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for "Kammerer, Roger"
Record #:
23020
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Pitt County was once dotted with small communities. Kammerer gives a small history of some of these villages that once existed in Beaver Dam Township, now Bell Arthur Township. One of these villages, Rochdale (or Cobb’s Store), began about 1872 when J. C. Cobb built a store. In 1888, a post office was established in Cobb’s Store known as “Rochdale.” Rochdale faded away by 1912 when Cobb’s Store (later C. D. Smith’s Store) standing at Rochdale was moved to Bell Arthur by L. A. Fulford. Other Beaver Dam communities included Cobbdale, Smithtown, Marltown, and Poketink (Nicholstown)
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Record #:
23021
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In January 1937, 35 acres was obtained by the City for a municipal park on the outskirts of Greenville (now Fifth Street). The property on Greene Mill Run was given by James Brown and wife to the City with the provision that a park be maintained and developed thereon known as “Greene Springs Park.” Several additional acres were donated by J. R. and J. N. Williams and another piece of high ground was bought from Mrs. Nora Heath. The park was developed with WPA funds and the help of the Woman's Club and a garden club.
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Record #:
23022
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The author gives several interesting stories including a story from 1892 about a “Neck Tie Party,” a fundraising event hosted by the young ladies of the Baptist Church. It seems the young girls would create a basket of goodies and place a necktie in it to match their dress. Men would draw out the baskets from behind a curtain and see to which girl it belonged. Each young man had had to pay for the basket they drew by paying one half cent for each pond by weight of the young lady. The young man then became the escort for the young lady for the night. Apparently the airlines never had the monopoly on lost luggage. There is a frustrating story from 1888 about the wandering trunk of Miss Meta Chestnutt. In 1889, it was reported that Robert Moye, while hunting in the low grounds north of the river, killed three white herons and one blue one. The blue one stood six feet tall. In 1882, it was reported that Major A. W. Blount of Chocowinity had a year or two before sent a fiddler to the cotton fields to make the hands hoe cotton faster. Then recently, the work hands had run the fiddler out of the fields because they had found religion. There was an unusual story from 1884 about a hot air balloon with a basket falling out of the sky and nearly striking the chimney of the residence of B. W. Brown. And lastly, in 1885 Alex Speight, Greenville Police Chief, had an old-time rat killing at the Greenville Market House killing 58 rats weighing a total of 28 pounds.
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Record #:
23023
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The first railroad in Pitt County was a line of the Seaboard & Raleigh Railroad which came through Bethel in 1882. In 1889, the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad (later the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad) opened a branch line to Greenville out of Scotland Neck. A temporary depot was built north of the river called “Riverton.” An iron drawbridge was built over the river and the first train arrived in Greenville on May 28, 1890. The large Wilmington & Weldon Railroad depot was built in Greenville in May 1890. In 1907, the Norfolk & Southern Railroad built a depot on Dickinson Avenue. In 1911, the first car-train accident occurred. At the height of train activity, 12 passenger and freight trains a day passed through Greenville. The last ACL passenger train came though Greenville in 1942 and the depot was torn down in 1958. The last Norfolk & Southern passenger train came though Greenville in 1948 and the depot was torn down in 1959.
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Record #:
23024
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A monumental series of track activities began in 1925 between high schools from Greenville and Washington. A relay race was held on a 23 mile route between the Pitt County Court House and the Beaufort County Court House which required about 92 runners. Thousands of spectators lined the route for several years until increased traffic and safety problems moved the event to the Pitt County Fair Grounds. About 1938/39 the first track team at the Greenville High School was established, which later developed into competitive high school track in 1961.
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Record #:
23025
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The Grimesland Seine Beach on the Tar River was once a popular place in the 1950s. The original owners can be traced back to L. W. and Olivia Blakeley, who owned the beach as a part of their 1,810 acre farm known as “Bellevue.” The Blakeley seine began in the 1860s as the “Pay Per Haul” method, when money was put down first and the seine hauled afterward. In 1899, the seine was bought by W. E. “Lige” Proctor and in 1947 was owned by Cecil Moore and Wiley Tripp. During the hauling season the seine beach would attract as many as 3,000 people, either to buy fish or watch. Pollution and over fishing finally killed the Grimesland Seine Beach in the 1960s.
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Record #:
23026
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In 1884, Col. Isaac A. Sugg created the first fire company in Greenville known as “The Rough and Ready Fire Company.” It consisted of a volunteer group of 40 black men headed up by its first Captain Samuel O. Mason. The first fire truck was a hook and ladder wagon pulled around town by ropes. Kammerer gives a list of names of the Rough and Ready Fire Company. In 1886 a brass band was organized in connection with the fire company known as the “Aeolian Band.” It disbanded later and a new band, “Elmo Band,” formed in its place. In 1896, the Rough and Ready Fire Company merged with the Greenville Fire Company to form the “Hope Fire Company.” The 12 members of the Rough and Ready Fire hose reel unit of the Hope Fire Company became one of the outstanding black fire units in NC, winning many awards by the 1960s.
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Record #:
23027
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Five Points, the intersection of Evans Street, Fifth Street, and Dickinson Avenue had its origins in the nineteenth century. Prominent merchants like Sam White, Marcellus Moore and Alfred Forbes built stores at Five Points. In 1914, the four story State Bank was built at Five Points. In 1922, the City erected the first electric traffic signal a Five Points and in 1926 installed the first automatic traffic signal. In 1948, the City installed 351 parking meters which allowed 1 penny for 12 minutes or 5 pennies for an hour.
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Record #:
23028
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The former home of the O'Hagan and Laughinghouse families on Pitt Street was lost in a fire on January 6, 1996. The history of the house began as a small building built in the 1850’s by Dr. Charles J. O’Hagan (1821-1900) who immigrated from Ireland in 1842. O’Hagan was a teacher in Greenville until 1846 when he went to Medical School in New York. He began practicing medicine in Greenville in 1852 and gained a State-wide reputation. The house fell to his daughter, Eliza O’Hagan, who married Joseph John Laughinghouse, a prominent farmer and politician from Grimesland. They remodeled the house into a 17 room Queen Anne Style mansion. In 1965, the Flynn Christian Fellowship Homes, Inc. bought the house to help homeless men and alcoholics. It was dedicated in February 1966.
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Record #:
23029
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It has been a long held belief that the New Bern Masonic Lodge was the first one in North Carolina in 1771, but Thomas Cooper chartered the first Masonic lodge in Pitt County at Crown Point in 1766. Crown Point Lodge was located upstairs the home of Col. Shadrach Allen. President George Washington on his Southern Tour, stayed the night at Col. Shadrach Allen’ home In 1791. In 1901, James Hanrahan, a grandson of Col. Shadrach Allen, recalled what his grandmother called the “Mason’s Room,” from which children and servants were kept away by the stories of “butting goats, coffins and other hobgoblins.” The second known lodge, Sharon Lodge was established before 1822. The Greenville Lodge #284 formed in 1868. The Woodson Lodge Number #16, Knights of Pythias, was founded in 1874. In 1888, Greenville had five lodges. Many lodges emerged in Pitt County after 1900.
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11.A History of Simpson by Kammerer, Roger Greenville Times / Pitt's Past Vol. Issue , Dec 6-19 1995
Record #:
23030
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The town of Simpson (Chicod) has had an interesting history. The town was named for Col. John Simpson (1728-1788) local Revolutionary soldier. A post office was established there in 1888 called “Chicod,” with Lewis Nash Edwards as first postmaster. In 1896, Charlie G. Barron and W. L. Wootten came from Clarksville, VA to help farmers grow tobacco. They bought land, built houses and developed the town. In 1907, the Norfolk & Southern Railroad built a line through Chicod and it was said Capt. J. J. Laughinghouse named the depot “Simpson.” The town had an identity crisis and the town remained double named until 1965. In 1923, the town of Simpson was incorporated, but the charter was revoked during the Depression for non-payment of taxes. The town of Simpson was again incorporated in 1975.
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Record #:
23031
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Kammerer gives a description of life in the 1880s in Pitt County as found in the reminiscences of Jesse Lillington Jackson (1871-1969) who grew up in Craven and Pitt Counties. Jackson talks of log houses, furniture, kitchens, cooking, food storage, food, clothing, cleaning clothing, death, funerals and coffins.
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Record #:
23032
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Telephone service came to Greenville in 1896 with 40 initial subscribers. The first central office was located in a leased one room schoolhouse on the N/W corner of Fourth and Washington Streets with Miss Julia Foley as the first operator. In 1899, the first desk phone was owned by W. B. Wilson. In 1905, the first pay phone was installed in Coward & Wooten’s Store at a cost of 25 cents a minute. In 1915, a triangular brick Telephone building was built at the intersection of Washington Street and Dickinson Ave. in 1939, the telephone reverted to the local dial system with 2,031 subscribers. In 1956, a telephone building was built on Fifth Street and a new telephone office was built on Hooker Road in 1967. In June 1975, the old triangular brick Telephone building on Dickinson Avenue, long a Greenville landmark, was razed to the ground.
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Record #:
23033
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Kammerer relates some of the older tales of the unexplained he has been told from Pitt County’s past. He talks about how Halloween was celebrated before the Civil War, with watch nights and vigils, church services and visits to family cemeteries. He relates tales told around a hot wood stove of strange events, spooks and hobgoblins. There are tales of ghost talkers that frighten both men and beasts. Along the river road north of Greenville there were sightings of a “Thing” or man running on all four s loping like a dog and a headless man, who passed wagons a short distance and then disappeared. Another “Thing” or hobgoblin was reported seen by some that either hitched a ride on a wagon, weighing it down such that the horse could not pull it, or one that rode on the wagon for a while and then disappeared. Some people could hear death “rings” before someone died, or saw spirits of the recently deceased. There is a story of a death bell that called people home.
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Record #:
23034
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The countless local restaurants and drive-ins are one of the landmarks in our memory of the community. Kammerer takes us all the way back to the 1930s mentioning such places as Club Pitt, Busy Bee Café, Carolina Grill, Silver Café, Dixie Gray Café, Red Gables Café and Smitty’s Place. North of the river there were places named Chicken & Dukes, Respass Barbecue, Darwin Waters and Bradys Double Inn. In the 1940s and 50s, there was the New Greenville Café, Kares Restaurant, Mary Ann Soda Shop, Dixie Grill, Victory Grill and the Olde Towne Inn. In the 1960s there were such places as Riggs House, Cinderella Restaurant, Ivory Castle Drive-In, El-Patio Drive-In, Sidney’s Drive-in, The Silo Restaurant, The Candlewick Inn, Venters Grill, The Space House Restaurant, and Dora’s Tower Grill.
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