Articles in regional publications that pertain to a wide range of North Carolina-related topics.
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for "Pitt County--History"
Record #:
23009
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The author regales us with such tales as the 12 foot moccasin killed near Boyd’s Ferry in 1884 after the Steamboat Wilson ran over it. It had been known in that part of the river for 100 years. In 1942, Capt. John Murphy recalled funny incidents from about 1900 when he ran the Steam Launch Bessie on the Tar River. In 1910, a tornado crossed Dickinson Avenue and struck and destroyed the Tar River Institute, a black theological school. The tornado then struck the Colored Graded School, picking it up, with Principal C. M. Eppes still inside. And finally, the story of a humorously poor circus that arrived in Greenville in 1874.
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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 #:
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 #:
23035
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Kammerer relates an article from 1882 written by Jesse L. Smith (1813-1885) of the people and farms of Beaver Dam Township (now Bell Arthur Township). Jesse L. Smith was a farmer and Pitt County Commissioner, who married three times and had 20 children. According to Smith, in 1826 there were 38 white families in Beaver Dam Township, 24 of which lived in log houses and cabins, 12 in small buildings and only two, Archibald Adams and Benjamin Briley, lived in two-story plastered houses. Smith talks about courting and early amusements and games like “Cotton Picking” and “Selling the Thimble.” Smith relates that in 1882 there were 114 families, 84 white and 60 black, living in Beaver Dam Township, plus several good stores and steam sawmills. Cotton and wheat were the big agricultural products at the time.
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Record #:
23040
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This collection of stories includes the story of a young hero, Waddell Fornes, son of H. C. Fornes, saves a train from a washout. In 1871, a hermit in coon skins was discovered living in the swamps of Contentnea Creek. His name was Edward Brown and he had fled to the swamps to escape being drafted in the Civil War. He still thought the War was going on. In 1939, Wyatt Tucker began a rat killing campaign with his rat terriers, Brownie and Jiggsie. They killed 30 wharf rats in his hog pen. And lasly funny tales of Jimmy L. Harrell, the ECU police chief finding a mule upstairs in Slay Hall and a pig in a Jones dorm.
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Record #:
23043
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Kammerer relates a letter from 1910 written by Robert Williams Smith (1869-1938) about a jug that had been in the Hancock family for 160 years. According to Smith, the story of the jug begins about 1719 when three Hancock brothers settled in Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina. William Hancock settled on Durham’s Creek, Beaufort County and married Bettie Durham. They had a son named Durham Hancock who married and moved to near New Bern. Their son was George Hancock who married and moved to Lenoir County where the site of the town of Grainger is now. George had a son named James Hancock who married and moved to Fork Swamp, Pitt County and raised a large family. The jug then fell into possession of his son Harman Hancock who married and lived near Hancock’s Church. The jug then passed down to his daughter Polly Hancock who was a root doctor and fortune teller. When she died the jug was sold at her estate sale to R. L. Cox for 35 cents. Kammerer gives additions and corrections to the story as found in a published history of the Hancock Family by Jeanette Cox St. Amand.
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Record #:
23347
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Kammerer gives a history of the early years of Pitt County's formation. The present land of Pitt County was created as Bath County in 1696, dividing into Beaufort County in 1712, and formed into Pitt County in 1760. Pitt County was named in honor of William Pitt, the elder, Earl of Chatham, who was then Prime Minister of England.
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8.Odd and Unusual Tales by Kammerer, Roger Greenville Times / Pitt's Past Vol. Issue , Oct 3-17 2007
Record #:
23389
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An 1881 blurb in The New York Times claimed the people in Greenville, N.C. threw their watermelon rinds in the street for the pigs to eat. In 1896, a small girl spent the night at a friend’s house and couldn’t remember how to say her prayers and the friend did not help her. She asked God to “forgive her because she can’t ‘member my prayers, and I am staying with a lady that don’t know any.” In 1895, Dr. Warren told a story about his brother Ollen reciting poetry in his sleep. In March 1901, several boys, Hill Horne, Hassell Daniel and Jim Anderson, got into a knife fight at the well in the yard of Alfred Forbes. John Flanagan reported that there was a crack in the earth across his yard following the Great Charleston Earthquake of 1886. Mr. W.H. Harrington, Pitt County tax collector, continued to conduct business through the jail window while in prison for four months. In April 1890, a toddler was spotted with a cigarette in his mouth. In 1827, a Tarboro newspaper published a humorous calendar with predictions about weather and politics.
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Record #:
23415
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These are excerpts from a book to be published in the future entitled “The Boy With America In His Eyes, and other Strange Tales of North Carolina,” by Tom Painter and Roger Kammerer. These stories include: In 1888, Capt. Lorenzo Willis and crew killed a monster shark in Carteret County, NC,18 feet long, 8 feet across the breast and two tons in weight after a two-hour fight; Six-toed Marines in WWII causes issues; In 1898, many families in Rutherford County gave their children strange names like Zaluski, Quitina Quiltina Quinn, and Linsco; an Indian skeleton in a canoe was found in a marl bed in Pitt County in 1878; in 1954, Mrs. G. S. Thomas of Rocky Mount, NC, the only surviving daughter left in North Carolina of the War of 1812; in 1899, there was evidence of the practice of drawing a witch on a cypress tree and shooting it with silver bullets to remove an evil spell in Sampson County, NC; and a boy with America in the pupils of his eyes from Greene County, NC in 1894.
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Record #:
23457
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The author gives a series of local stories which include the collapse of the drawbridge over the Tar River in Greenville in 1899. Apparently, the accident occurred during a test of the newly repaired and renovated structure. As the span fell, five workers were thrown into the water. Although four of the men were rescued, John Worsley of Rocky Mount was killed in the accident. The Wednesday Afternoon Club was organized by a group of young ladies from Greenville in 1910. Meeting in Miss Helen Forbes's home, the club's purpose was to encourage the ladies' practice of domestic arts, such as cooking. The old beech tree on the corner of Washington and Third Streets in Greenville was cut down in 1908 by the city because it was blocking the sidewalk. The age of the tree was unknown, but it must have been old indeed considering that even the oldest person in town could not remember when it was planted. There was a fight in 1901, between two local boys, Hill Horne and Hassell Daniel, over the water pump in the yard of the Forbes' house in Greenville. Brandishing a small knife, Hassell stabbed Hill in the chest. Luckily for Hill, his breastbone stopped the knife from going very far. Jim Anderson, a friend of the two boys, quickly broke up the fight. M.R. Lang, a Greenville merchant, devised something new for the ladies of the town in 1891. In his store, Lang had a box with a large bell attached to it. When a lady placed a penny into the slot on the top of the box and a handkerchief under the bell, the bell rang and a small amount of perfume was sprayed onto the handkerchief.
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Record #:
23463
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In 1950, Greenville resident Bryce Cummings, as well as his parents Mr. and Mrs. J.B. Cummings, appeared as characters in a work of western fiction, "Gee Whillikins," written by his aunt Mrs. Adda Mae Sharp of Denton, TX. Mrs. Sharp had already written several school textbooks for the Texas school system, but this was her first attempt at fiction. Later, Mrs. Sharp wrote several more works of fiction, including the Woodland Frolic Series. In February 1922, Greenville businessman George W. Hemby announced that he had patented a new type of coffin. This new coffin would have shelves on which to place flowers, a strip on top to place vases on, and would be easier to lower into the ground, as the ropes would unfasten themselves. Hemby also announced that this design was the newest of its kind anywhere in the county. In Belvoir Township in March of 1900, Mr. Jesse James went to the home of Mr. E.S. Lewis in order to marry his daughter. Mr. Lewis objected to the marriage, but James was not deterred, returning that night with his brother Sam to take Miss Lewis by force. When the two James brothers arrived, a gunfight broke out. No one knows who started the fight, but it ended with Mr. Lewis and Jesse James wounded and Sam James dead. One night in 1911, Greenville residents were awakened by three pistol shots. As it turned out, a possum had gotten into the poultry house of the Manning family. Miss Pink Manning had gone outside to investigate and, upon finding the possum, shot it three times; this caused the neighbors to believe that a burglary was in progress. In 1851, an outbreak of small pox was reported in Pitt County. Several residents suffered from the disease including: Mrs. Zilpha Brown, David House, Rev. Lanier Griffin, John Hardy, Oliver Dixon, Benjamin Cory, and Lewis Smith. In September 1858, sightings of the Aurora Borealis, with its brilliant display of colors, were reported in the skies over Eastern North Carolina. It was also reported that it affected the telegraph wires between Greenville and Tarboro. In May 1901, during a terrible hailstorm, it was reported that nearly 18 inches of black hail fell on W. Hartsfield's farm near Ayden, some of it almost 1.5 inches in diameter. Louis Flake came to Greenville with his family in October 1897 to have their pictures taken. While in the studio, the Flake family had nearly 187 pictures taken altogether, 17 pictures of each family member individually and 17 of Mr. and Mrs. Flake together.
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Record #:
23465
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Joe M. Butterworth, a merchant in Bethel in the 1960s, was a WWII navy buddy of President John F. Kennedy. Serving together on \"PT\" boats in the Pacific, Butterworth remembers Kennedy as \"just a fine officer and a fine all round fellow.\" Following the war, Butterworth and Kennedy kept in touch and Butterworth greeted the presidential hopeful when he visited Greenville in 1960.\r\nIn 1891, a trophy was created for the 1890 Baseball Club of Greenville to commemorate their previous season's play. The trophy, constructed by Robert Humber, was made up of a tripod of miniature baseball bats with a game - winning ball suspended beneath it. Mollie Rouse painted each of the players' names on the ball. To this day no one knows what became of the trophy.\r\nIn 1887, the Pitt County jail saw a unique business proposition come its way in the form of horse - trading. An inmate in the jail traded his horse, in the custody of the prison, for the horse of an interested party on the outside.\r\nIn 1903, the local newspaper in Greenville contained an editorial that commented on the lack of manners among the youth of the town. The unknown author, after mentioning several observations as to how Greenville's youth incorrectly acted towards one another, stated that \"we would like to see the present generation of 18 and 20 year olds acquire some of the gentility, grace and dignity of other days.\"\r\n
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Record #:
23470
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Opened in 1924, the Pitt Drug Company was owned by W.H. Norris, a prominent Greenville citizen and member of the Board of Aldermen. The Wayside Tea Room and Gift Shop was opened in Greenville in 1922 by Mrs. Travis Hooker at what is now the intersection of Dickinson and Memorial. Established near Greenville by Drs. O.J. Allen and Charles Laughinghouse, the Blount's Dairy received its name in 1927 when it was purchased by Marvin O. Blount and Sons of Bethel. The Kelvinator Company was located in Greenville in the 1930s. Dealing with electrical refrigeration and "Philco" radios, the company was led by E.G. Flanagan. J.G. "Scrappy" Proctor was a major player in the Greenville men's clothing business. He was associated with W.L. Nesbit in 1939, Curtis Perkins in 1946 and opened his own store, Proctor Limited, in 1964. Wilbur Hardee started the Port Terminal Inn in 1948. Located on the old Washington Highway, it was the home of "Hardee's Barbeque." The Independent Market, located on Dickinson Avenue, was in business from 1931 to 1958. Operated by Charles J. Cannon, the interesting thing about the store is that it never sold any tobacco or alcohol. Mr. J.D. Parker and his wife opened the New Pirra Restaurant and Oyster Bar in August 1954. The restaurant was a replacement for an older one of the same name, which had been destroyed by fire. In the 1950s the Greenville Golf Range and Miniature Golf Course was located on Memorial Drive. It was operated by Simon Moye and Charlie Bill Moye and was completely re-modeled in 1965.
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Record #:
23478
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Local stories told from the past include a Dokie Ceremony held in May 1923 in Ayden and an effort to recruit Babe Ruth to be the manager of the Greenville baseball club. Other gleanings from the past are the cleanest man and the sleepiest man to hold office; the invention of a \"Spectro - speedometer\" by D.A. Windham of Greenville; a lost diamond found in a chicken gizzard, and the difference in telephone rates in area towns.
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Record #:
23479
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Tales the author relates include the runaway marriage of Mr. Burton G. Albritton and Miss Bessie Keel in 1903. Bessie went through several travails to escape from her father who was against the match. In 1892, a young lady asked a local clerk if he had any “subdued mouse color?” and he “No, but we have some enraged rat color.” In 1909, a license of $25 was needed to sell “near beer.” In 1912 a tragic story occurred on the Pitt/Craven line in which Mrs. George Adams lost three of her young children in a few minutes to fire and snakebites. In 1900 there was the mysterious poisoning of Mrs. W.H. Mizelle; and lastly, the fatal accident at the McLohorn and Baldree steam mill of Pitt County.in 1881, which killed Allen Kittrell and injured Mr. McLohorn and Mr. Baldree.
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