Two schools, both chartered in 1787, have historical markers that underscore their longevity and importance to their respective counties. The Warrenton Male Academy – more recently known as John Graham High School and then John Graham Middle School – had a local Who’s Who on its board of trustees when it was first started.
And Louisburg College, which got its start as separate academies for males and females, is the oldest church-related coeducational two-year school in the nation.
Local historian and Thornton Library’s North Carolina Room Specialist Mark Pace joined WIZS’s Bill Harris Thursday to wrap up an Around Old Granville series about historical markers that dot the countryside in Vance, Granville, Warren and Franklin counties.
There are 57 across the area, which Pace said shows just how significant the people, events and places are to the state, the nation and to the world.
Take Nathaniel Macon, whose marker is in Warren County. His family came here in the mid-1700’s, and Macon became the Speaker of the U.S. House. If you remember your Civics lesson about the legislative and executive branches of government, you will know that the Speaker of the House is second in line to be president, after the vice president, Pace explained.
But Macon was an austere sort and Pace said the only thing Macon felt the government should do was “provide for the common defense and maybe the post office – anything else was intrusive government.”
He left strict instructions that his grave would have no tombstone – too flashy. Anyone with occasion to pass by his grave was asked to simply toss a rock on it, Pace said.
“There’s a big, giant pile of rocks on his grave,” Pace said.
John H. Kerr served 30 years in the U.S. Congress. He also was a long-time mayor of Warrenton, but it was his efforts in the U.S. Congress that got his name on the new lake that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed in the mid-1950’s.
John A. Hyman was the first African American to represent North Carolina in Congress. Born into slavery in Warren County, he was moved to Alabama but returned home after the Civil War ended. He served one term and when he came back to North Carolina, he was a delegate to the second state Freedman’s Convention and later served several terms in the State Senate.
Franklin County has fewer markers than the other three counties that originally were part of Old Granville, only seven to date.
One is Green Hill Place, the site of the first Methodist Episcopal church conference in the state, way back in 1785.
John Williamson, a former enslaved person, became a state legislator and then a well-known newspaper publisher. He established his newspaper, The Banner, when he was appointed to the state’s Industrial Commission as a way to promote educational and industrial topics related to his new role.
Moses Hopkins was the first African American to graduate from the Presbyterian Auburn Seminary in New York. After he graduated in 1877, he moved to Franklinton and established Albion Academy in 1879. He was appointed U.S. ambassador to Liberia in 1885 and he died there in 1886.
Then there’s Thomas Bickett, the only governor of the state to hail from Franklin County. Bickett was the state’s attorney general and served in the State House. He was governor from 1917-1921.
He died young, the same year he left the governor’s office.
Another Franklin County man with a promising future in literature was Edwin Wiley Fuller. He died of consumption – later known as tuberculosis – at age 28. He was author of Sea-Gift and Angel in the Cloud.
Pace said Fuller wrote an account of a plantation burning in one of his works. Margaret Mitchell was reportedly a fan of Fuller’s writing, and Pace speculates that the scene of Tara burning in her book, Gone With the Wind, may have been inspired by Fuller.
Fuller also wrote a fanciful tale about a fellow who went around the neighborhood telling tall tales that people fall for, Pace said, that another fan – none other than Mark Twain – may have used to base his famous story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.
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