Articles in regional publications that pertain to a wide range of North Carolina-related topics.
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for "Greenville Times / Pitt's Past"
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23704
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The Madstone or “Bezoar Stone” was once believed to be the most highly prized piece of medicine anyone could possess. These stones were used to treat snakebites, rabies and lock jaw and were passed down in families for generations. Dr. R. G. Cobb of Kinston, NC owned a madstone passed down in his family. There were other popular remedies long ago that included “Asafetida bags,” also called “Devil’s Dung,” stinky bags put around the necks of children to keep flu, disease and evil spirits away. There was “Father John’s,” that tasted like licorice and cod-liver oil. There was “Terpine Hydrate Cough Expectorate,” that contained codeine that would knock out kids for 14 hours. There were parents who believed in Musterrol, Vicks salve, and Castoria, a castor oil substitute.
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Record #:
23705
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Greenville needed a fire department for many years before 1884, when their leader, Captain S. O. Mason, organized the first company, the Rough and Ready Fire Company. This group of men consisted of forty black volunteers carrying their own buckets. In 1896, the Hope Fire Company was founded. The Greenville Fire Company followed this company in 1902. A united fire company did not occur until A. J. Griffin took over the Hope Fire Company in 1902. After this time, the Hope Fire Company and the Greenville Fire Company united. A. J. Griffin was the first of many fire chiefs of a united fire company in Greenville. There have been various fire alarms over the years.
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23706
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Big guns have always been a part of Greenville’s history. The “Brickle Cannon,” located on the Town Common, was manufactured between 1760-70 and was used on board a trading vessel about 1797 for defense against the French during the troubled administration of John Adams. The cannon was used for many years during political campaigns, was thrown in the river, buried innumerable times, drug to Greene Mill Run, and sat at the base of the Confederate monument in Cherry Hill Cemetery. The next big gum was a large artillery piece from WWI which sat in front of the County Court House and then moved to ECTTC in 1926. The large howitzer sat beside the Wilson Pergola in front of what is now Garrett Dorm until 1942 when it was sold for scrap. In 1966, ECU rolled out its spirit cannon and in 1971 a 80 pd. “WWI machine gun” was discovered underneath Fleming Hall. During the Cold War the Greenville National Guard had a 105 Howitzer and in 1963 possessed an “Atomic Cannon,” which took 16 men to operate.
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Record #:
23707
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During the golden age of barbershops from the 1880s to the 1940s, the nicer barbershops tried to dazzle their patrons with luxury like mug cabinets, marble counters, carved barber chairs, artwork and mirrors. Later they stressed cleanliness and being modern with chrome, glass and porcelain. The earliest known barber in 1850 was a black man named Nathan Brinson. Before 1900 the most popular barbers in Greenville were three black men: Henry Edmonds, his son Herbert Edmonds, and Alfred Cully. Other early barbers included: James A. Smith, Robert G. Hodges, Ben Willoughby, John P. Norcott, Edmond Tillery, Alex B. Pender, Henry Moye, Julius Fleming and Jimmy Hopkins. Alfred Culley invented and marketed Culley's Preparation, the best known cure for baldness.
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Record #:
23708
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What is now the Farmville area was once dotted with small communities such as “Grimmersburg,” “Maysville,“ and “Joyner’s Crossroads.” In 1850, the Greenville, Wilson and Raleigh Plank Road was built through the community known as “Joynerville,” and a new place developed known as “Marlboro.” A post office was established as “Marlboro” on Sept. 27, 1853 with James Joyner as postmaster. The “Marlboro Guards” were the third company of volunteer troops raised in Pitt County in 1861. In 1874, Marlboro consisted of two dry goods stores, a drug store, a grocery store and bar, a carriage factory and various workshops. Marlboro was incorporated on Feb. 16, 1875, but Farmville eventually spread to take over Marlboro into its corporate limits.
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Record #:
23709
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In 1940, M. O. Minges, the head of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company, gave $5,000 to the City of Greenville to build a Fire Drill Tower for use of the Fire Department. The six- story Fire Drill Tower was built in 1942 on Chestnut Street near West Greenville School. The Fire Drill Tower was not only used by local firemen, but by other departments in eastern North Carolina and the Civil Defense auxiliary firemen. Fire Drill Tower was dedicated on April 13, 1943.
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Record #:
23710
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The Greenville Bus Station sits on Fifth Street, closed, neglected and bereft. Few realize that this building is the only extant example of the late 1930’s style of architecture known as “Streamline” or “Art-Moderne” in downtown Greenville. By 1935, the Carolina Coach Company and other lines had several buses a day coming through Greenville. The bus station then was at Pleasant’s College Store, the corner of Fifth and Reade Streets. By 1940, Dr. William I. Wooten (1893-1943) proposed to build a bus station on his property at the corner of Greene and Fifth Streets. After many delays, Wooten built the bus station and it opened in April 1942. It was hoped the building would be restored back to its original glory and become a landmark among Greenville’s treasured architectural legacy.
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Record #:
23711
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After the Civil War, Greenville appears to have been governed by a mayor and city council. In 1883 the General Assembly ratified an amendment to the Greenville Town Charter that the town be governed by a mayor and six city councilmen (or aldermen) made up of representatives elected from each ward in town. The mayor was elected from outside the city council and to serve one year. These elections were always politically based and there has always been some contention in the City Council race. Kammerer provides an incomplete list of Mayors from 1869 to 2011.
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Record #:
23691
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Started in 1948 by fire-chief George Gardner, he started a public campaign to raise donations from individuals and area businesses for $4,500 worth of equipment. With this money he purchased a 1948 panel truck, iron lung, a hospital type oxygen tent and small tools. The rescue Squad was operated by the Fire Department and by donations only. As the calls grew, in 1955 the Junior Jaycees and Fire Department sponsored the formation of a Volunteer Rescue Squad composed of four firemen and 10 volunteers. In 1959, a Rescue Squad annex was dedicated beside the central Fire Station and was showered with gifts of equipment by area businesses. The Greenville Rescue Squad was recognized as the best in the State and was one of the best on the eastern seaboard.
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Record #:
23692
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Billy Taylor, a Pitt County native, was a jazz pianist and composer who became one of the music form’s most ardent advocates through radio, television and the landmark Jazzmobile arts venture. William E. (Billy) Taylor, Jr. died Dec. 28, 2010 in New York City. He was born July 24, 1921 in Greenville, NC, the son of William E. Taylor, a dentist, and Antoinette Bacon, a school teacher. Billy Taylor, Jr. spent his early childhood in the Ayden-Grifton area before his parents moved to Washington, DC. He performed with all the jazz greats in the 1940’s and 50’s and had the “Billy Taylor Trio.” In 1958, Taylor was named artistic director for NBC’s “The Subject Is Jazz,“ the first network TV series devoted to the genre. He worked as a disc jockey in New York and created the “Jazzmobile,” a traveling stage for free summer concerts in New York City. Taylor went on to host television and NPR radio shows. From 1994 until his death, Dr. Taylor held the position of artistic advisor on jazz for the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. In later years Dr. Taylor worked as a music professor at ECU and in 2002 gave his name to ECU’s long-running jazz festival.
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Record #:
23693
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People remember Gabriel Heater, the renowned radio broadcaster, who died in 1972, for being the voice of WWII. In WWII, Greenville had only one radio station, WGTC (World’s Greatest Tobacco Country) and it was Heater’s voice that brought people in the Greenville community through the war. There were blackout laws, rationing. In June 1942 the local gas ration was four gallons a week. There were WPA gardens, air raid drills, and airplane observation posts. Greenville was “liberty town” for thousands of Marines, sailors and soldiers who were stationed at the numerous bases in eastern North Carolina. There were so many men in town on weekends and they would stay at the Vines House (called Buckingham Palace) run by Mrs. John Horne on the corner of Fifth and Pitt Streets. It would have every room and floor space covered in sleeping bodies. There was also a Marine Corps Air Base stationed at the Greenville airport and their barracks were on the site of J. H. Rose High School on Elm Street. One of these pilots, Frank Lang, flew his dive bomber under the Greene Street Bridge in 1943
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Record #:
23694
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A tributary of the Neuse River, Contentnea Creek, called “Moccasin River,” divided Pitt and Greene Counties and the branch called Little Contentnea wanders through western Pitt County. It was Cicero M. A. Griffin (1828-1892) a merchant and mill man from Grifton, NC, who placed the first steamboat flat on the Contentnea Creek. The first steamboat was named “Contentnea.” Other steamboats on the Contentnea included the “Snow Hill,” “Robert E. Lee,” “Phillips,’ “Carolina,” “Blanche,” “Kinston,” “L. A. Cobb,” “Howard,” “Laura,” “Uncle Sam,” “Nellie W.,” “Pearlie May,” and “May Bell.”
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Record #:
23695
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The remarkable three-story Montgomery-Ward-Belk Tyler building is located on Fifth Street and once held some of the most prestigious chain stores to ever come to Greenville. This unique building had the only polychrome terra cotta façade erected in Greenville. The first buildings on the site were livery stables owned by Glascow Evans and George King. In 1902, W. E. Hooker built a three story brick stable on the site. In 1928, Hooker tore down the stables and built the tall four-story building for the Montgomery-Ward Company. They opened on Aug. 31, 1929 with 80 clerks and 11,000 patrons. Montgomery-Ward closed in 1932 and then Quinn-Miller moved into the store building. Belk Tyler then leased the building and opened on Aug. 25, 1938 with 143 salespeople. Belk Tyler remained in this store until 1979, when it moved to Carolina East Mall. The building changed hands. In 1984, Don Edwards moved his bookstore, The Book Barn, into the building. The Book Barn closed in 1985. The building was renovated and was readapted for apartments and restaurant space. The first restaurant was Granddaddy Rosser’s; then Paul Gianino opened 5th Street Pasta Works; followed by Fillabuster’s and in 1994 by BW III’s; and in 2008 by The Armadillo Grill.
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Record #:
23696
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The old Great Swamp Primitive Baptist Church, at the northeast corner of Forbes and Tenth Streets, flew prey to the wrecking ball in May 2011 as a part of East Carolina University's future expansion. The church building was built in 1922 and anchored the once thriving neighborhood that surrounded Forbes Street. The Great Swamp Primitive Baptist Church was originally formed in 1795 about four miles north of the river at House Station. In 1921, Great Swamp Primitive Baptist Church congregation decided to move to Greenville and built their new church building on the corner of Forbes and Tenth Streets. The congregation ended in 1980 and from the 1990’s to after 2005 the church building was used by the Full Gospel Christian Church. When ECU took down the church building, the beautiful stained glass windows were put into storage.
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Record #:
23697
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In 1926 information came to light about John Henry Powell, a Pitt County native, sailor, soldier, railroader and adventurer who was a soldier for Queen Victoria in India. Powell was from Bell’s Ferry (Grifton) and ran away from home and worked on American and British ships for many years. He had many unique and frightening stories. Powell ended his globe-trotting in India following a mutiny aboard a British ship in the Indian Ocean. He joined the British Army in Calcutta and fought in several campaigns in the Himalayas and western Pakistan. He then worked as a railway engineer on lines across India. Powell then returned to North Carolina for a visit in July 1927 and went to Hopewell, VA to see his elderly mother and brother who were still alive. Powell was planning to move back to North Carolina from India with his children.
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