Historic Sites Commemorate 140Th Anniversary of Joint Annual

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Published Quarterly by the North Carolina Office of Archives and History Historic Sites Commemorate 140th Anniversary of

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1 JANUARY 2006

Joint Annual Meeting Highlighted by Papers on Zebulon Vance On Friday, November 18, members of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Asso- ciation (NCLHA) and the Federation of North Carolina Historical Societies (FNCHS) held their annual joint meeting in Raleigh. Both the afternoon and evening sessions featured scholarly presentations on Gov. Zebulon B. Vance in the context of Civil War and Recon- struction history. The evening program culminated with the announcement of the North Carolina Book Awards for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and juvenile literature, and the award- ing of certificates to the year’s outstanding historical organizations. Kevin Cherry, chairman of the FNCHS, welcomed attendees to the auditorium of the Archives and History/State Library Building. The first order of business was the presentation of the 2005 Student Publication Awards, presided over by John Batchelor of Greens- boro. First place in the high school division of the literary magazine competition went to Providence High School of Charlotte for its publication, Roars and Whispers, with second place going to W. G. Enloe High School of Raleigh for Stone Soup. Third place resulted in a tie

Lindley Butler (right) was honored with the 2005 Christopher Crittenden Memorial Award at the joint annual meeting of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association and the Federation of North Carolina Historical Societies on November 18. Jerry Cashion (left), chairman of the North Carolina Historical Commission, made the presentation. All images by the Office of Archives and History unless otherwise indicated. A Message from the Deputy Secretary Everyone knows that museums and historic sites are favorite destinations of teachers and schoolchildren as well as of cultural tourists. Indeed, the North Carolina Museum of History recently was named one of the top ten cultural tourism sites in the state. More than two million patrons visited the Department of Cultural Resources’ historic sites and museums last year. Often overlooked are the educational programs conducted throughout the Office of Archives and History. Most people are familiar with the numerous special events scheduled each month at historic sites and museums. Many programs, especially living history demonstrations, are designed for schoolchildren. The Tar Heel Junior Historian program under the direction of Suzanne Mewborn of the North Carolina Museum of History boasts more than five thousand active students. Archives and History also organizes, sponsors, and hosts National History Day for sixth through twelfth graders. Jo Ann Williford, who serves as state coordinator of the event, is chair of the Executive Council of State Coordinators, a gratifying endorse- ment of Jo Ann’s and North Carolina’s leadership in that program. But adult education is also an important part of the mission of Archives and His- tory. Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens sponsors a decorative arts symposium every March. The North Carolina Museum of History holds teachers’ institutes each summer, and in recent years, with major funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the museum has hosted national teachers’ workshops. The workshops have focused on free black cabinetmaker Thomas Day and the interpretation of between Providence Day School of Charlotte for Pendragon and Northern Vance High School of Henderson for Crinkum-Crankum. LeRoy Martin Middle School of Raleigh was honored with first place in the middle school division for Illusions. Second place was awarded to first-time entrant Christ Covenant School of Winterville for Soli Deo Gloria, and third place went to Seventy-First Classical Middle School of Fayetteville for The Classical Quill. On behalf of the Historical Society of North Carolina, Joe A. Mobley presented the R. D. W. Connor Award in recognition of the best article to appear in the North Carolina Historical Review during the preceding year. The winner was Chris Myers Asch, affiliated with the Sunflower County Education Project in Sunflower, Mississippi, for “White Free- dom Schools: The White Academy Movement in Eastern North Carolina, 1954-1973,” which appeared in the October 2004 issue of the review. Winner of the 2005 Hugh T. Lefler Award for the best paper written by an undergraduate student was Brendan Mullen of the University of North Carolina at Asheville for “The Trials of Wilbur Hobby: ‘Everything I Did, I Did for the Union.’ ” The American Association of University Women (AAUW) Award for Juvenile Litera- ture, presented annually since 1953, went to Carole Boston Weatherford of Fayetteville for her book, Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-ins (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2004). The award was presented to Ms. Weatherford, winner of the prize in 2002, by Joanne Hill of Maysville, president of the North Carolina Chapter of the AAUW.

2 CAROLINA COMMENTS A Message from the Deputy Secretary (continued) African American history. Teachers from as far away as Hawaii have taken the lessons learned in North Carolina back to their students. The State Historic Preservation Office offers training to local historic preservation commissions as well as many other consultative services. These workshops help communities become Certified Local Governments, making them eligible for federal preservation grants. In November 2005, the Historic Preservation Office sponsored a two-day workshop in Halifax County on the preservation of historic Rosenwald schools. Recently, the State Historical Records Advisory Board (SHRAB), with funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, has held a series of workshops across the state. The sessions were aimed at local historical societies and libraries to introduce them to the acquisition, arrangement and description, care, and conservation of manuscripts, photographs, and non-textual records. Periodic assessments of the condition of documents throughout the state have revealed the persistent need for training in smaller institutions. Archival boot camps and intermediate workshops provided introductory and more advanced training. The sessions were well received and well attended. The Society of North Carolina Archivists will continue to sponsor the archival boot camps, while the SHRAB hopes to extend its intermediate workshops into other areas such as disaster preparedness. The hard lessons learned in New Orleans and along the Gulf coast exposed the need for all cultural institutions to prepare for emergency conditions. The SHRAB is an extension of the professional services provided by the Archives and Records Section. The educational outreach provided by the Office of Archives and History serves all the citizens of North Carolina, from elementary school to retirement. Jeffrey J. Crow

Jeffrey J. Crow, deputy secretary of the Office of Archives and History, presented an American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) Award of Merit to the Levine Museum of the New South for the Courage Project. Accepting the award for the museum was Jennifer Gaisbauer. An AASLH Certificate of Commendation went to Betty Reed of Brevard for her book, The Brevard Rosenwald School: Black Education and Community Build- ing in a Southern Appalachian Town, 1920-1966. In the first of three afternoon presentations, Joe A. Mobley of Raleigh addressed “ ‘War Governor of the South’: Zeb Vance in the Confederacy.” After a break, Terrell A. Crow of North Carolina State University spoke about women during Recon- struction, highlighting the life and writings of Mary Bayard Clarke.

Chris Myers Asch (left) receives the R. D. W. Connor Award for the best article to appear in the North Carolina Historical Review during 2004. Joe A. Mobley (right), former administrator of the Historical Publications Section, presents the award.

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 3 The final afternoon speaker was Gordon McKinney of Berea College, who dedicated his talk to the third gubernatorial term of Vance, extend- ing from 1877 to 1879. The lectures were followed by a brief business meeting of the NCLHA, presided over by association president James W. Clark of North Carolina State University. Later that evening, after a social hour and dinner, President Clark welcomed the approximately eighty-five guests to the auditorium of the North Carolina Museum of History. Paul D. The Levine Museum of the New South was named Escott of Wake Forest University then the winner of an Award of Merit from the American delivered the third annual Keats and Association for State and Local History. On behalf of Elizabeth Sparrow Keynote Address. the Charlotte-based museum, Jennifer Gaisbauer (right) accepted the honor from Jeffrey J. Crow (left), deputy In his talk, titled “ ‘To Get Liberty, secretary of the Office of Archives and History. You Must First Lose It’: The Milita- rized Confederacy,” Escott argued that citizens in the Confederate States of America lived in the most militarized society in North American history, exemplified by conscription laws, seizure of goods, suspension of habeas corpus, and the contemplated take-over of the civilian government by the military. Award presentations resumed after the lecture, beginning with the announcement by Kevin Cherry of the Albert Ray Newsome Awards, bestowed annually by the FNCHS to the historical organizations in North Carolina judged to have conducted the most compre- hensive and outstanding programs in local or community historical activity during the previous year. One of the winners was the Currituck Historical Association for a series of events that included lectures, a marker dedication, a book acquisition for the public library, college field schools, and an architectural survey. Barbara Snowden of Currituck accepted the honor on behalf of the association. A second Newsome Award was presented to Wilbur Jones of the World War II Wilmington Home Front Heritage Coalition for a guide to historical sites associated with the home front during the 1940s, as well as for efforts to mount an exhibit at the Cape Fear Museum and to restore a USO building in Wilmington. Honorable mention went to Mike Oettinger of the Lin- coln County Historical Association for the group’s work to restore a mural in the Lincolnton post office.

Paul D. Escott delivers the Keats and Elizabeth Sparrow Keynote Address to the evening session of the joint annual meeting of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association and the Federation of North Carolina Historical Societies.

4 CAROLINA COMMENTS Michael McFee of Durham presented the Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry to Alan Shapiro of Chapel Hill for his book, Tantalus in Love (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). Shapiro and McFee are both previous winners of the award, Shapiro in 2002. Kay Rule of the Historical Book Club of Greensboro presented the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction to Lawrence Naumoff for his novel, ASouthernTragedy, in Crimson and Yellow (Zuckerman Cannon Publishers, 2004). The book concerns the tragic chicken-plant fire in Hamlet in 1991. Naumoff arrived at the evening On behalf of the Currituck Historical Association, program in a 1937 Packard limousine, Barbara Snowden (left) accepts an Albert Ray accompanied by the 1983 Sir Walter Newsome Award from Kevin Cherry (right), chairman of the Federation of North Carolina Raleigh Award winner, Marianne Historical Societies. Gingher. James W. Clark announced the winner of the third annual Ragan Old North State Award for the year’s best work of nonfiction, regardless of topic, by a North Carolina writer. Taking the honor was Thomas Rain Crowe for Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods (University of Georgia Press, 2005). Clark praised the work for its literary qualities and compared it to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. More about the book awards may be found at http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/affiliates/lit-hist/awards/awards.htm. The R. Hunt Parker Memorial Award, bestowed annually by the NCLHA for significant lifetime contributions to the literary heritage of North Carolina, went to Jill McCorkle, a Lumberton native and the author of numerous novels and short stories, beginning with the simultaneous publication in 1984 of July 7th and The Cheerleader. Margaret Bauer of Greenville made the presentation. The award honors Parker, former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, who had an avid interest in both literature and state history. In the final ceremony of the evening, Jerry C. Cashion, in his capacity as chairman of the North Carolina Historical Commission, presented the Christopher Crittenden Memorial Award to Lindley Butler of Reidsville. Butler, Lawrence Naumoff (left), winner of the 2005 Sir Walter a retired history professor at Rock- Raleigh Award for Fiction, arrived at the North Carolina Book Awards ceremony in style: in a 1937 ingham Community College, was Packard limousine, accompanied by Marianne Gingher feted for his publication record, (right), winner of the prize in 1983. lengthy teaching career, and

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 5 Thomas Rain Crowe, recipient of the Ragan Old North State Award for nonfiction, raises his cup in appreciation.

dedication to research into the state’s past, particularly the Proprietary period and, most recently, Blackbeard and the purported Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck. Presented annually since 1970, the award recognizes lifetime contributions to the preservation of North Carolina history and honors Crittenden, director of the Department of Archives and History from 1935 to 1968.

North Carolina Literary and Historical Association Life Members The constitution of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association provides that a complete listing of the organization’s life members be published annually in Carolina Comments. The following list reflects that membership as of December 1, 2005.

J. W. Abernathy Jr. Douglas C. Fraker Dr. Susan K. Nutter Bass Farms, Inc. Thomas A. Gray Dr. William C. Powell Jackson Bebber J. W. Grisham William S. Powell Mrs. John Behnken Margaret Harper Dr. Norris W. Preyer Irwin Belk Mrs. Joseph H. Hayworth Alfred L. Purrington III John M. Belk High Point University Robert A. Ragan Doris Betts George Watts Hill W. Trent Ragland Jr. Mrs. Karl Bishopric Dr. and Mrs. Lara G. Hoggard John Dillard Reynolds Elizabeth Buford and Donald J. Myrick Howard William Neal Reynolds II Mathews Mr. and Mrs. Robert S. Hudgins David T. Richardson Mr. and Mrs. Joseph B. John L. Humber Richard Richardson Cheshire Jr. Jerome Janssen John Charles Rush Dr. James W. Clark Dr. Thomas E. Jeffrey Robert G. Scruggs Walter Clark Dr. H. G. Jones Tony Seamon James A. Clodfelter Dr. Doris King George Shinn Mrs. Marion S. Covington Dr. Richard H. Kohn Dr. W. Keats Sparrow Mr. and Mrs. William N. Craig Calvin Battle Koonce Roy Thompson Grover C. Criswell Marvin B. Koonce Jr. Mrs. J. Fred Von Canon Mrs. Burke Davis Mrs. Walter McEachern Elizabeth C. Watson Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dillard Mrs. Fred W. Morrison Dr. Harry Watson Dixon III Jesse R. Moye Bruce E. Whitaker Dr. John E. Dotterer Hugh H. Murray Dr. Pepper Worthington Ground is Broken for Maritime Museum Annex at Gallants Channel In 1985 the North Carolina Maritime Museum moved into its first permanent facility, an all-wood cedar-shake building on Front Street in downtown Beaufort, on land donated by Mrs. Harvey W. Smith. In 1991 the museum opened its Watercraft Center directly across the street, also on property given by Mrs. Smith. As exhibits began to take form and fill the eighteen-thousand-square-foot building, and as more programs were added, it became obvious to museum administrators that additional space would be required for the maritime museum to fulfill its mission.

6 CAROLINA COMMENTS Its location within a downtown area limits expansion, so the opportunity for the museum to purchase waterfront acreage occurred at an optimum time. In 1997 the Friends of the North Carolina Maritime Museum acquired thirty-six acres at Gallants Channel for future development. Through lobbying and efforts by the Friends’ membership, funds were obtained from the General Assembly, private donations, and Natural Heritage Trust grants, allowing the Friends to pay off a $3.2 million note on this property in July 1998. Since then, more than $500,000 has been spent on site improvements to construct docks and buildings for public programs, including facilities for the museum’s Junior Sailing Program, rowing programs, the Cape Lookout Studies Program, and a repository for artifacts from the purported Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck. In 1999 an architectural concept was developed for the Gallants Channel annex site, consisting of more than thirty design elements. These ideas have evolved into a project of major proportions that will be called Olde Beaufort Seaport. This living history museum will include board- walks, a tall ship’s wharf and floating docks, a water-taxi berth, boathouse, welcome center and administrative offices, parking facilities, nature trail system, outdoor performance pavilion and great lawn, turn-of-the-century maritime village, education center, exhibition halls (including a shipwreck hall and museum of North Carolina boating and fishing), ship- yard (featuring marine railway, foundry, and sawmill), marsh and Architectural rendering of the Olde Beaufort Seaport, the annex of the North Carolina Maritime Museum to wetland habitat exhibits, guest be developed on Gallants Channel near Beaufort. housing, and an education/conference center. Development of Olde Beaufort Seaport will allow the maritime museum to significantly expand its educational programs and exhibits, and to offer a unique interactive experience to children, families, and adults. Additionally, the planned annex will provide the region with resources for major cultural arts events. The outdoor performance pavilion and great lawn will present a water-view setting for concerts, plays, and arts fairs. The education/ conference center will accommodate the needs of social, military, educational, religious, and fraternal functions. The largest “public” space in Beaufort currently available to groups is the museum’s auditorium, which does not have a stage and has a maximum seating capacity of a little more than one hundred. Meeting rooms will provide classroom space for smaller school, Elderhostel, and other groups and the ballroom space for larger group events. Olde Beaufort Seaport’s development will also positively impact the state of North Carolina, the coastal region, Carteret County, and Beaufort with significant economic results. These effects will be felt both directly, in the way of visitor spending, and indi- rectly, in terms of related industries producing the goods and services to support that spending. As museum director David Nateman noted, “the creation of Olde Beaufort Seaport will allow the museum to continue to meet its mission and serve the public in new and exciting ways and will contribute significantly to the economic impact that the museum already has on the town of Beaufort and Carteret County.”

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 7 At the groundbreaking ceremony at the Gallants Channel site on December 2, 2005, Jeff Minges, president and owner of Pepsi, Minges Bottling Group, Inc., spoke of his company’s rela- tionship with the museum through its support of Pepsi Americas’ Sail 2006. The celebration of tall ships, which will be held June 30-July 5, 2006, provided the momentum needed to Attending the groundbreaking ceremony for the Olde get Olde Beaufort Seaport under Beaufort Seaport on December 2 were (left to right) Jeff Minges, president of Pepsi, Minges Bottling Group, Inc.; way. This event is expected to George Ellinwood, president of the Friends of the North bring more than 150,000 visitors Carolina Maritime Museum; Lisbeth C. Evans, secretary of to coastal North Carolina. Beau- the Department of Cultural Resources; David Nateman, fort and Morehead City will be director of the North Carolina Maritime Museum; Betsy the final stop and the only Ameri- Buford, director of the Division of State History Museums; Ann Carter, mayor of Beaufort; and Linda Clay, chair of the can port-of-call on the Americas’ Carteret County Board of Commissioners. Image courtesy Sail 2006 tour. The Friends of the of Scott Taylor Photography, Inc., Beaufort, N.C. North Carolina Maritime Museum are hosting the event, and all proceeds will benefit Olde Beaufort Seaport. For additional information and tickets, log on the Pepsi Americas’ Sail 2006 website www.pepsiamericassail.com, or call (800) 637-8158. Reconstruction of Fort Dobbs is Unveiled Significant new archaeological information concerning Fort Dobbs State Historic Site near Statesville was presented on November 11 by Dr. Larry Babits, East Carolina Univer- sity archaeologist and history professor. Dr. Babits’s remarks at the Statesville Civic Center highlighted ways in which the site will be able to use this new information to achieve a planned reconstruction of the fort. The presentation was sponsored by the Fort Dobbs Alliance, the Greater Statesville Chamber of Commerce, and the Statesville Convention and Visitors Bureau. Special guests included Department of Cultural Resources secretary Lisbeth C. Evans, Division of State Historic Sites and Properties director Kay Williams, North Carolina Historical Commission chairman Dr. Jerry Cashion, Mayor John Marshall of Statesville, Iredell County manager Joel Mashburn, county legislators and commissioners, and local business leaders. Fort Dobbs is one of the few French and Indian War

Artist’s conception of Fort Dobbs, based upon archaeological research and the recent findings of Dr. Larry Babits of East Carolina University.

8 CAROLINA COMMENTS forts in the nation and North Carolina’s only state historic site associated with the war. There has long been local and state interest in reconstructing the frontier fortification. The first archaeological dig occurred at Fort Dobbs in 1847. An extensive archaeological study of the site from 1967 to 1976 uncovered more than five thousand artifacts and determined the exact location of the fort. In 1976, Fort Dobbs was officially designated a state historic site. After three decades of limited attention, the fort entered an active redevelopment phase in October 2003. Over the past few years, a nonprofit support group for the site, the Fort Dobbs Alliance, has been mobilized in the Statesville community. It now has 267 members and continues to recruit. In 2004, the alliance hired Dr. Babits to examine and write an extensive report on the historical and archaeological records and artifacts relating to Fort Dobbs. His report provides the basis for the fort’s reconstruction, for which groundbreaking is scheduled on April 8, 2006, to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the original construction. Dr. Babits outlined his findings at the press conference, using illustrations, photographs, and a three-dimensional drawing of the fortification. His presentation included a detailed map and aerial photograph of the area, historical background information relating to the time period and the circumstances that led to the fort’s construction, a review of previous archaeological investigations, an analysis of data collected from the site, and measured plan drawings that helped to illustrate the interpretations offered in the report. Three Highway Historical Markers Dedicated in November On Sunday, November 13, 2005, during Veterans’ Day weekend, a dedication program was held for a new state highway historical marker commemorating the factory that produced artificial limbs for North Carolina’s Confederate veterans. The state’s artificial-limbs program is the subject of a recent book, Phantom Pain, written by Ansley Wegner of the Research Branch and published by the Historical Publications Section. The marker stands at the corner of Lane and McDowell Streets in Raleigh, the factory having been located in the block behind the Old State Records Center. The dedication was sponsored by the Capt. Samuel A. Ashe Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The introduction of no-till farming to North Carolina was remembered with the dedication of a new marker on November 3. No-till is a method of cultivation promoted by soil and water conservationists, and now widely adopted, whereby a new year’s crop is planted amid the detritus of the previous year. The sign stands on N.C. 209 north of Waynesville near the field where the initial experi- ment occurred in 1962. About four hundred people gathered on Novem- ber 5 for the unveiling of a marker near the home of pioneer aviator Alton Stewart on N.C. 55 in Coats. Guest speakers were Dr. William Thornton, a Faison native and former astronaut, and Col. Clar- ence A. Anderson, a World War II flying ace. Both paid tribute to the role played by Stewart, who died in a plane crash in 1929, in popularizing aviation in North Carolina.

Ansley H. Wegner of the Research Branch (third from left) and members of a Raleigh chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy attended the dedication ceremony for a highway historical marker denoting the former site of the state’s artificial-limbs factory in downtown Raleigh. VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 9 Carolina Charter Corporation Elects New President Dr. W. Keats Sparrow of Greenville was elected president of the Carolina Charter Corporation at its forty-fifth annual meeting, held November 4, 2005, at Meredith Col- lege. Recently retired as dean of the Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University, Sparrow has served as vice-president of the corporation since 2002. He will complete the remainder of the term of Armistead J. Maupin, who passed away in July 2005. Thomas Alexander, a board member and attorney from Raleigh, succeeds Sparrow as vice-president. Prior to the election of officers, guest speaker Mark Wilde-Ramsing, director of the Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Project, offered a fascinating overview of the ongoing study of the remains of the vessel believed to be Blackbeard’s flagship. The presentation featured slides of the wreck site, artifacts and their conservation, and documentary and material clues to the ship’s age and identity.

News from Historical Resources Archives and Records Section As technology becomes more prevalent in society and government, more state agencies utilize their web pages to help provide citizens access to their published documents and records. In 2002, the State Library of North Carolina, as part of its “Access to State Gov- ernment Information” grant, surveyed governmental offices to determine their current practices regarding publications. The survey found that more than 80 percent of state agencies publish their information exclusively on the Web. Realizing that both the State Archives and the State Library face many of the same challenges regarding “lost” information, the staff of the two repositories agreed to collaborate to find a solution to address information that is not being collected and cataloged, or “captured.” Since 2002, members of the two institutions have been researching different methodol- ogies for website capture, ranging from a labor-intensive manual process to a more technology-driven automated process. The manual procedures involve contacting an agency and asking it to burn files onto a CD-Rom or a DVD disc. An archivist would then physi- cally appraise the records on the disc to determine if they are also to be found somewhere on the website. An automated process, however, involves a program called a “spider” that automatically captures all “clickable content” of web pages. In other words, the spider makes a copy of all the content on a web page, including the hyperlinks or attachments that websites often utilize, and brings the copies back into a search engine so that the content can be accessed and appraised. In September 2005, staff members of the Archives and Records Section and the State Library began participating in a pilot program for a website capture service offered by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit company. Founded in 1996, the Internet Archive was the brainchild of Brewster Khale. His vision was to capture web content for the purpose of

10 CAROLINA COMMENTS offering permanent access to researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that existed in digital format. The access mechanism or search engine is called the Wayback Machine. Unfortunately, websites captured by the current public face of the Internet Archive frequently miss portions of the content, and there may be large time lapses between captures. Currently, websites crawled in the Wayback Machine are not indexed and only become available six months after the crawl. In addition, a website is searchable only if the user knows its Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Realizing that they were not necessarily capturing the entire Web, and responding to a growing demand by university and state archives to collect, preserve, and provide access to institutional websites, the Internet Archive has developed a fee-for-service model. Build- ing on what it had learned from its efforts since 1996, the Internet Archive enhanced its basic crawling mechanism, added metadata entry fields, and improved its search capability by utilizing a more intuitive approach to the Wayback Machine. These advancements resulted in the Archive-It service. First, the Internet Archive added key word searching capacity to its search engine. In addition, the crawled sites are now available immediately and are indexed within forty- eight hours. A patron utilizing this service only has to know key words or file-format types to pull up the desired content. With Archive-It, an institution can link the archived websites seamlessly, so that the researcher thinks he or she is in the institution’s web space. The Internet Archive has enormous storage capabilities and the technical infrastructure to support the search software. Archive-It currently captures fifty-four different file-format types, including Word documents, PDF, streaming video, audio files (.mp3 or .wav files), and html files. Archive-It is also able to display those files and play back streaming audio and video. Additionally, a patron utilizing the Wayback Machine can look at a site at a particular moment and follow changes over time. If an alteration occurs to the site, an asterisk is placed by the date. With the “Docucomp” feature, the user can compare a website captured at two different dates and be able to identify when and where specific changes occurred. With the enhanced Wayback Machine, the Internet Archive now offers a comprehen- sive and attractive capture and display presentation. For the most part, the tool does an excellent job of collecting information posted on the Web. There are some types of information that it does not capture, such as password-protected sites and databases requiring user input. Websites captured are immediately available to users through the Wayback Machine, although there may be some display inconsistencies with JavaScript. Because Archive-It offers a reporting feature that identifies file formats, the tool allows archivists and librarians to track the many formats that agencies use and gives them some under- standing about what they will have to deal with going forward with born-digital records. They can also use the mechanism to identify information that is not captured with spiders so that they can contact the agencies and specifically address those records. Electronic records archivist Kelly Eubank served as project manager for the State Archives, assisted by Chris Black. Kristin Martin, digital metadata manager, spearheaded the effort for the State Library. The pilot enabled the librarians and archivists to enhance their knowledge of web pages, their capture and search, and the limitations of these two functions. They have learned a tremendous amount from this project regarding the ways that changing technologies affect website construction and publication. Most importantly, the Archive-It tool will allow the two institutions to meet their mandates to preserve and provide access to public information and records, and to thereby serve the needs of the citizens of North Carolina.

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 11 The Information Technology Branch has created a new exhibit titled, The Old North State and ‘Kaiser Bill’: North Carolinians in World War I. Neil Cottrell, a University of North Carolina at Charlotte graduate student concentrating in public history, designed and created the exhibit while serving as an intern in the Youth Advocacy Internship Pro- gram. This virtual exhibit is designed to inform the public about the World War I Collec- tion of the North Carolina State Archives. Primary sources consisting of letters, diaries, photographs, military documents, and World War I-era memorabilia comprise the exhibit’s historical content. The featured artifacts are introduced, and visitors are encouraged to explore their interests by viewing images of the primary sources. The images were made possible through an NC ECHO digitization grant in collaboration with the North Carolina Museum of History and the State Library of North Carolina. Recent Accessions by the North Carolina State Archives During the months of September, October, and November 2005, the Archives and Records Section made 352 accession entries. Original records were received from Cum- berland, Haywood, Hyde, and Washington Counties. The Archives received security microfilm of records for Alamance, Alleghany, Anson, Ashe, Avery, Beaufort, Bertie, Bladen, Brunswick, Buncombe, Burke, Cabarrus, Caldwell, Carteret, Catawba, Chatham, Chowan, Columbus, Craven, Cumberland, Currituck, Dare, Davidson, Davie, Durham, Edgecombe, Franklin, Gaston, Gates, Granville, Greene, Guilford, Halifax, Harnett, Haywood, Henderson, Iredell, Jackson, Johnston, Jones, Lenoir, Lincoln, Martin, McDowell, Mecklenburg, Montgomery, Moore, Nash, New Hanover, Northampton, Onslow, Pender, Perquimans, Person, Pitt, Polk, Randolph, Richmond, Robeson, Rock- ingham, Rowan, Sampson, Scotland, Stanly, Stokes, Surry, Swain, Transylvania, Tyrrell, Union, Vance, Wake, Warren, Washington, Watauga, Wayne, Wilkes, Wilson, and Yadkin Counties. Security microfilm was also received for the municipalities of Carolina Beach, Clayton, Foxfire Village, Hendersonville, Kannapolis, Kill Devil Hills, La Grange, Lewisville, Manteo, New Bern, North Wilkesboro, Oak Island, Reidsville, Rural Hall, Shallotte, Sylva, Wagram, Weaverville, and Zebulon. The section also accessioned records from the following state agencies: Department of Cultural Resources, 2 cubic feet; Department of Environment and Natural Resources, 45 reels; Department of Health and Human Services, 2 reels; Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 23 reels; Department of Public Instruction, 4 cubic feet; Governor’s Office, 2 cubic feet; North Carolina Real Estate Commission, 1 reel; State Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners, 1 reel; State Board of Examiners of Engineers and Surveyors, 1 reel; and Supreme Court, 248 fiche cards. The William P. Saunders Papers and the Fannie Wallace Van Amringe Collection were accessioned as new private collections; additions were made to the Charles Brantley Col- lection, the H. G. Jones Papers, and the Slave Collection. The Aaron and Kornegay Account Book was microfilmed. A total of 58 maps were reclassified and accessioned in the Map Collection, including 3 county maps, 2 state and colony maps, 3 regional maps, 46 watercourse maps, and 4 military maps. Other records accessioned included Bible Records for the George T. Dunlap, Thad G. Farmer, Jerry King, and John Efird Whitly families; 35 additions to the Military Collection; 6 accessions of 24 reels to the Newspaper Collection; and 2 audiocassette tapes and 2 compact discs as additions to the Non-textual Materials Collection. Historical Publications Section For readers who want to know more about the lives of African Americans in North Carolina during the earliest years of the state’s history, a new book from the Historical 12 CAROLINA COMMENTS Publications Section offers a wealth of information. African Americans in Early North Carolina: A Documentary History (below) draws upon seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources to trace the history of black North Carolinians, slave and free, through 1800. CompiledandeditedbyAlanD.Watson,African Americans in Early North Carolina contains carefully selected eyewitness accounts, such as letters and journals, extracts from court records, statutes, wills, slave records from various counties, and eighteenth-century newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves. The documents outline the arrival of Africans in the colony, mecha- nisms adopted by planters for maintaining slavery, family life among slaves, resistance by slaves, manumission, urban slaveholding, and the challenges facing free blacks. Alan D. Watson, who earned a Ph.D. in history at the Univer- sity of South Carolina, is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He has published a number of titles with the section, including Society in Colonial North Carolina, short histories of Bertie, Edgecombe, Onslow, and Perquimans Counties, and, most recently, Bath:TheFirstTowninNorthCarolina. African Americans in Early North Carolina: A Documentary History (200 pages, paperbound, index) costs $22.05, which includes tax and shipping. Two historical maps reproduced from the extensive Map Collection of the North Carolina State Archives are now available for purchase from the section. The 1863 “Field Map of Lieut. Koerner’s Military Survey between Neuse and Tar Rivers North Carolina” was prepared by Jeremy Francis Gilmer (1818-1883), a native of Guilford County. Gilmer graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1839 and later served as an engineer in the Confederate army. This Civil War map measures 28 x 36 inches and shows towns, rivers, railroads, and forts in eastern North Carolina. Genealogists and local historians find it particularly useful for its depiction of individual landowners. The 1878 “Map of Wake County” was drawn from surveys by Fendol Bevers [Beavers] (1822-1883), county surveyor for Wake County. The attractive colored map measures 30 x 27½ inches and denotes landowners, churches, retail stores, schools, and mills. It includes an inset of the city of Raleigh, a population table, and other information arranged by township. Both maps contain additional printed text and are printed on heavy paper suitable for mounting or framing. Each costs $22.05, including tax and shipping charges. Two striking World War I posters from the Poster Collection of the State Archives are also available for purchase from the Historical Publications Section. Each poster is enhanced with printed information about its purpose and the artist who designed it. “The Spirit of America–The Red Cross” poster (ca. 1919) was designed by Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952), an artist known for his depiction of the “Christy Girl,” a languid female figure dressed in lush drapery. The model for this poster was Nancy May Palmer, who married Christy in 1919. The attractive “Spirit of America” poster, which measures 21¾ x 36 inches, was used to promote patriotism through Red Cross drives and fund raising. The “Treat ’Em Rough! Join the Tanks” poster (right) (ca. 1917) was created by August William Hutaf

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 13 (1879-1942), an advertising executive best known for his commercial artwork. It was used as a recruiting device for the U.S. Tank Corps. The dramatic poster, measuring 25½ x 40 inches, features an attacking cat leaping over a tank, which became (and remains) the trade- mark of the Tank Corps. The stark, colorful graphic design elicited strong emotions and remains a vivid reminder of the First World War. Both posters are printed on heavy paper suitable for framing or mounting. Each costs $22.05, including tax and shipping. Other maps, posters, and books may be ordered from the Historical Publications Section, Office of Archives and History, 4622 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-4622, by calling (919) 733-7442, or through the section’s secure online store at http://store.yahoo.com/ nc-historical-publications/. A number of the section’s books and posters are currently on sale at discounts of 50 percent or more. For more information and a free catalog, write the address above, call (919) 733-7442, or e-mail [email protected]. Bill Brown delivered four presentations to the annual meeting of the North Carolina Genealogical Society held November 11-12 in Raleigh. His papers related to researching Civil War-era ancestors. He also distributed bookmarks, catalogs, and flyers concerning North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster. On October 29, Donna Kelly, section administrator, exhibited and sold books at the Lillington Antique Festival. Sales primarily of bargain books totaled $208. In addition, on November 18, she displayed and sold books and Civil War maps during the afternoon session of the joint annual meeting of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association and Federation of North Carolina Historical Societies, held in the Archives and History/ State Library Building. The following day, Ms. Kelly and Susan Trimble exhibited and sold new books, maps, and posters at the Highland United Methodist Church Vendor Fair in Raleigh. The two-day total of sales amounted to $375. State Historic Preservation Office More than sixty people from six states participated in the workshop, “Practical Advice for Preserving Rosenwald Schools,” conducted in Halifax and Northampton Counties on November 18 and 19. The State Historic Preservation Office (HPO) coordinated the workshop in partnership with East Carolina University and the Sankofa Center of Wake Forest. Additional sponsors included the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which assisted with a grant from the Terence L. Mills Memorial Preservation Fund for North and South Carolina, and the North Carolina Association of Electric Cooperatives, which also provided a grant. The Concerned Citizens of Tillery and the Halifax County Tourism Development Authority participated as local sponsors. For several years, the HPO has been making a concerted effort to promote the preservation of Rosenwald schools, which were constructed across the South between the late 1910s and 1932 with seed money from the Julius Rosenwald Fund. Chicago philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears, Roebuck and Company, established the fund when, through his friendship with Booker T. Washington, he became aware of the deplorable condition of education among African Americans in the rural South. The more than 5,300 state-of-the- art public schools assisted by the fund, usually built according to plans that the fund provided, signified tremendous advances in public education for African American students, while also strengthening their communities. North Carolina had more than eight hundred Rosenwald school projects, more than any other state. With the integration of public schools, the vast majority of these buildings ceased to serve as schools, but fifty years later they retain powerful significance in their communities, either as memories for the people who attended them or, if still standing, as evocative symbols of the past.

14 CAROLINA COMMENTS Local interest in preserving the remaining Rosenwald schools and putting them to new, community-enhancing uses is strong. Since 2002, the HPO and the Sankofa Center’s North Carolina Rosenwald Schools Community Project (NCRSCP) have been oversee- ing a network of volunteers across the state that is identifying and recording the surviving Rosenwald buildings. In November 2003, forty volunteer surveyors attended a one-day workshop on the survey project sponsored by the HPO and the NCRSCP. Since then, requests from the public for assistance in rehabilitating their schools have increased steadily, and last spring the survey sponsors began planning a training session to provide useful strategies for organizing, raising funds, and carrying out school-building rehabilitation projects. The workshop began on the afternoon of November 18, with a tour of the Allen Grove School in Halifax County and the Jonesboro and Potecasi Schools in Northampton County. These counties had a remarkable number of Rosenwald schools—forty-six in Halifax, more than any other North Carolina county, and twenty-one in Northampton. Tour leaders were Scott Power, administrator of the HPO’s Eastern Office in Greenville; John Wood, restoration specialist in the Eastern The refurbished Allen Grove School, one of forty-six Office; Peter Sandbeck, deputy Rosenwald schools in Halifax County, was the focus of a state historic preservation officer; tour held in conjunction with a two-day preservation work- and Dean Ruedrich, a former res- shop coordinated by the State Historic Preservation Office. toration contractor now with Preservation North Carolina, a private statewide nonprofit preservation organization. The day ended with a buffet dinner hosted by the Concerned Citizens of Tillery at the Tillery Community Center, where director Gary Grant gave a program on the history of the Tillery Resettlement Area, a New Deal project. On November 19, there was a full slate of presentations at The Centre at Halifax Com- munity College in Weldon. Peter Sandbeck opened the proceedings with welcoming remarks, followed by Nyoni Collins of the Sankofa Center, who talked about Cary Pitman, the builder of many of the Rosenwald schools in Halifax and neighboring counties. A number of case studies were presented, including the Noble Hill School in Cassville, Georgia, by Marian Coleman of the Noble Hill Wheeler Memorial Center and Jeanne Cyriaque of the Georgia State Historic Preservation Office; the Walnut Cove Col- ored School in Stokes County, by Marshall Harvey of Harvey and Associates Develop- ment Consultants; the W. E. B. DuBois School in Wake Forest, by Bettie Murchison, executive director of the W. E. B. DuBois Center; and the Ware Creek School in Beau- fort County, by Alethea Williams-King of the Ware Creek Community Development Program and John Wood. Dean Ruedrich discussed the mothballing of a building for future rehabilitation. During lunch, Denise Alexander, program officer in the Southeast Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, spoke about the Rosenwald Initia- tive, the trust’s program for preserving Rosenwald schools. Paul Brown, construction director of Self-Help, and Kate Rumely, executive director of Brick Capital Community Development Corporation, which is rehabilitating Wicker School in Sanford, shared creative strategies for finding new building uses and raising funds. At the end of the day,

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 15 Claudia Brown, the HPO’s architectural survey coordinator, gave an update on the survey of the state’s Rosenwald schools. Thus far, approximately 130 extant buildings have been identified.

News from State Historic Sites and Properties Gold was the color and congratulations all around were the order of the day during the fiftieth anniversary of North Carolina State Historic Sites, celebrated at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial in Asheville on September 30. The festivities featured remarks by Department of Cultural Resources secretary Lisbeth C. Evans and North Carolina Historical Commis- sion chairman Dr. Jerry Cashion. The General Assembly of 1955 passed legislation authorizing the Department of Archives and History to develop a unified program of significant historic properties. Under that statute, Tryon Palace, Vance Birthplace, and Aycock Birthplace were transferred immediately to Archives and History from the Department of Conservation and Develop- ment, followed soon thereafter by Town Creek Indian Mound, Alamance Battleground, the James Iredell House in Edenton, and Brunswick Town. In addition, the General Assembly appropriated funds for the purchase of the House in the Horseshoe and for planning for land acquisition to develop Bentonville Battleground. On October 1, 1955, Dr. Christopher Crittenden, director of Archives and History, created the Division of Historic Sites within the department to administer the program. From these nine original sites, the program grew over the next five decades to the present system of twenty-seven state-owned properties. Through their programs and resources, state historic sites provide vital links to North Carolina’s past and play a key role in the state’s growing heritage tourism industry. Last year alone, the sites welcomed 1.8 million visitors. Each site offers authentic experiences that enable children and adults alike to learn, have fun, and reflect upon the places and people that have made the state great.

Lisbeth C. Evans, secretary of the Department of Cultural Resources, addresses the crowd at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial during the ceremony honoring the fiftieth anniversary of the state’s historic sites program.

Museum and Visitor Services Section The State Capitol commemorated Veterans’ Day on November 11 with a ceremony on the Capitol grounds. The celebration opened with a parade through downtown Raleigh

16 CAROLINA COMMENTS past the Capitol. More than seventy-five groups participated in the parade, including U.S. Army Apache attack helicopters from the North Carolina National Guard that flew over the parade route. On the northeastern Capitol grounds, a replica of the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Wall was erected. Joe Bryan, chairman of the Wake County Board of County Commissioners, served as parade marshal, while local radio personality Kevin Miller was master of ceremonies. The North Carolina American Legion department commander, Cary McMasters, was guest speaker at the commemorative program. The occasion was given a dramatic lift when F-15 Strike Eagle fighters from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base made a fly-over. Following the ceremony, the W. G. Enloe High School Band performed a concert of patriotic music on the grounds. On October 25-27, the division hosted a statewide historic weapons certification course at the CSS Neuse State Historic Site in Kinston. For three days, twenty-three employees of the Department of Cultural Resources, two staff members from the Division of State Parks, three staff members from South Carolina state parks, and seven Historic Sites volunteers received intensive, hands-on training in firing historic artillery. Participants were trained and certified in either eighteenth- or nineteenth-century artillery, using the three-pound British gun from Alamance Battleground, the three-inch ordnance rifle from Bentonville Battlefield, or the twelve-pound Napoleon from Beth Carter (left) and Scott Hill (right), both staff members at Fort Fisher. Participants had one the Fort Dobbs State Historic Site, load a cannon for firing day of drill and one day of blank during the three-day historic weapons certification course in firing before participating in a October. “live fire” exercise in which reproduction projectiles were shot on a military firing range. This final day of training was held at the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base near Jacksonville. The purpose of the weapons training is to insure that proper safety measures are followed when divisional staff or invited re-enactors conduct artillery demonstrations at state historic sites. The “live fire” drill, although never demonstrated at the sites, allowed participants to see the power and capabilities of historic weapons. The exercise reinforced the need for safety and armed participants with a unique personal experience when discussing weapons in future public programs. As one volunteer stated at the end of the course, “I have shot cannon over a hundred times but I now have a newfound respect for what they can do.” Upon completion of the training, participants became classified as either certified safety officers or volunteer safety officers. They will hold their certification for four years. The next statewide weapons certification course will be held in 2008 and will focus on historic small arms. North Carolina Transportation Museum The museum was honored at the North Carolina Transportation Hall of Fame annual induction ceremony in November for its work preserving Spencer Shops and the state’s transportation history. The museum was presented with the second Founder’s Award, the first having been given last year to the North Carolina Department of Transportation for its preservation of historic rail depots. VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 17 “It’s extremely gratifying for the museum to be honored in this way,” executive director Elizabeth Smith said. “It is a wonderful tribute to the progress made by this site in preserving our state’s transportation history, and to the hard work of staff and volunteers who have helped us along the way.” Work began in October on the second phase of the museum’s Back Shop restoration project. This phase will include refurbishment of the Power House, a small building located next to the massive Back Shop that provided power for Spencer Shops when the site was an operational steam locomotive repair facility. Workers are focusing on the removal of hazardous material from the Power House. They will then replace the roof and stabilize the structure, which will eventually house the mechanical systems for the Back Shop. Coal-fired generators inside the building will be preserved and interpreted. The staff of the museum was busy this fall with a number of special events. During October, both A Day Out with Thomas and Trick or Train: Haunted Roundhouse Tours accounted for significant increases in visitation. In November, the site was taken over by Boy Scouts for the annual Rail Camp event, and December brought Santa Claus and jingle bells to the museum, with the Santa Train, Cookies and Cocoa with Santa, and the Jingle Bell Express. Northeastern Historic Sites Section North Carolina’s oldest town continued the yearlong celebration of its three hundredth birthday during the fall. On November 12-13, Historic Bath marked the anniversary with military reenactments and encampments. The sight at Bonner Point was quite impressive, as costumed interpreters amid rows of small cream-colored tents gave visitors insights into the living conditions of soldiers engaged in American wars, from the French and Indian War through the Korean War. A highlight of both days was the performance of “Yankee Doodle” and other patriotic music by the U.S. Third Infantry Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps from Washington, D.C. This unit is the only one of its kind in the armed forces, recalling the days of the American Revolution in uni- forms patterned after those worn by musicians of the Continental Line. The corps performs at all White House full honor arrival ceremonies for foreign heads of Members of the U.S. Army Third Infantry Old Fife and state and has performed at every Drum Corps provided historical patriotic airs at a military inaugural parade since the encampment at Historic Bath, part of the ongoing tercentenary commemoration of North Carolina’s oldest inauguration of John F. Kennedy. town. In addition to the camp-related activities, a ladies’ tea was held at the home of Lawrence and Linda Poore. Guests enjoyed tea and cakes representative of the colonial period while female re-enactors depicted the role of women in various eras. Also, Ansley Wegner, research historian with the Office of Archives and History, presented a lecture titled, “Phantom Pain: North Carolina’s Artificial-Limbs Program for

18 CAROLINA COMMENTS Confederate Veterans” at the Historic Bath Visitor Center. Bath’s tercentennial celebration will conclude on March 8, 2006, with closing ceremonies. During its anniversary year, Historic Bath featured an innovative educational program that gave seventy second-graders from Bath Elementary School a colonial history and gar- dening lesson rolled into one. “Gourds—Pretty and Practical” was an opportunity for the students to watch gourd plants grow and produce the fruits that in the early days of Bath were used as tableware rather than just table decoration. The schoolchildren learned the importance of gourds, the uses of the fruit throughout history, the plants’ growth cycle, and how they are nurtured and harvested. Along with the hands-on activities, students assembled a booklet on the project, which followed the state’s second-grade curriculum. Staff members sewed the gourd seeds last spring. Students came to the site on October 19 to harvest, wash, and dry the gourds. As members of an improvised assembly line, the students excitedly passed each gourd down to the washtubs as soon as it was picked. They took turns carefully washing each gourd in soapy water, taking it to the disinfecting sta- tion, and then on to be thoroughly dried. The sparkling clean gourds were placed on screens to allow them to dry. At the end of the day, students and staff members alike were very surprised to find that they had harvested twenty-three dipper gourds, twenty-seven luffa gourds, and fifty-three bowl gourds. The project will conclude this spring with a unique twist: the students will collect seeds and plant them in the Van Der Veer House garden as a gift to the next second-grade class at Bath Elementary. During the fall, the staff at Historic Bath developed a virtual tour of its historic buildings for its website. The program allows website browsers to “visit” the Bonner House, the Palmer-Marsh House, St. Thomas Episcopal Church, and historic Bonner Point via the Internet, allowing them to control views of features they wish to explore. Readers may experience the virtual tour at http://www.historicbathnc.com. At Historic Halifax, the Daughters of the American Revolution held a gravesite ceremony honoring Sarah Davie, wife of William R. Davie, a governor of North Carolina and founder of the University of North Carolina. A large crowd attended a regional Sons of the American Revolution meeting in the visitor center. Members of the Daughters of the American Revolution provided refreshments for the gathering. Piedmont Historic Sites Section At Bennett Place, staff members presented two special programs during the fall. A Civil War living history event on October 1 featured re-enactors from the Sixth North Carolina State Troops and other interpreters who portrayed civilians in the house and kitchen. The festivities also included period music. On December 4, visitors to the site had the opportunity to relive the bittersweet joys of a Civil War Christmas through the holiday program, “A Home Front Christmas.” Costumed interpreters prepared a holiday dinner in the kitchen building and discussed how meals changed as the war wore on and food became harder to find and afford. Interpreters also made simple gifts and adorned the Bennett home with greenery and homemade decorations. On October 22, Duke Homestead presented “An Evening at the Homestead.” The program gave the estimated three hundred visitors the chance to play historical games, enjoy old-fashioned dancing, ride in a mule-drawn wagon, and listen to traditional music. The annual event also included corn shelling, apple cider pressing, country cooking in the historic kitchen, and dramatic readings by the Duke Homestead Junior Interpreters of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and other nineteenth-century literary works. The junior interpreters, an organization of young volunteers, dressed in period costumes and shared their knowledge of the Duke’s 1852 home.

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 19 Luster M. Harris retired on November 1 after 17½ years of service with the department. He began his career in 1988 as a grounds maintenance worker at Duke Homestead and was promoted to maintenance mechanic II in 1998, with responsibility for the grounds at both Duke Homestead and Bennett Place. Historic Stagville presented its traditional harvest festival at the site’s Horton Grove slave quarters on October 15. The program featured crafts, storytelling, and nineteenth- century games, including an early form of baseball called “rounders,” with the site’s costumed junior interpreters. Music was an important part of the day, with African drumming performances, along with fiddle and banjo music. Inside one of the houses, costumed interpreters answered questions about the lives of people at Horton Grove during the 1850s. Outside, they demonstrated the cooking of food over open fires. The 2005 edition of Colonial Living Week at Alamance Battleground, held during the week of October 10-14, drew teachers, parents, and more than one thousand students from at least six different Piedmont counties. Division personnel and volunteers performed costumed demonstrations that offered intimate glimpses of colonial life. Visitors learned about such skills as open-hearth cooking, candle making, weaving, blacksmithing, quill- pen writing, and woodworking. They were enthralled by militiamen firing flintlock mus- kets and recruiting volunteer crew members for an artillery discussion. The opportunity to operate a cider press and produce apple juice continued as popular as ever. Working jointly with the Burlington-Alamance County Convention and Visitors Bureau, the staff at the battleground hosted the official debut of Alamance, the site’s new orientation film, on December 7. The annual Christmas program, “Please Pass the ‘Pumpion’: The Prevalence of Pumpkins in Colonial Foodways,” generated public interest on December 11. Guests enjoyed samples of pumpkin-based foods such as pie, cake, bread, and cookies, in addition to hot spiced cider. Staff members of Town Creek Indian Mound assisted local Cub Scouts during the 2005 Montgomery District Fall Camporee. On December 3, Rich Thompson and Karen Knight taught participants two American Indian games. Rich explained and demonstrated Chunky, which entails striking a moving stone disk, the Chunky Stone, with a wooden spear. Points are given if the stone is struck, or for the spear that comes closest to the target. American Indians played this game throughout the Southeast during the Woodland and Mississippian Periods. Karen also explained and demonstrated the Cob Dart game. The modern sport of lawn darts is based on this ancient game in which contestants attempt to throw a dart—in this case, a corncob with feather fletching—into a circular target on the ground. Points are awarded if the dart comes to rest within the circle. The kids had a great time playing both games, and the site staff looks forward to working with the Scouts again for their winter and spring camporees. Also in December, staff members created a Christmas tree for display in the Montgom- ery County Public Library. Each year the library asks local groups to create trees that rep- resent their organization. The trees are displayed throughout the month and serve not only as decorations, but also as billboards informing the public of groups and activities in the county. This year Karen Knight chose traditional Mississippian Period artwork and stone arrow and spear points to be the decorations for the tree. Copies of gorgets (shell pendants) were made and colored in red, green, and white. Several arrow and spearpoints were made from plaster molds, decorated with various designs, and hung on the tree with imitation sinew. Staff members received many compliments for the tree. Major handicapped accessibility improvements were achieved at the House in the Horseshoe during the fall. By means of a grant administered by the Office of State Construction under the auspices of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the site now has

20 CAROLINA COMMENTS accessible restroom facilities, along with greatly enhanced entryways to the renovated packhouse museum, the visitor center/office area, and the Alston House. In addition, parking lots for both the historic house and the visitor center have been paved. Roanoke Island Festival Park The film theater at the park was the site of the seventh annual North Carolina Storytell- ing Festival on November 5, the first time the event has been held anywhere other than its customary Burlington venue. Coordinated by Ron I. Jones and sponsored by Roanoke Island Festival Park (RIFP) and the North Carolina Storytelling Guild, the festival featured six professional storytellers and a number of student amateurs from area schools. The program was divided into three age-appropriate segments. The first afternoon session was designed for very young children, the second for the entire family, and the evening concert for adults and older children. Priscilla Best of Goldsboro, known as the Heart-to-Heart Storyteller, opened the event with several children’s stories. She specializes in folktales and African American chants. Hawk Hurst of Charleston, South Carolina, brought ancient cultures to life through a combination of storytelling and music, performed on handmade flutes and drums. Alan Hoal of Raleigh, founder of the Sounds of the Mountains Story and Song Festival, kept his audience spellbound with Jack Tales and English folktales delivered in his expressive animated style. Dressed in a white suit, Marvin Cole of Candler looked and acted the part as he related several of Mark Twain’s tall tales. Joan Leotta of Calabash presented original and adapted folklore derived from her Italian heritage. The Legend Lady, Charlotte T. Ross of Boone, shared some of the more than 3,400 stories of Appalachia that she has collected over the years. Based in Greensboro, the North Carolina Storytelling Guild is a non-profit organization whose mission is to foster an appreciation for the art of storytelling, to affirm the value of stories and the importance of listening, to promote excellence in the oral tradition, to nour- ish the development of storytellers, and to celebrate the varied culture of the Tar Heel State. The Pocosin Arts Field School of Columbia celebrated its tenth anniversary with a special exhibit at RIFP. After an opening reception on November 6, the exhibit of arts and crafts in a variety of media, including clay, glass, fiber, metal, wood, drawings, paintings, and photographs, was displayed for two months. Some of the works were offered for sale, while others were on loan from private collections. Among the notable exhibitors were Roy Underhill of Williamsburg, Ben Owen III of Seagrove, Petie Brigham of Manteo, and Feather Phillips of Columbia, founder and director of the school. Jerry Jackson, a graduate of East Carolina University and cultural arts administrator of the Rocky Mount Arts Center, was curator of the exhibit. The mission of the Pocosin Arts Field School is to sustain the varied traditional arts and cultures of eastern North Carolina, which reflect the several races and nationalities that have populated the region—Native American, English, Scotch Irish, African, Mexican, and Vietnamese. The school offers a range of programs to accomplish its goal, such as classes in the home studios, artistic residencies in Tyrrell County schools, and cultural arts retreats at various locations in the area. The field school also searches for and contracts with teaching artists who are specialists in their chosen media. During its first decade, the school has attracted teachers from six different states, including professors from the Uni- versity of Georgia, Maryland Institute College of Art, the Tyler School of Art, East Carolina University, and Elizabeth City State University.

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 21 Southeastern Historic Sites Section Cannons roared and Confeder- ate sailors and marines converged on the banks of the Neuse River on November 19-20, as the CSS Neuse/Governor Caswell Memo- rial in Kinston presented its annual Civil War living history program. Members of several North Carolina and Virginia reenactment/living history organizations demonstrated various aspects of Confederate naval life, including navigational techniques, Re-enactors work their guns during the annual Civil War daily shipboard activities, and living history program at the CSS Neuse State Historic Site nautical skills. The Old South in Kinston. Blacksmiths were on hand to show how Kinston smithies made items for both naval and artillery units during the war. Other sutlers and craftsmen, including Heritage Leathers, also participated in the event. Numerous field artillery pieces, including the bronze twelve-pound Napoleon from Fort Fisher, were featured in the program. Visitors were able to witness a special artillery firing after dark on Saturday evening. Fort Fisher received national coverage when the Civil War documentary, Confederate Goliath, was aired on National Public Television. The University of North Carolina Cen- ter for Public Television (UNC-TV) presented the program in this state on November 6. Confederate Goliath, produced by Edward Tyndall and Kenneth Price, and directed by Andrew Buchanan of McDowell County, chronicles the battles to capture Fort Fisher and close the port of Wilmington. The documentary is based on the award-winning book by Rod Gragg and features interviews with leading historians. The film combines archival photographs with narrative-style cinematography by M. Shawn Lewallen and Matt Arkins. The documentary was created using an innovative production platform that generated paid internships in the fields of history, film making, and computer science for students at several North Carolina universities. The University of North Carolina at Wilmington served as the anchor campus for the film’s educational outreach. The acquisition of land through the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) continues at Bentonville Battlefield. During November the CWPT closed on 157 acres located on the site of the first day’s battle. This property will soon be turned over to the state and will increase the number of preserved acres to 805. Approximately 70 percent of the March 19, 1865, battlefield has now been preserved. This does not include approximately 109 acres of the first day’s battleground and 185 acres on the site of the third day’s fighting that are currently in process. Hopefully this property will be obtained in 2006. The ongoing preservation efforts at Bentonville received national coverage in the November issue of Hallowed Ground, published by the CWPT. The Bentonville Battlefield Historical Association has purchased two reproduction artillery pieces to be displayed at the site. A twelve-pound Napoleon will be positioned in the exhibit earthworks and a three-inch ordnance rifle will be mounted at the tour stop on the Morris Farm, which was purchased by the CWPT. Both of these pieces will be interpreted by fiberglass-imbedded signage. The addition of the cannon will be another step in enhancing the experience for the visiting public.

22 CAROLINA COMMENTS Aycock Birthplace had a busy autumn as it presented a full slate of programs. On Octo- ber 15, the site held its annual Farmer’s Day event that is designed to re-create the way people lived and worked on a typical eastern North Carolina farm in the 1870s. Visitors had a chance to enjoy traditional heritage demonstrations, including candle making, lye soap making, spinning and weaving, corn shelling and grinding, and open-hearth cooking. Additionally, Farmer’s Day featured wagon rides and guided tours of the one-room schoolhouse and the Aycock Birthplace. During October and November, the site presented its annual program of living history Wednesdays. Every Wednesday morning, Aycock staff members and volunteers demonstrated common nineteenth-century activities, with a different occupation highlighted each week. The program schedule included quill-pen-and-ink writing, schoolyard games, sheep shearing, clothes washing, corn shelling and grinding, and open-hearth cooking. Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens North Carolina’s first state capitol put on its yearly spectacular and always-popular display of fall color on October 7-9 as it celebrated “MUMfest 25.” Visitors to Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens enjoyed the beauty of more than 2,500 chrysanthemums showing off their autumnal colors. To celebrate the twenty-fifth annual MUMfest, which was sponsored by SwissBear, the site opened all of its gardens free to the public for three days. The formal parterres of the Maude Moore Latham Garden and the Gertrude Carraway Garden featured elaborate displays of chrysanthemums. Reflecting the colonial era, the Kellenberger Garden contained an arrangement of other fall flowers popular in the eighteenth century, while the Kitchen Garden displayed cool-season crops. Interior tours of Tryon Palace and the site’s other historic buildings were also offered. USS North Carolina Battleship Memorial On October 8, the battleship hosted the finish of the 2005 Cycle North Carolina, a weeklong bicycle ride from Asheville to Wilmington. More than twelve hundred riders from the United States, Canada, and other countries participated in the tour. The fall Battleship Alive program, with more than forty of the vessel’s living history crew participating, was presented to visitors on October 21-23. On October 31 the ship’s fantail was decorated for the Battleship Booogie. The Hal- loween program included a showing of the film, Bride of Frankenstein; a presentation by David Gurney and friends from Haunted North Carolina on paranormal activity aboard the battleship; a book signing by night watchman Danny Bradshaw, author of Ghosts on the Battleship North Carolina; a disc jockey to provide dance music for the costumed guests; and awards for the best costumes. The event was made possible by a lot of work by the site staff, particularly Kim Sincox, Mary Ames Sheret, Monique Baker, Judy Hoffman, and Rhonda Billeaud. The seventh annual Battleship Half Marathon was held on November 13. The weather was clear and slightly warmer than the norm, which made the finish of the race a bit more challenging. The event continues to grow, with 1,115 competitors completing the half marathon and 386 athletes participating in the 5K run. Especially noteworthy was the accomplishment of Catherine Wides of Durham, who set a new state record for the female, 55 to 59-year-old age group for the half marathon distance, eclipsing the old mark by more than five minutes.

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 23 Western Historic Sites Section Fort Dobbs hosted North Carolina’s Great Wagon Festival and Eighteenth-Century Trade Faire on October 1 and 2. Programming focused on the settlement of the Carolina Piedmont, eighteenth-century skills and entertainments, and the fort’s history. Mark Baker, one of the foremost authorities on the society of the colonial frontier, particularly the culture of the backwoodsman, provided lectures on eighteenth-century frontier life. A 1760 skirmish between Cherokee Indians and the fort’s garrison was re-enacted each day. Re-enactors portrayed Indian traders, long hunters, provin- cial militia, and Cherokee warriors, while costumed interpreters demonstrated colonial games, toys, music, dance, cooking, and storytelling. Dr. Larry Babits, East Carolina University archaeologist and historian, was on hand to present his research findings on the fort and the plans for its reconstruction. The event was sponsored by the Fort Dobbs Alliance, PSNC Energy, Cherokee braves and frontier militiamen haggle Davis Regional Hospital, BSS, Binder over the prices of goods at the eighteenth- Chiropractic, P. S. West Construction, and century trade fair at Fort Dobbs in early October. the Statesville Record & Landmark. On November 14 UNC-TV presented Thomas Wolfe’s Old Kentucky Home, a new documentary featuring one of literature’s most famous local landmarks. North Carolina Poet Laureate Fred Chappell joined local historians, conservationists, and authors to capture the new face of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, the writer’s boyhood home in downtown Asheville that was completely restored following a devastating fire in 1998. Created by Ron Ruhl, Glenn York, and the staff of the Wolfe Memorial, Thomas Wolfe’s Old Ken- tucky Home is an ode to the old boardinghouse and the new restoration. At Horne Creek Living Historical Farm, North Carolina’s rural roots were recalled with fun, food, and music at the fifteenth annual Cornshucking Frolic on October 15. The gala harvest festival featured corn shucking, shelling, and grinding, chores typically done in the fall on an early-twentieth-century Piedmont farm. Visitors enjoyed demonstrations of beekeeping, quilting, natural dyeing, tobacco curing, applehead doll making, chair caning, basket making, sheep shearing, wool producing, sewing, and cooking. Adults were offered the opportunity to make apple butter, cider, or molasses, while the kids played old-fashioned games. Horne Creek’s unique Southern Heritage Apple Orchard was open to visitors with the many varieties of southern heirloom apples on display. Homemade country foods, including such traditional rural southern dishes as chicken stew, pinto beans, cornbread, pies, icecream,andapplecider,wereserved. The James K. Polk Memorial celebrated the 205th birthday of President Polk on Novem- ber 5 with a living history program. Costumed interpreters returned visitors to Polk’s time to see what life was like in Mecklenburg County more than two centuries ago. Guests observed living history vignettes featuring aspects of everyday life, such as shoe making, blacksmithing, sewing, and cooking, and met with a traveling peddler, who shared both gossip and his wares. Children tried their hands at barnyard chores, played with period toys, and made rag dolls. Visitors concluded the day with a piece of birthday cake honoring the eleventh president.

24 CAROLINA COMMENTS News from State History Museums North Carolina Museum of History According to the second annual survey conducted by Carolina Field Trips magazine, the North Carolina Museum of History ranks in the top ten of the most popular destinations for school field trips. The list was recently compiled by the magazine’s publisher, Sam Rogers. Based in Charlotte, Carolina Field Trips is the only educational field trip resource guide published in the Carolinas. The museum has been awarded a technology grant of $126,750 by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The Museums for America grant will enable the museum to update and integrate its videoconferencing technology to broaden public access to its holdings. While the Museum of History has been providing two-way videoconferencing to students by means of the North Carolina Information Highway for several years, the IMLS funding will allow the museum to greatly expand its offerings. The new online programming project, Moving Beyond the Museum Walls, is scheduled to open during the fall of 2006. One of the museum’s most popular exhibits is now available online. Before closing last spring, North Carolina and the Civil War had attracted thousands of visitors since its unveiling in 1999. The online version of the exhibit features a virtual tour; detailed information from each section of the vast display; close-up images of galleries and artifacts; audio excerpts based on letters, diaries, and newspaper accounts; and a list of resources for further investigation of Civil War topics. Tom Belton, curator of military history, shares his vast expertise as he leads the virtual tour through the 3,500-square-foot exhibit. More than 2,076 students from across the state poured into the museum on November 18 for the annual American Indian Heritage Education Day. Students of all ages visited teaching stations about North Carolina’s American Indian history and culture, where they met members of the eight state-recognized tribes—Coharie, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Haliwa-Saponi, Lumbee, Meherrin, Occaneechi Band of Saponi, Sappony, and Waccamaw-Siouan. The next day, the tenth American Indian Heritage Celebration, the museum’s largest annual event, drew 5,520 visitors. As part of the 2005 celebration, Occaneechi-Saponi tribe members from Alamance and Orange Counties created a dugout canoe, and Arnold Richardson, a Haliwa-Saponi from Warren County, constructed a longhouse, a rectangu- lar building with a curved roof, on the grounds of the State Capitol. Eastern Woodland Indians made these buildings five hundred years ago to house multiple families. Members of the eight tribes shared their heritage and culture during this daylong event filled with music, dance, craft demonstrations, hands-on activities, and storytelling. During the Call of Nations at noon, ninety-three dancers in colorful regalia proceeded down the museum’s front steps for the Grand Entry. The dancers performed traditional, fancy,

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 25 jingle, grass, and hoop dances to the rhythms of the Southern Sun Drum Group and the Red Wolf Drum Group. Two hundred and seventy-six presenters, staff members, and volunteers helped make the celebration a resounding success. The event was made possible by support from BellSouth, the Nationwide Foundation, the North Carolina Commission on Indian Affairs, Progress Energy, RBC Centura, and Wachovia. Visitors to the heritage celebration also enjoyed a colorful new exhibit that explores the cultural significance of the powwow to the state’s large American Indian population. Pow- wow: The Heartbeat of a People features more than thirty silkscreen posters designed by Durham artist Joe Liles to publicize powwows and other Indian cultural events. As an art teacher at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Liles has helped students in the school’s American Indian club organize a powwow there each February, and fourteen posters advertising these gatherings are included in the exhibit. A variety of artifacts, such as intricate dance regalia and the octagonal drum used at the first Lumbee powwow in the state, and a series of photographs of powwows by Jennifer Jeffers, a member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe, enhance the display. Powwow: The Heartbeat of a People opened on October 4 and will run through June 11, 2006. North Carolina’s Native American heritage was also the focus of the November edition of the museum’s ongoing online workshops for teachers. The course, American Indians in North Carolina, Past and Present, examined the present-day cultural issues, educational methods, government, art, and language of the state’s eight recognized tribes. The self- paced workshops, through which teachers can earn up to forty contact hours of continu- ing education credits, combine interactive Web-based technology with a wealth of historical and cultural information. Four other topics will be explored during the 2005- 2006 school year: North Carolina at Home and in Battle during World War II; Stories from the Civil War; Legends of North Carolina; and Women in North Carolina History. For further information and a printable registration form, visit the workshop website, ncmuseumofhistory.org/edu/ProfDev. Four celebrities from the world of fashion came home to North Carolina to attend the elegant Mannequin Ball on November 11. Fashion and home furnishings designer Alexan- der Julian of Chapel Hill, Broadway costume designer William Ivey Long of Seaboard, Vogue magazine editor-at-large André Leon Talley of Durham, and “Trading Spaces” designer Hildi Santo Tomás of Raleigh were the honored guests at the black-tie fund- raiser event, the proceeds of which will benefit the museum’s costume and textile collection. After a red-carpet entrance, the four designers mingled with a crowd of more than three hundred guests. The audience admired sixteen models from Saks Fifth Avenue sporting the latest evening wear, a variety of mannequins dressed in designs from local boutiques and jewelers, and original art mannequins created by twelve acclaimed area artists. Participating designers included Clyde Jones, renowned for his chain- saw creations; Karen Mason, devel- oper of garden-art assemblages;

These four designers, all native North Carolinians, were the special guests at the Mannequin Ball, held November 11 at the North Carolina Museum of History (left to right): William Ivey Long, Hildi Santo Tomás, Alexander Julian, and André Leon Talley.

26 CAROLINA COMMENTS sculptor Paul Hrusovsky; and Louis St. Lewis, art critic for Metro Magazine and coordinator of the mannequin project. After the viewing, the twelve unique creations were sold at a live auction. The Mannequin Ball was presented by Metro Magazine, the North Carolina Museum of History, the Museum of History Associates, and Saks Fifth Avenue. North Carolina artisans have been carving a tradition in wood for centuries. Whether it’s a beautifully made banjo or a figure of a dancing bear, items handcrafted from wood reflect a blending of skill and creative expres- sion. The small exhibit, Celebration of North Carolina Craft: Woodcraft in North Carolina, showcases more than sixty pieces by Tar Heel woodworkers. The exhibit highlights wonderfully detailed works, from figurines to furniture, spanning three centuries. Animals carved by This dancing bear, carved by artisans at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina Folk Heritage Brasstown, a whimsical toy circus from Tryon Toy- Award-winner Amanda Crowe of Makers and Wood-Carvers, decorative carvings inspired Cherokee, is featured in the by nature and crafted by Cherokee Indians, and bird current selection of the rotating decoys from eastern North Carolina are just a few of the Celebration of North Carolina Craft items featured in the display. exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History. The exhibit is presented as part of the Celebration of North Carolina Craft, proclaimed by Gov. Mike Easley for 2004-2005. The museum has featured a changing selection of handcrafted items from its collection throughout the celebration, which is sponsored by the North Carolina Craft Coalition and supported by the North Carolina Arts Council. Celebration of North Carolina Craft: Woodcraft in North Carolina will run through April 9.

Staff Notes Kimberly A. Cumber rejoined the Archives and Records Section of the Division of Historical Resources, succeeding Stephen E. Massengill as the iconographics archivist III. She had been involved with the NC ECHO project of the State Library since February 2001. In the Government Records Branch, Chris Denning was promoted from processing assistant IV to records center supervisor. Bill A. Owens began work as a processing assistant IV in the Information Technology Branch, cataloging Secretary of State land grants information into the online catalog system, MARS. In the Division of State Historic Sites and Properties, longtime Bennett Place site manager Davis Waters retired from state service on November 30. Jessica Dockery, a staff member at Historic Stagville, was promoted to site manager at Bennett Place. Luster Harris retired as maintenance mechanic II at Duke Homestead and was succeeded by James Earl Dickerson. Ray Beck was promoted to site manager of the State Capitol. Keith Furlough joined the staff at Historic Edenton as a historic interpreter II. Tracey Burns-Vann, a historic sites specialist III, separated from Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum. Chris Morton resigned as interpreter II at the Thomas Wolfe Memorial. In the Division of State History Museums, Lisa Coston Hall joined the staff of the North Carolina Museum of History as historical publications editor II, and Jerry Taylor was hired as multimedia producer.

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 27 Upcoming Events January 11 North Carolina Museum of History: History à la Carte: Thomas Day Revisited. Patricia P. Marshall, curator of furnishings and decorative arts, discusses the museum’s upcoming exhibition on the famous free-black cabinetmaker and her soon-to-be-published biography of Day. 12:10 P.M. January 14 Fort Fisher: 141st Anniversary of the Second Battle of Fort Fisher. Program will focus upon the role played by artillery in the battle, featuring the three British cannons used by the Confederates, and the firing of the rifled 32-pounder of Shepherd’s Battery. 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. January 21 Historic Bath: Lecture: “What We Did Before: Past Celebrations of Bath’s Founding.” Dr. E. Thomson Shields Jr., professor of English at East Carolina University and director of the Roanoke Colonies Research Office, discusses notable commemorations of previous birthdays of North Carolina’s oldest town. Cosponsored by the Historic Bath Book Club. 10:00 A.M. North Carolina Maritime Museum, Beaufort: Life at Sea: A Sailor’s View. Opening of exhibit that highlights shipboard life in the nineteenth century from the perspective of the common sailor. Exhibit will run through April 23. January 28 North Carolina Museum of History: Fifth Annual African American Cultural Celebration. Yearly celebration of African American heritage and culture features crafts, music, dramatic performances, and soul food. 11:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. January 29 Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum: Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc.: 100 Years of Service. Opening reception for exhibit celebrating the centennial of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity kicks off African American History Month. 3:00 to 5:00 P.M. February 2 Museum of the Albemarle: Albemarle Historical Roundtable: The Llewelyn Conspiracy. Harry Thompson, curator of the Port-o-Plymouth Museum, discusses the Gourd Patch Conspiracy of 1777, a Loyalist plot to eliminate the state’s revolutionary leaders. Roanoke-Cashie River Center in Windsor. 7:00 P.M. February 4 North Carolina Museum of History: History Stories for Children. North Carolina-based children’s authors Eleanora Tate, Carole Boston Weatherford, Chuck Stone, and Kelly Starling Lyons read excerpts from their books and participate in a panel discussion about the influence of African American history on their writings. A book signing will follow the program. 2:30 to 4:30 P.M. February 8 North Carolina Museum of History: History à la Carte: Gold! Rebecca Lewis, assistant site manager at Reed Gold Mine State Historic Site, shares the story of the discovery of a seventeen-pound gold nugget by young Conrad Reed in Cabarrus County in 1799 and the ensuing gold rush. 12:10 P.M. February 11 Museum of the Albemarle: Civil War Living History. Annual program commemorates the 1862 Battle of Elizabeth City with lectures, exhibits, and living history demonstrations. 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. North Carolina Museum of History: Hard Time Days and the Spirit to Prevail. A cast of local actors performs a reading of award-winning playwright Rudy Wallace’s new play, adapted from North Carolina slave narratives. 3:00 P.M. North Carolina Transportation Museum: Tuskegee Airmen. Members of the Goldsboro Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen share their experiences in the all African American fighter squadron during World War II. 2:00 to 3:00 P.M.

28 CAROLINA COMMENTS Upcoming Events February 12 North Carolina Museum of History: Scott Ainslie. Blues guitarist Ainslie honors the African and American roots of the blues tradition. Cosponsored by PineCone. 3:00 P.M. February 18-19 Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson: The Final Hour. Second annual re-enactment of the 1865 assault on Fort Anderson will feature artillery firings, lectures, book signings, fashion shows, a church service, and sutlers offering various wares. 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. each day. Roanoke Island Festival Park: Roanoke Island 1862—A Civil War Living History Weekend. The 144th anniversary of the Battle of Roanoke Island is commemorated with living history encampments, artillery demonstrations, military drills, lectures, book signings, and period musical performances. Saturday 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., Sunday 10:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. February 19 Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum: Lecture: “The Slave Family.” Dr. Freddie Parker of North Carolina Central University leads a discussion on the family lives of slaves. 3:00 to 5:00 P.M. February 22 Museum of the Albemarle: George Washington Birthday Commemoration. Raymond Beck, site manager and historian of the State Capitol, discusses the statues and images of Washington in the Capitol. 2:30 P.M. North Carolina Maritime Museum, Beaufort: “The Perils of Convoy Duty in WWII.” Author Bennett Moss discusses his book, A Salter’s Path, The Remarkable Life’s Journey of Hugh Salter, about the exciting life of the Sea Level native who served aboard two U.S. Coast Guard vessels engaged in convoy duty. A book signing will follow. 2:00 P.M. February 23 Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex: Arsenal Roundtable. Charles Anderson Jr., professor of history at Central Texas College, examines the roles of African Americans in the armed forces from 1775 to 1865. 7:00 P.M. February 27 Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum: Brown Memorial Singers Concert. Traditional gospel choir performs rare inspirational songs to close out the site’s African American History Month offerings. Sponsored by the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Historical Foundation, Louis G. Raiford, and Ruth and P. E. Smith. 3:00 to 5:00 P.M. March 5 Roanoke Island Festival Park: Priceless Pieces Past & Present Quilt Extravaganza. Opening reception for popular annual show featuring old and new quilts made by or belonging to residents of the Outer Banks. Show runs March 1-27, with various demonstrations and activities scheduled throughout the month. 2:00 to 4:00 P.M. March 8 Historic Bath: Tri-centennial Celebration. Closing ceremony of the yearlong commemoration of the founding of the oldest town in North Carolina. 1:00 P.M. North Carolina Museum of History: History à la Carte: Montford Point Marines. Finney Greggs, director of the Montford Point Marine Museum, shares highlights from the oral histories collected from some of the twenty thousand African American marines who received basic training at Montford Point Camp, a segregated facility of Camp Lejeune, during the forties. 12:10 P.M. March 9 Museum of the Albemarle: Tar Heel Minutemen in the Fight for Iraq. Capt. Wes Morrison of the North Carolina National Guard discusses the important role played by units of his organization in the war in Iraq. 7:00 P.M.

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 29 Upcoming Events March 11 Historic Bath: Lecture: “The Lost Light: The Mystery of the Missing Cape Hatteras Fresnel Lens.” Author and documentary film maker Kevin P. Duffus discusses the lens from the Cape Hatteras lighthouse that was hidden during the Civil War and went missing for 140 years. 10:00 A.M. March 12 North Carolina Museum of History: Patrick and Cathy Sky. The Skys create melodious Irish music on fiddle and uilleann bagpipes. Cosponsored by PineCone. 3:00 P.M. March 16 Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens: Lecture: “The Origins of Slave Society in Tidewater North Carolina.” Dr. Bradford J. Wood discusses the growth of slavery in colonial eastern North Carolina, examining the interaction of the institution with plantation society, the hardening of racial attitudes over time, and slave-trading activities. 7:00 P.M. March 18 Reed Gold Mine: Twenty-seventh Annual Gold Rush Run. Events include half marathon, 8K race, Mile Fun Run, and competitive walk. Runners are encouraged to pre-register at www.reedmine.com. 7:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. March 19 Historic Stagville: Women’s History Month Lecture and Fashion Show. Using original clothing and reproduction costumes, Mia D. Graham of Bennett Place examines changes in women’s fashions from the late eighteenth century to the Civil War period. A $2.00 donation is suggested. 2:00 to 4:00 P.M. Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens: African American Historic Downtown Walking Tour. Aspects of three hundred years of African American history are the focus of this ninety-minute tour of a sixteen- block section of historic New Bern. Registration required. $4.00 for adults, $2.00 for students. 2:00 P.M. March 19-21 Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens: Thirty-eighth Annual Tryon Palace Decorative Arts Symposium. “Drawing Room Tales and Parlor Entertainments” is the theme for the 2006 edition of this longstanding New Bern tradition that brings together scholars and collectors. Cosponsored by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Fee charged. For directions and registration information, visit the symposium website at www.tryonpalacesymposium.com. March 31 Museum of the Albemarle: A Student’s Day on the River. Local schoolchildren learn about the region’s nautical heritage in this specially designed annual program. 8:30 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. Reservations required; call (252) 335-1453. North Carolina Maritime Museum, Beaufort: Family Day: Life at Sea. Demonstrations and activities illustrate sailors’ skills, maritime navigation, food ways, clothing, and music. 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. April 1 Historic Stagville: Fourth Annual Stagville Family Day. Costumed interpreters demonstrate nineteenth-century crafts, cooking, and games. Tours of the Bennehan House and the Horton Grove slave quarters are featured in this family-oriented living history program. A donation of $2.00 is suggested. 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Horne Creek Living Historical Farm. “Grafting for the Future.” Lee Calhoun, author of Old Southern Apples, demonstrates how to graft an apple tree. Participants will take home a graft from one of the Southern Heritage Apple Orchard’s four hundred varieties. Pre-registration required and class size limited to twenty. $25.00 fee. 9:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.

30 CAROLINA COMMENTS New Leaves

Preserving the “Peterboro of the South”: Huckleberry Mountain Workshop Camp and Artists’ Colony

By RoAnn M. Bishop

EDITOR’S NOTE: RoAnn M. Bishop is an associate curator at the North Carolina Museum of History. She earned a B.A. degree in journalism and political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.A. in public history from Middle Tennessee State University. A native of Henderson County, she first became interested in the Huckleberry Mountain Workshop Camp and Artists’ Colony as a young girl. Her piano teacher, Leonora Wilkinson, owned a studio-lodge on the grounds of the colony.

The narrow dirt road that wiggled up the slope of Huckleberry Mountain some sixty years ago still winds through the Huckleberry community of Henderson County today. Pitted with potholes and punctured by rocks, the road snakes its way through sun-dappled woods and rhododendron thickets and pushes past little log cabins nearly hidden among the trees. Six decades ago, these cabins boasted names such as “Sonnet House” and “Sing- ing Brook” and were filled with the sounds of clattering typewriters and musical instru- ments.1 Today, they are all that remain of the once-thriving and nationally known Huckleberry Mountain Workshop Camp and Artists’ Colony. However, two new Huckleberry property owners are hoping to refocus attention on the old camp and colony. Dr. Ida Simpson, a sociology professor at Duke University, and her son Frank are working with the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources to preserve Huckleberry’s unique history and architecture and ultimately have it listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “This is truly a fascinating little part of Henderson County,” said Frank Simpson, a horticulturist who lives in Chapel Hill. “It would have developed at the same time as Black Mountain [College] was going on. But this one has been forgotten.”2 In 1939, when Evelyn Grace Haynes opened Huckleberry six miles east of Hendersonville, it numbered among the first writers’ workshops in the United States.3 Using the MacDowell Colony in Peterboro, New Hampshire, the nation’s oldest artists’ colony, as a model, Haynes set out to transform a former girls’ summer camp into “the Peterboro of the South”—a quiet mountain retreat where artists could come to share ideas and knowledge, find inspiration, and hone their skills amidst nature’s beauty.4 Haynes quickly succeeded. After A. M. Mathieu, editor of Writer’s Digest, visited the workshop camp in the summer of 1941, he wrote: “Huckleberry is ideal for full-time writing. Alone, in a cabin in the mountains, with a typewriter and a stack of clean white paper, the writer discovers himself anew. The rumpled Carolina mountains strung unevenly along the horizon shut out a nervous twitching world, and the air is burdened with a scent the perfumers never capture. You can write all day, in peace, and ideas, aborning, go straight to the typewriter.”5 The New York Times, in a 1942 Sunday travel section, noted Huckleberry as one of two writers’ colonies in the South,6 and Life Maga- zine at about the same time called it “one of the top five cultural centers in the entire United States.”7 During its twenty-year existence, the Huckleberry workshop camp provided instruction to hundreds of students from across the United States and several foreign countries.8 Well-known professionals in various arts taught poetry, painting, music, drama, fiction and nonfiction writing, radio scriptwriting, weaving, pottery, photography, metalworking, and nature studies. Some of these artists and writers bought lots in the colony and built private

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 31 studio homes, which they opened to the public for free tours and recitals during the annual open house. Some of the established talent at Huckleberry also participated in the yearly “Animated Magazine,” in which leading authors, artists, poets, and composers presented their creative works. Another annual event was the “Autograph Party,” when well-known writers were brought to Huckleberry for readings, a reception, and book signing. With the support of the Hendersonville Women’s Club, Huckleberry started a national art show that also encouraged local talent. As Huckleberry became increasingly involved in the local community, affiliations were formed with the Old Mill Playhouse (now the Flat Rock Playhouse), the Spinning Wheel in Asheville, and the Artisan Shop in Biltmore.9 In 1942, Huckleberry joined forces with the Hendersonville Chamber of Commerce to provide regular Thursday evenings of entertain- ment in the city’s high school auditorium. At about the same time, a community library was established at Huckleberry, and with the Henderson County Sheriff’s Department assisting with circulation, branch libraries were soon set up in surrounding communities. Recogniz- ing another community need, Huckleberry set up a thrift store, which helped outfit entire local families through a part work-part cash program in which participants received store coupons in exchange for the chores they did or crafts they made at the camp.10 For students at the workshop camp, life was structured but informal. Everyone at the camp was on a first-name basis, from the teen-aged-novice to the nationally known instructor. Among the latter were Vivian Yeiser Laramore Rader, poet laureate of Florida; Alice Keith, director of the National Academy of Broadcasting; Anna Bell Buchanan, composer and one of the founders of the White Mountain Music Festival in New Hamp- shire; Eliot O’Hara, nationally known watercolorist; Carola Bell Williams, renowned playwright; and Dr. Edwin Grover, vice president of Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and former editor of Ginn and Company, Rand McNally. Huckleberry days began with the rising bell at 7:30 A.M. The “early-bird walk” and exercises were optional, but the daily “spoonful of sulphur [sic] and molasses to ward off ticks and chiggers” was not. Breakfast was served promptly at 8:00 A.M. with every camper first receiving a dish of stewed prunes to “promote regularity.” Afterward, everyone pitched in to perform a half-hour of rou- tine chores, such as washing dishes and burning trash, before workshop classes began at 9:00 A.M. Lunch was packed in picnic baskets, and students were invited to eat wherever they pleased. Afternoons were spent either in workshop sessions or recreation until 6:30 P.M., when dinner was served buffet-style “with plenty of fresh vegetables, a meat course, biscuits, a dessert, and a half-pound of butter on each table from the Huckleberry Jersey cow.”11 Lectures or informal discussions were held from 7:30 to 9:00 P.M. three nights a week, and on Fridays, each camper had five minutes to present his or her creative work at the obligatory “Round Table.” Saturdays were filled with picnics, hikes, and field trips, and on Sundays were book reviews and vespers.12 It was bad news from her doctor that As their instructor looks on, two student artists inspired Evelyn Haynes, at the age of forty, apply the finishing touches to their paintings of an to establish an artists’ colony on old barn on Huckleberry Mountain.

32 CAROLINA COMMENTS Huckleberry Mountain. “I had failed to pass my life insurance physical and the double indemnity policy I had carried for ten years was cancelled,” she wrote in a short autobiographical book, True Early Adven- tures in Florida Days and Mountain Country. “The company sent me a check for $3,500 regretfully informing us that, according to the doctor, I only had six months to live.”13 Fortunately, the doctor Workshop campers mold creations from clay in the Craft Shop at was wrong. Haynes would Huckleberry. live another fifty-six years and, during that time, Huckleberry would grow and thrive. But in 1959, Haynes was working with Dr. Edward Waugh and a group of his design students from North Carolina State College on a ten-year plan to expand Huckleberry when she was diagnosed with Addison’s disease. Unwilling to continue the workshop camp without the influence and direction of Haynes, the colony’s advisory board, upon Haynes’ recommendation, voted to close Huckleberry at the end of the season. All the removable assets—looms, ceramic ovens, potter’s wheels, pots and pans, tables and beds, and other furnishings—were sold to pay the final bills, and the land was divided into individual lots and sold.14 Today, many of Huckleberry’s rustic buildings still stand, including the two-story assembly hall, which formerly housed classrooms and the camp’s office; the old dining hall that featured a tree growing through its roof; and a number of the little log cabins once occupied by aspiring writers and artists.15 Some of the homes are now summer retreats; others have been expanded, remodeled, and made into year-round residences, a few of which are occupied by second- and third-generation descendants of the original artist- owner. Still other cabins have crumbled to the ground, leaving only a solitary rock chimney to mark their former existence. Two of those little log cabins now belong to the Simpsons. When the mother and son bought them nearly two years ago, they planned to restore both structures, live in one and rent the other to summer vacationers. Having previously transformed four rundown houses in downtown Durham into comfortable housing for Duke University students, the Simpsons felt confident about restoring the cabins. But a procession of problems has left the cabins in disrepair and put the Simpsons in a fight to protect their property—and their community— from possible development. They are hoping that official recognition of Huckleberry’s unique history and architecture might be the means to accomplish that. It took nearly two years of hunting for rustic real estate before the Simpsons found their two log cabins on Huckleberry Mountain Road, but they closed the deal on the buildings in February 2004. The A young ventriloquist and his dummy model for a painting class in the Huckleberry colony art studio.

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 33 smaller cabin, built of chestnut logs and boasting a stone chimney and outdoor fireplace, dates from about 1750. It was moved to the site in the 1930s from another area of Henderson County, according to Frank Simpson. But the larger, one-and-a-half-story cabin was one of the first built at Huckleberry. Its squared, Kentucky-style chestnut logs average eighteen inches in width.16 “When we drove up in the driveway and saw the [larger] cabin with its shoulder facing the mountain and its little outdoor fireplace and all the shrubs around it, I felt that it was the one I’d been looking for,” said Simpson, who is now on sabbatical in Washington State. “The logs kind of speak to you even though they’ve now got some hideous brown stain on them.” Simpson began the initial repairs and cleanup himself. One of the first jobs was hauling off the “yards and yards” of shingles left on the property by an earlier owner who was a roofing contractor. Simpson arrested the rot in the larger cabin caused by failed gutters, but was unable to purchase a termite contract because the cabin’s original chestnut floors were too close to the ground to allow an inspection. But those problems were just the beginning. Two weeks after the Simpsons took pos- session of the property, the septic system backed up. Then at least two building contractors did less-than-satisfactory work on the cabins, “when they worked at all,” Simpson said. In September 2004, Hurricanes Frances and Ivan deluged western North Carolina, causing extensive flood damage. During the process of trying to repair the septic system, the Simpsons learned that the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) planned to widen and pave the one-lane Huckleberry Mountain Road. But widening the road would leave the Simpsons insufficient room for their septic field. “My cabin is locked between a stream and the road. If they pave the road, we’re going to have to consider alternative plumbing, maybe an outhouse,” Simpson said. For now, he has installed a composting toilet. His mother worries that paving the half-mile-long Huckleberry Mountain Road would facilitate development and the congestion, noise, and traffic that often accompany it.17 “It is currently a one-lane road of the kind that would characterize an artist community and which whetted our desire for the property,” Dr. Simpson said. “The main support for paving comes from new homeowners and developers, mainly the ones whose property is not on Huckleberry Mountain Road but who use it as a gateway to their property. I am fearful that a two-lane road will facilitate the destruction of this historical site. Unfortunately, I appear to be the only property owner in question interested in historical preservation. I am optimis- tic that [we can] bring to the attention of the state the potential historic treasure of an artist colony before developers plow it under.” Rebecca Johnson, preservation specialist with the North Carolina Office of Archives and History Western Office in Asheville, said the Simpsons’ first step toward accomplishing their goal is to have their property added to the State Study List, which identifies properties and districts that are most likely to be eligible for listing on The unpaved road runs up to the Huckleberry Mountain the National Register of Historic Workshop Camp and Artists’ Colony in Henderson County. The building at the right bears a hand-painted sign Places. Once a property is on the proclaiming it to be the Huckleberry Creative Arts Gallery. list, the State Historic Preservation Office staff can assist the owner

34 CAROLINA COMMENTS with the process of preparing a formal nomination for the National Register. But that process, Johnson said, takes approximately one year, assuming the property is eligible. If NCDOT were to begin paving Huckleberry Mountain Road before the Simpsons get their Huckleberry cabins listed, nothing could be done to stop it.18 John Horton, a former restoration specialist in the Western Office, said he remembers visiting the old Huckleberry colony a few years ago and seeing some of its remaining buildings. “Some of the properties are contributing, some have been altered, and some have been abandoned and are overgrown, if not lost completely, so they’d have to be doc- umented,” Horton said. “Whether it could get listed [on the National Register] as a historic district, I can’t say. But that’s not to say it’s not worthy of research and documen- tation for the story of that place. Pretty soon there won’t be anything left of the colony. Perhaps if there’s some awareness of its history, maybe people there will have more interest in preserving it.”19 That’s what the Simpsons are hoping will happen. “Some people have a terror of preservation,” Frank Simpson said. “We’ve really tried to do some evangelizing about that, about tax credits and everything. I hope we’ve planted some seeds. I think it [Huckleberry] is a great place. I’ve still got really high hopes for it. But there’s a lot of stuff to be worked out.”

Notes 1. “Huckleberry Mountain Workshop Camp, Hendersonville, North Carolina,” brochure, 1948. 2. Telephone interview with Frank Simpson, August 12, 2005. 3. Raleigh News and Observer, May 12, 1959. 4. Evelyn Haynes, True Adventures in Florida Days and Mountain Country (Hendersonville, N.C.: privately published, n.d.), 40. 5. A. M. Mathieu, “The Simple Life—By Golly! Life, Literature and Laughter at the Huckleberry Mountain Writers’ and Artists’ Colony,” Writer’s Digest (August 1941). Reprinted in the “Huckleberry Mountain Workshop Camp” brochure, 1948. 6. Asheville Citizen, June 17, 1942. 7. Haynes, True Adventures in Florida Days and Mountain Country, 45. See also Kermit Edney, “Huckleberry—A State of Mind,” in Kermit Edney Remembers: Where Fitz Left Off (Alexander, N.C.: WorldCom, 1997), 158. 8. J. T. Fain Jr., “Huckleberry Colony is Creation of Mrs. Roxby,” Asheville Citizen-Times, September 1, 1940. 9. Asheville Citizen, July 27, 1941. 10. Haynes, True Adventures in Florida Days and Mountain Country, 43-44. 11. Bertha Haley, “The New Personality of the Week: Mrs. Evelyn G. Haynes,” Asheville News, November 25, 1949. See also “Huckleberry Mountain Workshop Camp, Hendersonville, North Carolina,” brochure, 1948. 12. See also “Camp Memories: Once on Huckleberry Mountain, a Thriving Artist’s Colony,” by Jennie Giles, Hendersonville Times-News, December 6, 1992, and “Huckleberry Mountain Workshop Camp, Hendersonville, North Carolina,” brochure, 1948. 13. Haynes, True Adventures in Florida Days and Mountain Country, 39. 14. William E. Lindau, “Huckleberry Workshop, in 20th Year, Plans Building Program,” Asheville Citizen-Times, April 19, 1959. See also Haynes, True Adventures in Florida Days and Mountain Country, 44, and News and Observer, May 12, 1959. 15. Leonora H. Watts, “Huckleberry Mountain,” The State 9 (August 23, 1941): 5. 16. Telephone interview with Frank Simpson, August 12, 2005. 17. E-mail from Dr. Ida Simpson to the author, August 5, 2005. 18. Telephone interview with Rebecca Johnson, September 1, 2005. 19. Telephone interview with John Horton, September 1, 2005.

VOLUME 54, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2006 35 Carolina Comments (ISSN 0576-808X) Published quarterly by the Office of Archives and History North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Raleigh, North Carolina Jeffrey J. Crow, Editor in Chief Kenrick N. Simpson, Editor www.ncpublications.com 733-1439 (919) Fax 733-7442 (919) Telephone 27699-4622 NC Raleigh, Center Service Mail 4622 History and Archives of Office itrclPbiain Section Publications Historical emtN.187 No. Permit NC Raleigh, Paid Postage U.S. Standard Presorted