Tag Archive for: #aroundoldgranville

TownTalk: Around Old Granville: Granville Street Library Gets Historical Marker

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The Granville Street Library got its own historical marker last week, distinguishing the 40-foot-by-25 foot building as the first library for African Americans. There were about 100 guests in attendance for the unveiling, performed by the library’s second librarian, Helen Amis.

Amis, now 93, took over from Maude Lassiter, who was the first person to hold the librarian’s position when the doors opened in 1942.

“She kind of made Granville Street the center of the African American community – and really Granville County,” said Mark Pace about Lassiter.

Not only is Pace the North Carolina Room specialist at Thornton Library, he also is president of the Granville County Historical Society. He spoke with WIZS’s Bill Harris on Thursday’s regular history segment of TownTalk about the significance of the library and more.

Pace said Granville County was ahead of its time regarding the library system. “It was the first library to get county funding when it was established in 1936,” he said. Shortly thereafter, a group of prominent African American citizens pushed for a library to serve the Black community. And in 1941, Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration approved $2,200 to build the library.

The city of Oxford donated the land on Granville Street and the building went up. Pace said the building has not undergone any alterations since it opened in 1942.

First Baptist Church owns the property, and has plans to restore it, Pace said.

According to Pace, the library is the third oldest building still standing that once was owned by the county.

Once the library opened, Lassiter – from the Oak Hill community in northern Granville County – got to work to get books. By 1950, there were about 23,000 volumes. A few years later, a bookmobile was taking books to patrons out in the county. The little library averaged 3,000 borrowers a year.

Lassiter got Howard University President Mordecai Johnson to visit the library, as well as historian John Hope Franklin and poet Langston Hughes, Pace said.

“Hughes stayed at Ms. Lassiter’s house and gave readings at the library,” he said, “and at Shaw High School out at Stovall.”

By the time the Civil Rights movement was gaining momentum in 1965, the current Thornton Library in Oxford was ready to open and county officials decided to integrate the library system. The Granville Street Library remained open, but saw fewer patrons. It closed in 1975.

Placement of the marker was a joint effort of the county library system and First Baptist Church, with fund paid from donations made to the North Carolina Room.

“I was just really amazed” at the attendance for the unveiling ceremony, Pace said. “I’m pleased that that many people care.”

 

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville: ‘Angel Of Mercy’ Aunt Abby House

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During the Civil War, Clara Barton was a nurse who tended to wounded soldiers in hospitals. But Franklin County lays claim to another “angel of mercy” who, during that same time, tended to soldiers on the battlefield.

Abby House, known around Old Granville as Aunt Abby House, was born around 1796, and local historian Mark Pace shared some interesting stories about her on Thursday’s tri-weekly TownTalk history segment. House died in 1881 and is buried in her native Franklin County.

House may not be as famous as Barton, who is best known for being the founder of the American Red Cross, but Pace said she’s a good example of a local version.

“She never got married and she was poor, but she made a difference,” Pace told WIZS co-host Bill Harris.

She had no formal education, he said, but she provided what she could to those who needed help, whether it was bringing a dipper of water to a thirsty soldier or blankets from family back home to keep troops warm. Her heart for serving soldiers could have come about because of a personal experience.

During the War of 1812, House learned that her beau, who’d been called into service, was ill in Norfolk. House, who was a teenager at the time, set off to go see him.

“As no other transportation was available, she set off on foot,” Pace said. It’s 180 miles from Franklin County to Norfolk.

Upon her arrival, she learned that not only had he died, but he had been buried the day before. “She turned around and came back,” Pace said.

This sad chapter of House’s life helped chart the course for her future.

By the time the Civil War was underway, a much older House took it upon herself to help, sometimes by “bringing food and supplies and gifts from home to individual soldiers from their families,” Pace said.

Her stern, no-nonsense demeanor, a “feisty” attitude and walking cane combined to “convince” train conductors to allow her to travel at no cost; “they let her go and come as she pleased,” Pace noted.

One of the places she traveled to was Petersburg, reportedly to look after her nephews, two of whom died in the war and five of whom survived.

She was basically destitute by the end of the war, but her good deeds during wartime paid off. A group of former Confederate soldiers, along with other high-ranking political figures in the state, took up a collection and arranged to set her up in a small home on the outskirts of Raleigh near the former fairgrounds.

Gov. Zebulon Vance was one of those politicians. He visited her often, and Pace said there’s a story that goes something like this: In 1872, during Gov. Vance’s second term, he stopped by to visit House. According to his carriage driver, Vance went inside and shortly thereafter, was seen around back, hauling buckets of water into the house.

“She pretty much put him to work,” Pace mused – he may have been governor, but House had a job for him to do and, by golly, he did as she instructed.

In 1876, House attended the state Democratic convention in Raleigh. “She was somewhat involved in politics, which was unheard of at the time,” Pace said.

Paul Cameron, the owner of Stagville Plantation – which made him the largest landowner and largest slaveholder in the state – bid her come sit with him in the crowded space. Among the business that took place during that convention was to nominate Vance as the Democrats’ favorite for a third term as governor.

There was nobody from Clay County, located in the western part of the state, in attendance, and it was decided that House be allowed to cast that county’s vote.

“That is the first recorded incident of a woman casting a vote in North Carolina,” Pace said.

 

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville: More On The Hawkins Family

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If the Hawkins family genealogy were a road map, there would be featured destinations at almost every turn. The descendants of Philemon Hawkins played key roles across the state from governors to railroads, not to mention a couple of Texas cattle barons and the wife of none other than Nat King Cole.

The patriarch arrived in Virginia with his wife from their native England in the early 1700’s and he died there in 1725. One of his sons, also named Philemon, had a son – Philemon III.

This Hawkins had three sons who married daughters from a prominent family in Boydton, VA, explained local historian Mark Pace on Thursday’s Around Old Granville segment of TownTalk.

John Davis Hawkins established what would become the Raleigh to Gaston Railroad. Older brother William was elected governor of North Carolina in 1810 and their brother Joseph established the first medical school in the state – right out of his home in Middleburg, Pace said.

“The Hawkins family is wealthy and talented,” Pace said. “Each generation, no matter what they do, they’re successful.”

In 1836, John Davis Hawkins figured $750,000 would be enough to construct the Raleigh to Gaston rail that would ultimately tie in to the main line to Richmond and beyond; he underestimated by half, and the state of North Carolina came to the rescue.

“They ran out of money…they went bankrupt,” Pace recounted. “The only entity that had the money was the state of North Carolina.”

Eventually, the Hawkins family purchased the railroad back from the state and the rest is history.

The railroad “changed the world here,” Pace said. “It brought the outside world here to this part of North Carolina.” The rail allowed local tobacco farmers to send their leaf to the larger markets in Virginia.

Truly, towns popped all along the rails, including Henderson, Norlina and Kittrell.

But John Davis Hawkins also fathered children of enslaved women. One daughter, Rebecca, was raised by her spinster aunt – Hawkins’s sister – who made sure she received a good education and was well equipped in the arena of polite society.

One of Rebecca’s granddaughters, Charlotte, established the Palmer Memorial Institute, a boarding school for Black children near Greensboro in the early 1900s. Charlotte Hawkins Brown had a niece named Maria, Pace said.

And this is where the famous Nat King Cole intersects with the Hawkins family. Maria, grew up to be a jazz singer and caught the ear – and eye – of the famous crooner.

“Maria had a successful musical career,” Pace said. And Maria became Cole’s second wife in what was widely considered “the social event of the year in Harlem” on Easter Sunday in 1948.

John Davis Hawkins also had two sons who moved to Texas and went into the sugar cane business on a little piece of land – 52,000 acres – south of Corpus Christi.

When the Civil War ended and enslaved people were emancipated, the two brothers cut a deal with the state of Texas to basically have a prison farm. Prisoners would get room and board in exchange for their labor.

When the sugar cane business tanked, the brothers switched to cattle, operating the second largest ranch in Texas.

And then, luck struck again in 1901. That’s right, the brothers struck oil. The old Hawkins house still stands there in Hawkinsville, TX, looking for the world that it was plucked right out of Old Granville County and plopped onto a little tract of land in south Texas.

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville: The Legacy Of The Hawkins Family

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If everyone who was born and raised in the Henderson area took a deep dive into their ancestry, how far back would they have to go to find out that they were related to the Hawkins family?

Even if your last name isn’t Hawkins, local historian Mark Pace said he predicts that up to 20 percent of folks whose families are from Vance County can trace their roots to  Philemon Hawkins.

Pace and WIZS co-host Bill Harris discussed some of the notable figures who descended from Hawkins, who was born in England in 1690.

Between 1778 and 1848 there was a member of the Hawkins family in state government, Pace said.

“They were the family that developed the railroad that fundamentally changed the area,” he said on Thursday’s Around Old Granville segment of TownTalk.

What the Kennedys and Fitzgeralds were to Boston and DuPont to Delaware, the Hawkins family was to this area, Pace said.

Hawkins and his wife first settled in Gloucester County, VA, then in 1735 he moved his family and second wife (his first wife died) to what is now Warren County, NC. With him he brought two millstones and not much else and set up a grist mill in what had to be considered the frontier.

Anyone looking into the history of the area should really take a close look at this family, Pace said. “You’ll go far…by studying the Hawkins family,” whose wealth and influence was unsurpassed at the time.

By the time Bute County was founded in 1763, Hawkins had amassed more than 7,000 acres of land and had more than 100 slaves. Bute County was formed from old Granville County, and in 1779 split again into what are now Warren and Franklin counties.

Hawkins had four sons, who were influential in their own right. One was Benjamin Hawkins, who was the first senator from North Carolina. He went to Princeton and later worked on the staff of Gen. George Washington. He spoke French, and was an interpreter when Washington sought the help of Lafayette and Rochambeau in the Revolutionary War.

One of Hawkins’s grandsons, Philemon Hawkins III was born in 1752. He married Lucy Davis and they lived at Pleasant Hill in Middleburg. Today it’s called Rivenoak and it still stands as one of the best examples of antebellum architecture in the area.

In 1829, Hawkins and wife held a big family reunion, to which more than 131 direct descendants attended.

Hawkins died in 1833 and is buried at Rivenoak.

But this Hawkins also had several children who were successful in life. His three sons – John Davis Hawkins, future NC governor William and Dr. Joseph Warren Hawkins – married sisters, daughters of Alexander Boyd, who founded Boydton, VA.

“It was a real power marriage,” Pace said.

Besides the future governor, Joseph reportedly established the first medical school in North Carolina and John Davis (1781 – 1853) “was a mover and shaker of the second railroad in North Carolina,” Pace said.

But it was their sister who got the train out of the station, as it were. She had married into the Polk family of Raleigh and had the idea to build a wooden track from a stone quarry in this area all the way to Raleigh, where workers were busy rebuilding the State Capitol, which had burned in June 1831.

Her brother John Davis took that idea and, with $750,000 of his own money, set about bringing the railroad to the area.

The towns of Littleton, Henderson, Kittrell, Youngsville and Franklinton have this member of the Hawkins family to thank, Pace said, because “none existed before the railroad.”

 

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville

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The name Blacknall may be a familiar name in the area – there’s Blacknall Cemetery in Henderson, a historic home in Durham called Blacknall House and another cemetery in Kittrell. These are all vestiges of a once-prominent family whose members have played a role throughout the history of what is now Vance, Franklin and Warren counties.

WIZS’s Bill Harris and North Carolina Room Specialist Mark Pace took a look Thursday at the Blacknall family history, filled with some triumphs but rife with tragedy as well.

“They were very well read, very literate people,” Pace said, adding that in those days, such prominent families felt “a certain moral and civic duty to make the world a better place – they were soldiers and writers, movers and shakers in the community.”

There was Col. Charles Blackwell, who raised a regiment in Franklin County to fight in the Civil War. He died in 1864 after being wounded in the battle at Winchester, VA.

He was captured not once, but twice, during his military service, Pace said. He was part of a prisoner exchange deal after being taken to the Old Capitol prison near Washington.

One of Col. Blacknall’s children was Oscar William Blacknall, who was born in Kittrell, apparently under a dark cloud.

His success as a businessman allowed him to pursue literary interests and more, Pace noted.

In 1888 he established Continental Plant Company, a nursery business known especially for strawberries.

But Oscar may be best remembered for the Kittrell Hotel, Pace said. It was the first summer resort in North Carolina, established in 1858. If stayed in business throughout the Civil War, closing in 1873.

It catered to Southerners, who came to enjoy the hotel’s amenities – including a ballroom, billiard room, bowling alley and, of course, the water from Kittrell Springs.

During the Civil War, the hotel was used as a hospital. The Confederate soldiers buried in Kittrell died at Kittrell Hotel.

Blacknall’s wife was also his double first cousin – he married his uncle’s daughter. Of their seven children, one died as an infant, two committed suicide, the oldest died of tuberculosis and daughter Kate died at Blacknall’s own hand.

Seems he got up from the midday meal on Saturday, July 6, 1918, shot his wife first, then took aim at his 24-year-old daughter before taking his own life.

Thomas Blacknall was from another branch of the Blacknall family. He owned a slave, also named Thomas, who became the patriarch of the African American branch of Blacknalls. The white Blacknall held in such high regard the Black Blacknall that he allowed him to sell his wares (he was a blacksmith and bellmaker), allowing him to eventually buy his and his children’s freedom.

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville: History Of Brookston, Greystone And Chalk Level

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If you’ve ever wondered about those two small rock buildings that you see when you’re driving out Warrenton Road on the way to Brookston, North Carolina Room Specialist Mark Pace may have some information that will help.

In the late 1800’s when John Wesley Pegram was going gangbusters as a stone mason, the area where those two one-room structures currently sit were situated on the main North-South route – predating even U.S. Hwy 1.

And Pegram constructed those two buildings as advertising for his considerable abilities, Pace said on Thursday’s TownTalk segment of Around Old Granville.

Anyone who wants to see the “crowning achievement” need look no further than the Methodist Church in downtown Henderson.

Pegram lived in the Brookston community and plied his trade in the late 1800’s. In fact, Pace said, he had his own private quarry nearby. But his quarry wasn’t the only one in the area of Brookston, Chalk Level and Greystone.

There’s been a quarry in operation at Greystone for close to 200 years, and although it’s changed ownership over the years, Greystone may be one of the oldest businesses in the area.

It makes sense that the Greystone quarry has been around since the 1830’s, Pace noted, because that’s about the same time that the Raleigh & Gaston Railroad was being constructed. And just think of all the gravel that goes into making up a rail bed.

There’s a string of quarries along the “Ridge Way,” the flat area that wends its way along the general route of U.S. 1 where railroad planners laid tracks. There’s a quarry in Wake Forest, another in Kittrell, then there’s Greystone and also one at Wise, Pace noted.

Folks in the Greystone, Brookston and Chalk Level communities had high hopes that their sleepy little area would prosper once the railroad came through.

And it almost happened.

Until a wealthy landowner named Lewis Reavis, who owned property near where the old courthouse and former library sit downtown, lured the railroad to Henderson in the mid-1830’s by offering rights-of-way and property on which to build a depot.

It made all the difference. Henderson became incorporated just a few years later, in 1841, and Chalk Level died off.

But the Chalk Level area of what is now Vance County has one of the highest elevations in the area – some 500 feet above sea level – and that’s why a fire tower is located there, as well as a signal tower for the former WHNC radio station.

Just down the road from Chalk Level is Brookston Baptist Church, which Pace said is the oldest African American church around. Founded by the Hayes, Hawkins and Bing families, it could have been established as early as 1858, he said. “But I know it was there by the 1870’s.”

Also nearby is Carver Elementary School, was built in 1954 – the same year as the U.S. Supreme Court ended racial segregation with its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

The main speaker at the dedication of the school was Shiloh Church’s pastor, the Rev. John R. Dungee, who is an ancestor of Tony Dungee, the former pro football coach-turned analyst.

First Lady Barbara Bush visited Carver in 1990, when the school hosted a program that offered teen mothers a chance to earn their high school equivalency diplomas while their children attended school.

 

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville: The History Of Area Newspapers

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It wasn’t that long ago that people had to wait until the local daily or weekly hit the front stoop, sidewalk or mailbox to get the latest news and information. In today’s world of breaking news reports and computers that, with a few keystrokes, pull up news from across the globe, the physical newspaper has really taken a hit.

There have been dozens and dozens of newspapers published across the Old Granville area over the years, and Thornton Library’s North Carolina Room Specialist Mark Pace talked about some of them with WIZS’s Bill Harris on the Around Old Granville segment of TownTalk.

A number of print newspapers continue to provide local news and community journalism for their coverage areas, including The Dispatch in Henderson, the Oxford Public Ledger, Butner-Creedmoor News, Warren Record and Franklin Times.

But do you know about the Gold Leaf, a newspaper printed in Henderson by Thad Manning?

“He really kind of changed newspapers in this area,” Pace said of Manning, who came from Halifax County, NC in 1881 and began the weekly newspaper.

Until then, newspaper publishers were more “fly by night” operations, bringing in printing presses on the back of trucks and setting up shop in storefronts in small towns.

During World War I, there was such a demand for news that Manning started a weekly paper in 1914 called the Dispatch. It later became a daily, was owned and operated for decades by three generations of the Dennis family, and it currently publishes three times a week under its original name, The Dispatch.

Henderson had another publication called the Henderson Semi-Weekly Index, which Pace noted became popular enough to be replaced by the Weekly Index. Not surprisingly, issues of that publication have not been located for the years 1861-1865, because of the chaos brought by the Civil War and the scarcity of newsprint.

Much like today’s wire services – think Associated Press and Reuters – newspapers shared copies among themselves and published stories that would be attributed to the original source. Pace said that’s how researchers can piece together information about long-gone newspapers. The credit line “taken from Gillburg News,” for example, confirms the existence despite the fact that no physical copy of the Gillburg News exists, Pace explained.

The newspapers of yore contained information that today may seem insignificant or trivial – visiting relatives and a story about someone’s unusually large potato won’t be seen in today’s newspapers. But Pace said it can really help piece together what a community looked like at the time and it can help genealogists with their research, too.

Pace implores anyone with old newspapers – or other printed information that may seem obsolete – to bring it to the library before hauling it to the landfill so he can take a look. There just may be something of interest there.

Two good resources for finding microfilm or copies of old newspapers are https://www.newspapers.com/ and the NC Digital Heritage Center at https://www.digitalnc.org/

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville: NC Author Writes About The Revolution

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Author James Becker discusses his recent book “Secrets of the American Revolution”.

 

The Local Skinny! Around Old Granville with Mark Pace

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Watch out, Oxford. Your tiny neighbor to the south is gaining on you. It will only take a couple of hundred more people to stake the claim of being the largest town in Granville County.

That, according to local historian Mark Pace, who talked with WIZS’s Bill Harris for the “Around Old Granville” segment of The Local Skinny! Monday.

Butner’s growth today, however, pales in comparison to the early to mid-1940’s when the U.S. government built Camp Butner as it was gearing up for World War II.

Pace said William B. Umstead and his brother John were instrumental in getting the federal government to locate Camp Butner in the southwest corner of the county, close to a big city (Durham), but not “too” close, Pace said.

Construction began in February 1942, on more than 4,000 acres of mostly farmland, much of which had been owned and worked by families for 200 years or more.

“It was amazing how quickly it was built,” Pace said. Within five months, there were numerous structures, including an armory, sports building and a water tower, all of which are standing today.

“They had 15,000 people working 24-7 to build that camp,” Pace said. And because it was a federal project, the state’s segregation laws were superseded by federal jurisdiction, which meant that for the first time, African Americans were hired the same as their White counterparts, he added.

Camp Butner was home for thousands of workers, civilian and military, but also for more than 4,000 German and Italian prisoners of war.

“So many farm people had been called up to serve, POWs would go and work farms,” Pace said. “And they’d get paid a little bit, too.”

After the war ended, much of the property reverted back to the landowners, but the footprint of Camp Butner became what is now considered the town of Butner. But until it was incorporated in 2007, the town was run by the state of North Carolina.

“Go to the town hall,” Pace said. “There’s a marvelous museum in the lobby” chronicling the creation of the town that once was known as Camp Butner.

 

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