the crops. The worst damage was to the ground. The hospital had sowed its lands in peas that had reached a growth nearly large enough to protect the ground from breaking away. But it lacked a little and the young crop went rushing to the creek basin with great furrows cut in a hundred places.

The center of the city appears to Raleigh people to have been the center of the storm, but it wasn’t. The superintendent of the hospital, Dr. Albert Anderson, believes that the cloud burst immediately over the grounds on which the hospital stands. Though the approach to the institution is a macadam road, the granite has been washed away and the driveway is almost impassable.

The hospital had great crop prospects. It has rarely had so much to hope for from green fields. But in all its history it has had no flood that approached this one. Dr. Anderson does not see how his loss can be less than $10,000 and there is no indemnity. It is a total disaster. It represents the food for the institution, a crop raised by its own labor.

Being the meeting place of two heavy storm clouds Raleigh and this whole section experienced the heaviest rainfall with one exception that has fallen during all the history of the weather bureau here and with the rain there were terrific electrical disturbances, the floods doing damage in many parts of the city and the lightning putting the power and lighting wires out of commission for a considerable time. The rainfall was 3.04 inches within 55 minutes from 3:50 to 4:45.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

N.C. State to Hold Farmers' Institutes Across the State, 1914

“Director Parker Announces Farmers’ Institutes” from the Thursday, July 16, 1914, issue of the High Point Review. Before there were county agricultural agents, the state held Farmers’ Institutes with educational programs for farmers and farm wives.

Raleigh—Director T.B. Parker announces that the summer schedule of farmers’ institutes has been made out in connection with the following prizes to be given:

To the woman living on the farm baking and exhibiting the best loaf of bread, a year’s subscription to a woman’s magazine; to the girl under 20 years of age living on the farm baking and exhibiting the best loaf of bread, a year’s subscription to a woman’s magazine; to the girl under 16 years of age living on the farm baking and exhibiting the best pone of cornbread a premium will also be given.

Following is the list of institutes with dates:

Alamance County—Elon College, Monday, August 17; Maywood, Tuesday, August 18; Spring Graded School, Wednesday, August 19; Hawfield Graded School, Thursday, August 20.

Alexander County—Taylorsville, Friday, July 31.

Anson County—McFarlan, Saturday, August 8; Polkton, Tuesday, August 11; Wadesboro, Wednesday, August 12; Ansonville, Thursday, August 20.

Burke County—Hildebran, Wednesday, August 5; Hickory Grove School House, Thursday, August 6.

Caldwell County—Collettsville, Monday, August 3; Hudson, Tuesday, August 4.

Cabarrus County—Rimer, Tuesday, August 11; Concord, Wednesday, August 12.

Caswell County—Leasburg, Wednesday, July 29; Semora, Thursday, July 30.

Chatham County—Siler City, Friday, July 24.

Cleveland County, Casar, Tuesday, August 11; Belwood, Wednesday, August 12; Shelby, Thursday, August 13; Waco, Saturday, August 15

Davidson County—Enterprise, Friday, July 24; Boston School House, Saturday, August 1; Cedar Springs School House, Wednesday, August 5

Davie County—Farmington, Monday, July 27; Center Church, Tuesday, July 28.

Durham County—Lowe’s Grove School House, Monday, July 27; Mineral Spring School House, Saturday, July 25; Bahama School House, Friday, August 21.

Forsyth County—Clemmons, Saturday, July 25; Belew’s Creek, Saturday, August 15; Burke’s Grove, Wednesday, August 19; Cold Springs, Thursday, August 20.

Gaston County—Sunnyside School House, Monday, August 17; Eaker’s School House, Tuesday, August 18; Stanley, Friday, August 21.

Guilford County—Pleasant Garden, Wednesday, July 29; McLeansburg, Thursday, July 30; Jamestown, Friday, July 31; Battleground, Saturday, August 1; Colfax, Friday, August 21.

Hoke County—Raeford, Wednesday, July 29.

Iredell County—Cool Springs, Wednesday, July 29; Eupeptic Springs, Thursday, July 30; Test Farm, Saturday, August 1; Mooresville, Friday, August 14.

……

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Former Watagua County Resident Writes of Life in the Texas Panhandle, 1907

Letter to the editor from D.F. Herman in the Watauga Democrat, July 25, 1907

Mr. Editor: If you will allow me space in your columns, I will give a brief description of the Pan Handle of Texas. This season has been the most unusual ever known in this part of the country. Cotton is the principal staple. Cotton is very late owing to the last spring, although the old cotton growers say that the Pan Handle has a brighter prospect for cotton than any other section of Texas.

This country is being settled up very fast by almost every nationality on earth. There are more Bohemians than any other foreigners. They are very much like our people in every respect. They are honest, truthful and ingenious people. There are quite a lot of Germans, too. They recently purchased 1,000,000 acres of land near Wichita Falls, Tex. They are preparing to put up their own banks, stores, etc. Most all foreigners settle in colonies to themselves.

The vast prairie which was once roamed by the cow boy and red man are now being converted into farming lands. Farming is almost a pleasure to a Watauga boy. Everything is done with a tram here except chopping cotton. The cow boys range has been cut up into small pastures, and will soon be a thing of the past. We often have terrific storms here through the summer months, most everybody occupy their storm houses during storms. I will add here that a storm house is dug in the ground and covered with dirt.

Railroad facilities are very good. The town of Seymour has a prosperous road connecting Ft. Worth and Denver and the Pacific railroad. Seymour contemplates building her an individual road of her own in the near future. The game of the South West is about extinguished, nothing larger than the wolf remains.
                     --D.F. Herman, Seymour, Tex., July 9, 1907

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Butler Calls on Newspapers to Promote North Carolina, 1914

“North Carolina Sloppy With Opportunities: What Can the Press Do in Developing Them?” by Byon H. Butler, from the Thursday, July 23, 1914, issue of the High Point Review. Butler’s presentation from the N.C. Press Association was printed as an editorial in this issue.

Recently I said one day in the News and Observer that North Carolina is sloppy with opportunity. That expression has been brought back to me to set the pleasant task of pointing out some of those opportunities and telling how the newspaper men may help in the development of them.

Thirty-two years ago this summer I caught my first glimpse of North Carolina. At that time I had seen enough of the industrial development and progress of the United States from Texas, Kansas and Minnesota east to New England to appreciate what development means and to recognize the opportunity for development where it appeared. Fifteen years of my newspaper work was passed as a writer of progress of the big industrial expansion in Pittsburg territory where big things are done. That gave me a further insight into what opportunity is and what it is worth. It is more than 20 yeas ago that I commenced to write in the Pittsburg Times stories of opportunities in North Carolina. In that 20 years I have been showing people what I see here, and in going out to show them I continually fall over more things to show. I did not discover North Carolina all of a sudden. It has been a gradual finding of new possibilities until it is easy to see that no State in the Union today can present so much of opportunity as North Carolina. This is said in all deliberation for unsupported claims are of no use to anybody. It is folly to deceive ourselves. I make this claim after an acquaintance with almost every community of any consequence in the United States.

The chief factors that are putting North Carolina in the front are climate, rainfall, waterpower, transportation, convenience to the markets of the United States and of the world, the permanent supply of raw material for factory use, and a population of intelligence and upright character. I do not include those temporary resources like timber, mineral deposits, etc., which are valuable in themselves, and of great importance, are still temporary and not in the class with those permanent things that are of everlasting worth.

In hunting a place for a permanent home for myself and family I picked North Carolina deliberately from all the rest of the country because it offered a bigger inducement in natural advantages. It has the best climate and the best rainfall. Climate makes a State fit to live in. Rainfall and mild climate makes it an agricultural possibility. Soil is a factor, but fertility can be made. Kansas and California and other States of the West are not so fertile now as when I first knew them. North Carolina is more fertile. Fertility is under the control of man, climate and rainfall are not.

Therefore we must regard North Carolina as one of the foremost agricultural possibilities on earth. The story of the last 15 years bears this out. In the last census period the State more than doubled its farm products. In the last five years, it has almost doubled again. This surprising record if kept another 10 years will put North Carolina among the first three or four States of the Union.

Mill development is fully as rapid. Fourteen years ago the State factories produced about $86 million worth of goods. Now they make three times that value. Factories are springing up to build the widest variety of products. The factories are diversified to scores of different lines. They will diversify more because they have the power. In a dozen years the development of waterpower in North Carolina has been one of the marvels of the industrial world. What is ahead nobody can guess, but also most any guess seems safe enough. The State is gridironed with power wires now and in that respect has no peer on the globe.

Ours is one State that is self-contained and self-providing. It has the farms on which to feed the people, the factories in which to employ them, the power to run the mills, the yearly crop of raw material for the factory, the river and sea to carry the freight to market, the railroads in all directions, besides the surplus of product eagerly sought by other States.

Rising in the highest mountains east of the Rockies, North Carolina rivers have more fall to the sea, a greater distance to the sea, a greater annual rainfall to carry down, and a greater area to drain water from than any other State of the East. How much power that means is pure guess. It is a limit we cannot overtake for years. We have no idea of our ability to produce cotton for the ever growing North, or anything. We have no idea where we are going, but we are headed somewhere, and are running away on half a dozen roads at one time.

It is no use to me to point out to you the opportunities of North Carolina. Five thousand people could find opportunity in Jones county to go raising cotton. As many more could go to the mountains and raise cattle. As many more could go to Guilford to raise corn, to Moore, to raise scuppernongs for the grape juice plant starting there, to Henderson to raise apples, to Robeson to raise cantaloupes, to Cumberland to raise tobacco, peanuts for oil, sweet potatoes to make starch for the cotton mills and alcohol for the arts and for the automobiles when gasoline is scarcer.

Every county in the State could place 10,000 people as fast as they could come and opportunity would await them. One of the greatest of advantages is that our resources are so distributed that in every township in the State it is possible to establish a varied industry. Here is one State that has power available in every locality, raw material in every locality, transportation in every locality. We do not have to bunch our industries in cities where coal and iron and shop room can be had, as is the case in other States where the utilities must be assembled. We are not compelled to crowd into centers of population. Look at the cotton mill development that lines the Southern Railway from Virginia boundary to the South Carolina frontier. It is a continuation of mill communities with their farm settlements about them. At the last census North Carolina ranked eight among the States in its rural population. Only seven other States are developed all through the rural regions more than ours. In city population this State ranks 31st, but we are practically alone in having farm and factory property development scattered over the entire State.

The farm where it can feed the factory and supply such raw material as cotton and tobacco, and the factory where it can benefit by the farm, and find labor and subsistence and afford a market. North Carolina is sloppy with opportunity. I can no more tell you the limit of the water of the ocean out there in front of us. The one single thing of electrical development that has commenced in the State means a revolution in industrial things, with North Carolina as a cradle of expansion and training ground. Ten years from now the electrical atmosphere of industrial North Carolina will be a marvel.

You realize the opportunities. How can the press help to develop them? By becoming thoroughly familiar with what is here. We know of many opportunities, but there are many opportunities we have overlooked. We must become familiar with as many as possible, and get our people to know and appreciate them. My people laughed at me for an enthusiast when I told them North Carolina has the best climate in the United States. I showed them the weather statistics which tell that in every State along the Canadian frontier except New York and New England the thermometer goes higher in summer than in North Carolina. They are surprised when I tell them the Catawba has power enough to turn all the wheels in Connecticut, a prominent factory State, or that one big dam building on the Yadkin would run two-thirds of all wheels in Vermont. The newspapers put these things before the people vigorously. In the North and East North Carolina is an unknown region, almost as far out of public knowledge as Roosevelt’s river of doubt in the Amazon country.* Every North Carolina newspaper should have several exchanges in the North and in New England that what is printed might be passed along to people elsewhere.

The newspaper must be a clearing house for information concerning the State, county and the town. Every new farm, every new factory, every new thing that tells of development and expansion should get a place on the first page with a two stack head. I figure that in our paper that building a dozen new tobacco barns on Pinebluff farm is of more consequence than the vote of the candidate for Congress or Governor.

An example of this helpful enthusiasm is the Southern Pine Tourist, one of the most aggressive development factors in the State, as well as a model village newspaper.

I don’t mind tell you a trade secret if you will go home and profit by it. Every time we start something new over in Hoke county we try to tell it to the Observer, the News and Observer, the Star and all the other newspapers that want to know what is going on in the State. They can’t keep a secret and they tell it to their readers and every few days you notice something new is breaking loose in the sandhills. I don’t know whether our section is any better than yours, but we go on the theory that our section is the best on earth, and our bird is not the American eagle but the wise old hen who makes a note of the occurrence very time she lays an egg, and alludes to it several times during the day, before and after laying it. We believe in advertising.

It is useless to enumerate the opportunities in North Carolina. We could accommodate in this State many millions of people. People is what we lack. We lack people because the rest of the country, which is supplying settlers for all the United States and Canada, does not know North Carolina. Within the next year, and nearly every year, a million or more Americans will hunt new homes. They will not find anything better than North Carolina, but they will go elsewhere for what of knowledge of North Carolina. You who print papers in the tobacco belt should get some of your papers into the hands of people in the tobacco section of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and elsewhere.

You in the corn counties should be in touch with people in the corn country of the North and West. The climate of the North and West is fierce and people are running away from it constantly. Our climate is one of our greatest assets and when it is known what a climate we have and what other advantages we will get the people.

We should have an aggressive publicity bureau in the association. The Western States spend hundreds of dollars to settle their country which is not half so attractive as ours, but they settle it, and get their money back in their increased business. They get marvelous and rapid results. If California, with the hustle those folks have should unite the rainfall of North Carolina and the climate to their hustle they would make 5 million bales of cotton a year and spin it. On the sandy lands of this State could be made cotton to clothe millions of people of Europe if farmers were here to use the available cheap land. The United States makes 15 million bales of cotton a year. The cotton States of the South constitute the only part of the globe that makes enough cotton to satisfy its needs. In the United States we, each one of us, use an average of about 30 pounds of cotton a year. In most of the world the average amount of each individual is not above 3 pounds. To provide the world liberally with cotton would take a crop of a 150 million bales a year. North Carolina is the safest cotton State on earth, and raises more to the acre than any other State. Half the world has never yet had half the clothes to be comfortable because there was never enough. North Carolina is making more cotton goods every day, and every day the commerce of the world is expanding into the figures of gigantic importance. The work is to be done. We need more people to do it. As far as we can see we will never reach our limit in this State. We have land enough to stagger our conception. What we lack is people. We need to show people that anything that can be done in any section of the United States can be done to a little better advantage here with few exceptions. We can make as good cantaloupes as Colorado, and a thousand miles nearer market. Yet Rocky Ford melons are known everywhere and Scotland county melons sell for Rocky Ford.

Thinks what rainless Montana or Idaho would do with our rainfall and convenience to market. Yet those people are no more intelligent or industrious than our people. They simply have to pump or drown out there, and they pump and show other people they can pump. The Lord has been too good to this State. Here it is not so necessary to pump, and we overlook the amazing advantages. We do not appreciate them sufficiently to talk of them to others.

I think you understand as well as I can tell you that here is a land of boundless possibilities. How many people could North Carolina sustain in comfort? I would say that Belgium sustains 13 times as many people to the square mile as we do, and they seem to live in comfort, and not so much of natural advantage to depend on. Using Belgium as an illustration I would say that 13 times as many people as we have now, or about 25 million, would be about the figure I would recommend to start with. When we get that many we could figure on how many more to think about. Belgium has about as much territory as the coastal plain of North Carolina, and as many people as both the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland, which is all that needs to be said about the room for people in this State.

To promote development we must get people. I don’t count myself an old man, yet I remember when we spoke of Ohio as out West. From the day when this government was established it has been an average of only a little more than three years between new States. The people make new States are increasing faster now than ever. The new States are all made. The people will go on making farms and factories and towns and communities, and they will follow the lines of least resistance in finding the place if they know where the places are. To show them is our task. To get those people is our need. There are plenty of them to be had.

The first part of the work is to become thoroughly familiar with the work ourselves, then to show our home people that we have here something that should be made known to those of the big worked who are looking for a chance to do something for themselves. We must arouse our own State that it will help us to attract attention. Then we must go after settlers. The papers must furnish information. The papers must arouse the enthusiasm of the people. Then the papers must lead the campaign of publicity.

You must, each one, constitute yourselves the aggressive agent of development of your county and your community, make your paper its enthusiastic organ, and then as one of my darkies said one day while wrestling with a piece of obstreperous beef, you must chaw for godsake.

When you get your job started, stay with it. Of all the remarks that have been made about me as along as I can remember, the one that pleased me most was that of a man who said to me, “That man never knows when to quit.”

Friends, let us go home determined to cut out the muffler, open the throttle wide, advising the rest of the world to excuse the dust as North Carolina whips by.

Former President Theodore Roosevelt

Monday, July 27, 2015

Small Pox Practically Under Control in Beech Creek, Other Local News from Watauga County, 1907

Local news from the July 25, 1907 issue of the Watauga Democrat, Boone, N.C.

--Dr. Hodges tells us that the small pox cases on Beech Creek are all doing well, and he considers the disease practically under control.

--The Confederate Pension Board of Watauga county was in session again last Monday, and about 25 new names were added to the rolls.

--Brushy Fork and Boone again tried their hands at a match game of ball on the diamond here on Saturday evening last, which resulted in 37 to 20 in favor of Boone. The Boomer and High Briten teams will play our boys this evening and tomorrow evening.

--Prof Wiley H. Swift, Superintendent of the Greensboro Graded Schools, with his wife and child, is at his old home at Amantha for a rest during vacation.

--The Mt. Vernon choir sang for the Revs. Savage and Atkins who preached at Deerfield School house to a large congregation on Sunday evening last.

--The new Presbyterian Church at Blowing Rock was used for the first time last Sunday morning.

--Carpenter work on the inner part of the Episcopal church in Boone is progressing nicely and when completed will be very pretty indeed.

--Mrs. W.A. Watson of Lenoir is visiting her parents, Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Farthing on New river.

--The “Life of Welborn Walters” is wanted at this office. If you have it, write us.

--The Episcopal Convocation will meet at Valle Crucis on August 6th and 7th, during which time there will be confirmation and ordination.

--On Sunday, August the 11th Bishop Horner will preach at Blowing Rock at 11 a.m. and in the Episcopal church in Boone the same evening at 4 o’clock.

--Friend Gill Hodges of Cheyenne, Oklahoma, joined his family here on last Friday and will remain for several weeks. Gill is gladly welcomed back to his native hearth by his many friends and relatives here.

--Stuart Greer, an Ashe county boy who recently graduated at Grant University, Tennessee, delivered an address at the close of the public debate on Saturday night last. We did not hear it, but are told that it was a splendid production.

--Shepherd M. Dugger, who is getting out a very much revised and enlarged edition of his far-famed book “The Balsam Groves of the Grandfather” came over yesterday, delivered an interesting lecture at the A.T.S., and is still here in the interest of his book.

--Married in the parlor of the W.L. Bryan home, on yesterday morning, Mr. Lewis Conley of Denver, Colo., to Miss Stella, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W.H. Mast of Valle Crucis, Rev. J.H. Brendall officiating. Immediately after the ceremony was performed the happy couple left for Denver where they will make their future home. We know nothing of the groom but he is certainly to be congratulated upon procuring for his bride this gem of the mountains.

--Invitations have been issued to the marriage of Miss Edna Clyde Kilgo, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. John C. Kilgo of Trinity College, to Kope Elias Jr. of Governor’s Island, Swain county, N.C., on Thursday evening, August 1, at 6 o’clock at the home of the bride, Trinity Park.

--Rev. P.J. Carraway, a member of the Western North Carolina conference, died at his home in Greensboro a few days ago.

Saturday, July 25, 2015

400 On Strike at Gastonia Mills, 1934

“Gastonia Mill Strike Hits 400” from the July 2, 1934 issue of the Burlington Daily Times-News

Workers in Dunn and Armstrong Textile Mills Walkout Protesting Alleged Injustice

Gastonia, July 2, (UP)—More than 400 workers of the Dann and Armstrong Textile Mills went on strike here today in sympathy with operatives of the Clara Manufacturing company, where a lockout has been in effect for the last eight weeks.

About 20 workers entered the Armstrong mill after running a gauntlet of booing and catcalling strikers. The machinery was started but the strikers claimed there were not enough men to keep it running.

The Dunn mill, half a block away, half a dozen men entered the plant, but the machines had not been started three hours after opening time.

City and county police were on guard at the mills.

There was an unconfirmed report that mill executives planned to import strike-breakers from the closed Monarch Mill at Dallas, N.C.

The Dunn, Armstrong and Clara Mills are under the same management. The Clara workers struck eight weeks ago in protest against several alleged injustices. All but one point of dispute has been settled by the state industrial relations board.

Friday, July 24, 2015

'Our Curse of Lawlessness' 1907

“Our Curse of Lawlessness” from the Charlotte Observer, reprinted in the Watauga Democrat, July 25, 1907

Commenting upon a trial which recently disgraced a Maryland county, The Washington Herald points out that “the idea that murder is a good thing is a latter day development of ‘unwritten law’ pleaders, to regard which as jurisdicial evolution is simply grotesque,” and continues:

“In such sentimental glorification of murder as that indulged in by Mr. Mudd we may, perhaps find a clew to the astonishing prevalence of homicide in this country. We cannot deny that Mr. Mudd’s opinion of the usefulness and effectiveness of killing the person who has done you wrong has the support of a considerable popular sentiment, and that there is a widespread belief that homicide is a relatively trivial crime as compared with some other crimes against the person. Where such opinions prevail, it is not strange that homicide should also prevail, nor it is remarkable that juries should deal leniently with homicide when popular applauses greet a sentimental verdict, while judges themselves descending from the bench to the level of the rabble, openly commend the perversion of justice.

The Observer has already had occasion to point out the great danger to society in that doctrine of private revenge which, in its various forms, has made these United States by far the bloodiest civilized country on the fact of the earth. Within the past few months the “unwritten law” has eclipsed lynching as a special menace to law and order in the South. It has cost several innocent lives and has had a demoralizing effect with which that of lynching is not comparable. Encouraging indications, however, are not lacking. The Loving case brought Virginia to its sense with a rude jar and new form of anarchy has also encountered blows in South Carolina and Georgia. It may be hard to convict an “unwritten law” lyncher but still not nearly so difficult as to convict the mob kind. Though the spirit of lawlessness is appallingly strong in the South and the country and there is always an unthinking rabble to applaud such utterances as those of Congressman Mudd in the Maryland case, we have faith that the curse will be stayed. With gratifying few exceptions, the press has realized its high responsibility in the matter and has spoken earnestly. The next few months will be full of good or evil for the country’s future.
                                --Charlotte Observer

Farmer and Soldier, Both Doing His Part to Win War


Wednesday, July 22, 2015

E.L. Stamey Speaks in Favor of Prohibition, 1914

“Day of Alcohol Is Practically Gone” from The Review, High Point, N.C., July 30, 1914

Dr. E.L. Stamey Spoke to Students of Summer School Monday
With an emphatic declaration of belief that the day is not far distant when alcohol with its long train of broken hearts, blighted hopes, wasted fortunes and outraged humanity will be no more, Dr. E.L. Stamey Monday closed a clear and forceful lecture before the faculty and young women of the Normal college summer school. Dr. Stamey, who is medical director of the Keely institute and a recognized authority on alcoholism, had been invited to discuss the subject of alcoholism and its effects from a medical standpoint. His statements of fact with observations and pertinent comments covered a large range. In its freedom from technicalities, the lecture derived force and the graphic pictures which the clear-cut, pungent sentences portrayed carried to each hearer a conviction of duty to enlist in the campaign of education for which the speaker appealed. For it is in the education of youth that Dr. Stamey hopes to accomplish the final and absolute eliminations of alcohol.

The speaker expressed surprise that the subject had been so long neglected by the schools and outlined the advantages which might accrue from lectures on the physical effects of alcohol at least twice a year in every school of the land.

“If I could get the ear of the school child and teach him or her the awful effects of alcohol upon the human system I would soon arouse a sentiment so great against the curse of liquor that the moral results of temperance, so long and so rightfully advocated, would follow a matter of course,” he declared.

Speaking of the unusual forms of indulgence, the speaker declared there are a great many men and some women who are addicted to the use of alcohol and who are almost daily getting drunk who never pretend to taste whiskey, brandy, beer or alcohol in any of the forms in which it is usually taken. This reference was to patent medicine addicts and was followed by references to experiences unusual to the average man.

As a producer of disease, alcohol was soundly scored.

Concluding his appeal for education, Dr. Stamey said: “We must teach the boys of this land that they cannot afford to drink. Men have no right to drink liquor and when they assume such a right, and I hear them talking about it, they make me sick. If a man could take wings and fly away to some unknown country to the unknown or unknowable, where there was no other human being except himself—no mother to week, no wife to shed tears and send up its piteous wail because of the curse of drink; even there it would be a curse and a sin to drink liquor because of its harmful effects upon the human system. How much more sinful and unreasonable for men to drink in an enlightened land where they not only outrage their bodies, their faculties and their organs which were created for noble purposes, but where there are others also to suffer as well?

As a final warning to the young women composing his audience the speaker said: “The young women of our land must be taught that they cannot afford to marry men that drink, that they had better die and be carried to their graves in their innocency and purity than to be tied to a man whose very being has been debauched by liquor. They should be taught it is dangerous to associate with such men. There are a great many in the country today who are walking degenerates because of the influence of drink. You can see them on the street corners, and I am sorry to say very often at public functions standing around as the big fellows of the community; but they are nothing more than moral vultures flying around in their murky skies ready at the first opportunity to swoop down upon and devour some pure innocent, unsuspecting young woman.”

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

The Usual Cases: Whisky, Assault, Non-support, Drunken Driving in Alamance County, 1939


“Fines Suspended, Sentences Feature County Court Work” from the Tuesday, July 25, 1939, issue of the Burlington Daily Times-News. I have to wonder about the charge of operating a picalo without a license.

Numerous Charges are Aired as Judge Rhodes Clears Docket for Superior Court

The usual round of cases involving charges of possession of whisky, assault, non-support, and careless and drunken driving were aired in county court yesterday afternoon before Judge H.J. Rhodes as the tribunal cleared the docket and made way for the civil county court being held today, after postponement from last week.

Connie Underwood, tried for assault with a deadly weapon, appealed to higher court a judgment of four months suspended with payment of $50 and the cost.

Prayer for judgment was continued in the case in which Jean Campbell was charged with operation of a picalo without license. That continuance carried the provision that she must secure a license and pay the cost for which the county is liable.

Judgment was again reserved in the case in which Frank Hanford is charged with possession of home brew for sale.

William Rook, booked on a charge of malicious damage to property and trespassing, was found not guilty of the first count and on the second, judgment was continued on the provision that the defendant pay the cost.

Tommy Andrews, tried on the same charges as Rook, was given four months suspended on the condition that he pay for damages done and refrain from any other violation of the criminal laws.

Tom Longest, found guilty of assault, was sentenced to four months on the roads, suspended on payment of $50 and the cost.

J.D. Wilson, charged with non-support, was sentenced to six months, suspended on condition that he pay $6 a week to his wife and child and as much as $1.50 a week for doctor’s bills.

George Vincent, found guilty of careless and reckless driving, was give 90 days, suspended on payment of $25 and the cost.

Herbert Billings and L.B. Elkins were given 30 days each on charges of trespassing and vagrancy. On the same charge Clarence Gaultner was given 30 days suspended on payment of $10 and the cost, and on condition that he leave Alamance county.

Bennie Guthrie, tried for drunken driving, was given six months, suspended on payment of $25 and the cost.

Monday, July 20, 2015

Why Spopee, A Blackfoot Indian, Was Detained in Federal Prison for More Than 30 Years, Then Released in 1914

Blackfoot Redemption: A Blood Indian’s Story of Murder, Confinement, and Imperfect Justice by William E. Farr (review)
From: Great Plains Quarterly
Volume 34, Number 1, Winter 2014
pp. 98-99 | 10.1353/gpq.2014.0005
In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
The criminalization, findings of mental illness, and confinement of American Indians in the United States since the nineteenth century is a significant topic in American history in need of exposure. Many Indians found themselves incarcerated in prisons or insane asylums for opposing government interests, or as a consequence of cultural misunderstandings or outright racism. William E. Farr’s work is an engrossing narrative of the life of a Blood Indian, Spopee, detained in federal prison and an insane asylum for over thirty years, as well as the simultaneous confinement of the Blackfoot on a reservation in northwest Montana.

Farr argues that, had Spopee been white, the courts would not have found it necessary to try him, let alone convict him, for the murder of Charles Walmesley in 1879. Although experienced lawyers represented Spopee during his trial, he was unable to speak English and could not communicate with his counsel. Further, the “murder” may have been an act of self-defense and probably occurred on the Alberta side of the U.S.-Canadian border. Despite this, the court found Spopee guilty and sent him to federal prison, where officials determined he was insane, leading to his transfer to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, an insane asylum in Washington dc . Unable to communicate with the asylum staff, Spopee remained silent and undiagnosed. A Blackfoot delegation to Washington “discovered” Spopee in 1914, leading to his pardon and release. Upon his return to the Great Plains, he had difficulty coping with the extreme changes that had taken place and witnessing his peoples’ confinement on an ever-shrinking reservation.

Farr exhaustively researched the life of Spopee, and his analogy of Spopee’s incarceration to the confinement of Plains Indians on reservations is brilliant. Blackfoot Redemption might have benefited from a broader engagement with such works as Luana Ross’s Inventing the Savage: The Construction of Native American Criminality (1998) or the literature on the Canton Insane Asylum for American Indians or similar institutions. Spopee’s life is a perfect case study and an opportunity on the part of future scholars for examining the United States’ criminalization of Indianness and the “othering” of American Indians through the labels of insane or criminal. These colonially imposed institutions allowed Americans to prohibit Indian beliefs and behaviors they opposed.
Audiences of Farr’s Blackfoot Redemption will enjoy the enthralling account of Spopee’s life and Blackfoot history in the northwestern Great Plains.

Copyright © 2014 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln
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Innocent Man Released 34 Years After Disappearing in Legal System, 1914

“Spopee, A Black Foot Indian, Spent 34 Years Behind the Bars,” from The Review, High Point, N.C., July 30, 1914

Washington, July 17—After 34 years behind the bars under life sentence for murder, Spopee, a Black Foot Indian, was unconditionally pardoned today by President Wilson. He will be released at once from the federal hospital for the insane here to return to his daughter at Browning, Mont., whom he has not seen since she was a baby.

A party of Blackfeet, sightseeing in Washington months ago, happened upon Spopee, grown gray with his long imprisonment. They established his tribal identity by an Indian song and one of the interpreters recognized in Spopee the hero of an old legend, who had disappeared a score of years ago into some white man’s jail. Blackfoot mothers have been singing their children to sleep with a song about him ever since.

Officials of the Indian office, advised of the discovery, began an investigation which resulted in his pardon.

Spopee was charged with the murder of a white man near the Canadian boundary north of the Montana line. It is thought by the department of justice that the murder probably was committed in Canada and that the territorial courts of Montana which tried him at Fort Benton had no jurisdiction. Moreover, it is now believed Spopee committed the murder in self defense.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Trip to Mt. Vesuvius Postponed, 1914

“Tourist’s Contemplated Trip to Vesuvius Is Postponed” from the Thursday, July 16, 1914, issue of the High Point Review.

Smoke Bars Visit…Writer Tells of the Difficulties Encountered in “Doing” Naples and Its Surrounding Attractions and Points of Interest

Naples—The difficulty of “doing” Naples and its surrounding attractions and points of interest within a positively limited time was demonstrated, writes a correspondent, when with a trip to the crater of Vesuvius in mind, I surveyed the cone from my window balcony. Thick clouds enveloped the truncated cone, and there was no sign of a change of wind to clear away the mist and smoke sufficiently to permit a view of the boiling depths. So, inasmuch as there were other things that must be done to prepare for the morrow’s sailing for home, I regretfully postponed my visit to the volcano until some other time in the uncertain future. Perhaps the bronze pledges given at Rome will prove effective in insuring a return, and then Vesuvius surely will be seen.

But fortune was not altogether unfavorable, for by a good chance during the day I met, at the office of the American consul, Mr. Jay White, two scientists from Washington, who have come over for the purpose of studying the volcanic activities in Italy. Prof. Arthur L. Day of the Carnegie institution and Prof. Henry Stephens Washington of the geophysical laboratory. They will spend several months here and in Sicily, observing conditions and endeavoring to obtain specimens of the gases emitted from Vesuvius, Etna, and Stromboli, in their research into the nature of the forces which cause eruptions. It is to be hoped that they will have the good fortune to gain information to aid in the evolution of a substantial working hypothesis explanatory of the most baffling phenomenon now confronting natural science.

Later in the day Vesuvius cleared off finely, a tantalizing trick that made the postponement of the trip to the top hard to endure philosophically. But it is quite well assured that the big chimney will continue to smoke for a long time to come, and perhaps when I come again it will be performing more spectacularly than at present. As I write, in the evening’s rosy glow that makes the bay of Naples indescribably beautiful, it is smoking away grandly, rolling its white steam high aloft before the wind carries it in a streamer off to the southeast.

I have been devoting part of this last full day in Italy to a study of street conditions in this lively, noisy Naples. It is a continuous torment of temptations. Every corner presents an inviting prospect of interesting scenes, but it is hard to know whether to turn or go straight ahead. One street is much like another, in general aspect, save that some are practicable for vehicles and others are not. The latter ascend the precipitous hillsides in series of stone steps, which swarm with humanity. At the end of one of these “gradoni,” or steep streets, where it meets a thoroughfare, will often be a group of flower stalls, giving a vivid dash of color to the scene. Far above stretches the steep stone staircase, with the buildings so close together that the clothing hung out of windows on sticks and on wires drying, almost obscures the view of the sky.

Something New in Southern Courtships, 1906


Thursday, July 16, 2015

Sight of Work Done Under Electric Lights Draws a Crowd in Durham, 1914

“Contractors Never Stop Work on Replacing Fire Swept Section of Durham” from The Review, High Point, N.C., July 30, 1914

Durham—The contractors in charge of the construction of the Geer building have employed a night force, and in the future will use about a hundred hands on the excavation for this building during the day and half that number during the night.

Hundreds watt incandescent have been stretched across the building site, and these make the night about as bright as the day for the laborers. No trouble was experienced in getting negroes to work during the night for they like the cool nights better than the warm days. The construction forces are using two forces of horses and are hauling the dirt from the excavation as fast as the negroes can get it up.

Putting on the night force was made necessary on account of the nature of the soil six feet under the surface. A kind of sand stone was encountered which made the progress of the work so slow that the contractors had to resort to the night work in order to get the building completed on schedule time.

The work of dismantling the First National Bank building is being carried forward rapidly and the contractors announce that as soon as they get the old building out of the way they will use a day and night force to get the excavation dug.

The novel sight of a half hundred Negroes working under the glare of electric lights attracted a great deal of attention. People hearing that a night force was to be worked came up street especially to see the sights.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Studebaker: Wagon Makers to the American Farmer

This full-page ad published in farm magazines tried to convince farmers to buy their wagons for their farms from Studebaker Brothers Company in South Bend, Indiana. While Studebaker was making automobiles its line of agricultural wagons was still important. Studebaker was a popular brand, with a million vehicles in daily use when this ad came out.
 


“One very important point for anyone interested in buying a wagon is to take into consideration the question of duplicate parts. All Studebaker wagons are so built that every part can be easily duplicated for years and years back, and should the buyer ever find it necessary to have an exact duplicate part, it enables him to obtain it readily at a considerable saving in expense.

There is also a freedom from repairs and a long and satisfactory use to be had out of a Studebaker wagon; how often they are sold after ten and fifteen years of actual service at a price that reduces the actual cost to a very low minimum.

The price of a Studebaker is not cheap. It is not in the alluring cheap price class, but compare the cost per year of a Studebaker with the cost per year of a cheap priced wagon and you will find the Studebaker in the end by far the cheapest. The purchase price of a cheap priced wagon is an extravagant economy, and every farmer who has tried it will admit that it does not pay.

The Studebaker plant covers 101 acres. Every class of wagon and vehicle for farmers and agricultural service is made here by the greatest force of skilled craftsmen in the vehicle industry. Over 1,000,000 Studebaker Vehicles are in daily use."

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Names and Locations of "Ghost Towns" in Alamance County, N.C., 1975

You may not find the name of your ancestors' home town on a current map of Alamance County, N.C. According to Wikipedia, Alamance County has 27 "ghost towns," meaning towns that existed in the 18th and 19th century and no longer exist. Here's a guide to these ghost towns. (From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamance_County,_North_Carolina)


According to a 1975 study of the history of post offices in North Carolina history by Treasure Index, Alamance County has 27 ghost towns that existed in the 18th and 19th centuries that no longer exist. Additionally, five other post offices no longer exist. These towns and their post offices were either abandoned as organized settlements, or were absorbed into the larger communities that now make up Alamance County.[
  • Albright - site located approximately 1-mile (1.6 km) south of exit 153 on Interstate 40
  • Carney - Near the site of Cedarock Park
  • Cane Creek
  • Cedarcliff - located between Swepsonville and Saxapahaw
  • Clover Orchard - approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of Snow Camp
  • Curtis (Curtis Mills) - located approximately 1/2 mile southeast of the current village of Alamance
  • Glenddale - site approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Pleasant Grove near the Alamance-Caswell county line
  • Hartshorn - about 1½ miles south southeast of the Alamance Battleground Historic Site
  • Holmans Mills - site approximately 1-mile (1.6 km) east of Snow Camp
  • Iola - about 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Altamahaw nearly due north of Glencoe
  • Lacey - Located about 1-mile (1.6 km) east of Eli Whitney
  • Leota - approximately 1-mile (1.6 km) south of Eli Whitney
  • Loy - Located at the northern base of Bass Mountain
  • Manndale
  • Maywood - approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) northeast of Altamahaw
  • McCray (McRay) - located about 2 miles (3.2 km) east-northeast of Glencoe
  • Melville - Located approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) west-southwest of the intersection of Interstate 40 and NC Highway 119
  • Morton's Store - approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Altamahaw
  • Nicholson - Located near the Intersection of NC Highway 87 and Bellemont-Mount Hermon Road
  • Oakdale - Located in the southwest of the county, near the intersection of NC Highway 49 and Greensboro-Chapel Hill Road
  • Oneida
  • Osceola
  • Pleasant Grove - Located in the far northeast part of the county, 2 miles (3.2 km) east-northeast of the current community of Pleasant Grove
  • Pleasant Lodge - Located 1-mile (1.6 km) to the west of the site of Oakdale, near the Alamance-Guilford county line
  • Rock Creek - located 4 miles (6.4 km) due south of Alamance
  • Shallow Ford - Located 1-mile (1.6 km) east of Ossipee
  • Shady Grove
  • Stainback - Located about 2 miles (3.2 km) east-northeast of Green Level
  • Sutpin - on the same latitude as Snow Camp, approximately halfway between Snow Camp and Eli Whitney
  • Sylvester
  • Union Ridge - near the east bank of Lake Cammack, about 3 miles (4.8 km) from the Alamance-Caswell county line
  • Vincent - Located 2 miles (3.2 km) north-northeast of Pleasant Grove

Monday, July 13, 2015

Chinese Student in School With Whites, Smiles and Irons Shirts, 1914

“Lem Leong Smiles and Irons Shirts” from the Raleigh News and Observer. The article was reprinted in The Review, High Point, N.C., July 30, 1914, with the following note from the Editor of that paper: “A whole lot said over nothing. Like the old man remarked about the cow licking the child: ‘Everyone to his own taste.’”

Raleigh--Those interested in Lem Leong, the young Chinese student upon whose entrance into the city schools considerable comment was rife last fall, will be glad to know that he continued in school until its close this spring, being in a class composed of as delightful and finely-bred American boys and girls as the most cultured families of High Point boast. And, too, in the class which was a second grade, were Greeks, two or three, and one or two Russians.

The predominant characteristics of Lem Leong is one different from that of all his race. As during the year he had through reading book after reading book with the agility of a literary acrobat he always smiled. He seems to have a great sense of humor; not boisterous and unrestrained but reserved and fulsome. At present during the hot vacation days he is engaged in social service work, one of the oldest sanitary reforms known to civilization. Than most people who advocate better sanitary conditions, Lem Leong is less theoretical and more practical. He is in the laundry business as first assistant to his father in the biggest establishment of its kind on North Main street. He discarded his pig-tail years ago, now wears a collar and cravat, and from the furtive glances at his school books during his work hours, at which you will detect him if you happen in the laundry, and always accompanied with that prophetically-knowing smile, it is evident that Lem Leong will not always be a sprinkler of clothes and an ironer of shirts.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Kernersville Hosiery Mill Hiring, 1907

From the Watauga Democrat, July 25, 1907

HELP WANTED—We can give several families, especially girls, steady employment at our mills. Good pay. Cheap and nice homes, graded school, five churches. Best town in the State.
                American Hosiery Mills, Kernersville, N.C.

Friday, July 10, 2015

The Talking Machine in the Music Room in Woodrow Wilson's White House, 1914

 
The cover of the magazine Talking Machine World featured a Victrola
in the corner of the music room at the White House. This issue of the magazine was published in 1914. Woodrow Wilson was president.

Thursday, July 9, 2015

H.B. Weaver Jr. on Honor Roll at Citadel, 1939

Tuesday, July 25, 1939, issue of the Burlington Daily Times-News

H.B. Weaver Jr. Cited for School Grades at Citadel
Cadet H.B. Weaver Jr., a student at The Citadel and son of Mr. and Mrs. H.B. Weaver, 304 Central Terrace, this city, has been cited for academic excellence in two courses pursued at the school last session, according to notice from the school’s register.

The citation denotes attainment of an average of not less than 90 percent in the course, the announcement noted. Weaver’s citation was attained in analytical geometry and calculus and in machine and topographical drawing. A member of the rising junior class, the local youth is majoring in civil engineering.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

High Point Social News, July 30, 1914

High Point social news from The Review, High Point, N.C., July 30, 1914

Little Elizabeth Hayden gave a birthday party to a number of her little friends Wednesday at the beautiful home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. J.F. Hayden on East Washington street. A delightful time was had. Dainty refreshments were served and souvenirs given her guests by the little lady, who so charmingly entertained on her 7th birthday.

Referee Ferguson of Greensboro was here Monday afternoon relative to the bankrupt stock High Point Loan company.

Rev. M.L. Cannup of New York City, formerly pastor of the Lutheran Church, spent Monday here, enroute to Salisbury to visit his people. Rev. Mr. Cannup will return to the city next Saturday and will occupy the pulpit at the Lutheran church Sunday.

Mrs. D.L. Clark gave a recital of her music pupils Saturday evening at her home on Washington street. Refreshments were served.

Mr. A.H. Sisson, superintendent of the Southern Car company, returned today from his farm five miles out from Charlottesville, Va., where he spent his vacation.

Mr. A.E. Eschelman, manager of the Southern LiveStock association, is a guest at Mt. Vernon springs for a short vacation.

Mrs. Daisy Allred, Miss Lena Ritenberry and Miss Ruth Sechrest have returned from their vacation at Black Mountain.

A negro, who it is alleged committed highway robbery, his victim being Charles Shelton, was before Squire Suttenfield Friday, who had him bound over to court.

An automobile club, something that has been needed here for some time, will be organized at an early date.

Rev. Sidney Love, Secretary of the North Carolina Prison’s Aid Society, spoke at the Air Dome Sunday afternoon at 5 o’clock to an interested audience on the subject “The Daughter Though Gavest Me.” Mr. Love is right on the subject of discrimination shown to the benefit of the man when a woman is put on trial for misconduct. He claims, and rightly so, that the man who caused the woman’s downfall or any way contributes to her degredation is equally guilty. “Remove the cause,” he says and the woman will remain clean and virtuous and that means for the man to keep away and when he is guilty to make him pay the penalty the same as the woman, and that will go a long ways towards keeping the woman from further erring.

Mrs. John R. Davis has received notice of the death of her sister, Mrs. Sina Coble Goley, at the home of her mother in Worthville.

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Harrison went to Kinston Tuesday where they entered their little son in the institution at that place.

The city police department has been reorganized and all the vacancies filled by electing Officer E.A. McGhee as chief and the following patrolmen: F.M. Yates, W.L. Blackwelder, R.C. Andrews and C.S. Carroll; J.O. Wood, chief health officer and patrolman southside and J.M. Evans, assistant health officer and patrolman, northside. A desk sergeant will be on duty all night.

Misses McBain, Arline Porter, Annie Markham and Florence Hill of Greensboro are guests of Mrs. C.C. Barnhart.

Mr. and Mrs. R.N. Mitchell, who have been absent a month, returned Tuesday from Kentucky.

Miss Alice Strickland returned from Greensboro Mondaya where she attended the wedding of her friend, Miss Carrie Young.

State Councilor J. W. Sechrest of the Jr. O.U.A.M. returned yesterday from North Wilkesboro where he went in the interest of the order.

Mr. J.M. Broughton, who is spending some time in California, and who is now at Mill Valley, a suburb of San Francisco, writes to his son, Mr. J.M. Broughton Jr. of this city, that he is taking hikes and auto trips over the mountains. The temperature there, he says, is like that we have here during the Thanksgiving season. One of the interesting features of this trip, he says, is the meeting of old acquaintances who went out there in ’49 and remained. He expects to return about September 1.

Commissioner of Insurance Jas. R. Young left recently for Montreat where he will spend a short time. Mr. Young has been ill and his physician advised a short stay in the mountains for his health. Treasurer B.R. Lacy has also gone to the summer resort to spend his vacation.

There has been placed in the North Carolina Hall of History a map of the battlefield of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, this being drawn with pen by Engineer Officers W.L. Martin and Claud B. Denson, of the Confederate States topographical engineer corps in September, 1963. Officer Denson referred to was Capt. Denson, so long a resident of Raleigh and who at the outbreak of the war had a military school in Duplin county, he having entered the service in the early spring of 1861.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Billy Fetzer of Concord Hero in Baseball Game With Danville, 1907

“Concord Player a Base Ball Hero” from the Watauga Democrat, Thursday, July 25, 1907

Roanoke, Va. Special, 15th, to the Charlotte Observer
Billy Fetzer, the Concord baseball player who is doing things with the Danville team in Virginia State League this season, won a big bunch of applause here this afternoon in the game with Roanoke when he batted the longest hit ever seen on the local grounds and one of the longest hits ever made in the South. The drive was more than 700 feet from the home plate where it hit a church steeple and was thus stopped in its flight which no doubt would have gone over 1,100 feet. The grand stand yelled for fully five minutes and the play had to be stopped by the umpire until the fans and players on both teams regained their equilibrium.

Billy was carried off the field on the shoulders of his brother players from both teams and handsome women tore their bouquets from their breasts and threw them at the Tar Heel’s feet. It was with the greatest difficulty that the Concord lad worked his way to the street car, so eager were the spectators to shake his hands. It was a great ovation for the Cabarrus country boy.

Monday, July 6, 2015

'A Digest of Everything Worth Knowning About Old North State Folks and Things,' July 30, 1920

“N.C. State News…A Digest of Everything Worth Knowing About Old North State Folks and Things” from the July 30, 1920 issue of the Elizabeth City Independent.

--With his large “Stop” sign held on high while attempting to stop an automobile with two white men in it, George Bradley, aged negro watchman at the Southern railway crossing at Biltmore, was run into by the car and thrown under the wheels of an approaching train, meeting the fate from which he saved the occupants of the car. The driver of the car, Carl Clapp, has been placed under arrest.

--William Daniels of Stantonsburg and his 10-year-old daughter, Sarah, were killed and three other occupants of the car which the party was riding were seriously injured when a Norfolk Southern passenger train crashed into their automobile at a grade crossing near Stantonsburg. The victims of the accident were hurrying to get home before an impending storm, and it is alleged that they paid no attention to the oncoming train. Daniels’ head was completely severed from is body.

--Louise Elbert Cannon of New Bern is under arrest for the murder of his sister in a quarrel at the Cannon home several days ago. The boy, who is about nine years old, admits to the killing, but declares that it was accidental. According to the generally accepted account of the affair, the boy and the girl, the latter about 12 years of age, were out in the yard playing. The lad says that his sister threatened to throw clay upon him, and that he secured a single barrel shotgun which he thought was unloaded, pointed it at her, and pulled the trigger. A deafening report followed, and the girl fell to the ground with the full load of shot in her breast. Death resulted almost immediately.

--J.E. Hurley, editor of the Salisbury Post, was chosen president of the North Carolina Press Association for the ensuing year at the recent convention of the association held at Waynesville. Out of the more than 20 editors at the convention selected at random and interviewed on the question of woman suffrage, only one stated himself as directly opposed to votes for women.

--Declaring that he was under the influence of whiskey at the time, James P. Kisler, former manager of the Liggetts-Jordan drug store at Charlotte, had admitted to the embezzlement of $905 of the company’s funds, and is held for the coming term of superior court in Mecklenburg county.

--Tied to a tree, beaten, bruised and chewed until merciful unconsciousness caused the brute to desist in his frantic love-making, Maggie Moize, 25-year-old white woman was found several days ago staggering along near a deserted cabin in a negro section of Hillsboro. The woman stated to the police that her condition was caused by Sam Lacky, white, who had induced her to leave home in Statesville July 2 by a promise of marriage. Lacky was quickly captured by the police, and is being held upon charged of seduction, attempt at murder, and carrying concealed weapons.

--Eight new stores owned by the Efirds of Charlotte received charters a few days ago in the name of Efird Department Store, in eight cities. These bring the number of stores operated by the Efirds up to 33.

--In a fight between whites and blacks at one of the lumber camps on Mt. Mitchell last week, one negro was killed, three others seriously wounded, and one white man shot through the leg. The cause of the trouble is not reported.

--Because he cashed checks amounting to $1,600 for his brother, who did not have anything like that amount on deposit there, J.T. McKeel, cashier of the bank of Bridgeton, was discharged from his position with the institution several days ago. Before leaving, he made good the shortage.

--Neatly walled into the side of one of the streams leading into the city water works pond, a 60-gallon still was destroyed near Winston-Salem the other day. There were evidences that several “runs” had been made, and that a quantity of booze had been turned out within the past few weeks.

--Following a collision between the automobile in which he was riding and a Seaboard passenger train at Weldon, Joshua Pernell of Mount Olive sustained injuries from which he later died at a Weldon hospital. A colored laborer at Weldon had his left leg cut off by a train the same day on the same road.

--Because he stole whiskey which they had stored in an outhouse, the five Boyette brothers, young white men of near Wilson, and a negro, Harvey Hinnant, assaulted Arthur Hinnant, colored, and are alleged to have almost hanged him. Three of the brothers are under bonds of $1,000 each for their appearance in court at an early date.

--A reward of $400 is offered by Governor Bickett for the arrest of the negro who perpetrated the assault upon Mrs. A.A. Riddle of Graham last week, or for evidence which will lead to the conviction of the criminal. There is much doubt expressed as to the guilt of any of the three suspects now held in connection with the crime.

--The funeral of James Ray, who was shot to death last week near the Alamance county jail where a machine gun company was guarding three negroes held in connection with an attack upon a prominent white woman, was attended by an immense crowd. Ray was a popular citizen of Graham and in no way associated with the supposed rioters. As a result of his killing, feeling in that section reached a bitter pitch against the militiamen.

--Governor Bickett is two weeks late in putting a ban on our investigators,” said Earl E. Dudding, head of the Prisoners’ Relief Society, a few days ago in announcing that prison conditions in North Carolina will likely be brought before the regular session of the State Legislature next January. Mrs. Rex B. Duckett, who has been acting as chief clerk of the society, has already completed her investigations in the State, including a visit to the central prison at Raleigh, and will soon make a report to the executive committee of the society.

--All ice sold in the city of Raleigh must be weighed, following a recent ordinance of the city commissioners requiring distributors of ice to equip their wagons and places of sale with scales, and to weigh all ice sold.

--Governor James M. Cox of Ohio, Democratic nominee for the Presidency, will not come to North Carolina on the eve of the August special session of the State general assembly to speak in favor of the Kirkpatrick-McGirt bond issue for better roads, which will be acted upon by the special session. The Ohio governor declares that he cannot make definite speaking engagements at present, and that when he does come to North Carolina, he will discuss national affairs.

--Woman suffrage workers in this State declare optimistically that North Carolina is practically certain to ratify the Susan B. Anthony equal suffrage amendment giving women the right to vote, while those opposed to the measure are equally sure that it will be turned down by the Legislature in the August special session.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Happy 4th of July Postcard


Dr. P.W. Covington to Help Eliminate Hookworm in Columbus County, 1914

From The Review, High Point, N.C., July 30, 1914

Community health work in the state took another step forward recently when the state board of health announced that one more county had been added to the list of those which desired the community method of hookworm eradication. This county is Columbus and the particular section of the county where this work will be done is at Hallsboro.

Along with this announcement by the board comes the one that Dr. P. W. Covington of Wadesboro, who has been connected with the state health work as an officer for the past four years will be assigned ot the work of hookworm eradication as a member of the hookworm commission and will begin his duties in Hallsboro at once. Dr. Covington will leave Raleigh at once for the seat of his new work. In making the choice of Dr. Covington the state board of health commends him for his past services which have been most efficient. He has served in several departments of the state health work and in each of them he has done excellent service.

North Carolina is the pioneer state in the community health work. The results of its efforts along this line are being eagerly watched by other state health departments. The literature of the North Carolina state board of health is being scattered over the country and a great deal of it is sent on request from other states for information in regard to the work which is being done in this state. When the hookworm was found to be so prevalent in the South the various health departments of the South immediately undertook the discovery of the most practical method of eradication. The North Carolina board finally determined that the hookworm dispensaries established at various points for a short time on general campaign were not bringing the results which had been hoped for. The intensive method of hookworm eradication was then undertaken.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

4th of July Celebration at Foscoe, 1910

“Fourth of July Celebration at Foscoe” from the Watauga Democrat, Thursday, June 30, 1910.

There will be a family reunion and Fourth of July celebration at Foscoe, N.C., on July 4, 1910, beginning at 10:30 a.m. This celebration is in honor of Edward Moody, who served in the Revolutionary War, and Moses Yarbor, a veteran of the Mexican War. The United States Government has furnished monuments to erect at the graves of these, her sons, and it is earnestly requested that all the relations and kindred of these old patriots be present and with us pay a last tribute to their memory. The general public is also invited with baskets of dinner.

Ex Sheriff W.H. Calaway, W.R. Lovill and F.A. Linney will be the speakers of the occasion, and music will be furnished by the Walnut Grove brass band.
                J.L. Hayes and D.F. Baird, Committee