The Life and Times of
F. M. Wilkinson

And

Memories By George !

The Good Ole Days!

Much of the information recorded here was experienced by Francis M. Wilkinson and/or his family as they were growing up. Almost every thing that was done on the farm up through the first quarter of the twentieth century has become obsolete. Much of it has been forgotten. After writing “Memories of Francis Marion Wilkinson,” I continued to recall items of interest that related to him or effected his every day living. These things were common place to him but would be unusual to our modern generations, so I decided to write some of these recollections down also. Some of these recollections were told by old relatives, some were from printed sources, but many items were experienced by me when I was young. George K. Wilkinson           PAGE BY PAGE INDEX A. The Life and Times of F. M. Wilkinson B. The Good ? Old Days C. Illustration – Whats up Doc? D. Photo – Author 01. Index – Page by Page 02. index-continued 03. index-continued 04. Recollections of Francis Marion Wilkinson 05. Recollections 06. They called him General Blount 07a. Old Painting – Castle Island 07b. Photo – Castle Island today 08. Old Painting – Confeds shell town 09. This was necessary 10. She remembered times when general 11. One thousand barrels of tar and 12. Document – Official military pass 13. Boy grows up fast. 14. Illustration – boy with ox cart 15. Fuel – our modern day cook 16. Dad used to tell of his experience in 17. Illustration – harvesting turpentine 18. Illustration – tar kiln 19. Pine tar was valuable for med 20. Photo – young Frank Wilkinson 21. Dad worked for his father until 22. Illustration – cooper’s tools 23. Illustration – cobbler’s tools 24. Illustration – Harness maker’s tools 25. Illustration – shave horse and plane 26. copy – draw knives 27. copy – draw knives 28. copy – wedges and mauls 29. copy – froes 30. When Dad left home, the south 31. Illustration – Diver 32. Doctor – Dad became too sick- 33. Yadkin River 34. Shake, rattle and roll 35. Brooms – our modern homes have – 36. Illustration – brooms 37. Mending clothes – clothing was – 38. Illustration – mending stockings 39. Wash day on the farm 40. Illustration – washing clothes 41. Home made soa; 42. making Lye – Lye was origonnally – 43. Illustration – lye barrel 44. Persimmon Beer 45. Illustration – Home made dippers 46. Make molasses 47. Cooking molasses 48. Food for winter 49. Gardens – most people had – 50. Variety was just becoming ripe 51. Education – scurvey 52. Became a farmer 53. Document – 5 pages 94. Copies of typewritten deeds 55. " 56. " 57. " 58. On the 31st day of Dec. 1890 59. Photo – First wedding 60. Photo – Ida E. Pippin Wilkinson 61. Ida E. Pippin – Back in the – 62. Mortgage – On Dec 26, 1893 63. Document – two pages, copy of 64. Original mortgage 65. Ben Field 66. Shooting Marbles 67. Something new at the circus 68. 1903 – Residents in Beaufort County 69. Copy – Picture of Post Office staff 70. They were thick “heavy” blankets 71. Illustration – mail carrier’s transportation 72. Copy Picture – Main Street, 1907 73. During this time, Dad and the Burcerons 74. Illustration – Old wall telephone 75. The old record player on the phone 76. Illustration – old record players 77. Copy – Old record player advertisements 78. Wedding on the 20th Day Nov. 1912 79. Photo – 2nd wedding 80. Photo – Mary Sarah Koonce Wilkinson 81. Sept 3, 1913 – The Weather Bureau 82. Copy pictures – Flood waters in Washington 83. Copy picture – Rail Road Bridge washed away 84. The flood waters came up in to the street 85. Copy – Picture Main Street 1915 86. Photo – Baby George 87. Dad bought his first auto about 1919 88. Photo – Chilson and Model “T” Ford 89. In later years, he used commercial fertz. 90. Home made tools, back in the days – 91. The old time farmer 92. Continued, old time farmer 93. –of crops-is to be planted 94. Illustration – cotton plows, etc. 95. Illustration – cultivator plows, etc. 96. Illustration – home made plow 97. Illustration – tobacco barn 98. It so happened that Dad had a neighbor 99. There is no plant life in the water 100. When Dad was in the Mail Service 101. All the other brothers and sister 102. Illustration - old gas pump 103. Photo – cranking Model “T” Ford 104. Dipped in the tank to see how high 105. Some would open an oyster and say – 106. Buster Keaton was a perfectionist 107. Illustration – big hat 108. Public entertainment – opera house 109. Street carnivals 110. While testing his equipment, the diver 111. The show boat was pulled 112. George and Hazel Wilkinson attended 113. Copy picture – show boat 114. Illustration – show boat 115. Copy – picture – interior – show boat 116. Copy – picture – show boat stars 117. Cecil Blount De Mille 118. Theaters – the first play house 119. Main Street, the ground floor 120. Back of the same building that 121. Copy picture – The Glory Days 122. Copy picture – Corner of the old stage 123. Copy picture – Old fancy work 124. Keeping warm – did you ever have 125. Illustration - Dad’s fireplace – den 126. Illustration – Dad’s heater and den 127. Copy picture – Dad’s flag 128. Decorations –Dads bed room – den 129. Until about the year 1922 130. When you went to bed on a cold night 131. Space heaters – about 1922 132. Out door bath room 133. The old ‘traditional’ cartoon 134. Copy picture – 1927 bridge cave-in 135. Hot bread – before heading for home 136. Crow, the super 137. Live stock – Dad had a horse 138. The factory next door 139. He was almost buying his own 140. To stop that, an eight foot 141. Illustration – barge unloads 142. Big factory fire 143. Illustration – big factory fire 144. Tar paper high into the air. 145. Was afraid the weight of the snow 146. Illustration – birds eye view of factory 147. Photo – Dad sits in chair on lawn 148. Photo – Chilson and 56 pound melon 149. Document – U.S. bureau of Pensions 150. News paper clipping – Dad retires 151. About 1924 Dad traded Ford 152. When I reached the ground floor 153. Windows, and it was a 2 door model 154. Mama ran a back yard store 155. There were 4 storage rooms 156. Homeless – we hear a lot about 157. Was to keep insects from coming 158. Photo – sweet potato harvest 159. Dad had some home made horse 160. Photos – grape vines 161. Good straight grained durable 162. Illustration - Dad’s barn 163. As soon as I was old enough 164. Picking through his food 165. The Literary Digest Magazine 166. Photo - Mom and Pop with Star Auto 167. Document – Clifton electric bill 168. Illustration – radios 169. Reunion – on Dad’s 70th birthday 170. by 1929, Dad had been losing 171. Then Dad started leasing land 172. Christmas 173. Transportation 174. The Pamlico River to New York 175. Copy picture – Washington Water front 176. Copy picture – Ocracoke boat 177. Potatoes – in Dad’s time; the 178. There was a long conveyor belt 179. Growth of mechanized transportation 180. With so many rail road locomotives 181. Saw a monsterous contraption 182. Antique cars – Cadillac 183. Antique cars – Columbia Electric 184. Antique cars - Ducenburg 185. Antique cars – Pierce Arrow 186. Antique cars – Franklin Air Cooled 187. Antique cars – 1906 Ford Six 188. Antique cars – Toledo 189. Antique cars – Lexington 190. Antique cars – Apperson 191. Possum- turtle 192. Lye hominy 193. Serve hominy with butter 194. Stiff dough that can be formed 195. Home remedies 196. Sulphur and molasses 197. A country hog killing 198. Get a few short logs 199. If the water is too hot 200. The hogs are later taken down 201. After ridding them, a sharp 202. Illustration – hogs on gallows 203. Illustration – grinding, cutting 204. Lard and cracklings 205. Illustration – cooking cracklings 206. Neighbors – it takes more workers 207. Chiterlings – this narrator was 208. Start at burning, she also 209. Smoke house – back in the horse 210. Illustration – Dad’s last smoke house 211. Circus Day 212. Given an inch, take a mile 213. There were others who didn’t 214. No smoking, - Dad used to smoke 215. Photo – Dad checks out Joe’s car 216. Alcohol – while Dad was in the 217. and he was an ordained minister 218. Overlap – grace 219. The Lord will bless you 220. Why lie about your age 221. Neighbors to the east 222. Charlie Willis attempted to buy 223. Mellons to the Myers farm 224. Mama or Dad would check the beans 225. Cartoon – Jolleys 226. Cartoon – Little Jolley girl 227. Photo – Mom – Dad – Baby Betty 228. Sticks – green tobacco was 229. Him with owing it, he was also 230. Photo – Pop holding Baby Robert 231. Good impressions, it was some time 232. Photo – young Hazel Waters 233. Dad was always a hard worker 234. Dad plowed his garden till 235. Sleeping habit – as I remember 236. Illustration – Dad shaving 237. Town of Bath – a lot of history 238. It was one of the bloodiest pirate 239. While Francis M. Wilkinson was 240. Ride ‘em, cowboy 241. Illustration – for dear life 242. Photo – bookkeeper George 243. English – I remember reading 244. Kitchens old – in the good old 245. Many old time families 246. Metal sink, and ran the water 247. The cat slept under the stove 248. Illustration – Great Grandma’s kitchen 249. Illustration – F. M. Wilkinson’s kitchen 250. Illustration – F. M. Wilkinson’s pantry 251. Out of the mouth of babes 252. Large families – in the 1800’s 253. Dad’s family – although Dad 254. The family Photographs are 255. PHOTOS: Francis Marion Wilkinson 256. Frank M. and Mary K. Wilkinson 257. Group – Chilson, Alma, Guy, Mary K. and Joe 258. 2 groups of F.M.W. children and wives 259. 2 family groups 260. Walter Marion Wilkinson 261. Walter 262. Violet Kathrine Wilkinson 263. Evelyn G. Wilkinson 264. Walter, Evelyn, Robert 265. Bruce A. Wilkinson 266. Bessie Ricks Wilkinson 267. Bruce and family 268. Guy V. Wilkerson 269. Genevieve Gordon Wilkinson 270. Clara Gaither Wilkinson and Guy Wilkinson 271. George and Jacqueline Lowman, Guy and Clara 272. Gwendolyn Caroline Wilkinson 273. Gwen on Steps 274. Gwen and Jake, Gwen and John 275. Joseph G. Wilkinson 276. Helen Powell Wilkinson 277. Joseph C. Wilkinson – U. S. Navy 278. Joe and Helen 279. Francis Chilson Wilkinson 280. Alma Manning Wilkinson 281. Frank C. and Frank M. family group 282. Frank – Alma and children 283. George Wilkinson 284. Hazel Waters Wilkinson 285. Hazel, George, Mary K. Wilkinson 286. View across Wilkinson farm 287. South view, Wilkinson house and yard 288. South view, F. M. Wilkinson’s house 289. Frank Wilkinson’s river front in winter 290. {blank} 291. Wilkinson Family Records 292. Pippin Family Records 293. 5 pages Pippin Family “tree” 294. “ 295. “ 296. {blank} 297. Obituaries 298. Obituaries 299. {blank} 300. The following copies, old hand written deeds 301. “ 302. “ 303. 3 pages 1824 – John McWilliams deed 304. “ 305. “ 306. “ 307. 4 pages – 1977 Francis C. Douty deed 308. “ 309. “ 310. “ 311. “ 312. 5 pages – 1878 – John Doughty and wife to John B. Ross 313. “ 314. “ 315. 3 pages –1899- John McDoughty & Henry Dougy to John B. Ross 316. Following - 2 sheets- John Ross to F.A.W. 317. July 1884 – John B. Ross to F.M. Wilkinson 318. Dec 1884 – John b. Ross to F.M. Wilkinson 319. X 320. X 321. 16 pages – Civil War in Washington, N.C. 322. X 323. X 324. X 325. X 326. X 327. X 328. X 329. X 330. X 331. X 332. X 333. X 334. X 335. X 336. Civil War 337. Community Information Transcribed as written by: Cheryl R. Whitley PAGE 4 RECOLLECTIONS Of FRANCIS MARION WILKINSON This booklet contains bits and pieces of events and recollections in the life of Frank M. Wilkinson as remembered by the narrator. These items are being recorded so that his decendants may get to know him better. The following pages were copied from notes scribbled on rough paper and sorted and assembled, and a few copies were run off on copying machines to distribute to his few close descendants.. George K. Wilkinson           Page 5 This was the end of an era that began 86 ½ years previously on July 30, 1956, when a little boy was born. The two men were carying shovels. They wanted a square Frame nailed together out of wood strips to form a rectangle about a yard wide and a little more than two yards long. I don’t remember the exact dimensions. It was a cold day – March 4, 1943. There was a light snow falling, making a thin white cover on the ground. After I made the frame, the men had me to point out the exact spot where they were supposed to dig a grave in the old family grave yard. The frame was a guide to dig by. I pointed out a space Dad has previously selected between Caroline Lewis Wilkinson, his mother, and Ida Pippin Wilkinson, his first wife. Francis Marion Wilkinson had died during the early part of the night of March 2, 1943, and he was to be buried on the afternoon of the 4th. My wife, Hazel, had walked over to Dad’s house, and about an hour later, she came out, shouting for me to hurry over. She said Dad had had an attack and was dying. When I arrived, Mom was holding him in her arms. That was the end of a long and interesting life. Now – Let’s go back to the beginning. Page 6 They called him General Blount. He was a well-to-do plantation owner in the south of Beaufort County, North Carolina. Since the General was a so-called “gentleman farmer”, he trusted the actual operation of the plantation to a person that our present generation would call an “agricultural engineer”, or supervisor. This supervisor was a man named William Henry Wilkinson. Mr. Wilkinson remained with General Blount until the War Between the States made farming in the traditional way impossible. The laborers on Blount’s plantation were not like the migratory Mexicans, etc. that are often employed now. They were slaves brought from Africa and bought as you would buy horses and cattle. William Henry Wilkinson was married to the former Caroline W. Lewis. This marriage produced 5 children, - three girls and two boys. On July 30, 1856, Caroline presented Henry with their first boy baby. They already had three girls, - Emily, Martha and Josephene, but this baby, named Francis Marion Wilkinson, was their first boy. Boys were important in those days, as a family’s helper. Girls were useful for housekeeping, cooking, spinning, weaving, making clothes, washing and tending the children, but they needed male members in the family to do the work. As soon as a child was old enough to do any kind of work, he or she had duties assigned. One of these duties was pulling lint from cotton seeds so that the cotton could be carded and prepared for spinning. Cards were 2 paddles about 4 x 6 inches with one side covered with wire bristles. A ball of cotton was placed between and the brushes were rubbed across one another until the cotton formed a soft fluffy oblong ball. The spinning wheel could pull long threads of fibers from it and spin or twist it into a strong thread, which could be woven into cloth. Page 7a CIVIL WAR – Washington, N.C. – April 16, 1863 The Union forces occupied Washington 3 years and the two opposing armies fired shells across the river attempting to drive the other out. Castle Island ‘in center of picture’. There was a mill there to convert oyster shells to lime. Years later, a “business Woman” moved to the island and established an entertainment house for sailors and other male clients. Page 7b Photo Castle Island – 1990 a jungle with a few goats. Page 8 Old Painting – Confeds shell town Page 9 This was necessary to hand-pick the cotton lint from the seeds because after the Civil Was, most all mills and cotton gins had been destroyed. Dad would tell us that when he was a child, every night, each family member was required to pick the lint off of enough cotton to fill his shoe with cotton seeds, before going to bed. Our modern kids watch television till bed time. Back in those days before our waterways were polluted and over-fished, our rivers and sounds abounded in both finned fish and shell fish. The streets of our costal towns were paved with oyster shells, just as modern day dirt roads are sometimes covered with crusted stone. There is an island in the Pamlico River, just opposite down town Washington, N.C. , that is called Castle Island. There was once a mill on the island that processed oyster shells into lime. People said that buildings on the islands looked like a castle. That’s how the island got its name. People found other uses for oyster shells besides making line and paving streets. One was to use them for small dippers or scoops. On every farm, there were milk cows. The surpulus milk became sour and turned to clabber, which was good to eat when sweetene. Someone at General Blount’s cook house had a long wooden trough built and it was filled with clabber and sweetened with molasses. The little Negro children were called in and each was given an oyster shell to eat with. They would gather around and eat clabber, and Dad, who was a small boy at the time, said it looked so good, it made him want to eat clabber. Incidently, old fashioned sour milk clabber is good with sugar. Dad’s sister, Martha would recall things that happened in the period before the Civil War. Page 10 She remembered times when General Blount and his wife would go for rides in their carriage. Sometimes, they would take Dad’s sisters along, with the girls sitting in the foot of the carriage. General Blount was very cordial and would tip his hat and speak to people they passed on the road. Mrs. Blount would remark, “My Dear, why do you speak to those poor Tackeys”? In 1861, when little Frank was 5 years old, the Civil Was started. That was the beginning of the end for life as it was known at that time. Beaufort County became a battle ground. Washington, N.C. was occupied by the Union Army for three years, and battles were fought in the streets sometimes. Five forts were built around the town, and the town was sometimes bombarded by cannon fire from across the river, and also from land. General Blount was once warned of yankee soldiers on the march toward his plantation. He had just finished building a new barn, and it wa filled with bales of cotton. He knew the Yankees would destroy the cotton, so he had all the cotton hauled out into the barn yard and set on fire. When the Yanks arrived, their commanding officer remarked, “I see some of our men have already been through here”. That saved Blounts’ new barn. They went on and didn’t disturb anything. Lets go back a while, before the Union soldiers arrived in Washington. The confederates made preparations before evacuating in 1861. They destroyed all cotton and naval stores that would be an aid to the enemy. At Taft’s Store on the Tar River, they dumped Page 11 one thousand barrels of tar and turpentine into the river. Later in the summer, two flat boats carrying four hundred yankee soldiers from the prison in Salisbury to be exchanged, tied up at Taft’s Store. That night it was very hot and the soldiers asked to be allowed to bathe. Permission for a bath was given, and guards were stationed on each side of the river with torches. As the soldiers waded in, they stirred up the tar and turpentine from the river bed and they got all smeared wit it. It was a busy four hundred who used their ration of meat and a stick to scrape off for dear life saying “we heard of the Tar River, but we never believed there was such a place; but we found the whole bed of the river is pure tar”. The town of Washington, N.C. was occupied by the Union Army from 1861 to 1864. At the beginning of the war, the town had a population of 3,000. After the war, the men who returned home from the fighting found only 600 inhabitants – women, children and old men. Much of the town was destroyed by fire. It had been bombarded by cannon fire by the departing Yankees. Before departing, they had taken the hoses out of the fire station and cut them up in little pieces a foot long. They set fires and left. From April 27 to April 30, 1864 the town had been thoroughly sacked and pillaged by evacuating federal troops. Private homes and stores, as well as public supplies were looted and pillaged. An official report states that troops “did not even respect the charitable institutions, but bursting open the doors of the Masonic and Odd Fellows Lodges, pillaged them both and hawked about the streets the regalia and jewels”. Page 12 OFFICIAL MILITARY PASS The town of Washington, N.C. was occupied and fortified by the Union Army for about three years during the Civil War. The above pass was issued to William Henry Wilkinson so that he and his family could enter and leave Washington through army check points when going to and from town. William Henry Wilkinson was Francis Marion Wilkinson’s father. Page 13 BOY GROWS UP FAST As time passed, it became dangerous for any able bodied man to be seen by union soldiers because he might be arrested as a spy; or conscripted into the Union Army, so William Henry Wilkinson could no longer go to town. Somebody had to go to town occasionally for supplies. That was when little eight year old Frank had to turn from boy to man. He had to drive an ox cart through a dirt road with thick woods on both sides and always the chance of meeting a bear. Dad told me that sometimes the ox would bolt and try to run away. There was a rope tied to a ring in his nose. He said he would have to jump off the cart and run as fast as he could until he came to a tree that he could wrap the rope around and pull the ox back. Dad recalled years later that he was very scared to make those trips, with bears in the woods, the ox unpredictable, and the Yankee soldiers might do most anything. A child can be more frightened than an adult in such circumstances. Page 14 Boy With Ox Cart Page 15 FUEL Our modern day cook has only to turn a knob to start heat in the kitchen stove. Just flick a thermostat to adjust the heat in the house. During the years when Dad was growing up, he had to go to the woods, cut down threes, cut and split the logs, load the wood on a cart and haul it to the wood pile at the house. There it was stacked to dry. Most rooms, both down stairs and up stairs had fireplaces. The food was also cooked in a fireplace. Houses were drafty and not insulated and a lot of the heat from the fire went up the chimney. Since Dad was the oldest boy in the family, it was his daily task to keep all the wood-boxes filled. Dry wood had to be cut and split to fire place size and length and carried in, one arm load at a time. That included the up-stairs wood-boxes too. They burned fuel like it grew on trees ! AUNTIE Young Frank had an aunt that lived with the family. She occupied an up-stairs room with a fireplace. Occasionally, some of the wood would be smutty on a side due to forest fires. Now, Auntie was very particular about not getting her hands soiled. If she found a piece of smutty wood, she would throw it out the window. Now our boy thought that if he could carry it all the way upstairs, she could at least throw it in the fire place. He never forgot it. Page 16 Dad used to tell of his expierence working in the woods gathering turpentine, when he became old enough. I remember some of the tools he had that he once had used to harvest turpentine. There was a “spoon” that he used for dipping pine sap out of “boxes” secured to the side of a long leaf pine. The “spoon” was about eight inches wide and about ten inches long, egg shaped, flat, with a sleeve at the butt end to fasten the handle. He had a bark scraper to remove bark. A set of herring bone-like grooves were scored into side of the tree to bleed the sap and send it flowing down the center of the score marks into the box. The sap was spooned out of the boxes into wooden buckets and taken to barrels and poured in. Dad also had some “coopers” tools that he used to make barrels. Old lightwood knots and stumps were scattered through the forest. When this lightwood is burned, concentrated turpentine in the old wood becomes hot and runs out, in the form of pine tar. Young Frank would gather lightwood through the year, and in the winter, he would burn what he called a “tarkil” for Christmas money. His “tarkil” consisted of a circle in the ground abut 12 or 15 feet in diameter, draining to the center, with a drainage trench from the center to a hole in the ground large enough to handle a barrel, located a safe distance away. Lightwood was piled in the circle till it was piled high. When the time came, it was set afire. The tar freed from the burning lightwood would flow down the chute and into the barrel. Page 17 Illustration – Harvesting Turpentine Page 18 Tar Kiln Page 19 Pine tar was valuable for medicinal purposes and for treating rope, wood and numerous other uses back in those times. People could not freeze food in those days, and home makers didn’t know much about canning, so the only methods of keeping food over a period of time was by salting and smoking. Dad used to recall having lunch in the turpentine woods. Sometimes, it consisted of corn bread and salt fish. Sometimes, they wouldn’t get enough salt soaked out of the fish before cooking it and it would be so salty that, as he said, “I would take a big bite of corn bread and a little bite of fish”. Sometimes, when he got thirsty, and didn’t have water with him, he would cut a straw and drink stale rain water out of a boxed pine. Dad loved candy. He never got enough of it when he was growing up. Once, when he was due to get some money, he left his work in the woods and walked four miles to a store for a nickel’s worth of candy. He promised to bring the money for the candy as soon as he got paid. The store deeper told him to first bring the money and he could get the candy. No credit. Well, our boy had to walk 4 miles back, empty handed, and work just as hard as he could to make up for all that lost time. When Dad became a man, friends learned of his love for candy, and in his older years, they sometimes gave him a box of fancy chocolates for Christmas. He would put the box of candy away and eat one piece about once a week, making it last as long as possible. Page 20 Picture: Francis Marion Wilkinson July 30,1856-March 2, 1943 Son of William Henry and Caroline Lewis Wilkinson Page 21 Dad worked for his father until he was 24 years old. Before his father gave him permission to leave home and seek his fortune on his own. Dad felt that he had been cheated of three years. When his sons reached maturity he was determined to see that it didn’t happen to them. When they became 21, he made his little speech. He wasn’t trying to “push them out of the next”, but he wanted to let them know they were their own free men. Dad used to recall a treat that he enjoyed on an occasional trip to Washington. There was an old colored woman that cooked molasses ginger bread and sold it on the street. She sold a square of ginger bread for three cents that was about 2 ½ inches thick and 4 inches square. He said it was almost too good to eat. It was enough to make him a whole meal. In Dad’s early years, they made and repaired their own shoes. I rember his set of shoe lasts. That was a set of various sizes of steel forms to hold a shoe up side down while nails or wood shoe pegs were driven in the soles. He had bee’s waxed linen thread for sewing leather, various punches, awls, sewing awls, a few wood shoe pegs for use as nails and a riveting device for making harness for horses. An education was not available to Dad during and right after the Civil War, so he had to teach himself to read with the help of a “Blue Back Spelling Book”. I don’t know what was in the book, but by his description, it sounded like it was more complicated than anything the kids have today. Page 22 Page 23 Illustration – cobbler’s tools Page 24 Page 25 Illustration - through 1930 Old Time Brace does not lock the bit in. Frank M. Wilkinson's shaving horse. The iron clamp holds work down while drawing knife. Shaves bits from work. Long Wood Plane These antique tools were used by F. M. Wilkinson Page 26 Image – Draw Knives Page 27 Photo Page 28 Image – Wedges and Mauls Page 29 Image – Froes Page 30 When dad left home, the south was still in the process of recovering from the aftermath of the Civil War and good jobs were scarce, and Dad had no schooling. Dad would tell us about a job he had at a saw mill. He was paid a whopping $8.00 per month. His task was to keep the saw dust moved away from the saw, as fast as it accumulated around the blade. He moved it out in a wheel barrow. It would build up so fast that he had to run with the wheel barrow to the pile to dump it and run back or it would pile up ahead of him. As time moved on, our young man worked at various jobs including a job as under water diver. The government was clearing water ways of stumps and snags that were hazardous to shipping. One of his duties was to go down and set dynamite charges and blow stumps out of the river bed or loosen them and break them up so they could be removed. The captain of the boat became sick and lost his appetite. He decided he wanted some rice, so Dad volunteered to cook him some. Dad was not an expert cook but he knew rice had to be boiled, so he filled a pot with rice, added water and put it on the stove. Soon, the rice began to swell and overflow. Dad had to stay by the pot, dipping out the swelling rice and throwing it overboard, to keep from flooding the galley with rice. From that expierence he learned to put a little rice and a lot of water. Page 31 Illustration – Diver Page 32 DOCTOR Dad once became too sick to work so he went to see a doctor for a cure. The doctor examined him and prescribed a bottle of medicine with instructions to take a dose each day for a week and he would be well enough to go back to work. That didn’t satisfy Dad because he wanted to go back to work the next day. If it took seven applications of the medicine to cure him, why string it out for a week? He took it all at one time so he could get well at once. He found it didn’t work that way. He became really sick that time. He also got a serious lecture from his doctor. Page 33 YADKIN RIVER There is a river in North Carolina named the Yakin River. It begins near Blowing Rock, N.C. and it meanders eastward and on through a system of lakes and then emerges as the Pee Dee River. The Pee Dee flows south east through North Carolina and finally reaches the Atlantic Ocean at George Town, South Carolina. Dad was once called upon to do something he had not done before. Far up the Yadkin River were unassembled parts of a steam boat. They wanted the boat brought down the river. They sent him to put the steam boat together and launch it and steam it down the river. He went and he assembled the craft. Frank Wilkinson was the first person to ever pilot a power boat down the Yadkin River. He was amused at the people along the river. They would hide behind trees and point at the smoke belching monster floating past them on the way down stream. Because of his experience with river boats and his experience with the clearing of local waterways, Dad was contacted by the Corp of Engineers to take over a project to clear the Yadkin River and make it safe and efficent for river traffic. This would have been a good job for Dad but he felt that he was not really qualified. He realized that this would require a person with the knowledge of surveying and engineering skills that he did not have, and he had no intentions of trying to fake it. Therefore, he declined. Page 34 SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROLL When Dad was about 30 years of age, there was a disturbance that had every one in the house frightened. Dad immediately guessed what was happening. Someone said there were people outside trying to turn the house over, and he ran out to stop them. Dad told them what it actually was. This was August 31, 1886. Charleston, South Carolina was almost flattened by an earthquake. Few buildings were left undamaged. 110 people lost their lives. The quake cracked walls in Chicago 750 miles away; it was felt over an area of 1.5 million square miles, from Massachusetts to Wisconsin to Bermuda. It was about 7 on the Richter scale. Earthquakes are not as frequent in the eastern part of the United States as they are in the west, but the ones that do occur cover a much larger area. page 35 BROOMS Our modern homes have floors covered with carpet or the floors may be varnished hard wood or vinyl. The housewife cleans her floors with a vaccum cleaner, dust mop and stick broom. Her great grandmother swept her floors with a “straw broom” and got down on her knees and scrubbed them with water and lye soap. The wood was bleached almost white. She made her straw broom herself. She cut a bundle of “broom straw” and wrapped twine around about two feet of the butt ends and used the bushy ends to sweep with. The broom straw was found on ditch banks and the un-plowed edges of fields. It looks like a form of grass, about 3 or 4 feet tall with a stiff stem running most of the way up the plant. Grass like blades run out the sides of the stem and the top is bushy with fluffy seed pieces that float away in the wind. YARD BROOMS She swept the fallen leaves from the yard with a brush broom which was a bundle of small straight branches with bushy ends cut from small selected hardwood trees or branches. They were cut about five feet long and the butt ends were tied into a bundle with wire or strong cord. Fan rakes had not been invented. Page 36 Illustration – Brooms Brooms to sweep floors made from broom sedge grass Yard broom made from bundle of twigs Page 37 Page 38 MENDING CLOTHING Clothing was made from hand spun threads made with a spinning wheel and woven by hand on a loom. This cloth was dyed and cut and fashioned with a needle and thread. Worn and ripped clothing was mended, darned or patched and re-patched as long as possible. Frank Wilkinson recalled the skill of a relative who could darn a hole in a dress so skillfully that when she finished, you could not find the place she had mended. Knitting played an important part in the wardrobe. Sweaters and head pieces and especially stockings and sox were made at home. If a sock had a hole in it, it went into the mending bag. When the housewife of daughter had a spare moment to sit down, she might get out the old mending bag and start patching and darning. To darn a sock, she slipped a “darning Gourd” in the sock and pressed the hole tight against the gourd. She then proceded to weave threads across the hole and vertically with needle and thread until she made a new piece of woven cloth where the hole had been. Ironing was done with a hollow iron that was filled with live burning coals. When iron cook stoves became available, cast iron irons were heated on the stove and tested for “hotness” by licking a finger and quickly hiting the iron with it. If the moisture on the finger sizzled just right, the iron was hot enough Page 38 illustration No stocking or sock was ever thrown away just because it had a hole in it. A darning gourd was slipped in the stocking and a new piece of cloth was woven across the hole by using a needle and thread. Page 39 WASH DAY ON THE FARM Our old time housewife did her laundry the hard way. First, she went out in the back yard and started a fire around a large iron kettle called a “wash pot”. The pot was filled about two thirds full of water and left to come to a boil. In the mean time, white clothes were soaked in one wooden tub and colored clothes were soaked in another. They were then boiled with lye soap and taken up and put in a tub of cold water. The lady put a “wash board” in the side of the tub and rubbed soap on the dirtiest spots and rubbed the fabric up and down the wash board until the soil disappeared. A wash board was a frame about 14 inches wide and 2 feet long. The lower 4 inches was two legs that rested in the bottom of the tub. The next 14 inches was either corrugated metal or a similar pattern of wood. This was the rough surface the fabric was scrubbed on. Above the corrugated section was a thick cross bar that a block of soak could be rested on. If a child was available, he was kept busy carrying buckets of water from the well or pump to the “wash bench” and pot. After washing, the clothes were rinsed in a tub of clean water and put on the solar dryer (clothes line). My mamma was stooping down, starting a fire around a wash pot once, and as she was picking up bits of kindleing, one stick started moving in her hand. She looked. She was holding a black snake. She screamed and jumped over the pot! Page 40 WASH DAY Dirty clothes were scrubbed on the corrugated surface of the wash board The only time Grandma’s “bikinis” were seen Dirty clothes were boiled in water and lye soap to loosen the dirt Clothes were soaked, boiled, scrubbed and rinsed and hung out to dry Page 41 HOME MADE SOAP Our ancestors had to make things they used because some of those necessities were not available or because it was more economical to make them themselves. Soap was one of those items. Nothing useable was thrown away. They saved dirty grease at hog killing time. They saved left over kitchen grease that could not be used for cooking. All this fat was saved to make into soap. Two containers were put over the fire. One was filled with grease. The other was filled with an alkaline solution called lye. When hot, they were removed from the fire and the grease was poured in the lye solution and thoroughly stirred with a wooden paddle. The soap maker usually knew from experience about how much of each to use for the best soap. Too much lye burned the user’s skin and damaged the laundry. The original home made lye usually produced a soft soap. Store bought chrystal lye produced a hard soap that could be cut into blocks. Care had to be taken to pour the grease into the lye – not the lye into the hot grease. Mama made that mistake once and her mixture boiled over and flowed across the floor and almost chased her out of the kitchen Page 42 MAKING LYE Lye was originally a strong alkaline solution obtained by leaching wood ashes. Its main use was for cleaning and making soap. To make lye, our ancestors use a simple arrangement. They made a small slanted platform large enough to hold a barrel. The slanted platform drained into a tub or some sort of catch vessel. A barrel with several drain holes in its bottom was placed on the stand. A layer of clean fine straw lined the bottom of the barrel. The straw served as a filter. A supply of wood ashes was dumped in over the straw. Water was poured on the ashes. The water soaked through the ashes absorbing the alkali and filtered through the straw, out the holes in the barrel and into the catch vessel as a brown liquid. Page 43 Old time soap makers used a rig similar to this to make an alkali substance to react with waste grease or animal fat to make soap. They also had other uses for the lye, such as some cleaning job, and sometimes a little lye was poured in hog’s slops to make it taste sweet to the hogs. A somewhat similar rig was used to make persimmon beer. A faucet was fitted in the bung hole of a keg and green pine needles were used for filter instead of straw. Page 44 PERSIMMON BEER An arrangement similar to the lye barrel was used to make a drink called Persimmon Beer. A keg or barrel with a faucet in the bung hole was used. A layer of green pine needles was placed in the bottom of the keg as a filter. Add some wild myrtle twigs for flavor. Add a few baked sweet potatoes and some baked corn bread. Pour in lots of wild persimmons. Pour in water until persimmons are well covered. Let stand ten days or more. Get the gourd dipper and draw some and taste. Not bad – really. Page 45 Need a good water dipper? Select a gourd of the right size and shape. Carefully saw off one side, clean out the seeds and dried spongy pulp and soak the gourd in plenty of fresh water a couple of days to take out the bitter taste. Now you have a dipper. Don’t crack that coconut shell. Saw the end off and dig the coconut meat out without damaging the shell. Bore a hole in each side of the shell and make a wood handle and pass it all the way through and secure it. Now you have a coconut dipper. Hang it on a post by the well or pump so that you and your passers-by will have something to drink from. Rinse off the tobacco juice left by previous users before drinking. Page 46 MAKE MOLASSES If our ancestors wanted something sweet to eat or drink, they usually had to grow their own. To do that, they planted a crop of sugar cane or sorghum. When growing, it looks like a cross between a corn patch and a bamboo thicket. At harvest, the leaves are stripped from the stalks and the stalks are cut and hauled up to where a cane mill is set up. Someone in the area usually had a cane mill and it could be set up when and where needed. The main part of the mill consisted of a press which was a pair of vertical rollers. There were turned by a mule. A long pole was fastened overhead and geared to the rollers. The mule pulled the end of the pole around and around in a circle activating the rollers. An operator stood at the press feeding stalks in as space was available. There could be at least six or eight stalks in the rollers at a time as they passed through. The rollers exerted great pressure squeezing the juice out. The juice flowed down in a catch vessel. Along with the juice press came the cooking vat. Page 47 COOKING MOLASSES A cooking vat was set up to cook the juice down, much the same way as maple syrup is cooked. The vat consisted of a vessel with a copper bottom and was possibly six or eight feet long and four feet wide. There sides were possibly a foot high. A fire pit or trench was dug in the ground or it could temporarily set up on bricks. Fuel was fed to the fire at one end and a smoke stack was placed in the other end of the fire pit. The watery juice was boiled and constantly stirred with a wooden paddle to prevent it from scortching. When it was cooked down to a fraction of its original bulk, it became thick brown mouth watering delicious molasses. Page 48 FOOD FOR WINTER People of bygone days planned ahead to keep food on the table. Hanging in the smoke house were smoked hams, shoulders, bacon and sausage. There was salt port and salt fish. They stored sweet potatoes in mounds called sweet potato banks which was a large pile of potatoes covered with a foot thick layer of pine straw, over which was a protective layer of 4 to 6 inches of soil. Over this bank was a rough rain shelter made of scrap lumber. They planted a spring crop of Irish potatoes and a fall crop which furnished potatoes through the winter. Bundles of onions and strings of red peppers hung in the pantry. Dried and preserved fruits lined the pantry shelves and they canned some fruits and tomatoes in glass jars. They were not always successful in canning meats and vegetables because they were still learning how to time the periods to boil and destroy the bacteria that spoils some types of foods. They dried surplus beans and peas in summer for winter use. Until winter became too severe, they had collards and a few other vegetables in the garden. The took corn and wheat to the grist mill to have it ground into meal and flour. The miller kept 1/5 of the grain for grinding. Page 49 GARDENS Most people had a few herbs in their garden. One herb in most gardens was the sage bush. Some grew mint and other herbs. They could get bay leaves from the woods to season meats and freshly made lard. Every one grew hot red pepper. Some of it was strung, with the aid of a needle and strong thread, into long strings and tied into a circle and dried. Some hot pepper was put in bottles and filled with vinegar to make hot “pepper vinegar”. I remember How Frank M. Wilkinson planned his garden so he would have a steady supply of vegetables most of the year. He visited ditch banks and hedge rows in the summer and dug wild asparagus roots which he transplanted in his garden. Asparagus was his first fresh vegetable in the spring. When it came time to stop cutting asparagus, it was time to pick early dwarf garden peas. When they stopped producing, he had a larger late variety of peas ready to start harvesting. From that he had a variety of greens and other vegetables ready. He had a wide variety of vegetables for the table all spring, summer and fall. He had a system for planting sweet corn. In the early spring he planted a variety of small early sweet corn and at the same time he planted a standard variety. When the early variety was used up, the standard. page 50 missing page 51 missing page 52 BECAME A FARMER Frank Wilkinson grew up on a farm and he knew that he could make a successful carrer of it so he began looking for available farm land. One plot he considered was located adjoining Washington’s east side, which is now part of the town. Another plot he considered is now part of the town of Washington Park. Certain events possibly led him to buy the land that became his permanent farm and home. On July first, 1884 John B. Ross and his wife, Emily, who was Frank’s sister, mortgaged 27 acres of land to Frank M. Wilkinson for $500.00. Of the 27 acres, John B. Ross and wife owned a total of 83 acres, more or less. The 83 acres was more land than either of the other two plots he had considered. For reasons I don’t know of, the Rosses sold the 83 acres to Frank M. Wilkinson. On December 30th, 1884, a deed was drawn up and John B. and Emily W. Ross sold the farm to F. M. Wilkinson for $1800.00. A typed copy of that deed follows on the next pages. Copies of old original deeds to this land appears in the back of this book starting back in 1824 and following through to copies for the origonal deeds to John B. Ross. Page 53 STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA BEAUFORT COUNTY THIS DEED, made this 30th day of December, 1884 By John B. Ross and Emily W. Ross, his wife, of Beaufort County and state of North Carolina of the first part to Frank H. Wilkinson of Beaufort County and state of North Carolina of The second part. WITNESSETH: That said John B. Ross and wife for and in Consideration of the sum of eighteen hundred dollars ($1800.00) To them paid by Frank M. Wilkens, the receipt of which is Hereby acknowledged, have bargained and sold and by these Presents does bargain sell and convey to said Frank M. Wilkens And his heirs of the right, title, interest and estate of the Party of the first part in and to a tract of land in Long Acre Township, Beaufort County, state of North Carolina, adjoining The lands of Howard Wiswall and others described as follows, viz: Being the share or lot of land decreed by F. M. McWilliams in The division of the estate of his father, John McWilliams, as Will appear by reference to said sale for partition in the court Of pleas and quarterly sessions of Beaufort County and containing Twenty-seven (27) acres, more or less, it being the land Conveyed to the said John. D. Doughty by Thomas B. Bowen by deed Dated September 25, 1877, and recorded in the register’s Office of Beaufort County in book 43, pages 246 and 247, also One other tract or partial, situated in the state and county Aforesaid on the north side of the Pamlico River containing Twenty-seven (27) acres, it being the lot or partial drawn by Frances C. McWilliams, wife of the said John D. Doughty, in the Partition among the heirs at law of John McWilliams to which Partition references is made for a more particular description Page 54 Also the life estate of the said John D. Doughty in twenty-seven (27) acres of land more or less, adjoining the two pieces hereinbefore conveyed, it being the piece of land drawn by Sarah McWilliams at the partition among the heirs at law of John McWilliams deceased, also see deed from the heirs of John McWilliams to John B. Ross registered in the register’s office Of Beaufort County in book 43 pages 469 and 470, making in all eighty-three (83) acres. TO HAVE AND TO HOLD, the aforesaid tract or Partial of land and all privileges and appurtenances there to Belonging to the said Frank H. Wilkinson and his heirs and assigns To only use and behoof forever. And the said John B. Ross and wife covenant that They are seized of said premises in fee, and have right to Convey the same in fee simple; that the same are free and clear From all encumbrances and that they will warrant and defend Said title to the same against the claims of all persons whatso- Ever. In testimony whereof, the said John, B. Ross and Wife have hereunto set their hands and seals, the day and year Above written. John B. Ross (seal) Emily W. Ross (seal) State of North Carolina Beaufort County I, G. Wilkens, clerk of the superior court, do Hereby certify that John B. Ross and Emily W. Ross, his wife, Appeared before me this day and acknowledged the due execution Of the annexed deed of conveyance, and the said Emily W. Ross Being by me privately examined, separate and apart from Page 55 Fear or compulsion of her said husband or of any other person, And that she doth still voluntarily assent thereto. Let the same with this certificate be registered. Witness my hand this 1st day of January, 1885 G. Wilkins Clerk Superior Court Received for registration Jan 1, 1885. At 4:00 p.m. and registered January 8, 1885 B. Stilley Register Registered in book 58, page 26, Beaufort County Records. Page 56 THIS INDENTURE made and entered into this 15th day of January , 1878 by and between John D. Doughty and wife, Frances C. Doughty parties of the first part and John B. Ross party of the second part all of the county of Beaufort and state of North Carolina. WITNESSETH: That the said parties of the first part for and in consideration of the sum of $700.00 to them paid by the said party of the second part the receipt whereof is hereby admitted have given, granted, bargained, and sold, and by these presents to give, grant, bargain, sell, and convey to the said party of the second part and his heirs the following described tracts or lots of land situated in the county and state aforesaid on the north side of the Pamlico River adjoining the land of Howard Wiswall and others, being the share or lot of land drawn by F. M. McWilliams in the division of the estate of his father John McWilliams, as will appear by reference to said suit for partition in the court of pleas and quarter sessions of Beaufort County and containing twenty-seven (27) acres more it less, it being the land conveyed to the said John, D. Doughty by Thomas B. Bowen by deed dated September 25, 1877 and recorded in the registar’s office of Beaufort County in book 43, pages 246 and 247; also one other tract or partial of land situated in the state and County aforesaid on the north side of the Pamlico River containing twenty-seven 927) acres, it being the land or tract drawn by Frances C. McWilliams, wife of the said John D. Doughty in the partition among the heirs at law of John McWilliams to which partition reference is made for a more particular description, also the life estate of the said John D. Doughty in twenty-seven (27) acres of land more or less adjoining the two tracts hereinbefore conveyed, it being the tract of land drawn by Sarah McWilliams at the _____ ? _____ ? _____. Page 57 TO HAVE AND TO HOLD with all the privileges thereto belonging to the said party of the second part his heirs and assigns first two tracts, and as to the third tract, second part for the life of the said John D. Doughty and the said parties of the first part do hereby warrant and defend the lands and tenements aforesaid, to the said party of the second part his heirs and assigns against the lawful claims of any and all persons. In testimony whereof the said parties of the first part have hereunto set their hands and seals the day and year aforesaid. John D. Doughty (seal) Frances D. Doughty (seal) Witness: John G. Blount STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA IN THE PROBATE COURT BEAUFORT COUNTY JANUARY 15, 1878 Personally appeared before me John G. Blount, Probate Judge for said county, John D. Doughty and Frances C. Doughty his wife, and acknowledged the due execution by them of the foregoing deed, and therefore, the said Frances C. Doughty being by me privately examined separate and apart from her said husband, touching her free consent in her execution of the said deed, and she doth on such her examination declare that she has executed the same freely of her own will and accord, and without any force, fear, or undue influence of her said husband or any other person, and did still voluntarily assent thereto. THEREFORE, let the said deed and this certificate be registered. John C. Blount Probate Judge page 58 On the 31st day of December, 1890 Francis Marion Wilkinson and Ida E. Pippin were joined in marriage. He was 34 years of age & She was 22 years of age. This union produced the following children: February 11, 1892 --Walter Marion-- lived 71 years May 11, 1893 --Bruce Arnold-- lived 93 years December 12, 1894 --Ida L.-- lived 19 months May 16, 1896 --Guy Vernon-- lived 88 years July 2, 1898 --Gwendolyn Caroline-- lived 83 years September 11, 1900 --William G.-- lived 7 months January 4, 1902 --Joseph Garland-- lived 94 years June 6, 1904 --Francis Chilson-- lived 74 years page 59 Photo Frank Wilkinson and first wife, Ida Pippin Wilkinson 12-31-1890 page 60 Photo Ida E. Pippin Wilkinson page 61 IDA E. PIPPIN WILKINSON Back in the “Good Old Days” before motion pictures, television and radio, people had to furnish their own entertainment. They had barn dances and picnics, and the ladies had quilting parties. The men played baseball and had shooting matches. Baseball? Yes, even George Washington played baseball. In the homes, they played games, such as checkers and card games. They sang songs together. If a musical instrument was available, they sang along with music. Miss Ida E. Pippin and her sister, Lucy were musicians. Lucy played the violon, Ida the piano and organ. Ida was a talented musician. She played the church organ. She also taught music lessons. Ida was well known in her area for her skill at nursing the sick. She was called by both white and black folks when anyone was sick. Neighbors always sent for her to deliver babies. Ida E. Wilkinson had many friends among both white and black, and if she needed help, her friends were always willing and anxious to help “Miss Ida”. page 62 MORTGAGE On December 26th, 1893 F. M. Wilkinson and wife, Ida E. signed a mortgage on the farm for the sum of $400.00 payable on the first day of January, 1898 at eight percent interest. F. M. Wilkinson was indebeted to George H. Brown, Jr. by a note of that date. In case of failure to pay, the whole bond would be considered due and payable and the holder of the bond could sell the land at public sale at the court house door to the highest bidder. signed by: F. M. Wilkinson Ida E. Wilkinson This bond was paid and canceled Jan. 22, 1913. Dad said he paid the interest when due, but he would save up a sum of money to pay on the principal and Judge Brown would refuse to take it. He would tell Dad, “Frank, when you can pay me the whole amount of the loan at one time, I will take it. I am not going to take it piece-meal”. On several occasions, he almost had the amount saved up, but had to use some to pay doctors bills and other emergencies. During that twenty years, he was paying interest on the entire amount. Judge Brown was smart. He knew how to make money. At his widow’s death, his money was left to the town of Washington to build a library to be named – The George H. and Laura E. Brown Library. page 63 photo copy mortgage On Dec. 26, 1893 F. M. Wilkinson and wife obtained a loan of $400.00 from Geo. H. Brown at 8% interest. Loan was secured by a mortgage on 83 acres of farm property. The loan was paid off 20 years later, Jan. 22, 1913. page 64 mortgage page 65 BEN FIELD Farmers sometime give names to areas of their farms so family members will know which part of the farm he is referring to. Dad had a section of bottom land that was referred to as the “rice patch”, although it had been years since he cultivated rice. There was a clearing near the edge of the woods that was the “Ben Field”. Before the Civil War, there was an outlaw black man named Ben Soon. Been soon lived in the woods in a range stretching from Washington, N.C. to New Bern, N.C. He made his living by raiding farms in his territory for supplies. any white man that got in his way, he shot. Ben Soon set up camps in various spots. Dad’s Ben Field had once been one of Ben Soon’s camps. It was dangerous for a white man to go in the woods because if Ben Soon saw him, he might shoot him Dad’s father, William Henry Wilkinson and another white man were in the woods, walking a log when a gun was fired and William Henrys companion fell dead from Ben Soon’s ambush. When the civil war started, Washington and New Bern were occupied by the union army. Ben Soon went to the union army headquarters in New Bern and boasted about how many white southern men he had killed. Ben was taken into custody, tried for murder by a military court and hanged. page 66 SHOOTING MARBLES Before television and TV games were invented, kids entertained themselves with such things as games. One popular game consisted of a circle drawn on the ground and knocking marbles out of the ring with a glass or hollow steel “shooter” marble. The shooter was wedged in the crook of the index finger and thumped or shot out with the thumb. The shooter served in a similar manner as a cue ball does when playing billiards If you are able to red a very old deed in the back of this book, you will notice John McWilliams bought 200 acres of land in 1824 which was surveyed, using cedar stumps, pine trees, etc as survey markers instead of iron rods, as is used at present. One of the line markers between Dad’s farm and Mrs. Lucy Myers’ farm was an old pine tree about ten years from the river shore. On an occasion, many years ago, some men chased a black beau up that pine tree. They had nothing in their guns but small shot and that only stung the bear and made him angry. Dad solved the problem. He rammed a glass marble down the barrel of an old muzzle loaded gun and fired away, and got his bear. That was Dad’s way to shoot marbles. page 67 SOMETHING NEW AT THE CIRCUS Dad always grew a crop of sweet potatoes for home consumption and he would occasionally sell a bushel if someone asked to buy them. His main sweet potato crop as a variety called Porto Rico Yams. He also panted a few Hayman potatoes. Most people prefer the Porto Rico’s which cook to a rich deep orange color under the skins. The Haymon potatoes cook to a pale creamy yellow under the skin. Dad used to tell of a time when he took Walter and Bruce to the circus when they were small children. He bought each of them a banana. Bruce peeled his and took a bite and said to Walter, “Buddy this is the best Hayman tater I ever did eat”. After they went in to the main tent the show started. An elephant was brought in to the ring. Walter exclaimed excitedly, “Look Papa, younder is a horse with a tail at each end”! page 68 1903 Residents in Beaufort County had no rural mail delivery in 1903, and dad was contacted and asked if he would organize a rural mail route out of Washington. He took a sample mail box from house to house, explaining what rural mail delivery would be like. some objected, for fear their taxes would increase to pay for the service. He had to explain the 2 cent stamp paid the cost of delivery. some would see him coming with his sample mail box and think it was a doctor’s medicine kit and before he could speak – “Doctor, they ain’t nobody sick at our house, but Mrs. Alligood down the road a piece is laid up with something and needs some doctoring”. He eventually got his route established and it grew to be too long for one carrier, so it was divided in two and Will Burgeron was assigned the second route. Dad carried the mail nineteen years and he used a horse and buggy to deliver in all but the last three years. He bought a model “T” ford and used it the last three years. Dad would get out of bed at 4:00 o’clock every morning, get breakfast and report for work at the post office at 6:00 o’clock. “Neither rain nor snow nor the gloom of night” stopped this man from his rounds. When there was a freezing wind and snow, he tried to keep warm in his open buggy by keeping a lighted lantern between his knees and his lap covered with a heavy “buggy blanket”. There were such things as buggy blankets at that time. page 69 Tideland Scrapbook – Remember these Postal Men? page 70 They {buggy blankets} were thick heavy blankets made of course fiber, and they made good insulation for lap and legs. His was printed with large red roses on a black background. This blanket was finally stolen out of the open model “T” ford, one night along with a lantern while left unattended in a circus parking lot. Dad’s fingers would get so cold in the winter that it would become difficult to separate mail or pick up letters. One incident he recalled was the time a snuff dipping lady bought a stamp and licked all the glue off the stamp so it wouldn’t stick. She held the snuff smeared stamp up to him and said, “will you lick this stamp for me? I can’t get it to stick”. On December 31, 1906 Dad’s wife, Ida Pippin Wilkinson died in childbirth, leaving children, including Joe who was less than five years old, and Chilson who was about 2 ½ years old. Their grandmother, Caroline Lewis Wilkinson died September 14, 1911, leaving Joe and Chilson still quite young without a woman in the house. Gwendolyn was only 13 years old. Of the 19 years that Dad delivered the mail, He only lost one day from work. that was the day his wife, Ida, was buried. He was absent from work a few others times from sickness, such as mumps and the influenza, but he used his vacation leave to cover it. Through the years that he delivered the mail, they never gave the Postal Employees Christmas Day off. Page 71 Illustration Francis M. Wilkinson delivered the U.S. mail for 19 years, 16 of these years, he delivered by horse and buggy through heat of summer, and through chill of winter. The last three years, he delivered by use of a Model “T” Ford. GOOD OLD DAYS Page 72 Photo Main street looking east towards Market Street in Washington, N.C. in 1907 Unpaved street minus street lights. Horse drawn vehicles only. Page 73 During this time, dad and the Burgerons shared a party telephone line. They jointly owned the wire and poles from Washington Park to the houses, and had to pay for line repairs. Dad’s phone consisted of a wood base and box on the wall with a hand cranked ringer-generator, and a black ear piece on a cord, and a mouth piece on an adjustable arm that could be lifted up or down for a short or tall person. The phone was as useful then as it would be today. Sometimes, dad had to call the house when he was off on the road. It was useful to call the doctor, who then made house calls. The Burgeron Farm was about a quarter mile down river from dad’s place. They had a variety of fruit trees, large scuppernong grape arbor, figs, etc. along with regular farming operations. The boys had motorcycles. Mr. Ben Burgeron, the daddy, called “Pa”, owned one of several saloons in Washington. Mr. Ben Burgeron never bought commercial fertilizer for his farm. He mixed his own. He also distilled his own whiskey for his saloon, until prohibition closed all legal whiskey sales. Mr. Burgeron had a government licensed whiskey distillery. Dad met a young lady who worked at J. K. Hoyt’s Department Store as stenographer and bookkeeper. This was Miss Mary Koonce. She and dad became interested in one another and they occasionally “courted” over the telephone. Since the phone was a party line, the Burgerons could listen in on their court-ship. Sometimes, they would play…………. Page 74 Illustration - This is the type telephone dad had on the wall in the hall. Page 75 The record player in the phone. That obviously made private conversations impossible. The background music would also be disruptive. The record player was one of those old Edison Victrolas with a large amplifier horn shaped like a morning glory blossom. The records were cylinder in shape, 2 1/8 inches in diameter and 4 inches long, and with grooves cut around the outside of the cylinder. About 35 years later I had an occasion to do some remodeling in the Burgeron house and along with various antiques I noticed was 2 victrolas in the parlor with morning glory horns. The house was built on a foundation of 12” X 12” square hand hewn sills, mortised and fastened with wood pegs. The studs (posts) were hand hewn or hand sawn 4 X 4 and 4 X 6. The screws in the door hinges were made by a black smith. The brass door locks were as large as cigar boxes. We dug lead bullets out of the doors and door faceing that had lodged there during a shoot out in the civil war. The walls were plastered with a mix of oyster shell lime, sand and hog’s hair spread over hand split wood laths. All nails used were square iron nails. All Frame work was mortissed and pegged. If you are not familuar with those old time record players, I have provided the following illustrations. Page 76 Illustration - Examples of old time “talking machines” Victor Talking Machine Company Other styles Victor and Victrola $ 12 to $450. September 1919 Edison also produced a disc record – 9 ½ inches across and ¼ inch thick. The above machine also came with “morning Glory” type horn. This old cylinder type Edison record is 2 1?8 inches in diameter and 4 inches long. Cylinder walls ¼ inch thick. _Title _ “ Bonnie Blue Flag Polka” and Old South Quartet. Page 77 Illustration - The Brunswick Ad All phonographs in one The Tone Amplifier Music Lovers Choose the Brunswick Dad bought a Victrola simular to the above. Page 78 (missing) Page 79 Frank Wilkinson & 2nd Wife Mary Sarah Koonce Wilkinson Nov. 20, 1912. Page 80 Mary Sarah Koonce Page 81 SEPTEMBER 3, 1913 The weather bureau now gives names to this type of weather disturbance. In 1913, it was just a bad storm. Eastern North Carolina was swept by a severe hurricane. The eye of the storm passed over Washington, N.C.. When dad left for work before daylight that morning, mama said it looked like the wind might blow his buggy over. He reported for work, but the carriers were not sent out in the storm that day. In the meantime at home, the tide began to rise. Dad had lumber stored under the house for the purpose of making a second story on the house. The lumber floated away. Chickens were seen riding across the field on a floating door. The family loaded up in a horse drawn cart and left the house. They were given shelter in a house on a hill about half mile from home. Water came up to the floor and caked up the flour in the bottom of the flour barrel.That afternoon, dad and Will Burgeron could not get home by land because the bridges were washed away, so they took a row boat. Dad said Will was scared to death because the water was so rough. The waves were so high they could’nt see over the top when the boat was in a trough between two waves. If the boat had turned sideway to the waves, it would probably have been swamped. If that had happened, they wouldnt have had a chance. They were luck and made it home safe. Page 82 Photos September 3, 1913 Hurricane Top – Dr. Baynor’s home, corner of Bonner and Water Streets completely surrounded by flood waters which swept low lying parts of Washington. Bottom left photo displays the Beaufort County bridge and keeper’s house listing into the Pamlico River. Parts of the bridge was washed away and traffic was disrupted until repairs were made. Bottom right photo depicts the east side of Market Street between Main and Water Streets as flood waters inundated the down town area. Page 83 Photo - Turbulent Pamlico left Norfolk Southern rail trestle a mass of debris. Page 84 The flood water came up into the streets in parts of Washington and they were going down the streets in boats. Bridges were out. Even the rail road bridge was destroyed. Many business houses had heavy losses. The day after the storm, dad delivered the mail as well as he could under the circumstances. Roads were blocked with trees and bridges were washed out. He had to detour through the woods to get around downed trees and stop and make temporary repairs to bridges sufficiently enough to get his horse and buggy across. He had to do so much wadeing through water fixing bridges that he had removed his pants and only covered his lap with the buggy blanket. A lady came out and bought a 2 cent stamp with a nickel. He stood up to get change out of his pocket. After he stood up, he realized he wasn’t wearing pants. Back in those “Good Old Days” of the horse and buggy, Washington Park had less than a dozen houses. It was not called Town of Washington Park. There were many open fields. Someone landed a “flying machine” in one of the open fields and was chargeing $15.00 to see it. It must have been near the road because they were stopping traffic coming off the bridge into Washington Park, to collect the $15.00 fee. They refused to led dad pass without paying. He was quick to tell them they were interfering with the United States Mail and he could quickly get legal action. They took down the bar and let him through. Page 85 Photo - place here 10:14 PM 10/8/2003 Main Street in 1915 This is how Main Street looked in 1915 as viewed from the corner of Market Street. The picture was taken from “Pen and Picture Sketches” on Greater Washington. The brochure from which the picture was taken was provided the Daily News by J. Phil Roberson. Page 86 Baby George Wilkinson Dad’s last surviving child was b. Feb 10, 1915 to Frank & Mary Wilkinson. Page 87 Dad bought his first automobile about 1919. That was the model “T” Ford I mentioned previously. That model did not have a self starter. You had to start it yourself with a hand crank. Dad had rheumatism in his right arm and had difficulty cranking it so Joe or Chilson (Frank, Jr) went with him to drive on his mail route. Sometimes, especially in cold weather, the Ford was hard to start in the morning. One thing that helped was to jack up one rear wheel so the drive shaft and gears could turn freely in stiff grease. If they couldn’t start it in time, Dad would take the buggy to town, sort his mail and by that time, they usually had it running and would meet him where our lane met River Road ( now NC 32). There, he would trade buggy for car and proceed on his way. When dad delivered mail with a horse, it was necessary to keep 3 horses all the time. He kept a horse and a spare for the road, and a farm horse. The spare could also pull a plow. With so many horses to feed, he had to plant about half the farm in corn and hay for horse feed. In dad’s early years of farming, corn was planted in 4 foot squares. They plowed furrows 4 feet apart, length way the field and 4 feet apart across the field, marking in off in squares. A hole was dug at each cross point and a few shovel fulls of manure or wood mold was put in as organic fertilizer. Wood mold was well rotted leaves from the ground in the woods. This stuff was covered and one hill of corn planted in that square. Page 88 Young teenaged Chilson Wilkinson stands beside the new Ford. Page 89 In later years, he used comercial fertilizer. When the corn stalk matured and just before the leaves (or blades) on the stalk were ready to start turning yellow, the blades were stripped from the stalk, tied in bundles and hung on a broken stalk to dry in the sun. When dry, three or four of these bundles were tied into a larger bundle and hauled to the barn and stored for “fodder”. This fodder was used the same as hay for feed. Stripping fodder was hot, itchy, tireing work that blistered and tore skin from fingers and hands. It was just the way of life on the old time farm. Dad bought the first horse drawn cotton planter in the neighborhood. It had 2 large wooden disc wheels, one on either side of a green hopper box. The wheels turned an eight inch metal drum in the bottom of the hopper. The drum had teeth that would grap the seeds and drop them in the row. The machine opened the row to receive the seed and then closed it over the seed. A neighbor borrowed the cotton planter. When dad finally located it, it was in the other side of Beaufort County. It had been borrowed from one to another ‘till no one even knew who it belonged to. Dad raised scuppernog grapes, watermellons and cantelopes to sell to local merchants. He saved his seeds from the best of the crop each year so that he constantly improved his varieties of cantelopes and watermellons. Page 90 HOME MADE TOOLS Back in the days before every household tool and utensil was made commercially, people had to rely on home made products to work with. If they broke a tool handle, they made another one. They made their own baskets, wood buckets, wood tubs and barrels, or had some one in the neighborhood to do it for them. Most of their plows were home made. The black smith made plow points, horse shoes, axes, froes, and most anything of metal that was needed. The old time black smith was far more skilled at metal work than modern metal workers. He could bend, twist or shape a piece of hot metal to make almost any simple shape. He could weld two pieces of metal by heating them and hammering them together. He could cut a bar of steel by heating it and cutting it with a cold chisel as easily as cutting a stick of butter. Modern metal workers cut with acetylene torches or electric saws and weld with electric arc welders. They shape their material with lathes and milling machines. The country black smith had no need for such equipment. Page 91 (with illustrations) about 1900 - 1930 The old time farmer prepared his land for planting by starting in the fall and winter pileing and burning the residue so it could be plowed. Ditch banks and hedge rows were shrubbed of previous year’s growth. This shrubbing was done with a heavy hook ended ax called a bush ax. It required many hours of finger blistering work through the winter to do this work. After the ditch banks and fields were cleared of the previous year’s growth, plowing could begin. The “turn plow” would cut about eight inches deep and lift and turn a furrow of soil about eight or ten inches wide. A man and horse could break about one acre of land in five continous hours of work. Then the surface would have to leveled by dragging over the plowed surface with large grate-like drag called a spike tooth harrow. A modern tractor can break up about forty acres in the same 5 hour period and drag it at the same time. The tractor can clear ditch banks with a mowing attachment and cut field stalks in……….. Page 92 & 93 After the ground is broken, it must be prepared for planting. When the weather warms in the spring and the danger of frost is past, spring planting begins. Most crops on old time farms were planted in rows 3 ½ feet apart and 4 feet apart. Corn rows were 4 feet, with stalks thinned to 20” to 24 inches apart. This method was used in the period around 1925. First, rows opened, usually with a turn plow. Two poles, sharpened to a point at one end, are set up in the field, one at the center of first row and one at far end of field on first row. Start plowing out a furrow at front of field, in line with the 2 distant poles, sighting down the two poles as you would use sights on a gun barrel. As you arrive at each pole, take it up and re-set it over the width of 2 rows. On your rturn trip across the field, plow between first furrows, making single width rows. The horse soon learns to head straight for the pole and stop. After the rows are opened, fertilizer is applied, at a specified tunnage per acre. A turn plow passes on each side of the row, banking a ridge of dirt over the fertilizer. Another pass with a drag flattens part of the ridge. Then a mechanical planter passes if that type of crop is to be planted. If the planter is not designed for the seed to be planted, then several other operations take place. A seed groove is opened in the row. The seeds are dropped by hand and either covered with the foot or a special wooden drag covers them. Modern tractor open 4 rows at a time, apply fertilizer, plant the seeds and cover them all in one fast operation. The old time farmer had to chop weeds and grass out of his crop land every 10 days to 2 weeks and plow or the unwanted growth would crowd out his crops. Boll weevils would spoil his cotton. Tobacco worms would have to be picked off of each leaf by hand, in the hot August sunshine. The modern farmer uses herbicides to rid his crops of grasses and weeds. Pesticides takes care of worms and bugs. It used to take the farmer’s family and several tennant families to run one fair sized farm. A modern mechanized farmer needs several fair sized farms to have a reasonable income. Ride through the country and you will see many old abandoned tennant houses along the way. Page 94 illustrations The cotton plow which had parts of various sizes that could be used separately or in combination to preform various plowing operations. The turn plow. The steel mould board was invented for this plow and it revolutionized farming for the American farmer in colonial days. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson expiermented with the steel mould board. The spike tooth harrow – useful for smootheing over plowed fields. These “store bought” plows were to be found on every small farm. Some larger farms had two horse turn plows and cultivators and harrows. Page 95 illustrations through 1930 PLOWS – STORE BOUGHT The cultivator was used to keep weeds and grass under control in the rows of growing crops. There was an assortment of plow points for various jobs. Frank Wilkinson bought a cotton planter like this. He loaned it to a neighbor. He located it some time later on the other side of the county. It had been loaned from neighbor to neighbor until no one knew who owned it. The Fertilizer distributor. Page 96 illustrations possibly dates back as far as 1870 to 1930 A home made plow to be used to make a groove in the top of the row to drop seeds in. This home made drag was used to scrape the tops of rows off flat to prepare for planting. This home made drag was also used to scrape the tops off of the rows. The above are some of the home made plows on the farm of Francis Marion Wilkinson. Page 97 illustrations Looping leaf tobacco on sticks to hang in the tobacco barn. It will be dried in the barn with heat from a wood burning furnace, 24 hours a day, 5 days. July 1923 Page 98 It so happened that dad had a neighbor that wanted to raise melons as good and sweet as dad’s, so he asked him one day, “Frank, how come your watermellons are so sweet?”. Dad jokingly told him that he put a cup full of sugar under each hill of melons when he planted them. The next summer, the man came to dad , very angry. “Frank, I went to town and hauled a whole barrel of sugar to my place and planted my melon patch with a whole cup full of sugar under each hill and they are no sweeter than before”. Dad was surprised that he didn’t catch the joke the first time. He was sure he would’nt fall for it again, so he just told him he should put two cup fulls instead of one. The next summer – you guessed it. Two barrels of sugar. Same kind of mellons. P.T. Barnum said “There’s a sucker born every minute”. To suppliment his living off farming, dad fished and salted them down for future use. On one occasion, his nets were so full of fish that they overloaded his boat and it swamped with water over the side before he reached shore. That’s more fish than a present day fisherman would catch in a month out of our much poluted river. I have seen a drastic drop in marine life in our river in the last 60 years. There used to be water lillies, several kinds of sea weeds, an abundance of crabs, flounder and plenty of other fish to catch with hook or net. Page 99 There is no plant life in the water, very few fish, and crabs are almost non-existant a couple of miles down stream from Washington. I once heard dad say he sold a barrel of salted shad for three cents each. The same fish would now cost about $5.00 each from the fish store. Incidentally, he never got paid for his barrel of 3 cent shad. After dad’s father, William Henry Wilkinson died, his mother, Caroline Lewis Wilkinson came to live with him. The old home place was somewhere near an area in Beaufort County called Wilmar. Dad paid taxes on the place for a number of years but none of the other heirs took an interest in it or helped pay taxes so he finally stopped. Then, his sister Emily’s son, Jesse B. Ross, paid the taxes after dad stopped. When Jesse died, the place was finally sold, presumable for taxes. All the heirs, cousins by the dozens, and others including myself signed a release to make the sale final. If there had been any profit realized, we would have received a share. I never heard any more from it. Dad’s mother was near-sighted. She also hated to see cats sitting on the dining room table. She came in one day and yelled “Get off the table, you darned cat!” and she slapped the old black tea pot off the table and across the floor. We guess she should have had eye glasses. Page 100 When dad was in the mail service, he had to file a monthly report with the postal department. These reports required some arithmetic to figure answers to some standard questions. Since dad had a total of three weeks education, it was’nt easy. I once picked up a piece of scratch paper that had some of his mathematical calculations on it. He did his multiplying by adding. For example, nine times 275 would be a column of 275 written down nine times and added. He made it work for him. He was never taught to read, but he read the Washington Daily News from cover to cover every night. He also read his bible, the Progressive Farmer Magazine, The Literary Digest Magazine, The Southern Planter Magazine and a publication called the R.F.D. News. He occasionally studied his world atlas. He could say the abc’s backward faster than I can say them forward. Dad’s second wife, Mary was delivered of her second child by caesarean section on May 23, 1917. It was a girl with black hair. Unfortunately, she only lived a few hours. Hospitals were not equipped to give the kind of post natal care that babies get now. They either lived or they did’nt. Many years later, Gwendolyn recalled her expierence in the event to me. She had deep regrets about their inability to save the baby. Gwendolyn was the only girl in the family and she had always wished for a sister. She said it was a beautiful baby. I also wished they could have saved her. I would have enjoyed having a little sister near my age. See Page 101 after images for 102 & 103 below: Page 102 illustration Frank M. Wilkinson bought gasoline for his model “T” Ford from a country general store for 18 cents per gallon. The pump delivered one gallon each time the cylinder was cranked all the way up. I might not have my picture accurate because it has been 70 years since I saw the pump. Page 103 Pop’s new model “T” Ford automobile Francis Chilson Wilkinson – cranking It had kerocine parking lights and tail light. The head lights ran on magneto. The faster the engine turned, the brighter the lights. It had a spark coil for each cylinder (4). You cranked it on 6 volt dry cell battery and then switched over to magneto. The gas tank was under the front seat. Lift the cushion and there it was. No filter on the carborator. Page 101 & 104 All the other brothers and sister had grown up and left home by the time I was ten years of age. That left me to be the only young one at home. I needed some one to help me plow and chop wood and shrub ditch banks. __Just Kidding __. But Seriously, I would have enjoyed having another child in the home. I have made previous mention of dad’s Ford. It had special features not found on modern cars. It had kenosine parking lights on either side of the windshield (which was never lit), and a kerosine tail light. It was a custom while dad was a mail carrier, and a long time after, to make use of all available daylight working time at home, and go shopping at night. Many people did it back then. The stores stayed open from seven a.m. to midnight. The usual procedure was to load the family in the “T” Ford and crank up and start to town. The dirt roads were bumpy, and I don’t think the car had shock absorbers, because the bumps in the road would bounce the passengers up against the cloth top sometimes. After we were on the way, dad would ask the driver, “did you light that rare lamp”? Dad used quaint english sometimes. Then we would stop at Alfred Clark’s General Store, at the intersection of Brick Kiln Road and River Road, and we would get gasoline. The Clarks lived upstairs, and had a business on the ground floor. They sold everything from soda crackers to horse collars. Mr. Clark would come out and start pumping gas. The gas tank was located under the driver’s seat cushion. The gas guage was a wooden stick dipped in the tank to see how high up the stick got wet. The gas pump had a hand crank that was turned to raise a plunger through a cylinder that held exactly one gallon. Every time the plunger was cranked up, it was another gallon, at 18 cents per gallon. Mr. Clark was a heavy set man with a growth on the side of his neck the size of a hen’s egg. I think it was called a goiter. Mrs. Clark was an inquisitive woman very much like the store keepers wife on the television story, “Little House on the Prairie”. Their son Bryan was sort of spoiled, and throught his entire lifetime, he worked hard, but never could save a single dollar. He lived his final years on welfare. After gassing up, we would leave Clark’s with a tank full of 18 cent gas and head up town. The first few blocks of Main Street were not paved. Then you came to the part that was paved with bricks. When the car was parked, dad and mom would go to McClure’s Store with the grocery list. A box full of groceries usually cost about three dollars. Dad would go over to Dudley’s Fish Market and if Mr. Dudley had some nice trout or mackrel that weighed about 2 pounds or more, he would buy some. If he didn’t, Mr. Dudley would stop dad before he reached the counter and say, “sorry Frank, But I don’t have what you want this time”. In oyster season, there would be six to a dozen oyster boats tied up at the docks and oyster men would swarm prospective customers, praising their oysters. Page 105 Some would open an oyster and say “taste this oyster, Mister. It’s fat and fresh and as big as your foot”. Dad would get a quart or more already opened. Sometimes he would get a bushel in the shell. Other items he would get at the meat market was beef steak and stew beef. We raised our own pork and poultry. Occasionally mom and dad would do other shopping. Then they headed for the picture show. The movies were black and white silent movies. The piano player up front selected music to set the mood for whatever was showing on the screen. Sad music for tear jerkers, fast music for a chase. The pop corn boy would walk up and down the aisles calling out, “get your pop karn – both de-lish-us and new-trish-shus, get your pop karn”. The actors would move their arms and mouths furiously and what they were supposed to be saying would print on the screen. Someone sitting behind you who could barely read would slowly read out loud what he could of part of the lines before it flashed off, and that would confuse everyone around him. Some of the actors and actresses were famous silent screen stars; like Mary Pickford and Pearl White to name a few. Then there were the western heroes such as Buck Jones who would actually kiss the girl on the mouth at the end of the picture. Tom Mix never-never would kiss a girl in front of a camera. We had some good comedians such as Ben Turpin, the guy with the square mustache, Fatty Arbuckel, Charlie Chaplin and his child side-kick, Little Jackie Coogan and of course, the famous Buster Keaton who never changed his facial expression. Page 106 Buster Keaton was a perfectionist. He didn’t rely on stunt men to do his difficult parts. He did them himself. Every Saturday, the theater showed an episode of a serial called “The Perils of Pauline” where they would get the girl out of last week’s life threatening danger, and end up with her in another perilous episode, continued to next week, but some way, the managed to get her out next week. After the show, Pop would take mom and I to Worthy and Ethridge Drug Store and he would treat us to a chocolate ice cream soda. They were delicious! I can’t remember much about how Joe spent his time on those trips, but I think Chilson spent a part of his time at the pool room. He picked up some spending money working there part time. A few years later, talking pictures were introduced to the public. Then came technicolor pictures. Dad took mom and I se see “Cleopatria” starring Caludette Colbert. She was real pretty in technicolor. In one scene, Cleopatria was bathing in a large pool of milk. The slaves were milking she-asses and carring jars of milk and pouring in the bath. Dad nudged mom and grinned and pointed to several cats standing around the bath drinking milk. Page 107 illustration Back in the good old days, every lady wore a hat. It was customary to buy the hat and have the lady running the millinary shop to decorate it like the customer wanted it. Sometimes the decorations were elaborate. You especially noticed in when you sat behind her in the theater. Page 108 PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT There was an “opera house” in Washington located on the second floor of a building on the north east corner of Market and Main Streets. Traveling theatre companies made their rounds of towns and the opera house was one of their stops. The public was always anxious for entertainment, so the house was usually filled. On one particular night, the house was packed, waiting for the show to begin. The actors and actresses were on the stage behind the closed curtain preparing for the preformance. The curtain was designed to raise by winding around a long pole like an up-side-down window shade. The two boys who pulled the ropes to raise the curtain were waiting for their cue. One of the actresses was wearing a long flowing dress and she happened to be on stage backed up behind the curtain. By some mistake, the boys thought they had the cue so they started vigorously raising the curtain. As the curtain began to roll up around the pole and rise, it caught the skirt of the actress. The audience saw the curtain rising and the surprised lady standing on stage with the curtain slowly pulling her dress up and lifting her off her feet. Everyone in the audience was roaring with laughter. They got the curtain back down and after the actress regained her composure, the show started. Unfortunately, every time this actress came on, the audience would again roar with laughter. Page 109 STREET CARNIVALS One of the first motion pictures of any length was “The Great Train Robbery” which was made in 1903. Sometime afterward this film was the feature attraction in one of the the tent shows in the Hatch-Adams Carnival showing for the first time in Washington, N.C. Did you ever catch yourself humming tunes from songs by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein like “old man ribber, he don’t do nothing, he just keeps rolling along”, “pick up dat bale, git a little drunk and you land in jail” “can’t help lovin’ that man o’mine”. These songs were written for the long running play “Show Boat”. Show Boat novel sold 320,000 copies in the United States the first 12 years the book was published. Show Boat has been made into several movies, adapted from the novel by Edna Ferber. This novel has been translated and sold in eleven countries. Musical and dramatic rights were sold to Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein. The broadway production was produced by Florence Zigfield. Where was this novel born? In Frank M. Wilkinson Country - on the banks of the Pamlico River. Page 110 CAPTAIN JAMES ADAMS Captain James Adams came to Washington, N.C. with a carnival. One of the feature attractions was a high dive act. They set up a tall ladder with a small platform near its top on Market Street between Main and Second Streets. While testing his equipment, the diver fell to the ground when a guy rope became loose and caused the ladder to break. He was seriously injured and spent several months in the hospital. A fire destroyed valuable costumes needed in another feature act. From these misfortunes, James Adams quit the carnival business and decided to enter into the theatre business. FLOATING THEATRE James Adams had observed the flat bottom barges or scows used by the Washington lumber companies so he decided one could be modeled into a floating theatre. Captain George Leach, President of the Eureka Lumber Company of Washington furnished a barge – 122 feet long and 32 feet wide and furnished the lumber, and Chauncey’s Boat Yard did the work. The flat bottom boat would float in 14 inches of water. Every time Guy Wilkinson went to town he would go by Chauncey’s Boat Yard on the river in down town Washington and when he came home, he would up-date the family on the progress of the floating theatre they were building. In addition to the stage and auditorium The James Adams also had room for living and dining quarters for cast and crew of 26 and storage space. All personnel had at least two or more jobs on board. Page 111 & 112 The show boat was pulled by the boat from town to town on the shores of North Carolina and Virginia waters, remaining in each town a week, and each night a different play was presented. The James Adams Floating Palace Theatre presented its first public preformance in Washington in the spring of 1914. The plays they presented were usually “tear-jerkers”. Novelist Edna Ferber heard of a floating theatre making the rounds of the river towns of North Carolina and Virginia and she wanted to write a novel based on the theme of a show boat, so she came to Washington in 1924 to contact the James Adams Floating Palace Theatre, but it had finished its season and was tied up for the winter in Elizabeth City, but it would be back in Bath, N.C. for a new season in April 1925. Edna Ferber came to Bath in April 1925 and was invited on board where she lived for a while, attending rehersals, selling tickets, serving as a walk-on actress, dining with the crew and cast, and becoming a temporary member of the troupe. She went back to New York and used her material to write her novel, using some of the actual caracters she met in her book. She based her Show Boat on the Mississippi River. George and Hazel Wilkinson attended two shows in the late nineteen thirties or early nineteen forties. The acting was good. They had a good orchestra (tug boat crew) and we can still remember some of a song by the male singer. They tied up at dock side back of the old Louise Hotel. They had temporary utilities conections including phone. Possibly due to objections of the local movie theatre owner who owned 2 theatres, they were required to buy expensive one year license to show one week. Captain Adams told his audience that would be the last visit the theatre would make to its birth place. Page 113 photo The James Adams Floating Theatre, renamed The Original Show boat following publication of Edna Ferber’s book. Shown here in winter quarters it is docked at Water Street in Elizabeth city. (All photos courtesy of Fred Fearing, reproduced by T. H. Pearce, published with “Showboating in the Albemarle” by Joseph O. Green, III, in “The State,” February 15, 1972) THE STATE, November 1979 Page 114 illustration The James Adams Floating Palace Theater. Your narrator only saw this boat twice, both times at night, fifty years ago, so my illustration is not accurate. One of the things I noticed was a row of steel post and guy rods along the side to protect the hull from stress of unbalanced loads. Customers boarded a gang way up front and purchased tickets and went in the front end and selected a seat. The theater was connected with telephone and city utilities. The music and shows were good. Page 115 photo The theatre intself, inside the boat, had a seating capacity of 700, and measured 122 x 34 feet. Most of the plays were “tear jerkers”. Page 116 photo Two of the showboat’s leading ladies; the lady on the left is probably Beulah Adams Hunter, billed as “The Mary Pickford Of The Rivers”. Her husband Charles Hunter (______) welcomed Edna Ferber aboard and helped her with her book. Many people later saw the Hunters reflected as characters in “Show Boat”. Page 117 CECIL BLOUNT DE MILLE Viewers all over the world have seen and are still watching famous motion pictures byone of the outstanding motion picture directors of all time. Cecil B. De Mille. He directed such pictures as “King Of Kings” and “The Ten Commandments” and other master pieces of motion picture art. Cecil B. DeMille was a local man. He was born and raised in Washington, North Carolina. His birthplace was across the corner from the site of the old high school building on Bridge and Second Streets. Frank Wilkinson was acquainted with members of his mother’s family. Unfortunately, the last owner of the Cecil B. DeMille home sold the property to an oil company which demolished this historic home and built a filling station. Page 118 & 119 & 120 THEATERS The first play house in Washington, N.C. that we have record of was called The Opera House. It was located on the second floor of a building on the north east corner of Market and Main Streets. Local plays were sometimes presented and traveling theater companies presented vaudivilles and plays on its stage to packed audiences. There was no radio or television for entertainment, and the old spring wound “talking machine” was a novelty and curiosity that few families owned. The recorded sounds for these machines came either on a thick disc or a cylinder about two inches in diameter and four inches long. The records turned much faster than our present disc records. The needle or stylus picked up vibrations off the record and sent them into a small drum head or diaphram that connected to a long wood or composition horn for amplification. No electricity was involved. I don’t know when The Opera House closed, but there was a new theater that opened in 1913 that appropriately was named “The New Theater”. The New Theater was located on the second floor of a building in down town Washington, N.C. on Main Street. The ground floor of the building currently houses a shoe store, a long wide hall way and a soda shop. The soda shop was origonally Shaw’s Soda Shop. It is now Jean’s Grill. The remains of the old “New Theater” are still there, a ghost of a reminder of the past. All the seats have been removed and used else-where. I remember the New Theater as the first picture show I ever attended as a child with my parents. My parents usually attended every Saturday night and we saw a short comedy, a feature film and an installemen of a serial. The serial would compare to modern soap operas on T.V. except the star actor was always left in an impossible and often life threatening situation to be continued next week! The New Theater often presented vaudeville shows. All through the silent movie, the piano player down front played “mood music” to fit the scene on the screen. It is showed a sad scene, he played sad music. If a chase was in progress, he played music to fit the scene. TURNAGE In 1930, Mr. Collier A. Turnage opened a large beautifully designed theater on the ground floor in the back of the same building that housed the old New Theater. The old New Theater was closed. The newly opened theater was named for its owner “Turnage Theater”. This was entered through a long wide hallway between a shoe store and Shaw’s Soda Shop. The Turnage showed only the best movies. I remember the first showing of “Gone With The Wind”. The line waiting to buy tickets was long enough to stretch around the block. Mr. Turnage opened another theater across the street to show “B” class movies. This was named for his wife. It was called the “Rita Theater”. The Rita closed when television became popular and took away customers. It was in the nineteen eighties before the Turnage Theater closed its doors and sent its customers to a triple cinema at the Washington Shopping Mall. Some time after World War Two, a drive in theater opened on River road and one opened in Chocowinity. They are now just memories. Page 121 photo The Turnage Theater, its glory days gone forever. THE GLORY DAYS ARE GONE AT TURNAGE Ric Carter photos Page 122 photo and news article Page 123 photo Fancy wordwork marks the spot where the theater’s chandelier once hung. Page 124 KEEPING WARM Did you ever have your furnace break down or the fuel give out in the middle of winter and all the house becomes freezing cold except a little spot in front of an electric heater or a fireplace? At the turn of the century, Francis M. Wilkinson and thousands more people didn’t have it that good. Houses were drafty. They were not insulated. Most wood houses were constructed with the framework covered on the outside with a single coat of clapboard. If the inside rooms were not plastered, they were ceiled with tongue and groove lumber. The clapboards would shrink and warp allowing wind to pass through. The ceiling would also shrink allowing the passage of air. A calendar hanging on the wall would swing on a windy day. The floors in many houses were tongue and groove lumber, six or more inches wide, nailed directly to the supporting joist, with no air or vapor barrier. These tongue and groove boards would shrink, allowing air to pass through. I have seen newspapers on the floor, flutter and lift when it was windy outside. Page 125 illustration 1918 The only means of heating the room was a wood burning fireplace. Page 126 illustration About 1922, F. M. Wilkinson installed a wood burning heater in his bedroom – sitting room. Page 127 This is the flag that hung on the wall over Frank M. Wilkinson’s mantel through the years of World War One. The flag has only 46 stars. It was made before New Mexico became the 47th state in 1-6-1912 and before Arizona became the 48th state in 2-14-1912. PAGE 128 DECORATIONS Dad’s sitting room had an American flag draped on the wall over his mantel piece. It was in support for his country and his three sons who were in France fighting German Kaiser Wilhelm’s army in World War One. Also, he had silk plack hanging to the right of the flag that represented his family’s participation in the military effort. This silk plack or banner was approximately seven inches wide and eleven inches high. There was a pencil size rod across the top, tipped on either end with a wooden gilded spear point. A piece of gold color silk cord was fastened by the ends to the spear points. The cord was a hanger so the banner could be hung on the wall. The banner had a wide red border on the four sides of a white center. In the certer was displayed the number of five point starts that the family had in the military service. The stars were blue. Walter was in the mounted (horse) cavalry. Bruce was in the army’s early air force as a camera spotter. Guy was in the infantry. Guy expierenced attacks of poisoned gas. {Illustration of flag} page 129 Until about the year 1022, the room that dad used for sitting and sleeping was warmed ? with a fire place. When it was freezing cold, and especially when there was a chill wind blowing, you sat close to the fire and radiant heat baked your front, and your back would have goose bumps from cold. BEDDING Many old time beds had springs consisting of a grill work of chain link wires hooked upto form a rectangle the size of the bed and the whole suspended in place with coil stretch springs. Dad’s mattress was a core of animal hair padded on either side with cotton. It was very heavy and very – very firm. When I was young, my room opened in to mom’s and dad’s room. My mattress was softer than dad’s. It was made of corn shucks, stripped in bits about half an inch wide and stuffed in the ticking material. All beds in the house were padded with a soft “feather bed”. That was a mattress size ticking, filled with chicken feathers until it stood at least eight inches thick. When the bed was made up for another night, the bed had to be patted in the high spots so as to shift the feathers evenly across the whole bed. That took a little more time than modern beds. When you lay in a feather bed, you lay in, not on it. You take your place in it and the bedding rises up around you as you sink in. Page 130 When you went to bed on a cold night and in a cold room, the sheets were ice cold and you would draw up into a ball with knees touching chin and arms clasped around ankles. The bed would gradually get warm enough to straighten out. The sleeper was covered with several home make patch work quilts. They were so heavy that it was difficult to turn over. They “bath room” was very convenient. You didn’t even have to leave your bed side. It was a pot with a flared top rim and it had a convenient handle on the side. It was slid under the bed in easy reach. It was necessary to slip the pot far enough under the bed so you wouldn’t step on the side of the pot and turn it over when getting off the bed. Also, if it was left too far out, you would step in it and give your foot a cold bath. Some times, it would get so cold that the pot would freeze before day. I have seen it happen. MORNING Dad had to set his alarm clock for four o’clock a.m. and get up. He had to report for work at six a.m. at the post office. Durning World War One, daylight saving time made him get up an hour earlier. Some one had to start fires in the fire place and in the kitchen stove. Some one had to go to the barn and feed the horse that would be on the road. Page 131 SPACE HEATERS About 1922, dad bought a wood burning heater for his den room. That worked better than the fire place bacause it would heat a whole room instead of just a spot in front of the fire. A fire place draws most of the heated air up the chimney. A heater utilizes much of the heat from the combustion gases and passes it through the sides of the combustion chamber and vent pipe to the room. A short time later, dad wanted to fix up the “parlour” for Walter’s bride, Violet, who was coming for a visit. He bought some living room furniture, and a fancy stove that would burn both coal and wood. The living room furniture was o.k. for that period, but would not be considered very appropriate today. There was a mahogany table with drawer. That was o.k. Then there were a rocking chair, a straight back chair and a love seat. All had stiff spring seats covered with a black rubberized fabric. They were not compfortable. The backs of the seats were unpadded wood. When Guy announced that he was bringing his first bride, Genevieve Gordon Wilkinson, Dad bought a heater for the dining room. A version of that heater is still being sold. It is called a “box heater”. {includes illustration of heater} Page 132 OUT DOOR BATHROOM It was located about two hundred feet from the house and not far from the chicken house. It was built of pine boards nailed vertically. It was well ventilated both summer and winter. The problem with winter ventilation was snow drifting in and covering the bench. The bench had three “seats” cut in it. One small cut for kids and two regular for adults. Imagine walking through two hundred feet of snow to get there, and then have to rake a thin coat of snow off before you could sit down. In the summer, don’t rush out bare footed. You night step on a chicken “daisy” and have to scrape out between your toes. You miss all that adventure with indoor bathrooms. You don’t get a chance to look over old issues of Sears-Roebuck catalouges that were used in place of that soft sissy paper that now comes in rolls. Page 132 The old traditional cartoon of the little four foot square house with the half moon cut in the door is a modern scientific version. Back in about 1950, I built a number of those by specifications provided by the N.C. Health Department. They were four feet square with a concrete slab floor and a concrete stool form. I once read an account of one of the more fashionable homes on West Main Street in Washington that had a fine brick structure with a partition for ladies on one side and gentlemen on the other. Either side could accomidate up to five passengers at a time. The president of the Bank of Washington, Jesse B. Ross told me that when he first started working for the bank as a messenger boy before the turn of the century, the bank had an out door privy out back. There was an old black man in Washington whose occupation was cleaning out privies and loading the sludge in his horse drawn cart. He hauled it to the country and sold it to farmers for fertilizer. The modern version of this is the contractor with the tank truck who pumps out septic tanks. {small illustration of Privy} Page 134 Needed! TExt from News article.... Page 135 missing Page 136 CROW, THE SUPER The milk dad poured over his cereal was from a dairy next door. A Mr. June C. Crow operated a state inspected dairy complete with horse drawn delivery wagon. The milk cost 10 cents per quart. The land west of dad’s farm had a fertilizer factory with docks to unload sea going barges, and a railroad line with 4 tracks in the rall yard. They also shipped by water and trucks, or horse drawn wagons. Mr Crow was superintendant of the factory. Salary, a whopping $60.00 per week. He also had free use of the farm property that the company owned. He fertilized his crops with company owned chemicals. Mr. Crow had 4 mules and 3 carts. The company used a lot of inert silica (sand) to dilute strong chemicals in manufacturing. Mr. Crow rented 3 mules and carts at a fee per load, to the company all summer, to haul sand from a field mine to the silica shed. Over oa period of years, several acres of sand were mined from a depth of 5 to 10 feet, leaving two large sand pits, one of which was within a few feet of dad’s property line. The sand was loaded in the carts by hand with shovels, about a cubit yard per load. Mr. Albert Mish was hauling sand one day when the sand bank caved in and a human skull rolled up to Mr. Mish and landed, facing him, seeming to be grinning at him. The other guys had to run as fast as they could to catch Mr. Mish and practially drag him back to his mule and cart. It was a nice skull. I examined it myself. It had a nice full set of teeth. Page 137 LIVESTOCK Dad had horses, hogs and chickens of his own. He occasionally had mules, sheep, cows and hogs that were not his own. Mr. Crow’s fences were not too good and dad often had the neighbor’s livestock feasting on his field crops. Mr. Crow kept hogs, a small herd of cows, a herd of sheep, chickens and mules. He required the night watchman to feed the mules, and until he started the dairy, he required the watchman tomilk one cow daily, at no extra pay. A Mr. Messick quit his job one Sunday morning when the cow kicked a bucket of milk over and ruined his suit. The watchman had to walk his rounds every hour and “punch” a paper dial locked in the clock with numbred keys chained at various stations around the factory. There was a key station in the mule barn and one in the chicken house. I never thought the insurance company required his chickens to be watched. Page 138 THE FACTORY NEXT DOOR The fertilizer factory next to dad’s farm was situated on about 80 acres of land which was part of the same parcel of land that dad’s farm was a part of – the origonal McWilliams land. This factory was owned by the F. S. Royster Guano Co. of Norfolk, Va. They also owned 51 % of the Pamlico Chemical Company of Washington, N.C., the other interest of Pamlico chem. owned by Charles F. Cowell and sons. Pamlico Chem. Served as sales office, and the factory did the manufacturing and most of the shipping. In the early days before trucks delivered straight to the farmer, most fertilizer was shipped by boat or rail road. Orders would be made up for all farm customers in a certain community, such as Chocowinity or Wilmar. A Wilmar car would be loaded. Each farmer of that area would have his order stacked in a separate pile in the car and tagged. The r.r. car would be side tracked at Wilmar and the customers would take their orders out of the r.r. car and haul it home by horse and wagon or cart. It worked the same way by boat and scow. Just west of Royster was a vacant tract of land owned by Phillips Fertilizer Co. West of the vacant Phillips land was a factory operated by Virginia – Carolina Fertilizer Co. They operated about the same as Royster. Dad bought his fertilizer from V.C. Co. Royster mined acres of sand pits next to dad’s farm and he said he would feel like….. Page 139 & 140 He was almost buying his own dirt if he bought Royster’s. I eventually figured formulae for Royster Fertilizers and the filler was necessary, just as a pharmacist dilutes strong drugs with alcohol to get the prescribed strength of medication. Back in World War One days, the fertilizer business in Washington was booming, the factory couldn’t get enough local laborers, so the company sent an employment scout to Georgia to recruit labor. New recruits were given transportation and two weeks pay to sign on. The pay roll reached a peak of 600 employees at one time. They paid laborers $8.00 per day. The laborers made so much money that some wore silk shirts to work in. At the time I worked at the factory, the largest payroll I ever worked on had 200 employees. The superintendent made $60.00 per week. The factory foreman made $25.00 per week. There was no water fountains. There was a deep well hand pump in front of the office building. The water boy constantly circulated among the men with a bucket of fres water and a tim dipper. The 2 rest rooms were built so the benches were suspended directly over the river so they could feed the cat fish. When they were working the 600 men, the time keeper had trouble keeping track of all the men. Some would check their time card in, in the morning and sneak off and play cards all day and go back and punch out that evening and get paid for a day’s work To stop that, an eight foot fence was erected all the way around the factory operational area. Part of that high wall of wood boards separated Dad’s property from theirs. That didn’t completely seal the property off. Mama ran a country type store in the back yard. Factory workers would come to her store at noon to buy lunch. Some customers would buy crackers and a can of Log Cabin brand syrup and they would eat crackers and drink syrup. One guy would drink several bottles of vanilla flavoring at a time. Mama asked him why he drank so much vanilla. Was it good ? “No mam, I drink it for the effects. It’s mostly alcohol”. The company had a night watchman that went in the business for himself. The company made and sold fertilizer during the day. The watchman sold fertilizer at night at cut rate prices. Horse drawn carts and wagons moved in and out at night by land and boats by water. The company discovered what was happening and indicted the watchman and his customers. Mr. Crow persuaded the management to drop the charges. He pointed out that it would damage relations between company and customers. Page 141 illustration Until 1940, the F.S. Royster Guano Co., situated next to F.M. Wilkinson’s farm operated, manufacturing fertilizer. Most chemical raw material arrived by by water, delivered in 1000 ton capacity barges from northern ports. The sketch illustrates how they were unloaded. ½ ton dump buckets were filled by hand and hoisted to top of tower and dumped in hopper. Push cars ran a tram track overhead into the factory and dumped the chemical on appropriate chemical pile in factory. Small tug boat on right hauled freight on flat barge. Small brick building with tank on roof was pump station to fill tank on fire tower which supplied fire hydrants and hose stations at intervals around property. Page 142 BIG FACTORY FIRE One Sunday afternoon in about 1920, a black smoke drifted over our house. The factory was on fire. Joe Wilkinson and a neighbor rushed over. The watchman on duty was hysterical. Joe realized that a two foot thick brick fire wall seprated the building down the middle. If the fire could be contained on one side, the other side could be saved. There were little sheds placed around the building at about 150 feet intervals. These sheds housed a fire hydrant, crow bars, fire ax and several hundred feet of fire hose, each. The water was under high pressure from a tall water tower. The tower tank could be quickly refilled by a large electric pump in the “pump house” located by the edge of the river with a 10 inch suction line that ran far out over the water and down. Joe and his companion manned a fire hose and kept the building wet down on the other side of the fire wall and prevented the roof from igniting. They saved the company a fortune but got little thanks for their effort. They were both teen aggers. For several weeks after the fire, when the wind was from the west, there was a very foul smell in the air. Some of the material burned was fish meal and ground slaughter house waste. Small mountains of the material had to burn themselves out. Page 143 illustration In 1920, the F.S. Royster factory caught fire. The watchman was hysterical. Thanks to Joe Wilkinson and a neighbor who kept the north half of the building wet down next to the fire wall, half of the factory was saved. Burning embers fallin in Frank Wilkinson’ field kept someone busy putting out grass fires. Page 144 & 145 While the fire was burning, the up draft carried burning embers and pieces of burning tar paper high into the air and they would fall on dad’s dry fields, setting the grass and crops on fire. It kept someone busy putting out grass fires. I was just a small child at the time. I stood on the porch looking across at that terrible roaring monsterous fire blazing away, consuming a large building and throw large burning embers far up in the sky and I was terrified. I had a bad phobia about fires for many years. I had bad dreams about fire. I was afraid of kerosene lamps and kerosene cook stoves. I was afraid of fireplaces and anything else that contained an indoor fire. BLIZZARD On March 2, 1926 we had a blizzard with two feet of snow. There was never a school bus on my route so I always walked to school. As I passed the factory bag house, where fertilizer bags were printed and stored, I noticed a snow drift piled against one side of the bag house. The roof was 12 feet high and the snow drift was level with the roof. School let out early that day at 2:00 oclock. I came home, thawed out and went to the wood pile and cut fire wood in the snow till dark. CRASH After the factory fire, several million pounds of chemicals were left exposed. So they built a large temporary shed over the burned area. A part of the shed was “A” frame and part was of a lesser slant. Mr. Crow was afraid the weight of the snow would break the flatter roof in, so he sent men out to use the fire hose to wash the snow off. The snow stayed there and absorbed water like a sponge. CRASH ! SUPERINTENDANT CROW June Crow never missed an opportunity to make a few extra dollars. He had his dairy herd, the farm, and at one time, he ran a commercial fishing business. The company furnished men and material to build an extra large row boat and 4 mule turned windlasses on the river shore and the cost of dragging stumps and shags from the river bottom. I became familiar with company book keeping procedures. The above expenses could be charged to “fences and ditches”. The boat, windlasses and river bottom clearing put him in business operating a large sein net. The net is strung out in a large semi circle in the river with the ends connected to windlasses. Fish are bagged in the circle and the net is brought in, constantly becoming a smaller circle until the fish are dragged ashore. Maybe it was a kid’s opinion, but I thought Mr. Crow was somewhat arrogant. The company had an assistant superintendant named Jess Latham. About 1930, the company discharged Crow and made Latham superintendant. He is the man that eventually became my first employer. Page 146 illustration A bird’s eye view of factory: office laborers lounge watchman’s quarters chicken house water tower corn barn mule stables road hose and hydrants privies oil house hoist tower barges tug boat scow fire pum station bag house shop temporary shelter main plant rail yard soda huse silica shed F.S. Royster Guano Co. next to F. M. Wilkinson Page 147 Francis Marion Wilkinson and youngest son, George taken about 1921. Page 148 Frank Chilson Wilkinson, with 56 pound watermelon, George Wilkinson Page 149 Document (Bureau of Pensions) Page 150 photo newspaper clipping June 1, 1922 F.M. Wilkinson rural free delivery carrier goes on pension. Served 19 years. After being in active service as a county free delivery carrier for 19 years, Francis M. Wilkinson today retires from duty and hereafter will receive a pension from Uncle Sam for the rest of his life. During Mr. Wilkinson’s 19 years on rural route No. 2 he has only been absent from his post of duty one day and only three days during his long service has the mail failed to reach its proper destination. This is indeed a remarkable record, one not surpassed the Daily News believes in the state. That Mr. Wilkinson has justly won his merited retirement, pay will not be questioned by any reader. He has made a most careful and painstaking official and he goes into private life with the best wishes of his friends and the postoffice department which he has served so faithfully. Page 151 About 1924, Dad traded in his model “T” Ford for a car called a “Star” made by the Durant Motor Co. This Star was a six cylinder job with cloth top, self starter and stick shift. The salesman took mama for a drive and showed her how to drive it. After Chilson left home, that left mama to be the only driver for over four years. Mama didn’t exactly drive a car, she aimed it and blew the horn. Some how we all survived with no physical damage to us or the car. As a child, I was like horses. I had always been afraid of those early model cars, and my experience with mama’s driving didn’t do my nerves any good. I am glad there was not much traffic in those days. FIRE It was about 1928 or 1929, we were awakened in the middle of the night by a loud roaring and popping and snapping and a bright red glow. FIRE ! There was a farm storage building about 16 feet from our kitchen. It consisted of 4 rooms lined up side by side in a continus row, plus a car shelter as a part making 5 units. The storage rooms all contained cotton and tobacco. The end section contained tools and Dad’s automobile. Dad was partially deaf, but the explosion of the car awakened him. Dad’s first impression was that the kitchen was burning. Mama screamed to me to come down stairs and bring my trunk with me. I didn’t keep many clothes in the truck, but I brought the almost empty trunk down. I didn’t know what it was all about. I thought it was a big truck engine running fast with head lights on. Page 152 & 153 When I reached the ground floor, it was as light as day outside and a loud unfamiliar popping, roaring sound was going on. Mama said the kitchen and pack house were burning up. They thought the kitchen was also on fire. Dad thought everything he had worked for all his life was being destroyed and he was hysterical. He was wearing an old work shoe on one foot and a black polished “Sunday” shoe on the other foot. He was wearing his old working cap and when he passed his Sunday hat, he threw the cap down and put on the Sunday hat. Mom and Pop were hauling furniture and clothing out in the yard. Some of our neighbors came up and one asked for a ladder. He said he thought they could save the kitchen. Dad told him where to find a ladder. The shingles were smokeing and so were the boards on the side of the house. They were just before igniting. These men began wetting down the side of the house and the roof next to the fire and they saved the house. When morning came, Dad had to go to town in the buggy to get an ax to cut wood to cook with. There was no insurance. There was a clean up job after the fire. Bruce hauled the old car remains off. He thought he could salvage most of the engine to put in a boat. Shortly thereafter, Dad bought another car. This one was called a Durant. It had six cylinders, stick gear shift, roll up glass windows, and it was a two door model. The passenger in front had to get out and tilt forward the front seat to let a passenger get in the back. Dad said he should have bought 4 doors. It would have been worth the hundred dollars difference to keep his seat. This Durant was the car I learned to drive, at about 14 years of age. This was before North Carolina required driver’s license. Dad suspected the fire to be arson. He was afraid to get the law involved because he was afraid of reprisals. In modern times, the authorities would automaticaly investigate anyway. After Dad retired from the postal service, and with the use of a car instead of horses, he didn’t need as many horses or as many acres of feed crops. Also, his sons were leaving home, so he had too much land to cultivate. Dad started renting and leasing land to tenants. One of Dad’s first tenants was a foreigner during World War I period. This man was an Austro-Hungarian. That means that one parent was Austrian, one Hunganian, and his nurse had been German. He spoke four languages, including english with a heavy accent. This man, Mr. A. B. Mary leased the back half of the cultivated land. He built a stable for the mule, and a 12 x 16 foot house on it for his hired man, a Mr. Ike Simpson. Mr. Simpson was single, so his animals were his friends. Along with the mule, he kept kittens. Page 154 Mama ran a back yard country store, complete with molasses barrel and pump, kerosene barrell and pump, cheese cutter, tobacco plug cutter, glass pickel jar, and pickeled pig’s feet keg. Mr. Simpson would buy 15 cent cans of salmon to feed his cats, and he would take his fiddle out to the barn and play and sing to his mules. Mr. Simpson came up to the store once, and Chilson asked him what was hanging out the top of his pants? Mr. Simpson explained that he had worn out his long handled drawers, but had some tops left over, so he was using them upside down for drawers. After World War I, Mr. Mary left the farm, so Dad began renting some of his land to near by farm families from the “colored community”. They furnished the labor and mule and most of the tools and 2/3 of the seeds and fertilizer, and dad would furnish 1/3 of seeds and fertilizer and the land for 1/3 of the crop. This worked out good for all parties for a long time. Before the fire, Pop had three tenant families, Amous Guiford, William Oden ahd his brother, George Oden. In the spring of 1929, the farmers had just begun to get their crops started when George Oden died. George had a brother, John, who volunteered to take over for one half of George’s share, and George’s widow, Carrie was to get the other half of George’s share. When the crops were harvested, Carrie decided she wanted all the tenant’s share. Dad and William Oden tried to tell her that this was not according to her brother-in-law’s origonal agreement. He was due his part of the tenant’s share. Page 155 There were four storage rooms and a garage in the pack building. One room for each tenant and one for Pop. Carrie settled up with Dad for her expenses and moved her tobacco and cotton out. Dad and the other farmers still had tobacco and cotton in the building. A few nights after Carrie moved her posessions out, all other share holders lost their tobacco and cotton in the fire. After the fire, an oil can belonging to Carrie was found in the ashes. Carrie’s mule and cart had been found wandering around on the loose that night. Carrie’s boy friend had been an arson suspect before he moved to Washington. What do you think? Dad and his tenants always had close contact. They usually discussed their problems with him or sought him when they needed advice. On one occasion, a little boy came up and told Mama that his papa wanted “Midder Pank Wickson down at the Patter Pon”. –Translated – papa wants Mister Frank Wilkinson down at the tobacco barn. Another time, a little boy simply said “Papa wants to see Old Man Frank”. The tenants also kept up with the current news. Chilson went to a tobacco barn one day and one of the women working at a “tie horse” asked Chilson if he had heard that “Uncle Sam” was dead? What had happened was, President Woodrow Wilson had died of food poisoning. This woman’s son had a little dog named Woodrow. Page 156 & 157 HOMELESS We hear a lot about the homeless and the “street people”. That is nothing new. Dad had some experience with that situation once. Dad took in a young man and his wife and little girl about 6 years old once. It was just supposed to be until the young man could find a job. He just sat around the house most of the day, and no job came knocking on the door looking for him. He didn’t try to make himself useful either. He didn’t even offer to cut a little bit of firewood. One day, after more than two months, Dad asked him if he had found a job yet. “I think you must want to get rid of me”, he said. We grew a garden with lots of collards, and we had a smoke house stocked with meat. Mama cooked collards and hog’s head or pork almost every day. They almost ate us out of collards and pork. Of course, Mom served variations in her menue. I rember once when she cooked and served dinner, the little girl looked at the food and remarked, “I can’t eat that old mess!”. You can imagine how happy Mom was with that remark. SCREENS Insect screens are considered as much a part of the home as doors and windows. It was not always that way. Window screens used to come in about three standard heights. These sizes would fit most windows of all widths. Just raise the window, put the screen in, slide the telescoping sides out till they touched the window jamb, let the window down on top of the screen, and Mr. Fly was left out in the cold. Dad’s house had plenty of window screens when I was small, but what was to keep insects from coming in the doors? Mama decided to do something about that. She bought some screen doors while dad was delivering mail, and Chilson and Joe put them up. When Dad arrived home, he said she had wasted her money on them. They were no good. It wasn’t long before Dad would enter and rush to get the screen door closed before a fly could rush in. He was telling little kids not to “hold that door open and let the flies in”. It became evident that Mom had not wasted her money. Whenever a screen door needed repairs or replacement, Dad was the one that did it. Dad had some antique tools that he used occasionally. Some of them would only be seen in museums now. I remember watching him split tobacco sticks from straight grain pine logs with a froe and froe club. A froe was a heavy steel blade that was held against the end of a log and struck on the back edge with a hardwood club, driving the blade in and separating the grains of the wood. The froe’s handle was attached at a 90 degree angle instead of straight with the blade as is the case with a knife or sword. One type of tobacco stick had to be smoothe and slick so the tobacco prepared for market could hung across the stick like a cowboy sits straddle a horse. At the tobacco market, the tobacco was slid off of the stick without picking up splinters or ripping the leaf. The smoothing of wood was done with a “draw knife” on wood clamped in a “shave horse”. page 158 Joe and Chilson Wilkinson at sweet potato harvest time. Page 159 Dad used some home made, horse drawn plows made of wood to do a specific job. For many years, Dad depended on a large scuppernong grape arbor as a cash crop. All of his arbors probably covered more than an acre. His largest and best arbor was near the house. I have helped hand pick more than 12 bushels of grapes a day. They were sold to stores around town. Eight quarts is a peck. Four pecks, a bushel. Dad charged one dollar a peck for a rounded up ten quart bucket full of grapes. He believed in giving good measure. He would charge one dollar for a bushel (32 quarts) of sweet potatoes measured in a ten gallon salt mullet wood tub (40 quarts), rounded up on top. Back to the grape vines - The grape arbors were just high enough above the ground for an average man to walk under without bumping his head. They were supported by post with a forked or a vee notched top. They were spaced ten feet apart each way. They were split from red cedar or pitch pine lightwood. The lightwood post sometimes had score marks on a side indicating they had once been tapped to draw turpentine. I once asked dad how old the lightwood posts were. He said. “I brought them from over the river more than fifty years ago”. Wood rails of cypress or lightwood laid across the posts to form squares. A grill of weaker rails were laid on the squares to support the vines. Page 160 March 1st, 1937 This snow storm almost wrecked the grape arbor. Notice the white flakes still falling. Page 161 Good straight grained durable logs became hard to find to make rails. I have helped him split rails for his arbor. We would drive a steel wedge or an old ax head in the end of a log. That would crack it on that end. Then drive hard wood wedges, called gluts in the cracks, forcing the crack to extend to the other end of the log, splitting it in two. These pieces were split and re-split till the right size rails were made. That is the same way Abe Lincoln did it. Dad finally had to cut down most of his grape vines because the right kind of rails and posts were not available. One of the vines he cut down had a truck, or base more than 30 inches in diameter. It looked like a rope with individual stands four or more inches in diameter. Dad’s barn was a central 2 room building with a large storage loft, and 3 horse stables on the east side. The west shed was used to park the buggy and the cart. Some of the boards in the barn measured 24 inches wide. He told me the structure was origonally built for $99.00. He had some minor repair work done on it about 1930, that cost about the same amount – inflation over the years. Page 162 illustration The barn on the farm of F. M. Wilkinson was probably built in the late eighteen eightys, origonal cost $99.00. 3 horse stables on left, fodder storage in loft, water pump and manure pile on side, fig bush and tree in back. Page 163 and 164 and 165 As soon as I was old enough, I had to help keep the wood boxes filled, take tobacco off of the tobacco sticks, and help pick grapes. I started out using a little quart bucket to pick and carry them in. From that, I graduated to a gallon “picking bucket” . As I grew older, like the other boys, Dad had me doing anything on the farm that I was not quite old enough to do. I did my fishing on a part of my mid day rest break, and week ends. Even then, on weekends, there were chickens and horses to feed and water and wood to cut and tote in. The older boys grew up and moved away, one by one. I was ten years old when the last one left. That just left Dad with only me to help him run his farming operations. I had to reach up to hold the plow handles. If there was plowing to be done in the early spring, the horse would be hitched to the plow and tied up waiting for me to return from school. I would change clothes and plow till sun down and then get in the firewood. To this day, I don’t know what high school and colledge sports are all a bout. As I stated before, I started driving the car at 14 and was pressed into service delivering Dad’s produce. I was delivering watermellons to one of Dad’s customers, named Garfield Clemmons. Garfield looked like the t.v. star, Brodrick Crawford, except Garfield had a chocolate brown complexion. Garfield was a restaurant owner who had bought Dad’s melons for years. As I was bringing in his melons, I noticed one of his customers sitting alone at a table picking through his food. He asked Garfield “whats dis?”. Garfield snapped back, “shet ye mouth and eat it ! Its clean”. Now that’s the way to handle cranky customers, even though “the customer is always right”. An automobiele salesman talked Dad into trading the Durant in for a 1934 model 2 door Cherolet with about 400 miles on the odometer. I liked the idea because the gears were hard to shift in the Durant. You had to get the motor and the car both turning at just the right speed or the gears would clash. I was always afraid the gears would strip. The Chevrolet was Dad’s last car. After his death, Mom drove it a few years and then sold it to me. ELECTRICITY About 1935, Dad decided to have his house wired for electricity. There was a ceiling light in each room and hall and I can remember at least two wall outlets. One in the dining room for his new electric refrigerator and one in his bed room – den where he plugged in a radio. Previously to that, he had always used kerosine lamps, and for refrigeration. Before he bought an old fashioned ice chest, he kept meats fresh several days in a wood box with 50 pounds of ice, all wrapped up in many layers of burlap bags. NOW ABOUT THE RADIO Dad spent his leisure time reading the Washington Daily News, the Progressive Farmer Magazine, the Literary Digest Magazine, the Bible, the R.F.D. News Magazine and occasionaly the World Atlas and listening to that radio. We used to have programs such as Amos and Andy, Lum and Abner at the Jot Em Down Store, a horror program called The Squeaking Door to name a few. Gwendolyn Wilkinson Herbert was visiting Dad on this particular occasion. Her husband, Jake Herbert was at their home in Roanoke, Va. I was working as night watchman at the F. S. Royster Guano factory at the time. I had no radio. Some time during the early part of the night Gwendolyn came rushing in to the factory office all excited. She wanted to use the phone to call Jake in Roanoke to see if he was alive and all right. The family had been sitting around the radio listening to a program by Orson Wells, entitiled “War Of The Worlds”. That night millions of Americans thought the United States was invaded by creatures from Mars. I had no radio so I was quite puzzled by Gwen’s behavior. Page 166 Mom and Pop with POP’S DURANT STAR His first Star had fabric side curtains like the Ford. That car was lost in a fire. This second Star had roll up windows. It was eventually traded for a six cylinder Chevrolet. That chevy was pop’s last car. Page 167 Billing statement Clifton Electric Service. “To wire house, furnishing and hanging transformer, furnishing and installing lighting fixtures, etc: $127.15 Meter deposit 3.00 Flanges, nipples, pipe, etc. used in making railing 2.39 $132.54 Paid Nov 26, 37 W. H. Clifton This was 1937 prices. The same house wiring job 50 years later would cost more than a thousand dollars. The hand rail ($2.39) would be more than $50.. at todays prices…..1990a.d. Page 168 illustration The first radio brought into the Wilkinson home was a battery Atwater-Kent that a salesman left for 30 day’s trial. It had to have a metal ground rod 6 “ long driven in the soil. It had to have 100’ of copper areal (antennae) wire 20’ high out of doors. The best program picked up was K. D. K. A. Pittsburg, along with loads of static. In 1938, Frank C. Chilson won a radio on a store “punch board”. Since he knew dad would probably never buy one, he gave it to Dad. He thought Dad would enjoy it, which he did. This is the radio that received the famous “War Of The Worlds” program by Orson Wells. Page 169 REUNION On Dad’s 70th birthday, they had a family reunion. All family members that could attend came, including his children and their spouses, grand children, sisters, nieces and nephews, in laws and you name it. They had a picnic table set up in the breeze way and all but the very old stood up to eat dinner. After the party that night, there was a lot of hand-cranked ice cream left in 2 large freezers. Mr. Joe Pippin, Dad’s brother-in-law by his first wife, Ida liked ice cream and so did Dad. They sort of had an un-official ice cream eating contest. Dad had always liked candy, cade, ice cream and anything sweet. That was one time he had a chance to eat all he wanted. Dad enjoyed his big birthday party. Page 170 By 1929, Dad had been losing money several years by renting land to tenant farmers. He received one third of the crop as his share plus his cost of one third of seed and fertilizer. He started off each year by advancing cash for the cost of all seeds and fertilizer for tenants, and he advanced additional monies for fired additional labor to harvest tobacco and cotton. Mechanical harvesting machines were not invented till later. That left three tenant farmers oweing him a hefty sum at the end of the year. Each tenant planted six acres of tobacco along with cotton and corn. In those days it took about 12 farm laborers to harvest a barn of tobacco and they harvested about 5 barns per 6 acres. Tobacco was selling cheap and Dad’s tenants were just not making enough money on their crops to pay off their debts. He allowed them to keep a part of the sales to live on. After losing money for three years, he decided it was time to quit. It would be cheaper to let most of the land lay idle and only plant whatever crops he could tend with my help. He didn’t want to get into the expense of raising tobacco, so he raised cotton and corn and contracted 2 acres of sweet peppers for Lang’s Pickel Factory, and he had his usual cantelopes, watermellons and grapes. I was 14 years at the time. He had me to drop out of school that spring to help him farm. He returned me to school the next fall, but I had to repeat the 8th grade that year. He let most of the land lay idle the next year.. Page 171 Then Dad started leasing land for “sure rent” (cash) from that time on. He encountered a problem. The government established an allotment program for tobacco based on the amojnt of tobacco acreage produced the previous three years. When dad had tenant, his farm had 18 acres. Then he stopped. He had no acres for the yars the alotment was based on. He finally managed to get an alotment on about 5 acres. That cut down on the amount of land he could lease for tobacco. Dad just started cultivating whatever he could do with my help after school and on Saturdays and summers. NO MISTAKES Dad tried never to cheat any one, unless it was himself. A story he used to tell that amused him concerned a certain haughty man he had a business transaction with. After he left the man’s place of business, he discovered a mistake the man had made so he went back and told him he made a mistake. The man said, “if I counted it, it’s right”. Dad said, “I am sorry but you did make a mistake”. The man said, “Frank, I do not make mistakes, so get out. I do not want to discuss it any more”. Dad started out but stopped at the door and said, “thank you. Since you don’t make mistakes, I’l be glad to keep your extra twenty dollars. Thank you”. Page 172 CHRISTMAS AfterDdad retired from the postal service, he usually provided a feast for Christmas. There was perhaps a roast turkey with oyster stuffing and all the trimmings, corned ham, pies, several kinds of layer cakes and a fruit cake soaked with grape wine. That was the only way mama served wine. We usually had house guests at Christmas. I rember one time Dad took me to the woods to get a Christmas tree. I was surprised. I didn’t think he cared about anything like that. He found a nice shaped holly with lots of berries and we cut it and brought it to the house and he fixed a stand and set it up in the end of the dining room We had house guests at times other than Christmas. Modern guest usually stay for a few hours visit unless they are from far away. In those days, guests stayed a few days or a few weeks, even if they only lived a few miles away. It was nice to have company, but it was a lot of extra work and expense on Mom and Dad. Mama as a skinny little 98 pound woman. Don’t misunderstand this. They did enjoy friends and relatives. It was just a lot of inconvenience. Page 173 & 174 TRANSPORTATION When Dad bought his farm in 1884, there were not too many good roads through the country and fewer bridges than now. The bridge across RunyanCreek between Washington and Washington Park was not there then. Traffic had to cross on a ferry. Dad signed a petition to have the first bridge built. Dad did a lot of his travel to and from town by sail boat. He took loads of produce to town by rowing or pole pushing if sailing was not practical. COMMERCIAL RIVER TRAFFIC There were 5 or 6 saw mills in Washington that received logs by water. A “dog” would be driven about center of a log and a long chain was passed through the ring in the end of the dog. The lots were floated side by side and chained together until they formed a long raft, sometimes a mile long. The raft was towed up river to the mill, usually by a steam powered tug boat. A lantern was placed on the back end of the raft, and ocasionally other signal lights were lit to warn night traffic. Occasionally, a log would break loose and float away. Dad salvaged some of them to split for grape vine rails, and I remember one occasion, he split some logs for tobacco sticks and shingles. It was not unusual to see more than one long raft moving to town at the same time. A lot of New York City’s wood buildings originated in the forest of Beaufort County, N.C. Those 1,000 ton fertilizer barges carried cargo's of lumber from local sawmills, located on the Pamlico River to New York and other northern ports. There were two fertilizer factories near Dad’s farm. They were in operation in the early nineteen hundreds and continued to operate till shortly before World War Two. They brought in raw material in 1,000 ton capacity barges from northern ports. I have seeen as many as six barges tied up at one factory at a time. Washington had oyster boats, fish boats, freight line boats and boats that were the only link between Ocracoke Island and the mainland. Boats bound for Ocracoke carried vacation passengers, food, firewood, autos and all other necessities of life. Ocracoke, Hatteras and Harker’s Islands even used a local boarding school, The Washington Collegiate Institute, to teach their children from grade six through twelve. Several of Dad’s children attended school there. It was less than half mile from home. Page 175 Washington’s water front was a busy port for shiping sea food, lumber and farm produce from late 1700’s until mid 1900’s. The Pamlico and Tar Rivers are now chiefly used for pleasure boating. Page 176 Crossing Under Canopy of Stars …The Russell L. cut through the waters of the Pamlico times too numerous to count. One of several carriers that made the trip between Fowle’s dock in Washington and Ocracoke, the Russell L. was one of the only means of transportation from the island to the mainland. As one passenger remembers, “the trip was long and the boards hard but sleeping under the stars was wonderful”. The trips were scheduled from dust to dawn. Page 177 POTATOES In Dad’s time the local economy depended on timber, seafood and agriculture. These products were processed and shipped out by water and later by rail. Most agricultural products shipped included cotton, corn, beans and tobacco. Around Aurora on the south side of the river, and Pantego and Tranters Creek areas the big money crop was Irish potatoes. Many buyers from large produce houses and dealers in Pittsburg, New York, Philidelphia, Norfolk and other cities would come to Washington and bid against each other and make up rail road cars for shipment. The farmers would bring them to the Atlantic Coast Line dock in all sizes and quantities in sail boats, gas boats, carts and wagons. They were packed in pine potato barrels with burlap bagging tops. Sometimes, they would ship 30-40-50 more cars of potatoes per day in season, making whole trains of potatoes. TOO BIG One of Dad’s cash crops was Irish potatoes. There was a field of potatoes Dad once raised in some black bottom land. The potatoes grew quite large and Dad was very proud of his crop. I was sent to the cooperage shop at Waters Lumber Company, with the long body cart to haul potato barrels. He had a crew in the field plowing out and picking up potatoes, and I helped haul them to the potato docks. Page 178 There was a long conveyor belt that carried potatoes past graders and past equipment that washed and dried them and then on into more barrels. The man at the grading station complained to Dad about his large potatoes that Dad was so proud of. He told Dad the large ones were hollow. He cut one open and it was hollow like a cantalope. That was something Dad had never heard of before. Page 179 GROWTH OF MECHANIZED TRANSPORTATION IN EASTERN NC A GOOD PART OF OUR RAILROAD SYSTEMS IN NC ORIGINATED IN THE TIMER BUSINESS During the Civil War, a calvary officer in the union army, a Captain John L. Roper had seen the massive forest in eastern North Carolina. He determined to return after the Civil War and enter the lumber business. In 1868, he returned to eastern North Carolina and formed the John. L. Roper Lumber Company and erected a saw mill at the mouth of the Albemarle Canal near Norfolk. He expanded southward and in 1886 he leased large acreage of timber land from the Albemarle Swampland Company. Through this timberland passed the Albemarle and Pantego Railroad. Other lumber companies sprang up all over eastern North Carolina including Beaufort County. One section in east Beaufort County was thoroughly stripped of all trees, ditched and converted to farm land. There are now areas that are clear as far as the eye can see, with exception of a little growth on canals and ditch banks. There were no log trucks to move the timber, so they built rail lines through the woods to saw mills, and from saw mills to ship landings and main line rail roads. Oxen and mules pulled logs short distances. One old resident near Pinetown told of some of his neighbors selling timber “on the stump” for as little as one dollar per acre. Page 180 & 181 With so many rail road locomotives and cars, there had to be somewhere to take them for repairs. There was a railroad shop in Pinetown, Beaufort County, N.C. This shop could repair or make any part of a locomotive. The owner was a Mr. Surry Bowen. SMALL MOTORCYCLE “GANG” There were three young men in Beaufort Co. about the turn of the century who owned motorcycles. They traveled the roadways quite often, together or separtely. The young men liked to play pranks on one another and on others. One night, one of the trio was traveling down a country road and he saw two lights up ahead coming toward him. Since his two pals were the only motorcycle riders around, he decided to have some fun by driving them both off the road. He headed straight between the two lights. No one had told him that surry Bowen had bought one of those automobiles. Incidentally, he walked with a limp after that. He also knew autos had two head lights. After Surry Bowen introduced Beaufort County to the automobile, others appeared. A man told of the time his grandmother and some other young women were chopping out a cotton patch beside the road. They heard a strange rumbling sound approaching on the road. They saw a monsterous contraption kicking up a dust cloud heading their way. They threw down their hoes and scattered for the woods. Each stood behind a tree and watched Surry Bowen drive by in his new auto. The trouble with automobiles, they disrupted regular traffic. Every horse the auto met was terrified. The horse would rear up or pull to one side, wrecking the equipment, or he would run away. Horses eventually became accustomed to cars and became calm in their presence. Our local rural mail carrier, Frank M. Wilkinson bought an auto and used it on his mail route. Page 182 AD December 1905 The Power of a Cadillac Page 183 AD The power of a cadillac Page 184 AD 1905 ReVere Motor Car Corporation, Chicago The incomparable car of America With Duesenberg racing type motor Page 185 AD 1905 The George N. Pierce Company, Buffalo, N.Y. Arrow car Page 186 AD Franklin Type G. 4-cylinder Light Touring Car Page 187 AD 1905 1906 Ford 6 Cylinder Touring Car -- Price, $2,500.00 Page 188 AD 1905 -- The Highest Point of Perfection -- Pope-Toledo Automobiles -- -- 20-H.P. double side entrance $2,800.00 -- Page 189 AD May 1919 Lexington Minute Man Six New Style Tourabout – Refined Sport-Model Page 190 AD Life Magazine Aug. 21, 1919 Apperson The eight with eighty less parts Apperson Bros. Automobile Co., Kokomo, Indiana Page 191 POSSUM Back in the so called “Good Old Days”, people ate anything that walked on four legs except rats, and anything with wings except vultures. Baked possum and sweet potato was gourmet food. I remember a possum Dad caught once. He planned to eat the possum, but since possums eat anything including food for buzzards, the possum had to be caged and fed clean food for two or three weeks to clean him. Dad kept his possum and fed him about three weeks and then took him to the edge of the woods and turned him loose. I never got to eat possum. That doesn’t bother me any. TURTLE Dad picked up a large turtle once and dressed the meat out and Mama cooked it. I was quite young but I remember thinking it tasted delicious. The next time, Dad came to the house with a mean old ugly shapping loggerhead. He dressed it out and Mama cooked it. I was older. I tried to eat some of it but that turtle meat just refused to do down. I just couldn’t eat it. That was the last turtle Dad ever prepared to cook. Page 192 LYE HOMINY Did you ever go to the grocery store and buy a can of hominy? Open it and you have kernels of corn bleached snow white. Serve hot with butter or whatever and it is good but it just does not taste like the hominy Grandma made. If you want to make some hominy like Grandma’s lye hominy, take the wood ashes out of the stove or fireplace and put them in a large bucket and add enough water to the ashes to fill the pot you will cook the hominy in. Soak over night. Go to the barn and shuck and shell about a gallon of corn kernels. Put the corn in the pot but not too much corn because it will swell almost three times in volume. Pour the water off the ashes into the pot of corn. Don’t worry if the water looks muddy, we will take care of that later. Bring to a boil and simmer all day or until the skins and hearts easily slip off the corn kernels. The alkali in the ashes has caused the skins to come loose. The kernels should be swollen and tender and the color will be gray-brown. Wash and soak the hominy in many fresh water changes until all skins are gone and all rough alkali taste is washed away. There, you have your finished hominy ready to season and serve. Do not freeze, instead bring to an occasional boil. Page 193 & 194 You can cook hominy in your own kitchen by substituting baking soda instead of alkali from ashes or from a can. Follow the same procedure as for lye hominy. CRACKERLING BREAD Take a couple of cups of corn mean and two heaping tablespoons of flour and quarter teaspoon salt and a little bit of baking powder. Stir dry and add one or two eggs. Mix with enough water to make a good sloppy batter. Stir in a big hand full of crack’lins. Pour in a greased baking pan and bake at 400 degrees ‘till light brown. Cool and cut in squares and serve. HOG HEAD AND COLLARDS Put a large pot on the stove and half full with water and drop in a half smoked hog head to boil. Bring in the collards and pick and wash most of the worms off the leaves. After the hog head has boiled about 3/4 hour, add collards and cook until tender. If you are serving with corn meal dumplings, mix 1 ½ cups corn meal with 1 heaping tablespoon flour and a little salt, and just enough water to make a stiff dough that can be formed into flat biscuit like pats. Drop these corn meal dumplings in the pot, being sure each dumplins is submerged in boiling “pot licker”. Cook about twelve minutes and serve in side dish with collards. You may omit the corn meal dumplings and serve crack’lin bread with your collards and hog head. FEEDING BABIES In the so-called good old days, when they decided to feed solid food to a baby, they could no go to the store and buy a jar of Gerber’s strained spinach or carrots. The adult chewed up collard greens and corn meal dumplings and put it in the baby’s mouth. In modern times, that would not be considered sanitary. Page 195 HOME REMEDIES The old time folks had remidies for many of their ailments. For boils and carbuncles, make a poultice of sugar and lye soap and spread it on a small piece of cloth and bind it to a head and the puss (dead white corpussels) can be popped or squeezed out and the sore spot will soon get well. For sore throat, put a few drops of kerosene on a teaspoon full of sugar and slowly swallow it. For ear ache, roast an onion and squeeze the warm onion juice in the ear. For croup and deep chest colds, make a poultice of pine tar and tallow, spread it on a chest-sized piece of wool cloth and bind it to the chest. When patient gets well, don’t take it all off at once. He would catch cold. Cut a piece off each day ‘till it is all gone. Sterlize cuts and wounds with a liberal bath of kerosene. Burn several oyster shells to remove all organic binder. That leaves pure lime. Drop the shells in a pitcher of water. Take a drink of lime water each day to strenthen bones and teeth. Page 196 Sulphur and molasses makes a good spring tonic. Sasafras tea in the spring cleanses the blood. Dew berry wine cures diarrhea. Bind a piece of fat salt port to an infection to help cure it up. Wear a small bag of asafetida on a string next to the throat to ward off colds. The smell may ward people off also. A cold silver spoon held next to the back of the neck is supposed to help stop nose bleed. If you don’t use the spoon, it will stop anyway. Put a sharp ax under the bed to help cut the pain of childbirth. Page 197 A COUNTRY HOG KILLIN’ Wait till the weather is cold and crisp and dry. Cut two forked posts and sink them in the ground so the forks will be about six feet high and space the posts about twelve to fifteen apart. Lay a long strong pole across the top. Cut a supply of strong hardwood sticks about 1 ½ to 2 inches in diameter and 20 to 24 inches long. Taper both ends to a sharp point. You now have a supply of gambrels. Cut a supply of firewood and borrow an extra cast iron kettle that will hold about twenty gallons. A scalding vat is needed. It looks somewhat like a miniature flat bottom boat. It has wooden sides ten or twelve inches high and a sheet metal bottom. If you don’t have one, try to borrow one. If you can’t get one, bury a barrel half way in the ground at an angle. The vat may be about four feet wide and about seven feet long. Dimentions may vary. Dig a fire trench in the ground at least two yards longer than the vat and a foot more narrow than the width of the vat. Set up a sufficently large smoke stack at one end of the trench to vent the fire. Lay the vat over the trench. That leaves enough trench in front of the vat to stoke a fire. Page 198 Get a few short logs and put some boards across them to make a low platform. This and the vat are near the l ong scaffold pole. Sharpen an ax and every knife in the house. Borrow a few extra tubs. Stock a supply of rifle bullets. If you don’t have a cracklin press, try to borrow one if anybody has one. If you can’t find one, it’s not really necessary. INVITE THE NEIGHBORS The busy day arrives. Everyone is up before day light. The scalding vat and an iron kettle are filled with water and fires are started under them. Some green pine twigs are dropped in the vat to make the hog hair come off easier. Neighbors begin to arrive. Someone shoots some hogs and they are hauled up by horse drawn cart. Sometimes, farmers prefer to whack the hogs on the head with the back of an ax instead of shooting. REMOVING HOG HAIR Since the water in the vat is hot enough to scald a hog, the hands must be kept out; so chains are laid across the vat to lift and turn the hogs. A hog is put in the vat (or barrel) and after a short time, the hair is tried. If not hot enough, the hair won’t come loose. Page 199 If the water is too hot, it cooks the skin. When the men are satisfied all is well, all parts of the hog is soaked and then taken out and put on the platform and all hair is pulled or scraped clean. When the hog is completely bald, it is ready for butchering. A slit is cut through the skin on each heel, exposing the heel strings. A couple of men lift the hog up until his hind legs are straddling the gallows pole. A gambrel is held over the top of the gallows and a heel string is impaled on either side of the gallows pole. The meat is now suspended by the heel strings. The men now go back to de-hairing another hog. BUTCHERING A man with a butcher knife slits the belly side of the hog from tail to throat and spreads the sides of the belly with a gambrel stick. When that is done, the “chitlins” start tumblin out, which he catches in a tub, along with the “maw”. The entire digestive from throat to tail is in the tub. After the chiterling are taken away, there are still a lot of gadgets left in. He cuts the “goozle” loose and lifts out the “haslet”. He takes out the kidney and whatever else he can find. The abdominal cavity of a hog is a bad smelling object. When the butcher has the hog cleared out, he washes out the smelly belly. Page 200 The hogs are later taken down and put on a table and cut up, such as hams, shoulders, head, tail, back bone “country style” and side meat. There is a lot of extra trimmings and these trimmings are separated, fat from lean. If a lot of sausage is desired, larger cuts may be cut up for sausage meat. All fat pieces are skinned and the skins, ears, snouts and some other parts arethoroughly boiled, seasoned and poured in shallow pans to jell. That will be called “souse”. The lean pieces are ground and seasoned and made into sausage. The hams, shoulders, sides, tails and heads are chilled and salted down. The choice parts are later smoked. CHITTERLINGS The butcher had produced a tub of “chitlins”. A couple of women take them over. Any mammal’s interior organs always grow in a standard fixed position and are usually held in that position by some type of membrane. A hog’s intestines are held in a fixed position by a fatty membrene. The women who work on the chitlins call this ruffled fatty membrane “skirt lard”. This is cut loose and sometimes cooked in a separate kettle. This long rope of chitlins and “maw” (stomach) are taken to a hole in the ground where they “rid” the chitlins, which means they empty the contents of the digestive system in a hole in the ground. Page 201 After ridding them, a sharp pointed reed is stuck in the end of a chitlin and the chitlin is pulled over the reed, turning it wrong side out and down the reed, a long section at a time. Many feet can be jammed on a short reed. The chitlins are washed many, many times on both sides ‘till they are so clean they will lay on the back of your hand without sliding off. Some of the chitterlings are then made into sausage casings. They are laid on a table and a short section at a time is scraped until the thick white part separates from an inner membrane that looks like a tube of plastic. After a sufficient supply of sausage casings are made, the remainder are looped in a thick rope and are put away to be cooked. SAUSAGE The sausage meat is cut in small chunks and put in a large wash tub and mixed with sage and red pepper and black pepper according to the makers favorite formula. A sausage grinder is set up and a boy is put to work turning the grinder. It is then run through a sausage stuffer and you have sausage links. Sometimes, they stuff large intestines and they are called “Tom Thumbs”. The sausage is dried and smoked. Page 202 illustration Hog killing day -- Scalding the hair loose -- Scraping the hair off. Page 203 illustration -- Cutting meat & making sausage -- Grinding sausage meat -- -- Stuffing sausage -- Cutting up the meat -- Page 204 LARD AND CRACKLINGS The fat parts of the hog were skinned and cut in small chunks and dumped in an iron kettle in the back yard. A fire is started and one of the women stays with it to keep it stirred with an old wooden “lard paddle” to keep it cooking evenly and not burn to the surface of the pot. As the fat cooks, oil runs out of the bits of meat and the moisture boils out with a popping sound. The thumping and popping finally stops and the bits of meat “rattle” when stirred with the paddle. Time to pull the fire away from the pot. Too much cooking could scorch the lard. While the fat is still very hot, some twigs of bay leaves are dipped in for flavor. The bay leaves boil furiously and pop and snap. She holds on to the bay and when she is ready she pulls it out. Five gallon metal cans with handles and lids are brought up. They are called “lard stands”. A thin cloth is spread across the top of a stand and the contents of the pot is dipped and poured in. The liquid lard flows through the cloth strainer and the cracklings stay on the cloth. If a press is available, the cracklings are pressed as thin as cornflakes, extracting the fat. If no press is available, they are mashed down as much as possible. The cracklings are also put in a stand. Page 205 Making cracklings and lard Page 206 NEIGHBORS It takes more workers than many families have so it was customary to invite the neighbors to come to a hog killing. You were not asking for free help. You were borrowing help. When the neighbor killed hogs, you went to help him. You felt shunned if you were not invited. When the neighbors went home, they were always given a present of some “fresh” to take with them. It might be back bone or sausage or a “haslet”, whichever they prefer. If they had been invited and could not come, some fresh meat was sometimes sent to them anyway. A “haslet” consists of heart, liver and “lights”. The lights are lungs. Slices of liver were usually fried. Some of the liver may have been roasted in hot coals around the fire along with sweet potatoes before the haslets were sent to the house for processing. Stewed haslet was lungs, heart and some of the liver cut up and stewed on the kitchen stove in a pot of water. Ocasionally, they would grind some liver and season it and stuff it and make liver sausage. A stand of cracklings was kept in the pantry and some baked sweet potatoes were kept warm on the back shelf of the cast iron kitchen stove. For a quick delicious snack, drop in and pick up a sweet potato and a hand full of crackerlings. Good ! Page 207 & 208 CHITTERLINGS This narriator was never fond of “chitlins” but there are plenty of people who do love them. When the braided ropes of chitlins get cold, ther are stiff enough to cut up and put in a pot to cook. I never wanted to be in the house when chitlins were cooking. They gave off an odor that reminded me of the stuff that origonally flowed through them. If pork was to be “salt pickeled”, a brine mixture was mixed of salt and water. When the right strength of salt was reached, it became heavy enough to float a fresh egg. This brine was poured in a barrel and pork was put in and the barrel was covered with a wood cover. If meat was not properly attended to, “skippers” could get in it and ruin it. Skippers were a special breed of creature that looked like large maggots that could tolerate salt. My maternal great grandmother once saw a group of yankee soldiers heading for her home. She knew they would take anything edible, and she had a smokehouse full of meat, so she dashed in the smokehouse and stoked up the fire and threw several strings of red pepper on the fire and came out and locked the door. The soldiers ordered her to open the smoke house door. She fumbled with the lock as long as she could so the red pepper would get a good start at burning. She also warned them that the smoke house would be full of smoke. When she got the lock opened, some of them rushed in, intent on taking all her meat. Instead, they came stumbling out, coughing and temporarily blinded. “What-cha got in there, woman?” “I’m sorry, sir, but skippers were getting in my meat and I had to poison them”. That was during the civil war. That was the first incident I have heard of poison gas warfare used in the civil war. They did not bother her meat. Page 209 SMOKEHOUSE Back in the horse and buggy days, it was necessary to stock a supply of whatever food was available. You couldn’t run out to the store for supplies to make just one meal at a time. Dad had his supply of salted and smoked pork in his smoke house. In addition, he had a barrel of scuppernog grape wine. Also, half a barrel of salt herring and half barrel of sauer kraut. Another item often found in the smoke house was cucumbers salted down in brine, waiting to be made into pickels. Dad had thirty or more Mattamuskeet apple trees. These apples had a dark greenish-brown thick skin, firm flesh, very delicious distinctive flavor, and somewhat smaller than the soft sissy varieties found on the store shelves today. He put barrels of these apples away for winter. This variety of apple may have been an origonal Native American variety. Very few are to be found today. That barrel of grape wine was not sold. Dad would draw a gallon at the time to give to friends, free. When it became illegal to sell alcoholic beverages, he stopped making wine by the barrel. Although he gave it to friends instead of selling it, he didn’t care to have his intentions misunderstood. From that time on, he made only a gallon or half gallon each year for home use. Mama usually used much of it to moisten her Christmas fruit cake. Page 210 illustration Frank Wilkinson’s last smoke house. Page 211 CIRCUS DAY The circus was coming to town. The family was talking circus and Dad was talking farm work. Just forget about that circus. There was work to be done on the farm. The ditch banks were growing up and in a mess. Pretty soon it would be time to get in the corn. The old corn would have to be moved on the other side of the barn. That would have to be done now. No time to waste on a circus. They boy’s spirits would drop so hard you could hear them hit bottom. Dad would go on to the post office and sort his mail. When he finished sorting, he would be on his way to deliver. He would go past the rail road depot and the circus train would be unloading and lining up for the big street parade. He would see the elephants pushing the big carved and brightly painted circus wagons around the rail road yard. The calliope would be warming up. Some of the band members would be testing their instruments. As Dad went on down the road delivering his mail, throngs of people would be heading for town to see this circus unload, and later, watch the parade, and still later, see the show. Everyone Dad spoke to on his route was talking circus. At home, just in the nick of time to get ready to go to town, the phone would ring. “Tell those young’uns they might as well go on to that circus. They won’t get anything done at home anyway”. It always happened. He just couldn’t let them miss the circus, regardless of the work. Page 212 GIVEN AN INCH – TAKE A MILE There was a certain preacher that was acquainted with Dad. Like many preachers of the time, he had a large family, and his children wanted a place to go swimming. He brought his family one summer day and asked permission to park his car and his family use the river. Dad granted permission. A few days later, he came again and brought some of his friends. Later, his friends brought friends. One Sunday we went for a drive and stayed off most of the afternoon. When we arrived back home, the yards, both front and back, were crowded parking lots. There was even a horse and cart tied to a tree in the front yard. Dad met some of the people returning to their cars and told one man, “you can’t park in my yard, its private”. The guy replied “I know I can. Every body does”. You can imagine how that would make a private home owner feel. Dad met them as they came up and definitely let them know that this was a private home and private property and that they were trespassing. That ended that. FRIENDS Dad had friends and he had “summer friends”. He was blessed with a beautiful river shore, and acre of grape arbors, cantelopes and watermelons. Some friends came to see him and the family. They were welcome to use his bounty. Others came to buy his produce. Page 213 There were others who didn’t come to see anybody. Their cars would come to a stop. The car doors would explode open and kids and grown-ups alike would rush for the grape vines and river. The adults might pause long enough to say, “hello, Mr. Wilkinson, how’s the grapes?”. LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PAMLICO I was married on April 4th, 1937 to Miss Hazel Waters. We spent our first six weeks in rented quarters in Washington. If you recall the litle 12 x 16 foot house in the back of the farm that Mr. A. B. Mary built during World War I? It was still there taking up space in the field, and was not being used for anything. Dad gave the little building to me and gve permission to move it on the far west end of his river front. I dismanteled it and had it hauled to the river lot and I re-built it. Total cost for new material, 15 cents. About a year later, I decided it was’nt fair to Dad, so I leased the lot from him by the year. At first, Dad didn’t want to take money for it but I insisted. It made me feel better. After Dad’s death, the farm was divided equaly in eight parts – Mama and seven children. It was agreed upon to give me the section I had started my house on. Mama asked for the one next to mine. The others drew lots for theirs. Incidentally, the little house is now a duplex with one apartment rented. Page 214 NO SMOKING Dad used to smoke Prince Albert smoking tobacco in his pipe and he smoked cigars called “Old Virginia Cheroots”. When he smoked cigars he had to spit sometimes, or swallow. No body wants to swallow tobacco juice. I was driving Dad to town once when he had the urge to spit. He grabbed the car window crank and gave a few fast turns and spit a load of tobacco juice against the window he had just rolled up. I really wanted to laugh, but I managed to hold it. As I watched Dad smoke those cigars when I was a kid, I thought there must be something enjoyable about them. When I was about ten years old, I decided to try one. I sneaked one off the mantel piece over the fire place and went down to the river and sat down behind a big cypress tree and lit the thing up. There I sat puffing smoke like a steam engine at full throttle. Pretty soon, I started getting dizzy. The landscape started tilting at crazy angles. I realized it was the cigar. I threw it in the river and stood up, or tried to stand up. I felt queazy in the stomach. I tried to take a few steps. The landscape would swing up one way and then down the other way. The trees seemed to be swaying. My stomach had swarms of butterflies in it. I was sick. I managed to get to the house and get in my room. I lay across the bed and almost passed out. That was 2 cigars I smoked in my lifetime. It was my first (number 1) and my last (number 2). Page 215 1939 – Pop checks out Joe’s Dodge page 216 & 217 ALCOHOL While Dad was in the postal service delivering mail six days a week, in an open buggy, with just a top on it, no side curtains, and no wind whield in front, he had no protection from the wind and weather. Some times in winter, he would almost freeze. His gentlemen friends along the route would try to be helpful and warm him up with a drink of spirits of corn. The whiskey warmer got to be a habit with him. Most men drank in those days. There were several prosperous saloons operating in Washington at that time. When Dad retired from the postal service, he began to taper off. Finally, the only alcohol he had was given to him. NEIGHBORS The farm bordering Dad’s on the east was once owned by Mrs. Lucy Myers. Dad was involved with her once concerning work that required the use of a pitch fork. When he asked her for a pitch fork, she said, “go cut a forked stick”. That remark was one Dad never forgot. After Mrs. Myers’ death, Mrs. Marcia Myers Knott inherited the property. I personally did cabinet building for Mrs. Knott and found her to be a lady with a good personality and easy to work with. MR. CARROWAY We had a neighbor, a Mr. Frank Caroway, who leased the farm from Mrs. Knott. This neighbor had studied for the ministry and he was an ordained minister. He was a friendly man and aparently tried to be a good neighbor. When Mr. Carroway leased the farm, he had Mrs. Knott to build for him, a house and barn at the north end of the farm next to the woods. The Rev. Caroway was an average to good farmer, which was good because farming was actually his second profession. The house near the woods made it convenient to go to and from his manufacturing operations in the woods. He was an expert moon shine whiskey distiller. His 13 year old son, Frank, Jr. drove a fast sporty yellow Chrystler automobile. Frank Jr. had a deep husky voice for a young boy. He was a chain cigarette smoker. His fingers were stained yellow with nicotine. I suspected Little Frank may have delivered the Rev. Caroway’s merchandise in the fast yellow Chrystler auto. That was before 13 year old boys had to have a driver’s license. Every Christmas, Mr. Caroway would bring Dad a Christmas present, a jar of his best White Lightning, it would sit around undisturbed. Finally Mama would buy a block of camphor gum and dissolve it in the whiskey to make an old fashioned home remedy to relieve pains and sprains. Page 218 OVERLAP Dad discovered to his sorrow that the deed to his land covered some property claimed by neighbors to the north. Their deeds covered properties that overlapped. There was a long drawn out dispute over it. Finally they came to some kind of settlement over most of it. There was still a square on the north west corner consisting of about an acre that was still disputed. Dad finally settled at his own expense by having a deed drawn up giving it to the other party. GRACE Whenever we sat down to eat, Dad always bowed his head and said grace. When I was a small child, I thought he said, “Good Lord, we thank you for thin Irish mints you had divided for us to get our souls to heavenly grace, Heavenly babe, crys ade, amen”. When I grew older, I decided he said, “Good Lord, we thank you for the nourishments (nourishments) you have provided for us to get our souls to heavenly grace. For heaven we beg, Christ’s sake, amen”. Page 219 THE LORD WILL BLESS YOU Back in those “Good Old Days” most merchandise was shipped in boxes made of wood. Dad used a large “Gold Dust” laundry soap powder box, fastened to the back of his buggy, as a sort of luggage carrier. He used it to deliver cantaloupes to some of his customers in Washington. There was a family on East Main Street in Washington, about two miles from Dad’s home that were distant relatives. On one occasion, Cousin Betty had just spent a week visiting Dad and was going back to her home with Dad on one of his cantaloupe delivery trips. When Dad stopped at her house for her to get out, he decided to be polite and give her a nice cantaloupe. Cousin Betty readily accepted and said, “thank you, Frank, the Lord will bless you”. She put the cantaloupe down and held out her hands for another. He gave her another. “Thank you, Frank, the Lord will bless you”. She took it and put it down and held her hands out for another. He gave her another. “The Lord will bless you”. She reached for another. Dad got blessed by the Lord for darned near half his load of cantaloupes before she stopped reaching out for more. She couldn’t possibly use all those cantaloupes before they became too ripe to eat. Page 220 WHY LIE ABOUT YOUR AGE ? Cousin Betty had a daughter who was a post office employee. She worked at the money order section for many years. When Cousin Fannie applied for the job, she dropped about ten years off of her age on her job application. Years later, the lie came back to haunt her. She had to work years beyond her natural retirement age before she reached her ficticious age. Served her right. In her later years, Cousin Fannie didn’t look just right. She became an elderly lady with coal black hair. Most people that looked that old would have some gray in their hair. Not Fannie. Wonder Why? Page 221 NEIGHBORS TO THE EAST The Lucy Myers farm, later Marcia Myers Knott farm has produced some interesting neighbors from time to time. One farmer planted a tobacco plant bed one spring and proudly showed Dad his nice young tobacco plants. He had pulled out all the weeds and tobacco plants and left a lot of little spoon shaped leaves which he showed to Dad. Dad laughted and told him he had a good starnd of Mullin plants. Mullin is an herb that looks a little bit like tobacco but the leaves are very thick and fuzzy. WILLIS NEIGHBORS One family that lived on the Myers farm was the Willis family – Charlie, Rosa, sons - McDonald, Willie Gray, and little Ernul King, and a daughter Buelah. The children spent a lot of time with our family. Rosa visited Mama often. When I was about five years old, Mama overheard Ernul, same age as me, tell me that he was going to bring some of his brother’s cigarette butts over and teach me how to smoke. Mama said a firm NO ! I later made up for it with that darned cigar. Buelah came over one morning and saw a big wash tub covered with a burlap bag. Buelah stayed till almost night. She saw Mama start for the burlap covered tub and Buelah followed her. Mama removed the burlap from the tub and began selecting tomatoes from the tub. Buelah remarked in a tone of disapointment, “I thought that was a freezer of ice cream in there”. She immediately went home. Page 222 & 223 Charlie Willis attempted to buy a lot on River Road from Dad. He made a cash down payment on the lot and never made any more payments. After a long time, Dad had the sale declared null and void. Soon after Dad bought the Ford, the Willis children said ther folks paid for Dad’s new car, referring to the down payment on the lot. HELP PICKING MELLONS When Frank Carroway lived on the Myers farm he had a hired man named Upchurch. Dad had his usual mellon crop. Dad would go through the patch every afternoon and pick his mellons for maket and I would carry them to the edge of the field and pile them up so they could be loaded up for sale and delivery next morning. Dad began to notice that melons he had planned to pick had already been pulled. Some night visitor was helping him pick his watermellons. Mama and I stood watch in the mellon patch till midnight once but we had to go in. ---Mosquitoes ! One morning, we drove up to the pile of mellons we picked the afternoon before, to load up. Someone else had loaded up the whole shipment the night before. We had to start over and gather a load for market that morning. That was about 50 mellons at 15 cents to 20 cents each Dad lost that night. That was a lot of money out of his pocket. And also a lot of hard work wasted for me. We traced a smooth path out of the field, down one side and up the other side of the dry ditch where someone had dragged bags of mellons to the Myers farm. We had reason to believe Mr. Carroway’s hired man, Mr. Upchurch and possibly someone else had gone in the watermelon business. GOOD NEIGHBORS Mr. Carroway had a married son who lived in the old house on the Myers place. His son was named Tom. Tom was a quiet sort of person who stayed to himself a lot, never bothering anyone. Tom became a friend indeed when in need. He was the one who led the one or two volunteers who appeared the night of the fire and saved Dad’s house. BEANS FROM NOWHERE The last family and their relatives to lease the Myers-Knott farm was a Tetterton family. The old man died from gun shot wounds, self inflicted. The family and his son-in-law carried on for a number of years. They had a tenant in the old house in the middle of the field. This was Mr. Calvin Know-it-all. Dad referred to Calvin as Mr. Know-it-all because he was an expert on any subject, including the Bible. He was once observed “reading” the Bible up side down. Dad had a vegetable garden in some black land beside a ditch bank. The garden was about half way between our house and Calvin’s. Dad had tomatoes and pole beans planted. Page 224 Mama or Dad would check the bean vines in the late afternoon to see if they would be ready to pick the next morning. When the next morning came, the beans were not there. On one such morning, Mama stepped across the ditch and walked over to have a short visit with Calvin’s wife. In the course of the conversation, Mom mentioned that she came out to pick beans. Calvin’s wife remarked that Calvin had been bringing in a lot of beans lately. Calvin had no garden ! JOLLEY There was once a Mr. and Mrs. Jolley and their baby daughter who lived at the same house. Mr. Jolley was a little man of about 130 pounds Mrs. Jolley was a tall woman of about 250 pounds. She always wore knit stockins, long skirts, apron and slat sun bonnet. He tended to the baby, and chopped grass in the field. She did the plowing. She put the baby in a card board box at the end of the row and plow up and back and entertain the baby each time she plowed back. Mrs. Jolly always wore a sun bonnet. She said “I never ain’t owned one of them hats”. When the little girl grew older, she was dressed in coarse knit stockings, long skirts, apron and little sun bonnet. Page 225 illustration About 1923 Mrs. Jolley did the heavy work on the farm “I’m going to plow the taters and corn today. Put sweetie in a box at the end of the row and chop out the garden”. “Yes Lovie”. Page 226 illustration When Mrs. Jolley’s little girl started school Mrs. Jolley outfitted her in a proper wadrobe for school. Apron, long skirts, knit stockings and a slat sun bonnet. “That’s a cute costume. Are you in a play or something?” “No, these are my new school clothes”. “I think it stinks”. Page 227 photo Mark K. Wilkinson Betty – daughter of Chilson and Alma Francis Marion Wilkinson Page 228 STICKS Green tobacco was fastened on sticks and hung in cureing barns to dry with controlled heat. The sticks were about four and one half feet long and one inch square. They were either split by hand or mill sawn. Dad stored his tobacco sticks under a tobacco barn shelter. When Dad was passing the shelter on an occasion, he noticed something missing. It was his sticks. Several thousand were missing. He suspected what happened to them. WOODS JUICE Dad occasionally made inspection trips through his woods land. Sometimes, he would walk up on a site that had been used to manufacture moonshine whiskey. There would be a small clearing in a thick area screened off by trees and bushes. There would be ashes and partly burned wood that fired the still. On one occasion, he found partly burned tobacco sticks and a few unburned sticks. HE WANTED THEM OUT It was dangerous to walk up on a still site because if the still was there and set up to operate, it was possible that the owner might be there and shoot at intruders. There were a few times that Dad did discover stills with mash barrels and all the trimmings in his woods. He disliked having moonshiners use his woods. It was also possible for law officers to find a still in his woods and charge ……… Page 229 him with owning it. He was also afraid to notify the law because if the officers destroyed it, the moonshiners would blame Dad. Just to play it safe, if he found a still he would wait till the moonshiner had time to run off the mash and move the still, and then he would notify the law. The officers would search the woods and notify Dad that a still had been in the woods, but had recently been moved. CAUGHT WITH THE GOODS Dad was on his wayto the mail box on RiverRoad, one half mile from the house, when he saw Mack Smith going in the woods with a sack of sugar on his back. Dad stopped Mack and told him the sherrif would search the woods in two days. He did. No still. Several years later, Mack told me that “Mr. Frank sure done him a big favor. He gave him time to run his mash off and get his stuff out before the law came”. It seems that Dad chased him out of his woods and made a friend at the same time. Page 230 Pop holding grandson, Robert--Walter’s son, Summer – 1934. Page 231 GOOD IMPRESSIONS It was sometime in the summer of 1936, that Dad’s youngest son, George wanted mom and dad to meet someone special. George had met a pretty little young lady with golden hair, and had been dating her almost a year. George was very interested in this girl and wanted his mom and dad to share some of his enthusiasm, so he arranged for them to meet her. She was invited to have a Sunday dinner at Dad’s house. Miss Hazel Waters was nervous and very anxious to do everything just right and make a good impression. The big day came. George brought Miss Waters home and introduced her to Mom and Dad. Every thing went along just right. Dinner was served. Everyone was seated at the table and the dinner was being enjoyed by all. Miss Waters was seated next to Dad. She was very anxious to do everything just right. She reached for something. It happened! Her wrist struck her iced tea glass and dumped the contents exactly center, in Dad’s lap ! Good first impressions ! Fortunately, Dad took it in good humor. Page 232 Photo This pretty young lady was Miss Hazel Waters – 1935 Page 233 Dad was always a hard worker and he had a lot of endurance. I remember once when he was about 75 years of age, he had a young man, as strong as an ox, hired to help us strip fodder. Dad could easily strip 4 rows to that man 2 rows. I will not say how well I could do. I never could keep up with Dad doing anything, unless he slowed down. Our mail box was located at the end of the lane on River road about one half mile from the house. When I was young and not doing anything else, I went to get the mail. As I grew older, Dad usually went after the mail. Ordinarily, the walk was good for him. It happened after I was married and living near by. Dad was over eighty years old at the time. Dad started out to get the mail one bitter cold windy day. After he was on his way, he realized he needed a heavier coat, but decided to go on fast anyway and try to beat the cold. He got as far as one of the tobacco barns on the way, and he stopped under the barn shelter to sit down and catch his breath. He had severe pains in his chest. He stayed at the barn till he thought he could go on. His determination carried him there and back, one mile, but when he reached the house, he was almost incoherent, and wracked with pain. Mama thought it was a heart attack. He possibly had angina because he had always had foods with hevy fat content. He didn’t see a doctor about his attack at that time. You didn’t see a doctor in those days unless you were sick. This attack wore off. Page 234 Dad plowed his garden till he was about eighty years old. He had to give up gardening. Old Josh, the plow horse died. Josh was old also. His teeth had been bad for some time, so Dad had been feeding him wheat bran and preprared commercial horse food. KIDS AND GROWN UPS When Dad’s children were growing up, we all addressed him as “PaPa”. When I am speaking of him, I refer to him as my daddy or as my father. We also used two words you won’t find in your dictionary. The words were “yessir” and “nosir”. It would have been a hanging crime to say a flat yes or no to our dad. Yessir, it would have been. I remember an occasion, I heard Dad talking to a young grand child. Dad ask the child a question. The child answered yes. I was positively flabbergasted. I had never considered what would happen if a child said yes or no to an adult. Yes and no was for child to child or adult to adult. Never, never child to adult. DAD’S ATTACK From time to time after Dad’s apparent heart attack on his trip to the mail box, he had more attacks. He finally did see a doctor who gave him medication for kidney disorder. Page 235 SLEEPING HABIT As I remember back to the nineteen and twenties, Dad slept on a feather bed covered with home made patch work quilts. He wore a shirt for pajama top. Later, Mama made him some night shirts. They looked like shirts that didn’t stop growing till they reached his knees. His alarm clock hung over his head, suspended from the high-back iron bead-stead. There was a chair by his bed upon which rested his Eveready 2 cell flash light. They on’t make them that good now. I still have that flash light, and I use it rewquently. It is over 70 years old ! Try and make your new plastic light last seven years. Page 236 illustration Testing razor for sharpness Every Sunday morning Frank Wilkinson shaved whether he needed a shave or not. He started by “Stropping” his straight razor back and fourth on a leather strap made for the purpose. When he thought the razor was sharp, he would yank a hair out of his head and hold it up and whack at it with the razor. If it cut the hair off, it was sharp. He used soap and a brush to lather up. He shaved with that straight razor until his hand became too shakey to hold the razor safely. Then he let his beard grow Page 237 TOWN OF BATH A lot of history has been made on the banks of the Pamlico River. In colonial times, there was a town on the Pamlico River about 50 miles from Ocracoke Inlet that became a leading colonial port. It originally was called The New Colony of Pamptico. In 1696 it was named Bath County. On March 8, 1705, the Town of Bath was the first town to be incorporated in North Carolina. The Tuscorora indians assembled on Indian Island a few miles down river and planned to wipe the town out. They made vicious raids on Bath, killing and burning. Some residents fled through the woods to New Bern. In 1711, they killed John Lawson who helped found Bath. They killed the wrong man. Lawson had decried the mistreatment of indians by the white settlers. PIRATE In the early 1700’s a well known sea captain temporarily retired to Plum Point just south of Bath. He married a Bath woman named Mary Ormand. This captain was Edward Teach, better known as the pirate Blackbeard. Teach liked Bath and Bath liked Teach. The town treasured the booty he brought from his raids. Blackbeard was a hard drinker, had an iron will and a vicious temper. He was offered a pardon by the king so he surrendered to Gov. Charles Eden, who for a share of his prizes, allowed him to continue piracy under protection of the law. Virginia Gov. Alexander Spottswood feared Blackbeard would organize a pirate kingdom from a fortress on Ocracoke Island. So he sent Royal Navy Lt. Robert Maynard to capture or kill him. Maynard ambushed him and after a fierce bloody battle, killed him. Page 238 It was one of the bloodiest pirate battles ever recorded. Lt. Maynard ambushed Blackbeard’s ship off Ocracoke on November 22, 1718. Blackbeard’s first broadside killed 20 British sailors on the two ships under Maynard’s command and crippled one of the vessels. Under cover of smoke and fire, Maynard sent his ship’s dozen survivors to the protection of the hold. Blackbeard, seeing only a hand full of Maynard’s men on deck, led a boarding party of 14, crying “cut them to pieces”! The surviving sailors swarmed on to the deck and caught the pirate by surprise. The hand to hand fighting was fierce and the deck was soon awash with blood and battered bodies. Blackbeard struggled until his last breath, finally dropping with 20 cutlass wounds and 5 bullets. Maynard nailed the pirate’s head to his bowsprit for the return voyage. There is an old tale that claims Blackbeard’s headless body swam around the ship 3 times before it sank. After the American Revolution, Bath began to hit the skids. Newer settlers headed west. In 1785, the county seat was moved to Washington, 16 miles away at the head of the Pamlico River. The oldest house still standing in North Carolina is the Palmer-Marsh House in Bath. The oldest church in continued use in North Carolina is St. Thomas Church in Bath, built in 1734. Bath is now a sleepy little town with a population of about 200. Page 239 POSTMASTER While Francis M. Wilkinson was with the U. S. Postal Service, Washington had a post master named N. Henry Moore. Mr. Moore was well liked in the community. When I was in primary grades in school, I had to walk a route that Mr. Moore sometimes traveled. If he passed, he would stop and give me a ride as far as he was going on my route. I appreciated it. After I became a man, I contracted the building of a small dwelling for Mr. Moore, which he rented to his nephew. Mr. Moore had a back injury when he was an infant, resulting in his being short, especially from the waste up, but that apparently never seemed to have any affect on him. In the late summer of 1915, Mr. Henry Moore and his brother, Allen left Bay View heading for Washington. They had to make a stop in Bath. They were arrested for indecent exposure. They were wearing bathing suits on a public street in Bath for all to see. Those scandalous bathings suits consisted of bathing trunks with the leg part of the trunks only covering down to the knees. The tops of the bathing suits were like tee shirts with sleeves almost down to the elbows, and shirt bottoms draped half way down to the knees. These indecent bathing suits were only covered with rain coats. How Shameful ! Sept. 13, 1918: At the trial which Was held at Bath Saturday, Post- Master N. Henry Moore and Allan Moore were each fined two dollars And costs for indecent exposure. The Other members of the party who visited Bath a week ago Sunday were Released with fines. The trial was the result of a trip through Bath on which the visitors were attired in bathing suits and rain coats. This seemed to greatly shock the sense of propriety of the natives. Page 240 & 241 RIDE ‘EM, COWBOY ! It was about 1930. Dad had hired some men to cut some cord wood in his woods land on River Road, now 4 lane, N.C. #32. I was assigned the job of hauling it up to the old home wood pile with the horse, Josh, and the cart. I had loaded about a quarter cord of green pine wood in the cart and I gave Josh the command to go. He moved about four feet and then put on brakes. That was called “baulking”. I did everything in the book except building a fire under him. That wouldn’t work because he might move just far enough to pull the cart over the fire. I had heard that if you unhitch a baulking horse and get on his back and ride him a while, he will go when you hitch him back up. I unhooked the chains from the hanes, unfastened the belly band, lifted the shaves and unhooked the cart saddle chains and let the shaves down. That only left the bridle and collar and hames. I climbed aboard and the horse took off for the house in high gear with pedal to the floor. I was riding bare back so I held on to the collar and hames. I had never ridden a horse before. Josh ran almost home before I could get him to stop. That half mile was the longest ride I ever took in my life. Each time he would bound forward, he would toss me in the air. Just as I was coming down to meet his back, he would be prancing up to meet me half way. I never realized a fat horse could have such a hard sharp back bone. I was holding on to the collar and hames for dear life. That was my only permanent contact with the horse. My sitting contact resembled a basket ball player dribbleing a basket ball on the ground. When Josh finally stopped, I slid to the ground but couldn’t stand up. My legs buckeled under me. When I finally managed to walk, I took Josh back to the woods and hitched him to the cart. The trick worked. On command, he started at a running gate and didn’t slow to a walk ‘till he got to the road. For several days, I enjoyed standing more than sitting. That was my first and last horse back ride. Illustration: Page 242 Photo 1936 – 1938 During shipping season George Wilkinson worked for F. S. Royster Fertilizer Co. for $12.50 per week as bookkeeper. Costume – white shirt and tie. Also overalls. Worked as night watchman during the slack season. Page 243 ENGLISH I remember reading an article concerning antique bits and pieces of the English language that are hold-overs from Elizabethan England. There is some of the Old English to be heard on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Go to Ocracoke Island and you might hear a native say “oy think tharl be a hoy toyd tonoyt”. Translated, I think there will be high tide tonight. The article I read also mentioned some words Dad used, such as “haint” which means, have not. Sentence = I hain’t got the time. It would make us smile when Dad would look across the Pamlico River on a clear, windless day, and he would say, “the water is kam and clair”. (Calm and Clear), “Air you sure”? (Are you sure?), “I don’t have airy one”. (I don’t have a single one). When I was a child, I didn’t think Dad used good English. It just happened that he grew up in an area where the people used some Old English instead of Modern English. Otherwise, his grammer and English was good for an un-schooled person. Page 244 KITCHENS –OLD In the “Good Old Days”, Dad’s mother cooked in a fireplace. Cooking fireplaces were equipped with a crane to hang an iron cooking pot. This crane was a metal arm fastened to the side of the fireplace and was hinged so it could swing out over the harth so the cook could tend the pot and then swing it back in over the fire. There was an iron utensil with a domed lid. It was some what like a turkey roaster. It was called a Dutch oven. Hot coals could be piled around it for baking. Some fireplaces had a bricked in oven. The frying was done in a “spider”. The spider was a long legged iron frying pan that was placed over live coals. The water was drawn from an open well that was dug in the ground deep enough to reach water. The sides of the well were usually boxed in with wood to keep the dirt sides from collapsing inward. Sometimes, they used a large hollow log. A large iron kettle or “wash pot” was used out of doors for boiling laundry and also for cooking fat, called “trying out” lard for the year’s supply of cooking fat. Apple butter was also cooked in wash pots. TEA Old time folks couldn’t buy coffee and tea, so they drank yaupon (yo-pon as in pond) tea. Yaupon is a small tree-like bush found on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and occasionally found inland. Yaupon is sometimes used as an ornamental plant in modern yards. It has small dark green leaves and large bunches of small bright orange color berries around Christmas time. Page 245 Many old time families had a yaupon bush from which they picked the leaves for tea. The leaves were roasted in a wash pot till they were properly done and then stored for tea. The brewed tea was usually sweetened with molasses. Sugar was either unavailable, or too expensive. All the old people I talked with say they hated yaupon tea. I heard of one man who buried his father, and came home from the grave yard and took the ax and immediately chopped the yaupon bush down. KITCHENS – SLIGHTLY MODERN The kitchen my mom cooked in was more “modern”. It had a wood burning cook stove in the north corner with a window on either side. The stove had an oven that was built so that the fire surrounded it on 3 ½ sides. The stove also provided the kitchen with ample heat in both winter and summer. There was an iron warming shelf on the back of the stove that often held juicy warm baked sweet potatoes. There was a small shelf on one wall next to the stove that held the light fixture, an oil lamp, for illumination for night cooking. The west corner of the kitchen had a small shelf about 5 feet high to hold another kerosene oil lamp. There was a larger shelf lower in that corner to hold the kitchen plumbing. The plumbing consisted of a galvanzed metal bucket, full of water and a tin dipper. Used water and garbage was poured in a large slop bucket on the floor. About the year 1923, Mom bought a galvanized……….. Page 246 metal sink and ran the waste kitchen water under the house. That’s where I dug for fishing worms. The south corner of the kitchen had an old fashioned “pie safe” with door panels make of preforated sheet metal punched in fancy patterns. The legs of the pie safe stood in can lids full of kerosene to keep the ants out. Left over food was stored in the safe for the next meal. There was a table in the center of the kitchen that served as a work counter. There was a door in the east corner of the kitchen that opened into the pantry where the flour barrel, the meal tub and the wooden sugar bucket stood. Shelves in the 6 foot by 8 foot pantry held canned goods, preserves, pickels, large pots and pans and other utensils. Several strings of dried red peppers hung in the pantry. About the year 1922, Mama bought a new Perfection Four Burner oil stove for summer use. The kitchen and the dining rooms both had doors that opened on the back porch, but no connecting door. There was a pass-thru window and shelf to get food and dishes from room to room, but you had to walk around to get from room to room. Mama finally bought a door and Chilson cut a hole in the partition and installed the door. On a side of the kitchen near the stove was the fire-wood box. Beside the wood box was a small ladder back chair. You could open the oven door and sit in the chair and dry or warm your feet in the edge of the oven. Page 247 The cat slept under the stove. The big tea kettle on the stove provided all the hot running water needed. There was a coffee grinder fastened to the wall. Green coffee beans were bought by the pound and were put in a large biscuit pan and they were roasted to a brown color. They were ready to grind and brew drinking coffee. When there was time to spare, especially in cold weather, family members would gather in the kitchen. Sometimes, they would bring in extra chairs from the dining room to sit in. The kitchen was a sort of gathering place, even for guests. ALWAYS A FIRST TIME Once, when Dad was 83 years of age, he was sitting in the kitchen, and Mom was busy preparing a meal. She needed a can opened and since he wasn’t doing anything, she gave him the can and the old time one piece can opener and asked him to open it for her. “Oh Dolly, I don’t know how to open it”. “Oh yes you do. Go ahead. I need it now”. So Dad took it and fumbled around working on it and finally opened it, cutting a finger in the process. As he gave it to her, he said, “that is the first time I have ever opened a can”. She had not realized he didn’t know how but he did it. First can he ever opened, at age 83. Page 248 Great Grandmother’s Kitchen Page 249 F. M. Wilkinson’s kitchen as it would have appeared in 1920. Coffee grinder on wall beside window. The chimney was bricks suspended in attic. Chair by the stove for loafers. Plumbing system was a bucket of water and a slop bucket. Page 250 The F.M. Wilkinson kitchen pantry looked somewhat like this in 1920. Very little food came ready prepared and boxed. Page 251 OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES When little George was about 7 years old, Dad bought an organ for Mama. It had a full size keyboard, and lots of stops to adjust for variation of sound. There were two foot pedals approximately 4” wide and 10” long, covered with carpet material. To play the organ, it was necessary to pump the pedals alternately to furnish compressed air to blow the reeds. The cabinet work of the organ was beautifully carved and turned from solid wallnut wood. When cleaned and polished, the organ was a handsome instrument. Mama and Dad had company one Sunday soon after acquiring the organ, and they were anxious to show off the new instrument. The company was invited in the parlour and Mom played them a tune to show it off. Little George helped by giving a few details. He said, “it’s second hand and we got it for $30.00”. Sometimes, kids are blabber mouths. Page 252 LARGE FAMILIES In the 1800’s and early 1900’s, a person could not operate a farm without a large family or a supply of cheap labor. Some farmers had tennants with large families that could be hired cheap. That was before they had tractors that worked from four to a dozen rows at a time, pulling tools that did several operations in one pass. Large harvesting machines can pick more cotton, corn or beans in an hour than a crew of laborers can pick in several days. That was also before herbicides replaced hand chopping weeds and grass from row crops. That was also before insecticides replaced hand picking worms off tobacco and other crops, leaf by leaf. William Henry Wilkinson raised three girls and two boys to adults. His daughter, Emily Wilkinson Ross told her grandson that she was the eldest of twelve children. That means that of twelve births, only five survived. Infant mortality was high in those days. Many diseases that could wipe out a whole family of children in those days are no longer a threat. Modern babies usually receive pre-natal and post natal care that was unknown in those days. William Henry Wilkinson’s son, Francis Marion W. also lost some children at an early age; of eleven births, seven survived. Modern medical care might have saved most of them. Page 253 DAD’S FAMILY Although Dad never expressed his feelings about his sons and daughter in actual words, he was quite proud of them. He was always happy when his children came to visit him. For children of an uneducated country farmer, most of them managed to acquire a fairly good education, and they could earn their living without doing hard physical labor like he had most of his life. Guy and myself were exceptions. Guy was a showman and entertainer. I eventually became a carpenter, cabinet maker and house contractor. We didn’t appreciate him when we were growing up. But when we became adults and realized the difficulties Dad faced trying to raise a family with debits to pay of, little education and hard times, I think he was GREAT ! Page 254 The following photographs are pictures of Frank Wilkinson and his family as he knew them ---- Walter Marion Wilkinson and family Bruce Arnold Wilkinson and family Guy Vernon Wilkinson and family Gwendolyn Caroline Wilkinson and family Joseph Garland Wilkinson and wife Francis Chilson Wilkinson and family And finally – George and Hazel Wilkinson Page 255 Photo At about age 80, Dad’s hand became too shakey to use his straight razor Page 256 Photo Francis Marion Wilkinson – Mary Koonce Wilkinson Page 257 Photo Francis Chilson Wilkinson, Alma M. Wilkinson, Guy Wilkinson, Mary K. Wilkinson, Joseph G. Wilkinson. Gathered on the east side of the old F. M. Wilkinson home. Page 258 Photo Frank, Alma, Clara, Guy, Hazel, George, Mom, Gwen George, Alma, Joe, Clara, Mom, Guy, Hazel, Gwen Page 259 Photo John, Guy, Joe, Frank, Alma, Gwen 8-19-1971 John Korback was Gwen’s second husband Back row: John, Clara, Guy, Joe, Alma, Frank Front row: 8-19-1971, Bessie, young girl Christine, Jerrys daughter, Gwen, Mary W. Page 260 Photo Walter M. Wilkinson Page 261 Photo Walter Marion Wilkinson Page 262 Photo Walter’s first wife: Violet Katharine Wilkinson Page 263 Photo Walter’s second wife: Evelyn George Wilkinson This pictue was Evelyn learning to row a boat on the Pamlico River. Page 264 Photo Walter Marion Wilkinson, wife – Evelyn George Wilkinson and son Robert G. Wilkinson Page 265 Photo Bruce Arnold Wilkinson Page 266 Photo Bessie Ricks Wilkinson, wife of Bruce Wilkinson Page 267 Photo Billie, Bessie, Tommy, Bruce Jr. Bruce Wilkinson and Bessie Ricks Wilkinson Page 268 Photo Guy Vernon Wilkinson Page 269 Photo Genevieve Gordon Wilkinson, first wife of Guy V. Wilkinson Page 270 Photo Clara Gaither Wilkinson, Guy Vernon Wilkinson Page 271 Photo George Lowman and wife, Jacqueline Wilkinson Lowman Guy V. Wilkinson and wife, Clara Gaither Wilkinson Page 272 Photo Gwendolyn Caroline Wilkinson Page 273 Photo Gwendolyn Caroline Wilkinson Page 274 Photo Gwendolyn Caroline Wilkinson and first husband, Jake Herbert and his son, William Herbert. Gwen and second husband, John Korback pictue made Aug 19, 1971. Page 275 Photo Joseph Garland Wilkinson Page 276 Photo Helen Powell Wilkinson Page 277 Photo Joseph G. Wilkinson Served in World War II in the U.S. Navy as Chief Pharmacist Mate. Page 278 Photo Mr. and Mrs. Helen Powell Wilkinson Joseph G. Wilkinson Page 279 Photo Francis Chilson Wilkinson Page 280 Photo Alma Manning Wilkinson (Mrs. Frank C. Wilkinson) Page 281 Photo Jerry, Alma, Mary, Frank Jr., Frank Sr. with Betty on bottom step Page 282 Photo Francis Chilson Wilkinson and family Alma Manning Wilkinson, Children: Betty Gwen and Gerald F. Alma and Chilson After the death of his father, he stopped using his middle name and used his first name, Frank. Page 283 Photo George K. Wilkinson 1936 Page 284 Photo Hazel Waters Wilkinson {photo} made in 1936 by George Page 285 Photo Hazel, George, Mary K. Wilkinson Page 286 Photo View north across part of the Frank Wilkinson farm. The photographer was standing on the top of the kitchen. The shed in the foreground was built to replace part of one that burned. In the middle is a dark patch that is beans in the garden. Three tobacco barns are midway before the line of trees in the horizon. Page 287 Photo The home of Francis Marion Wilkinson The original parts of this house are pre-civil war dated. The frame work under the floors was hand hewn from heart pine logs and mortised together and pinned with wood pegs. One chimney sits on a foundation of large ballast stones from the West Indies. Page 288 Photo Front of: Frank Wilkinson’s house as it faces south toward river. Page 289 Photo Monday, Jan. 6, 1936 Snow on land. 3 ½ inches of ice on the Pamlico River. Page 290 Blank Page 291 WILKINSON FAMILY NOTES Page 292 PIPPIN FAMILY NOTES Page 293 THIS AND THE FOLLOWING TWO SHEETS ARE FROM A FAMILY TREE PREPARED FOR THE PIPPIN FAMILY OUR FAMILY TREE TRACED BACK TO: SILAS AND ELIZABETH PIPPIN, PARENTS OF: WILLIAM F. PIPPIN Birth – 12-15-1838 Deaths – 1-4-1920 AND JOSEPH AND L. F. MOORE, PARENTS OF: EMILY ANN MOORE Birth – 12-31-1843 Death – 2-14-1929 WILLIAM F. PIPPING AND EMILY ANN MOORE WERE MARRIED ON 11-23-1865. THEIR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ARE LISTED ON THE PAGES FOLLOWING WITH THE INFORMATION WE WERE ABLE TO OBTAINED. Page 294 KEY TO THIS BOOKLET WILLIAM F. PIPPIN AND EMILY ANN PIPPIN CHILDREN LULA J. PIPPIN IDA E. PIPPIN MATIE L. PIPPIN WILLIAM JOSEPH PIPPIN LUCY PIPPIN MACON F. PIPPIN FAMILY OF IDA E. PIPPIN AND FRANCIS M. WILKINSON IDA E. PIPPIN Birth – 12/15/1868 Death – 12/31/1906 Married Date FRANCIS M. WILKINSON Birth – 7/6/1856 Death – 3/2/2943 Page 295 1. Walter M. Wilkinson Birth – 2/11/1892 2. Bruce A. Wilkinson Birth - / /1895 Death 8/31/1986 Married - Bessie Ricks 3. Guy V. Wilkinson Birth – 5/16/1896 Death – 1/3/1984 Married – Clara Wilkinson Birth Death A. Jacquelyn Wilkinson Birth Death Married - ? Lowman Birth Death 4 North Cherry Street Bloomingdale, Ga 31302 4. Gwendolen C. Wilkinson Birth – 7/2/1898 Death – 8/24/1984 Married – John Korbach Birth Death 5. Joseph G. Wilkinson Birth – 1/4/1902 Death – Married – 927 Isabella Avenue Washington, NC 27889 6. Frank C. Wilkinson Birth – 6/6/1904 Death – 7/23/1978 7. George K. Wilkinson – half brother Birth Death Page 296 Blank Page 297 Newspaper Articles Jan. 6, 1984 Guy Vernon Wilkinson Obit Feb. 14, 1983 Mary W. Edwards Obit Sept. 2, 1986 Bruce A. Wilkinson, Sr. Obit Aug. 20, 1990 Bessie R. Wilkinson Obit Funeral Services are Held Today for Mr. Wilkinson Page 297 Obit transcriptions below: January 6, 1984 GUY VERNON WILKINSON Guy Vernon Wilkinson, 88 died Thursday at his home in North Shores. Services will be held at the Oden Bonner Chapel Saturday at 2 p.m. with Rev. Ralph Epps officiating. Burial will be in Pamlico Gardens. Mr. Wilkinson was born May 16, 1896 to the late Frances M. and Ida Pippin Wilkinson. He was a retired circus owner and a veteran of World War I, a member of the First United Methodist Church, and of Lodge 104, A.F. & A.M., Sudan Temple, and American Legion Post. No. 15. Surviving is his wife, Clara Gaither Wilkinson; a daughter, Ms. Jackie Loman, of Savannah, Ga.; two brothers, Bruce Wilkinson, of Tulsa, Okla.; and Joe Wilkinson of Washington; four grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Pallbearers will be Calvin Gaither, Merrill Daniels, Dr. George Miller, Ed Karnowski, Ralph Gaither and Ed Bean. The family will receive friends at the home, 923 Isabella Ave., North Shores. September 2, 1986 BRUCE A. WILKINSON SR. Bruce A. Wilkinson Sr., 93, of 1432 S. Troost Ave. in Tulsa, Okla. died Sunday at his home. The funeral and burial will be held in Tulsa at a time to be announced. Wilkinson was born in North Shores in Beaufort County, the son of the late Francis M. and Ida Pippin Wilkinson. He was a retired hospital business manager. He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Bessie Ricks Wilkinson; one son, William Wilkinson of Tulsa; one brother, Joseph Wilkinson of North Shores; one half-brother, George Wilkinson of North Shores, and five grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, memorials should be sent to a favorite charity. Monday, February 14, 1983 MARY W. EDWARDS Mrs. Mary Wilkinson Edwards, 96 resident of North Shores, died at home Saturday evening. Graveside services will be held at the family plot in Oakdale Cemetery at 2 p.m. Tuesday, conducted by Merrill Daniels. The body will remain at Paul Funeral Home until 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. Mrs. Edwards was born on May 8, 1886 in Jones County, daughter of the late George W. and Mariah Heritage Koonce. She graduated from Massey Business College in Richmond. She was a former employee of the Washington Daily News, J.K. Hoyt Department Store and Kugler Lumber Co. as a bookkeeper. Her first marriage was to Frank M. Wilkinson, who died on March 2, 1943. Her second marriage was to George A. Edwards, who preceded her in death on July 22, 1973 Surviving is a son, George J. Wilkinson, of Washington; four stepsons, Bruce A. Wilkinson, of Tulsa, Oklahoma; Guy V. and Jospeh C. Wilkinson, both of North Shores and Harley A. Edwards of Washington; three step-daughters, Mrs. Dot Woolard of Washington, Mrs Elmer Weatherly of Norfolk and Mrs. Martha Cowper of Conway. The family will be at the home of her son, George Wilkinson, in North Shores. Aug 20, 1990 BESSIE R. WILKINSON TULSA, Okla. – Bessie Wilson Ricks Wilkinson, 90, died in Tulsa, Okla. Aug 15. A memorial service was held Saturday at Fitzgerald Funeral Service in Tulsa. Mrs. Wilkinson was the daughter of the late William Hyman and BessieWilson Ricks of Greenville. She was married to Bruce Arnold Wilkinson who died in 1986. She is survived by a son, William Ricks Wilkinson of Tulsa, and a sister, Imogene Ricks Floyd of Richmond, Va. FUNERAL SERVICES ARE HELD TODAY FOR MR. WILKINSON The funeral of Francis Marion Wilkinson was held this afternoon at 2:30 o’clock from his home which is on the Pamlico river near Washington. The service was conducted by Dr. M. O. Fletcher. Mr. Wilkinson was born at Chocowinity on July 20, 1856, the son of William Henry Wilkinson and his wife, Caroline Lewis. He was twice married, first to Miss Ida Pippin, and after her death to Miss Mary Koonce, who faithfully and tenderly cared for him in his declining years. Mr. Wilkinson was a farmer. He was a man of integrity, and noted for his unusual energy. In addition to his farm work, he was appointed and served as mail carrier, being one of the first rural mail carriers in this county. This service lasted nineteen years. When he reached the age of retirement in 1921, and from then on as long as he was at all active, he devoted his entire time to his farming operations. Besides his wife, the following children survive him: Walter _ Wilkinson, Houston, Texas; Bruce A. Wilkinson, Mockville, N.C.; Joseph Wilkinson of the United States Navy, Frank C. Wilkinson, Richmond, Va.; Mrs. J. H. Herbert, Roanoke, Va.; and George Wilkinson, who lives near the home of his father. Page 298 Nov. 2, 1970 MRS. HELEN P. WILKINSON DIES Mrs. Helen P. Wilkinson, age 64 (crossed out age 62 inserted) of Rt. 2, Washington died in the Beaufort County hospital Monday night at 10:30 o’clock after a critical illnss of two weeks. She had been in failing health for the past two years. Mrs. Wilkinson was born in Morganton, Ga. June 16, 1906 (crossed out 8 inserted), daughter of Mrs. Myrtle Smith Powell and the late John C. Powell. She was a graduate of the Atlanta Normal college in Atlanta, Ga., and retired as Placement officer with the FCC in Washington, D. C. in 1952. Since her retirement, she had been making her home here. She was a member of the First United Methodist church, and the Woman’s society of Christian service. Mrs. Wilkinson was married to Joseph G. Wilkinson of this…………. Feb 24, 1946 Surviving besides her husband and mother, both of Rt. 2, Washington are three brothers, John F. Powell and James E. Powell, both of alexandria, Va., and Col. Roy B. Powell of the U.S. air Force in Hawaii; three sisters, Mrs alyce Gartrell of Arlington, V a., and Smith and Mrs. Agnes Cloud of Alexandria, Va.; one niece, Mrs. Nancy Schmitt and one great-niece, Cynthia Schmitt of Alexandria, Va. Funeral Services will be held at the chapel of the Paul Funeral home Thursday morning at 11 o’clock by the Rev. Horace Garris. Burial will follow in Oakdale Cemetery. Funeral services for Mrs. Helen P. Wilkinson, age 64, of Rt. 2 Washington (North Shores) will be held at the chapel of the Paul Funeral home Thursday morning at 11 o’clock conducted by the Rev. Horace S. Garris. Burial will follow in Oakdale Cemetery. The following will serve as pallbearers: George A. Phillips, Murl Daniels, George W. Taylor, Richard J. Ross, Clifton Weatherly and Blake C. Lewis. Mrs. Wilkinson died in the Beaufort County hospital Mondaynight following an illness of two years. Surviving are her husband and mother, three brothers and three sisters. Monday, April 5, 1982 ALMA MANNING WILKINSON SEMINOLE, Fl – Mrs. Alma Manning Wilkinson died in a Seminole hospital Friday morning following a critical illness of three months. She was 75. Graveside services are 2 p.m. Wednesday from the Wilkinson family plot in Oakdale Cemetery, Rev. Ralph Epps officiating. Surviving: son Gerald F. Wilkinson of Richmond, Va.; daughter Mrs Betty Smith Miller of Maderia Beach, FL; brothers Dallas W. Manning of Newark, DL, Lesley Manning of Richmond and Larry Manning of Roanoke, Va; sister Mrs. Thelma White of Grifton; and seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. She was born in Greenville Oct. 30, 1906 to the late Thadeous and Florence Manning. Her husband, Frank C. Wilkinson, died July 23, 1978. She was a member of Faith United Methodist Church; and a former resident of Richmond. The body will be at Paul Funeral Home, Washington until the funeral hour. July 24, 1978 FRANK C. WILKINSON Frank Chilson Wilkinson, age 74 of St. Petersburg, Fla., died at a hospitl there Saturday morning following an illness of several weeks. Graveside funeral services will be held at the family plot in Oakdale Cemetery at 2 p.m. Thursday, conducted by the Rev. Odell Walker. Mr. Wilkinson was born in Washington, son of the late Francis M. and Ida Pippin Wilkinson. He was a retired sales representative for Union Underwear Co. and had been living in Florida the past six years. He was a former resident of Richmond, Va. He was a former member of Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond and Faith United Methodist Church in Seminole, Fla. He was a member of Tuckehoe Masonic Lodge, A.F. and A.M. of Richmond, a member of the Scottish Rite bodies and a Shriner. He is survived by his wife, Alma Manning Wilkinson; one son, Jerry Wilkinson of Richmond; one daughter, Mrs. Betty W. Smith of Treasure Island, Fla.; seven grandchildren; three brothers Bruce of Tulsa, Okla, Guy and Joe Wilkinson, both of North Shores, Re. 2 Washington; one sister, Mrs. Gwendolyn W. Korback of Norfolk, Va; his step-mother, Mrs. Mary W. Edwards of North Shores. Visitation will be at Paul Funeral Home from 12-2 p.m. Thursday. The family will be at the Wilkinson homes, North Shores. Wednesday, Aug 25, 198_ GWENDOLEN KORBACH Gwendolen Wilkinson Korbach, age 33, of 1349 Bayville Ave., Norfolk, Va., died at her home Monday evening at 7 p.m. Services will be held Thursday at 1 p.m. at the chapel of Paul Funeral Home in Washington, with the Rev. Ralph Epps, pastor of the First United Methodist Church, officiating. Burial will be in Oakdale Cemetery. Serving as pallbearers wil be Merrill Daniels, Aubrey Pippin, Ed Karnowski, George Phillips and Clyde Gaither. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that memorial contributions be made to the Arthritic Foundation of Norfolk, Va. Mrs. Korbach was born in Washington on July 2, 1898, daughter of the late Francis M. and Ida Pippin Wilkinson. Reared in Washington, she attended the local schools and Washington Collegiate Institute. She attended Nursing School in Wilmington, Delaware. She was a retired Registered Nurse and a member of St. John’s Lutheran Church. Surviving are two grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; three brothers; Joe G. Wilkinson and Guy Wilkinson, both of Washington; and Bruce Wilkinson, of Tulsa Oklahoma; her stepmother, Mrs. Mary K. Edwards of Washington; and a half-brother, George Wilkinson, also of Washington. Page 298 Newspaper Articles Nov. 2, 1970 Mrs. Helen P. Wilkinson Obit Apr. 5, 1982 Alma Manning Wilkinson Obit July 24, 1978 Frank C. Wilkinson Obit Aug. 25, 198_ Gwendolen Korbach Obit Page 299 Blank Page 300 THE FOLLOWING ARE COPIES OF OLD HAND WRITTEN DEEDS TO LAND THAT EVENTUALLY BECAME THE FARM OF FRANCIS MARION WILKINSON THESE DEEDS DATED 1824 1877-1878 1884 page 301 Deed Dec. 21, 1824 – 200 acres deeded to John McWilliams by: Joseph B. Hinton, Allen Grist, James O.K. Williams, Richard Hines. Page 302 Deed Page 303 Deed Page 304 Deed Thomas B. Browen, Aon________ Waters F. M. McWilliams to Francis C. Dowty Page 305 Deed Page 306 Deed Page 307 Deed Page 308 Deed Dated Jan. 5, 1878 Jno. D. Doughty and wife to Jno B. Ross Page 309 Deed Page 310 Deed Page 311 Deed Page 312 Deed Page 313 ? Page 314 Deed North Carolina Beaufort County Page 315 Deed Page 316 The following 2 sheets are a copy of a mortgage John B. ross and wife, Emily W. made to F. M. Wilkinson for the loan of $500.00 @ 8% interest, on July 1, 1884. PAYABLE July 1, 1887 or the 27 acres of land could be sold at the court house door. It was signed by: John B. Ross and wife, Emily W. Ross On Dec. 30, 1884, this 27 acres of land was included in a plot of 83 acres Frank Wilkinson bought from the Rosses for $1800.00. Page 317 Deed Page 318 Deed Page 319 Deed Page 320 Deed Page 321 Newspaper Article – Tideland Scrapbook – Civil War Scene Here Tideland Scrapbook Civil War Scene Here (Reprinted From Daily News Files) When the Federal forces occupied Washington they built many forts around the town, not so much for the protection of the town as to give work to the many Negroes who flocked to Washington after theyhad run away from the farms. A large fort was built on the East end of the town near the Norfolk and Southern station named Fort McKibben. From this point a line of breastworks was continued around the town to the river on the west end. About the middle of the breastworks was a large fort called Fort Washington. On the line of fortification between Fort McKibben and Fort Washington, where the old Bunyon road enters the town was another large Fort named Fort Hamilton. At the left of Fort Washington there was still another Fort erected and named Fort Gourard. This Fort was near the river about the site of the present Eureka Lumber company mill. The only remains of these forts is a small mound and ditch near the present colored school building. Fort Jack was another fort built by the Yankees and was located on the Chocowinity road where the N. & S. railroad crosses the hardsurface road. “THE BLOCKADE” Just in front of the Edmund H. Harding home on Short drive there may be seen remains of the “Blockade”, the Yankees drove pilings all the way acorss the river and ran a heavy chain from one to the other to prevent gunboats from coming down that were supposed to be under construction “hid in the woods somewhere up Tar River”. It seems ridiculous that men of the U. S. Navy could have believed any such thing as this, but this is the story of the “Blockade”. On September 6, 1862 the Confederates, under General Matin, made an attempt to recapture the town. The streets were swept by artillery fire and a large number on both sides were killed and wounded. It was during this battle that the “Pickette” Yankee gunboat blew up and her captain and 19 men were killed. This boat was lying just past the present county bridge line and until the dredge boat threw up the sand bar in the middle of the river, the bones of the old gun boat could be seen at low tide. The Union gunboat “Louisiana” shelled the town during this engagement and not a house within seven blocks escaped fire. COWARDLY ACT The Yankees did no more cowardly thing in all the war than they did when they set fire to the town of Washington. Several fires had been set during the occupation of the town by the Yankees, but the worst came on April 30, 1884 when only old people and children were left in town and the Yankees started to evacuate Washington. There was no reason either military or otherwise for the burning of the town. The town hall was located next to the Presbyterian church on gladden street and in it was the old hand fire engine, all the fire protection that Washington had. Before the fire was set the Yankees went to the town hall and took the fire hose in the street and cut it up in pieces about a foot long. All of the churches in town were burned in the fire except the Episcopal church, what was not burned until after the Yankees left. And so one sees the war end with only 500 people in Washington broken in body, money all gone, homes destroyed where only four years before lived a happy, prosperous people numbering approximately 3,800. COMMISSIONED IN ARMY Elizabeth Mutter Blount Hoyt, known to her family and many friends as “Aunt Bet” had the singular distinction of holding a commission in the Confederate army, the only commission issued to any woman in this section of the state, having been was made clerk of the commissary department on the staff of her brother-in-law, Major William E. DeMille. For her faithful service she received a barrell of snuff which she sold after the war for $12.00 in greenbacks. “Aunt Bet” died a loyal rebel. She could never love the Stars and Stripes for with all the men of her family away at war she was forced to kiss the flag of the United States and swear allegiance to it. The ceremony took place on the courthouse steps. She was also forced to play the organ in Old St. Peter’s church at the funeral of a Yankee captain who died here and whose body was carried away on a war ship. “Aunt Bet” died at the age of 82, still a loyal Confederate and her tombstone in Oakdale cemetery bears the C.S.A. that was put on tombstones of those who bore arms for the South. Page 323 & 323a Newspaper Article - Civil War Sentiments Here Before Secession Under the picture: STAR FLAG – The original symbol of Washington’s pro-Confederate sentiments hangs in Washington High School. The flag was made in April, 1861 and was presented to the Washington Grays, the first unit of Beaufort County marching to war. Sentiments Here Before Secession - **Editor’s note: Following is the first of a five part series of articles covering the history of Washington and Beaufort county during the War Between the States. This first article tells of Washington’s political sentiment just before the war. By PETER GALUSZKA FOR THE DAILY NEWS CIVIL WAR NO. 1. ”You can get no troops from North Carolina.” News of Governor John W. Ellis’s reply to President Abraham Lincoln’s request for two brigades of North Carolina militiamen to put down the southern “insurrection” reached Washington and Beaufort County on April 16, 1861, the day after the telegram was received in the White House. Four weeks later, Beaufort county sent Edwards J. Warren and William J. Ellison to Raleigh for a special convention called by the state General Assembly. It took an hour for the roll call of the 115 delegates from throughout the state when the day of the convention came on May 20, 1861. Immediately following the roll call, Beaufort county’s two representatives voted with the rest of the delegates on the two ordinances before the floor. The assembly hall erupted into cheers after the ordinances unanimously passed. But Beaufort county’s representatives did not cheer. The joined the other delegates from conservative, Whig, and formerly pro-Union counties. They sullenly looked down at the floor. They said nothing. They said nothing because they knew what the ordinances meant. Seceding from the Union and ratifying the constitution of the Confederate States of America could mean only civil war. A WHIG STRONGHOLD In the years before secession, Washington lay deeply inside a Whig stronghold. The eighth congressional district, including Beaufort, Craven Lenoir, Pitt, Greene, Tyrrell, Wayne, and Jones counties had traditionally been pro-Whig and pro-Union. The Democratic party, on the other hand, amplified southern regionalism and slavery disputes. Beaufort county had seen the influence of the migration of a group of leaders from New England twenty years before the secessionist convention. A group of young men had moved to Eastern Carolina in the 1840’s and with them came Daniel Webster’s idea, keen legal training and a style of social enlightenment. Slavery had never been an economic issue in the county. Ten men owned twenty five percent of all the slaves. There were a few large plantations and many small farms. IMPORTANT PORT But what Washington lacked in the popular image of the antebellum South, it had in terms of commerce, merchants, and sailing ships. With a population of close to 2,000 people, the town was a major port of entry to North Carolina. Sailing ships jammed busy wharves where the Stewart Parkway now passes. The sloops and schooners, most of shallow draft to ply the Pamlico river, hauled lumber, tar, turpentine, cotton and tobacco to the West Indies and northern ports. The warehouses around Water street stocked furniture, molasses, fruits, spices, and textiles from Jamaica, London, Trinidad, Philadelphia and Dakar. Washington was a place of “hard drinking, fast horses, high living,” as well legal proficiency. In the old Beaufort county courthouse several lawbooks classics of trials were heard. The small river city became a mecca for university professors, writers and scholars. Many made their retreats in Washington. DISTINCT ECONOMICS Elsewhere in the south, the cotton gin had guaranteed the continuation of the “peculiar institution” of slavery. The economy had become a cotton kingdom in Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama. In the North, textile mill sweatshops in such places as Lawrence, Massachusetts and Pawtucket, Rhode Island……. Soaked up Irish, German and Italian immigrants as fast as they could step from ship gangplanks. The two economies had bcome distinctly different. Like most of North Carolina, Beaufort county and Washington were caught in the middle. HOT DEBATES. Issues were hotly debated throughout the county. A consensus of the people and county leaders disliked the self-righteous Northern abolitionist as much as they did the southern political hacks who blew the slavery question into emotional fanaticism. Some county leaders advocated slavery and secession; notably William Blount Rodman. In 1859, just before the arguments exploded into gunfire, Washington attorney Edward J. Warren published a commentary in the New York Tribune. Warren pleaded to the Tribune readership that northerners not make it difficult for the Southern Whigs to help preserve the Union. The article urged that northerners be sensible, that they perceive the differences between the two regions and use restrain and good judgment in their relations with the South. Warren’s commentary prompted a lengthy, critical editorial from Horace Greely. COLLISION COURSE A year later, Beaufort county grimly greeted the news of the election of Abraham Lincoln from Illinois. In December, 1860 south Carolina seceded from the Union. Two months _____ Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and Lousiana started the Confederate States of America. The North Carolina General Assembly voted that a special convention be held to determine North Carolina’s future. Secessionists were fired with the news of their neighbors secession and by reports that splinter state militiamen had taken over Federal forts in Wilmington. On February 28, Beaufort county voted with conservatives to keep the state in the Union. The swampy eastern and the mountainous western counties led the conservative victory. LINCOLN CALLS FOR TROOPS But on April 15, President Lincoln wired Governor John Ellis for two immediately available militia regiments to fill his call for 75,000 troops nation-wide to put down the “insurrection” of the seceded states. Wasting no time, Ellis telegraphed his negative reply to Lincoln and, during the same day, ordered state militiamen to occupy the United States Arsenal at Fayetteville, the United States mint at Charlotte, and several Federal forts in the state. Lincoln had gone too far. His call for troops squelched the safely valve of the Whig conservatives who had kept North Carolina in the Union. Now Whigs energetically advocated secession. North Carolina seceded during the second convention on May 20. Seseccion came with almost total support from Beaufort county. WASHINGTON PREPARES FOR WAR Washington began war preparations in the month before the secessionist convention. Anticipating a secessionist vote, Governor Ellis called for 20,000 volunteers for the Confederate Army. By May the Washington Grays were organized (Company A., Seventh North Carolina Artillery Regiment). Thomas Sparrow was appointed captain of the Grays, the first of eleven companies totalling 1,100 men from Beaufort County who would leave for battle under the Confederate banner. Other Beaufort county units included Kennedy’s Artillery, the McMillan Artillery, Rodman’s Battery, Whitehurst’s Battery, Jeff Davis Rifles, Southern Guards, Pamlico Rifles, Confederate Guards, the Beaufort Ploughboys and the Star Boys. A “Military Sewing Circle” was formed by Washington women, often known as the toughest Confederates of all. Miss M. M. Hoyt was placed in charge of the group which provided uniforms, flags, and socks. THE POMP AND GLORY Diaries of children during the early days of the war indicate that Washington was intrigued with the pomp of new uniforms, the exciting chatter of victories, and the thrill of fathers, husbands, and brothers drilling in the streets. In the weeks following the convention, the Washington Grays were ordered to sail to Portsmouth Island just south of Ocracoke to stand ready to repel Union attempts to take Fort Hatteras. WEDDING DRESS DONATED Mrs. Thomas Myers donated her satin wedding dress, a treasured possession, to be made into a white strip for a Confederate flag sewn by Washington women. Just before the Grays embarked for Portsmouth, Miss Clara Hoyt presented the flag to Captain Sparrow in a ceremony before a large crown. Miss Hoyt delivered a moving speech and thirteen satin-clad, white-dressed young women appeared, each representing a Southern state. Women wept when the Grays’ transport steamer disappeared down the Pamlico near Hill point. The women wept again, when, on August 29, 1861, the entire unit of the Washington Grays was captured by the Union Navy while defending Fort Hatteras. Page 324 Newspaper Article –Civil War II – Washington Grays Tried To Protect Fort Hatteras Page 325-327 Newspaper Article: (Confederate Bushwackers) (Demolition) Under the picture: OCCUPATION – Federal troops hoist the United States flag near the Beaufort County Court house. Union combatants arrived the afternoon of March 21 by gunboat, marched to the courthouse, and declared that consequences would follow should anything happen to the flag. Some Washingtonians applauded but others sneered. (From Harper’s Weekly) From: Page 6 –WASHINGTON DAILY NEWS- WASHINGTON,NC. Mar.27,1973 Washington Grays Tried to Protect Fort Hatteras **Editor’s note: Following is the second of a series of articles concerning Washington’s role in the War Between the States. The first unit from Beaufort county to go to war tried to protect Fort Hattaras from capture. This article covers the first year of the Federal occupation of Washington. By PETER GALUSZKA FOR THE DAILY NEWS CIVIL WAR II CIVIL WAR SECTION TWO (2) Capturing Fort Hatteras was the first step Lincoln’s admirals took in bottling up the Carolina coastline. Supply lines from North Carolina to the Confederate armies in Virginia would thin and dwindle if the Union navy could stop all maritime deliveries from Europe. A fleet of Union ships surrounded Ft. Hatteras and pounded it with gunfire. The Washington Grays’ stationed at Ocracoke Island, received orders to relieve Hatteras. The Grays’ boats skimmed the geysers of near-misses from Union cannon during the sunset of August 28, 1861. By early afternoon of the next day, the Confederate guns were silenced and Commodore Barron, Confederate commander at Hatteras, surrendered all 700 troops on the island. The Grays, commanded by Captain Thomas Sparrow, were removed to a prison camp at Ft. Warren on an island in Boston harbor. Several of the Grays had been wounded during the Hatteras fight. At Ft. Warren, one wounded man, Private Samuel Lanier died. Mothers, wives, and daughters anxiously awaited word from their captured men. Mail was permitted, although it passed through both Union and Confederate censors. Several of the Grays bypassed mail censors by pasting letters between the pages of books and sewing notes inside gifts _______sent to Washington. The Grays were exchanged in February, 1862 for the Union prisoners and they returned to Washington. Later they were re-organized and sent to Fort Fisher, one of the most important posts in the Confederency. The installation commanded the mouth of the Cape Fear river. Several miles from the river mouth, Wilmington served as the chief blockade-runner ports for the Confederate states. BEGINNING OF THE END During the first year of hostilities, Washington’s young men drilled and marched to battle. In the first year, 1100 men, most of the young men in the county; left in uniform. Some units of Washington’s eleven companies were sent to Virginia. Others had home duty and built forts at Hill’s Point and Swan Point to protect approaches to Washington on the Pamlico river. The town buzzed with excitement when the first reports of Confederate victories came. Many citizens thought, perhaps naively, that war wasn’t such a bad thing. But the young men who left Washington in marching formation would not see the town standing again. They did not know it at the time. Washington’s citizens did not know it either. But they had an idea when, on March 13, 1862, early in the morning just after daybreak, they could hear the dull booming coming from the south, miles past the far bank of the Pamlico river. The sound they heard was the cannon of Federal gunboats shelling Confederate emplacements in New Bern, thirty-five miles away. THE OCCUPATION Within the next two days New Bern fell and Washington’s Confederate protection of a regiment of Georgia troops evacuated the town. Families in Washington prepared to take refuge at friends farms further inland. On the morning of March 21, a convoy of Union ships came into view down the Pamlico from Washington near Blounts Bay. The flotilla had stopped. Before the Confederates had evacuated the town, they had driven rows of pilings into the river bottom between Hill’s point and Swan Point. The Federal convoy could not pass the barricade stretching across the wide river like teeth in a hair comb. The gunboat Delaware penetrated the blockade and a few hours later two companies of the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry set foot on the wharves in Washington. With a musical marching band they paraded to the Beaufort county courthouse, raised the United States flag, and collected as many of Washington’s inhabitants as they could find. Colonel Stevenson told the civilian crown that if the United States flag fluttering over the courthouse was insulted in any manner, the town would suffer the consequences. PERMANENT GARRISON ARRIVES The units left and a permanent garrison arrived with a bevy of gunboats several days later. The Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry, the Third New York Artillery and Cavalry, along with other artillery units set up camp in the town. Several gunboats, squat 150 long river craft, anchored in the Pamlico river off Washington. Sporting 30 pound guns with many smaller pieces, the gunboats could shell the riverside for several miles from their positions. The shallow draft paddle steamers chugged up and down the Tar river and tidal creeks. Some of the boats were formerly harbor ferries for northern ports. The U.S.S. Louisiana, the Commodore Hull, Commodore Perry, the U.S.S. Pickett, the U.S.S. Ceres, and the U.S.S. Delaware along with other gunboats, transports, and sloops remained around Washington. Under the picture: CONFEDERATE BUSHWACKERS –Two Federal pickets around Washington meet their death at the end of bayonettes during the summer of 1862. Confederate bushwackers snuck up on sentry positions and killed the soldiers. (Leslie’s Newspaper) page 326 Under the picture: DEMOLITION – Federal troops near Swan Point explode demolitions on Confederate barricades jutting up from the river bottom. Both sides erected rows of pilings across the two mile wide river to keep enemy ships from reaching Washington. (From Harper’s Weekly) The troops searched civilian homes for weapons. Diaries of some Washington women during the occupation state that they were the butt of obscene jokes and gestures. Singing southern songs in local taverns was prohibited. PART OF BURNSIDE EXPEDITION The Union occupation troops in Washington were part of the General Burnside expedition which seized New Bern. Burnside wanted to insure that river ports such as New Bern and Washington could not be used by Confederate blockade runners. Also, the Union war planners had a more strategic reason for occupying river towns. Wilmington, just 90 miles south of Washington, was the most important shipment center for the Confederacy. Vital heavy war goods, including English cannon and gunpowder, were shipped in by blockade running vessels. About 60 miles west of Washington, following the present-day route of the Seaboard Coastline railway stretched the Wilmington-Weldon railroad The W & W line was referred to as General Lee’s jugular vein. Heavy equipment, cannon, muskets, food, wagons, and clothing moved up the railway from Wilmington to Lee’s forces in Virginia. Federal military strategists thought that if they held small North Carolina ports, they might be able to, at some time, launch an attack on the railroad and cut off Lee’s supplies. THE BATTLE AT TRANTER’S CREEK Close to Washington, the Confederate forces held Pitt county, parts of Greenville, and sections of Martin and Craven counties. In late May, 1862, the Confederates prepared to attack Washington and recapture it. The Forty-four North Carolina Infantry Regiment massed on the Beaufort-Pitt county line near Tranter’s Creek. But Union scouts found the position of the Confederate troops. Colonel Potter, Union commander in Washington, sent dispatches to New Bern and within a day two more gunboats and more troops steamed up the Pamlico river. Close to Hardison’s Mill Colonel George B. Singeltary’s Forty-fourth North Carolina Infantrymen stripped a bridge over Tranter’s Creek of its boards. The Confederate force covered their position on the west side of the creek. On the morning of June 3, a Union force, including eight companies from the Twenty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry, two artillery pieces, and the Third New York Cavalry, reached the bridge and opened fire. The musket volleys were brisk, loud, but brief. Confederate Colonel Singeltary’s skull was shattered by a musket ball. The U.S.S. Pickett moved up the Tar river and her big guns lobbed shells into the Confederate position. Fearful of being cut off by a land force from the Pickett, the Forty-fourth North Carolina retreated to Greenville with the Pickett’s shells screeching after them. ANOTHER TRY During the summer months, two Union guards posted on the perimeter of Washington were grabbed during the night and stabbed by Confederate bushwackers. At the end of the summer, the Confederates tried again to take Washington. At 4:00 a.m. on September 6, Confederate cavalry horse hooves, two companies strong, clattered down the Greenville road. The cavalrymen were backed by artillery. Following were the Seventeenth and Fifty-fifth Regiments of North Carolina Infantry, and Kennedy’s Artillery, an original Beaufort county units. The force, commanded by Brigadier General James G. Martin took a position between the Tar river and the Greenville road. But in the pre-dawn darkness just before the Confederate charge, Union campfires were burning. Some units of the Washington occupation force were preparing for a dawn march to Plymouth and soldiers were mounted up, armed, and ready. The Confederate cavalrymen penetrated past Bridge street and the Presbyterian church. They took what was then the Academy building, used as a Federal barracks and a battery of four cannon. With muskets popping and cannon roaring, four companies of Union cavalry charged down Main, Second and Third streets, pushing the Confederates back to Bridge street. Confederate musket volleys stopped the Union cavalry. The gunboat howitzers slammed shell after shell into the western section of Washington. Rounds from the Louisiana and the Pickett, both anchored off Washington, pinned down the Confederate lines. PICKETT BLOWS UP Suddenly in the midst of the battle on shore, the Pickett burst her superstructure in a loud explosion. Boards, cannon, and human beings flew into the air and sheets of flame licked upwards from her hull. Twenty Union sailors and officers were killed instantly. She sank rapidly. The fight continued until 7:00 a.m. General Martin’s men withdrew to Greenville with fifteen prisoners and four cannon. By noon, the Federal troops found more than 30 men dead. More than 50 were wounded. The bodies of Confederate dead were tossed into a mass grave. A few civilian women were permitted to nurse the wounded. Later that day, troops searched all the homes in the city for weapons. They claimed that during the attack civilians had fired upon Federal troops from windows, porches, and doors. Others displayed their arms to the Federals and claimed they were shooting at the Confederates. To be continued…............. Section III missing {We would love to get a copy of this section if anyone has it) CRW Page 328-333 Newspaper Article – Seventeen Day Siege Editors Note: The following is the story of the 17 day siege of Washington in the spring of 1863. The story is the fourth in a series of articles concerning Washington during the War Between the States. By PETER GALUSZKA FOR THE DAILY NEWS SECTION FOUR CIVIL WAR Company G of the Fifth Rhode Island Infantry grumbled when Lt. Odiorne came with marching orders at 5:30 the evening of Sunday, March 15, 1863. The troops mounted their gear, canteens, muskets, and ammunition. Two hours later Company G packed the decks of the U.S.S. Escort. Riding very low in the water, the gunboat steamed down the Neuse river from New Bern. Stray newspapers lay on the decks. The papers were passed among soldiers who could read. The rest slept on the decks. At 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon of the next day, the Escort docked in Washington. Many townspeople stood in the streets watching the soldiers disembark. Members of Company G saw that the houses in town were pocked with grape shot and one was perforated with eight inch shell holes. The town was well fortified. Company G moved to Washington’s west end and set up camp in a cornfield. At least 1160 Federal troops occupied the town. Units included eight companies of the Twenty-Seventh Massachusetts, one company of the First North Carolina Volunteer Infantry, one company of the Third New York Calvary, and battery G of the Third New York artillery along with the new arrived Rhode Island troops. The gunboats Louisiana, Eagle, and Commodore Hull lay at anchor in the Pamlico. Monday night, March 16, was cold and Company G experimented with blankets to keep the chill from their tents. The next day, they were greeted with the loud bark of the eight inch cannon of the Louisiana. The howl of shells zipping through the air made a peculiar sound before the crash came several miles away. In the days to come Company G would learn to appreciate the screeching howl, the calling card of the Louisiana. They would because on March 17, 1863 over 15,000 confederate soldiers were marching to take Washington. HILLS MISSION General Robert E. Lee had ordered his crack subordinate General Daniel H. Hill to move into Eastern Carolina. Lee wanted Hill’s men to gather food from farms in the broad fertile coastal planes of North Carolina. He also wanted to insure that no Union troops cut the Wilmington Weldon Railroad. Company G knew the confederates were coming but they didn’t know how many of them. They knew there would be a fight but unlike most of the Union troops occupying Washington, the men of Company G were veterans. They were not fearful or anxious about the smell of gunpowder, the scream of shells, or approaching enemy phalanxes. During the violent gale that blew up in the afternoon of Wednesday, March 18 Company G was largely indifferent. CAMPFIRES SEEN A day and a half passed. Units were routed out at 3:30 on Saturday morning. From their posts in blockhouses they could see the light of fires through the mist down the river. Two Confederate deserters had said that Hill’s forces were just 20 miles away but were bogged down in the rain. On Monday a steamer with ten days rations docked in Washington,. The rest of the week passed with no incidents and a great deal of rainfall. Rumors swept among the garrison troops. There were campfires down the river every night. But there were no Confederates. CONTACT MADE Monday, March 30, General John Foster and his staff arrived from Plymouth to inspect fortifications. By late morning, Company G and Company A moved out with rifles and canteens. Their unit with 12 cavalrymen and a three inch cannon clattered over the Tar river bridge and headed down the New Bern road. They were on a reconnaissance patrol to check the land south of Washington. One mile down the road they halted. A shell from the Louisiana crashed ahead of them. The rumors they had heard were made credible when they found a Confederaate canteen on recently constructed earthworks ahead several hundred yards. They approached a brook. Fifty yards from it, three musket volleys rang out. Dispersing, the two companies formed skirmish lines. Buck and ball shot and half round “Mississippi” bullets plinked around them. The Union troops ran for cover. Several men splashed into the brook but it was too deep to walk. They could escape only by fleeing up the New Bern road. Dust billowed up from the roads as the men of companies A and G sprinted north. Just when they were out of range of the confederate rifles they heard the familiar half-chugging, half-shrieking sound of the Louisian’s eight inch gun. Shells covered their retreat. FEDERALS PUSHED BACK All around the Washington countryside, the same thing was happening. Federal pickets and gun positions outside of city limits were repulsed by the approaching Confederates. At dawn the next day, the First North Carolina Volunteers (Union troops called Buffaloes) fought with Confederates at Rodman’s Point. They could retreat only by paddling skiffs and flatboats up the river to Washington. Confederates chased them to the river bank and the boat got away under a hail of heavy fire. But one flatboat ran aground and would not pull free. All men on board lay prone for their lives. A black man on board spoke out, “someone has to die and it might as well be me,” He stood up, splashed into the water and pushed the flatboat free. Five bullets riddled his upper abdomen, he fell into the boat. Onshore at Washington, doctors amputated one of the man’s legs and part of his forearm. He died shortly afterwards. The Confederates took Rodman’s Point. Several hours later Washington was just down the muzzles of highly accurate Whitworth guns. The breech-loading pieces, valuable because of their scarcity, were purchased from Great Britain and brought in at Wilmington. They could accurately shoot at much greater distances than any other pieces the Confederates had. Their payloads packed a mighty wallop. CIVILIANS STAY On March 31, General Daniel Hill sent messengers carrying white flags to Washington. Federal General Foster refused to permit the men inside the fortifications. He sent officers to meet them. Hill summoned the Federal troops to surrender. He offered a 24 hour truce for the old men, women, and children to evacuate the town. Foster replied, “Go back and tell them if they want Washington to come and take it.” None of the women and children were permitted to leave town. General Hill calmly heard the reply to his offer when his messengers returned. When he was told of the Union commander, Hill exclaimed, “My God, is General Foster here?” SIEGE BEGINS The next day, Confederate artillery pieces opened up on Washington. The 17 day siege had begun. The Confederates controlled both banks of the Pamlico river. Daniel’s brigade with five regiments and Pettigrew’s brigade with six regiments of infantrymen occupied the south bank, protecting artillery emplacements at Fort Hill and Rodman’s Point. Garnett’s brigade with six regiments of cavalrymen occupied the north bank. Swan Point bristled with cannon. Under the picture: ESCORT RUN – In a dramatic effort to retroop and resupply besieged Federal troops in Washington, the Union gunboat Escort with 500 men aboard steamed through the Confederate blockage on the Pamlico river. The Escort ran a ten mile distance under heavy fire past all confederate batteries that fired from both banks of the river. She successfully reached Washington. (Leslie’s Newspaper) The Union forces were bottled up at Washington. Relief could come from New Bern and Plymouth but both paths of entry were taken by Confederates. BLOCKADE But capturing Washington was not Hill’s primary objective. His orders called for gathering food and supplies from Eastern North Carolina and sending them to Lee in Virginia. Taking the town by force would doubtlessly be a very bloody prospect, one Hill wasn’t seriously considering. He could starve the Federals out of town. Union troops could be resupplied only by the river. Hill’s forces started a blockade of Washington. During the first day of siege, Confederate shell fire struck Fort Hamilton and moved in patterns across town. A Whitworth shell smashed into a blockhouse ripping the interior and also overturning a box of cayenne pepper. Survivors inside sneezed violently. Gunboats in Washington returned fire. But the Louisiana and the Commodore Hull ran aground when a stiff westerly wind blew water out of the river. Stuck, the Commodore Hull was hit over 100 times. Several shells exploded on her decks and three crewmen were wounded. Two Whitworth guns on Rodman’s Point exploded when Confederates tried firing homemade gunfire. But the shells kept falling. Foster sent word to the gunboats and transports that had congregated just below Confederate artillery range in Blount’s Bay. Foster’s messengers plied water in small boats under the noses of Confederate guns. Foster’s order calling for the landing of a brigade of troops could not be carried out. Action continued for the next few days. Gunboats steamed to Hill Point to duel with Confederate batteries. However, the Union artillery on the boats could not be elevated to a degree to reach the emplacements on the river bank cliffs. The Confederate guns barked from high bluffs. TAKING SHELTER During the siege, Washington’s townspeople could not safely leave their homes. The gunfire began at dawn and ended at dusk. Families massed in basements. Toys, lamps, books, blankets, stoves, sewing, and knitting were brought inside. Women cooked through the night and brought covered dish dinners to the basements for the day’s firefight. When they emerged to sleep in their homes at night, civilians would find sections of their houses missing, a kitchen shattered, a roof shorn off, gaping holes in the sides of buildings. After the first days, the routine became settled. Families would rise at 5:00 a.m., retreat to the basement, and come up at 7:00 p.m. One mother prepared to take her family to a friend’s basement at 4:30 one morning. They were hurrying. The mother went to her eight year old son’s room where he lay asleep. NEAR MISS The boy did not wake up and the mother treatened to leave him. Just as she was pretending to depart through the bedroom door, a cannon shell penetrated the wall of the house, knocked a round hole in the bed board several inches above the boy’s head, and crashed into the backyard. SUPPLIES DWINDLE A week after the siege began, the supplies of the Federal troops began to diminish. The 1160 men had a great deal of coffee but no meat and almost no bread. Page 330 The Confederates knew that Union ammunition supplies were limited. They schemed to make the Federals waste rounds. Horsemen would ride into the firing lines in front of the Federal fortifications. Rounds would be fired and the horsemen would slowly ride away. GIMMICKS The Union troops used the same gimmicks. During a battle lull one day before the siege, a Federal regimental band struck up “Dixie”. In seconds, Confederate shells struck the breastworks. Union spotters would climb the top of Fort Washington, wait for a distant flash, scream “Rodman’s or Widow’s” and the men would duck according to the call. Specific Confederate batteries always hit the same targets. The dueling continued and Union ammunition supplies became low. After midnight on April 9, two schooners with 15 tons of munitions docked in Washington. Miraculously, the schooners ran the Confederate blockade. But the Confederates were concerned with other matters. General Spinola was marching from New Bern to relieve Washington with 7,407 Union troops. GENERAL BY- JESUS General Spinola’s force was large. Included were the Third, fifth, Eighth, Seventeenth, and Forty-third Massachusetts infantry along with Rigg’s, Ashbury’s, Howell’s, Belger’s, and Ransom’s batteries. They left New Bern on Wednesday, April 8. At noon the next day, they ran directly into Pettigrew. Belger’s artillery battery had been ordered by Spinola to move up to the rolling land pocked with swamps near the Ruff grist mill on Blounts Creek. Spinola had reports that the Confederates were especially tough around Blounts Creek. They protected Fort Hill. When the Belger batteries reached a small bridge near the mill, volleys cracked from Confederates hiding in the high ground. In two hours, eleven Union troops were wounded. The Confederates had field artillery spraying cannister into the bridge and the swamps around it. General Spinola withdrew and his troops march back to New Bern. His officers had reported that going ahead was a “forlorn hope”. Spinola was reputed as being more of a politician than a military leader. The force of 7,407 begrudgingly trampled to New Bern cursing their leader. They called him “Pis-Nola” and “General By-Jesus”. They thought that the Confederates in the area were actually a much smaller force than Spinola had thought. At least half of the Confederates were across the Pamlico with no way to cross. Spinola often wore high, stiff, white collars. Although they were in fashion at the time, they clashed with Spinola’s uniform. As he rode south to New Bern, the white collars irritated his troops. As his horse’s tail whipped one soldier in the face, he muttered “General Dickey”. THE ESCORT RUN The Union guns badly needed the 15 tons of ammunition brought in by schooners. They were further replenished by the run of the U.S.S. Escort. On the night of April 13, the Escort ran the Confederate blockade with more troops, supplies, and ammunition. The Escort pilot knew the river well. He had calcalated the range of the Parrot, Whitworth, and 12 pound cannon of the Confederates. He ran a daring course just out of range of one Confederate battery and just in range of another. Cannon boomed up and down the river as the Escort chugged on. Her masts were clipped and shot peppered her sides. Her men fell wounded. Confederate infantrymen ran up the river banks in vain. Past Hills’ Point and Swan Point, around the barricades of cypress logs and pillings, and past the Rodman Point batteries the Escort steamed. Cannon muzzles flashed and water geysers shot into the air. The Escort docked in Washington with her body damaged and her engines hot. Her supplies insured the survival of the occupation force. VANISHED On April 15, Hill received orders to take his troops and return to Virginia. Lee needed him for the invasion of Pennsylvania. All the Confederates slipped away from Washington. The shelling stopped. The light from the campfires faded. The Union soldiers sent out scouting parties. One patrol of scouts crept to Rodman’s Point. They beached their small boat, stumbled about the cypress trees and avoided the briars as they stepped onto dry land. No sign of the Confederates. The land had been the location of a Whitworth cotton battery. One man saw some remains of cannon. They looked as if the _____had exploded. But there were no confederates. A private shouted. Tacked to a tree was a handwritten sign. It bore the signature of Company K of the Thirty Second Regiment of North Carolina Volunteers. It read: “Yankees, we leave you, not because we cannot take Washington, but because it is not worth taking’ and besides the climate is not agreeable. A man should be amphibioous to inhabit it. We leave you a few bursted guns, some strey with shot, and a man and a brother who was rescued from the waves to which foray among his equals consigned him. But this tribute we pay you; you have acted with much gallantry during the brief siege. We salute the pilot of the Escort” TEXT: IMPORTANT FROM NORTH CAROLINA The Siege of Washington Raised and The Rebel Earthworks Destroyed By the Union Troops The Fortitude and Pluck of Gerneral Fos- ter’s Little Band Gen. Foster’s Troops at Port Royal Anxious to Return to Their Old Chief. ARRIVAL OF GENERAL NAGLEE AND STAFF. Details of the Brilliant and Successful Dash of General Naglee and Staff Upon the Enemy. What a few Determined Men May Accomplish, & c &c &c Newbern, N. C., April 21, 1503. The rebels have abandoned their attack on Washington, N.C., giving it up as a hopeless task. The fortitude and plucky perservance with which General Foster and his little band of twelve hundred men held out successfully and kept at bay for many days and nights seventeen thousand of the enemy constitute an achievement without a parallel in the history of the war, and one which has endeared this popular and victorieous leader still more strongly to his command. Gen. Heckman’s brigade, which arrived here from Port Royal, with the rest of Gen. Foster’s troops still at that place, are so anxious to return to this department that they offer to re-enlist for the war if they can be allowed to return to the Old North State and fight under their old commander. As order was promulgated on the 19th inst. By Goo. Foster ordering all the rebel sympathizers and government paupers outside of our lines. Gene. Naglee and staff arrived here from New York last Tuesday, and left the next day at the head of an expedition in pursuit of the enemy. The return of this gallant and distinguished hero was the occasion of a tate.log. NORTHERN ACCOUNT - This April 25, 1863 New York Tribune headline spells out the end of the seventeen day siege of Washington. The story was featured on an off-lead position on the front page. The text indicates a strong pro-Union bias and subjective reporting. The story was filed from New Bern on April 21, just several days after the Confederates stopped siege of the town. Page 331 Returning Rebels Found The Homes Were No More “Washington Was Level Mass Of Smoulders” Editor’s note: Following is the last in a series of articles about Washington during the War Between The States. It covers the burning of Washington in 1864. By PETER GALUSZKA FOR THE DAILY NEWS One out of every twenty of the Beaufrot county men who had left their farms and stores in gray uniform did not return after Lee surrendered at Appamattox. But when the nineteen out of twenty men walked, rode, or were carried back home, they found that their home existed no longer. The eyes of Washington’s 500 inhabitants burned deeply in their sockets. Children were unclothed and underfed. Older folk gazed down at the dirt, the wrinkles stretching across their foreheads multiplied, and another part of them passed away. Dead hulks of mules gathered flies in the streets. Everywhere was the acrid stink of straw and mud and burned wood. A 19 year old engineer, a 27 year old brigadier general, an unknown quantity of whiskey. In three days little was left of Washington. Aside from scattered skeletons of frame houses, the city was a level mass of smolders. There was no military reason for the arson and vandalism that occurred in the last hours of the two year occupation of Washington by United States troops. Months after the last Federal units left by steamboats at 4:00 p.m. April 30, 1864, a Federal Board of Investigation declared “there could be no pallation of the utterly lawless and wanton character of the burning”. The Federals had remained undaunted during the 17 day siege in the spring of 1863. After Hill’s troops withdrew, the Union garrison forced the people to swear to loyalty oaths. Freed slaves continued to congregate behind forts and breastworks and it became tougher for residents to go beyond the picket lines. But there was never any reason for the arson and vandalism. Garrison duty was not oppressive. The local people did not deserve the inhuman act. If anything, the Union troops in Washington bore the hot stares of southern patriots and the cold stares of prostitutes. THE RAM ALBEMARLE It all began when 19 year-old Gilbert Elliot won a Confederate contract to build an ironclad from scratch near Scotland Neck during the last months of 1863. Union gunboats controlled the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds along with most of the tributaries. In coastal Carolina action, the Federals could always grab toe-holds of land because they were backed by the heavy guns of their river fleets. On the banks of the Roanoke river, Gilbert Elliot along with professional naval architects, put together the craft that could clean the waters of Yankees. The ram Albemarle had two coats of two inch thick armor and two two hundred horsepower engines. She had an 18 foot prow that could mash any wooden hull of a gunboat. She carried heavy guns. And she was made with the last scraps of iron the South could muster. During battle, men inside her said the hits of shellfire on the iron sides sounded like rainfall. In March, 1864 the C.S.S. Albemarle was floated down the Roanoke at high tide. She headed for the Federal stronghold at Plymouth.. PLYMOUTH TAKEN At 4:00 p.m. Sunday, April 17, Brigadier general Robert F. Hoke’s men had surrounded Plymouth. The 27year –old Confederate general pushed his forces around the Union fortifiications. At 10:00 a.m. April 20, a white flag fluttered over the town. The Albemarle, using Plymouth as a port, took her toll of federal gunboats. Hoke was promoted to Major general by President Jefferson Davis. VICTORY The capture of Plymouth was both a psychological and strategic victory for the Confederates. The tide of the war had turned against the South at Gettysburg. One victory in hard times encouraged Confederate soldiers fighting everywhere in a 1200 mile span. Strategically, the Confederates could begin a sweep south and clear Union forces from Washington and New Bern. The Confederates could strengthen Eastern North Carolina as a blockade-runner port area and a breadbasket for their troops. The sweep began several days after the Plymouth victory. Major general Hoke marched south to Washington. EVACUATION Washington garrison commander Brigadier general Edward Harland was ordered by telegram from General U.S. Grant to evacuate Washington on April 26. He made preparations and sent for transports from New Bern. During the wait for the evacuation steamers the occupation forces of over 1,000 men went wild. They broke into houses and took furniture, silverware, and jewelry. They ripped up books, drapery, and heirlooms. They told the blacks that they would die. Some blacks panicked and fled town. Others joined in the looting. Shop windows were smashed and merchandise was taken. Stables were raided and leather goods were removed. Home owners protesting the entry and pillage of their home were silenced under the bores of pistols and muskets. Women were insulted and some were assaulted. In his report General I.N. Palmer, a Federal commander, took no sympathy in the actions of Union soldiers. He wrote: “The army vandals did not even respect the charitable institutions but bursting open the doors of the Masonic and Odd Fellows pillaged them both and hawked about the streets the regalia and the jewels.” Washington’s citizens had been excited the week before by the news of the capture of Plymouth. Now, they huddled inside their homes hoping that the gangs roaming the city could not pick their house for pillage. Whiskey from stores and government stocks was distributed to the bands. The violence increased. Steamers arrived to take the troops away. Three days had passed since the plunder of Washington had begun. FIRE It was the afternoon of April 30. Union troops entered a fire station near the Presbyterian church on Gladden street. They found fire hoses and with axes, sabers, and knives, hacked them into small pieces each about a foot long. They laughed at the irony of plugging a footlong hose into a fire water pump. Other soldiers entered the stables on the William DeMill wharf. When they came outside a haze of smoke trickled from the stable windows. Soon the building was blazing and the fire was running up the block. Officers shouted but winked and gave no orders to put the fire out. FORTS BLOWN UP An explosion jarred horrified onlookers. Another followed. The Union troops were blowing up forts with exploxives. Blacks hurried into the countryside. They carried all of their belongings on their backs. They would walk through the smoke from the south side of town, an explosion would hurt their ears; debris would rain down, and a sea of cries would ring out. FIRE FIGHTING USELESS Townspeople tried to prevent their homes from burning. Men splashed pails of water on the wooden sides of their homes. They could see neighbors’ houses succomb to the approaching flames one by one, Mrs. John Tayloe’s, Mrs. Gregory’s. Metal fixtures became too hot to touch. One man saved his home from the fire by blowing up the abandoned homes of neighbors around him. Churches were blazing. People were burned simply by walking outside. Two hours after the fire began, a roar developed that could be heard around the countryside for miles. It came from oxygen sucked in to feed the flames. Men working to save their belongings had to shout to each other over the howl of the inferno. The Tar river bridge was burned. The soldiers had left. Gunboat silhouettes could be seen down the river. Townspeople feared they would be shelled by gunboat cannon. By next morning most of the flames had died. The fire burned from the Pamlico river to the northern side of town. At least an eight block area, one half of the town, was leveled. CONFEDERATES COME Hoke had laid siege to Washington on April 27 but he soon left for New Bern. Shortly afterwards he returned to Virginia where his men were seriously needed. Detachments from Hoke’s force remained around Washington and witnessed the huge mushroom cloud of smoke billow up from the river banks. They shot at Union troops evacuating the town. Several days after the burning squads entered the city. ANOTHER FIRE Two weeks later, another fire ripped through Washington. It started accidentally near the Lafayette Hotel on the corner of Main and Market streets. With no firefighting equipment, the remaining half of Washington that had escaped the Federal arson, now was a mass of ashes. THE WAR’S END U. S. General I. N. Palmer wrote in his report on the looting and burning of Washington that in the period of the three war years “no town gave more freely of its men and means and no town suffered more for the cause of the Confederacy.” Many southern town suffered during the War Between the States and Washington, just as the rest, would suffer again through reconstruction, the carpetbaggers, the Kl Klux Klan and the racial tension. It took at least 15 years for Washington to resemble her pre-war state. Washington had never really wanted war, but the war came. She had helped lead a futile effort for rationality and reason just before the war, but at the very end, she suffered from an act of sheer madness. Despite the bulk of her manpower sent to the Confederate armies, the Confederate leaders never considered the town worth much bloodshed. Despite her one-time pro-Union sentiments, Union soldiers burned her to the ground. Page 329 Newspaper Article – Escort Run Page 330 Newspaper Article–Continued(Important From NC) Page 331 Newspaper Article – Returning Rebels Found the Homes Were No More Page 332 Map - Showing the Defense of the Washington Federal Troops Page 333 Newspaper Article – Continues Page 334 NewspaperArticle - Incidents of the Siege Under the picture: Town of Washington, N. C. – Effect of two shells, fired at the same, on a rebel cotton battery, opposite Washington, N. C., April 12.- From a sketch by SOLON M. ALLIS, Zist, Ma------ INCIDENTS OF THE SIEGE. Our correspondent says: “ I send you a sketch showing the effects of two shells, fired nearly at the same minute, upon the Cotton battery of the rebels opposite Castle Island. One of them cut off a tree-top, in which sat a rebel officer, viewing us through his spyglass. While he was indulging his curiosity down he came, spyglass and all. The other shell burst among the cotton bales, setting them on fire. This effectually silenced this battery. These little incidents occurred on Sunday, April 13th, just three days before the rebels abandoned the open prosecution of the siege. They still retained their batteries in the woods opposite Little Washington until they were driven out of them by our gunboats, which opened a pretty lively fire on the 16th of April. My sketch gives the exact position of them. In the foreground you will notice a large building, the headquarters of a North Carolina company. These brave soldiers had pierced the walls for musketry; and made every preparation for a deadly resistance had the enemy ventured to storm us.” Page 335 – Continued – Map of Washington, Tar River, N.C. showing the rebel batteries, and the National Defences during the siege of April…… Under the picture: Map of Washington, Tar River, N.C. showing the rebel batteries, and the national defenses during the sixth (?) of April – Taken by Solon M. Allis of the 21st. The reproductions shown on this page were photographed from a Civil War era newspaper courtesy of E. E. Register. Register is an authority on paper money while other interest of his include old publications and hard money. “The pictures in that newspaper are an artist’s conception of the Union attack on Washington (N.C .), Register noted. “Reporters in those days carried an artist with them instead of a photographer.” “Yeah, the pictures show the site where the Picket was sunk and that wharf they’re making into a café,” he pointed out. “I understand it (the rendering) is pretty accurate. One thing particular about the newspaper that Register noticed is that it’s made from a higher quality newsprint than most newspapers at the time. When it comes to United States artifacts, Register has “contacts all over eastern North Carolina and the eastern United States for that matter,” he revealed. “I came across that newspater {Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper) through a trade,” he explained. “I had a Civil War bond and this boy from New Bern called me to see what I wanted for it. Since the newspaper had something about Washington in it and was in good condition I traded the bond for it.” Another notable item of Register’s is a $1000 Civil War Bond issued by the Bank of Washington on February 25, 1865. A bank commissioner by the name of Blount, signed it. Once the bond matured the holder could redeem each one of the notes on a staggered schedule. They each paid the holder a portion of the original $1000 investment plus interest, said Register. However, this particular bond was never redeemed and is known as a broken bank note due to the discontinuation of federal financial backing during the Civil War. “The first (federal) paper money in this country was printed in 1862,” noted Register. Prior to this, “each bank printed their own and it was more or less like our present day checks. The liability was left to the issuing bank”. The bills were only printed on one side. He added that when the Civil War broke out the U.S. government declared all regional money useless. Consequently the U.S. Treasury began printing all of the paper money to be used and only this money was assigned any value. With paper at a high premium, many notes were reprinted on the previously blank side. A Raleigh-Gaston Railroad note is also in Register’s possession. It entitled the original holder to 15 shares of the railroad’s stock. Now defunct, the railroad merged with Atlantic Seaboard. This was later reorganized as the present day Seaboard Coastline Railroad. Register became interested in the history of U.S. currency in the late 50’s. “I just happened tp pick up a Virginia newspaper and there was an article in there about a counterfeit 1916 D. dime, “ he remembered. “I just got interested and kept right on going.” He added, “If you look into things like old money and such and study it seriously enough it makes you appreciate the present a whole lot more. Page 336 – Map – City of Washington, Since the Civil War – Washington in the Civil War Page 337 Newspaper Article – Community Information –Washington– The playground of the Pamlico 054805 copyright* 1990 by Carolina Telephone COMMUNITY INFORMATION WASHINGTON The Playground of the Pamlico History The town was established by James Bonner, November 30, 1771. First called Forks of the Tar, the name was changed in 1776 to Washington in honor of General George Washington, making the Original Washington the first town to be named after this hero and revered gentleman. The Town of Washington played a strategic role during the War for Independence. With the ports of Savannah, Charles Town and Wilmington under British siege, the Continental Army relied on Washington as a supply port. Washington fell to Federal troops early during the War Between the States. The town was devastated. On April 30, 1864, Federal troops started fires and pillaged the community before their departure. Major fighting took place at Hills Point, seven miles below the town where Federal batteries were established. It was there that the Yankee Steamer “Louisianna” was sunk by Confederate guns. Population Estimates: City – 10,000 County 45, 355 Location Washington is in the western part of Beaufort County, in the east-central portion of the Coastal Plains. Located on the navigable Pamlico River, Washington is 136 miles south of Norfolk, Virginia, and 105 miles east of Raleigh, N.C. Highways serving the area include U.S. 17, U.S. 264, N.C. 33 and I-95. Washington is the port of entry to ancient Bath, flowery Terra Ceia, wild fowl Lake Mattamuskeet, and the commercial and sport fishing of Pamlico Sound and the Outer Banks Climate Annual averages: Temperature – 61.9 degrees, Rainfall – 52.84 inches, Snowfall – 2.3 inches. Government Form of City Government: Plan D, Manager-Council, elected biennially. Form of County Government: Manager-Commissioners. Taxes (July 1, 1989) City: $.66 per $100 valuation. County: $.43 per $100 valuation. Education Four elementary schools, two high schools, Beaufort Community College. Medical Beaufort County Hospital, completed in 1958 has 41 doctors. There is one clinic, 12 dentists and a comprehensive Mental Health Treatment Center in the area. Transportation - Certified Motor Freight Carriers Name Terminal Facility Driving Time Estes Local Overnite Kinston 65 minutes McLean Kinston 65 minutes Thurston Williamston 30 minutes Pilot New Bern 50 minutes Roadway Greenville 30 minutes Railway Service: Southern Railway Air Service Local Airport: 4.500 foot lighted concrete surface. Charter service available. Air freight service available. Waterways: Pamlico River – Barge service available Nearest Port, Morehead City (Channel Depth – 35 feet, Driving Time – 90 minutes) Commercial Washington is a wholesale, as well as retail, shipping center and tobacco market town. Financial institutions include 3 banks, 2 savings and loan associations, and the Industrial Revenue Bond Authority. Services Police Department: City – 27 fulltime, county 18 Fire Department: Fulltime – 18, volunteers – 35, Equipment (Motorized)–9, Equipment (rescue)–1, fire Insurance Rating–8. Industrial Local manufacturing in the area includes textile yarn, garments, truck bodies, boats, lumber, mattresses, ice cream, furniture, electrical appliances, filters and valves. Industrial Park, 167 Acres, is located on Hwy 264 West on the north side. Courtesy- Carolina Telephone Co. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ More on the War of Rebellion Hertford County, NC - War of the Rebellion Official Records ~This letter is from the book: The War of the Rebellion, A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union & Confederate Armies, Vol. LI (51), pg. 568, Chapter LXIII. STATE OF NC, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Raleigh, June 6, 1862. Major General T. H. HOLMES: GENERAL: I have been reliably informed that there is a considerable quantity of cotton in the county of Hertford, which may be seized by the enemy at any time. If it has not already come to the enemy's knowledge that this cotton is within their reach, such information will no doubt be conveyed to them, which will tempt them to invade the county where it is, and it may then be too late to effectually destroy it. In the town of Mursfreesborough and vicinity I am informed there are several hundred bales. In the town of Winton and vicinity I am informed there are probably as many as 300 or 400 bales, probably more than that number. At a little village called Harrellsville I am also informed that there are as many as 700 bales of cotton, though it is said to be hid about in the woods and swamps. There may be also some cotton in or near Colerain, Bertie County, but I am not informed that there is. Murfreesborough is twelve miles from Winton by land, and about eighteen or twenty miles by water. It is situated on the Meherrin, which empties in the Chowan about half a mile this side of Winton. This river is from twenty to twenty-five feet deep from its mouth up to the town of Murfreesborogh. Winton is immediately on the Chowan, and the cotton there is likely to be seized at any time. Harrellsville is just twelve miles from Winton by land, and about the same distance by water, though not immediately on the Chowan. It is about two miles and a half from the river. Colerain is about twenty miles from Harrellsville and immediately on the Chowan. I acquiant you of these facts so that you may take such steps as will best serve to prevent it from falling into the enemy's hands. Very respectfully, yours, HENRY T. CLARK. [First endorsement.] HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NC, Goldsborough, June 6, 1862. Respectfully referred to Colonel Daniel, who will take immediate measures to have the cotton destroyed, using citizens or soldiers at his discretion. T. H. HOLMES, Major-General. [Second endorsement.] HDQRS. THIRD BRIGADES, DEPT. OF NC, Garysburg, NC, June 8, 1862. Captain Cowles, commanding company First Cavalry, will take immediate steps to have this cotton destroyed, if it has not been already burned, agreeably to order previously received from these headquarters. Also, if practicable, a lot of cotton which I am informed is at a place called Riddicksville. JUNIUS DANIEL. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Vol. XXIV, pg. 403, Chapter XLI. CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.(UNION). GETTY'S HEADQUARTERS, October 30, 1863. Major-General FOSTER: I have received following telegram from Major Wetherill, commanding outpost, Suffolk: Private John Wynton, alias Dunn, Irishman, Sixty-second Georgia Cavalry, got permission to cross the river to bring turkeys, and came in with horse, saddle, &c. Crossed South Quay Ferry at sunset yesterday. Colonel Griffin's headquarters at Murfrees Station, 4 miles from South Quay, on the railroad. Griffin's light battery is at Weldon with five or six companies between Garysburg and Weldon. Griffin's picket on Chowan and Blackwater start at Colerain, below Winton, and extend to South Quay. Here the zouaves have a picket of 4 men and officer, at William Lawrence's. Wynton states that there is to be a grand ball at Vaughn's house, half a mile this side of Murfrees Station, on the 5th of November; officers are circulating tickets about Gatesville. The major of the guerrillas who captured the boat at South Mills spends most of his time between Gatesville and Reddick's. Rylander's battalion of infantry is at Franklin. The stations picketed by Griffin's men from South Quay to Colerain are as follows: South Quay, 1 sergeant, 4 infantry; 1 corporal, mounted. Cherry Grove, no pickets. Manning's Ferry, 1 corporal, 6 privates, 2 on post; the reserve station 4 miles back. Bartonville, 6 privates, 2 on post; reserve half mile back; three-quarters of the time no picket there. Flay Island, at fork of Chowan and Meherrin, 6 privates, reserve 3 1/2 miles back. Winton, 6 privates and sergeant. California, 3 1/2 miles below Winton, 6 privates and 1 corporal. Colerain, 17 miles below California, 6 privates and 1 corporal. It will be observed that Waineoake Ferry, between Cherry Grove and Manning's Ferry, is not picketed, and Cherry Grove only occasionally. The horse belongs to J. Wynton; cost him $900. One pair Colt's army pistols cost $200, his private property. Shall the man be retained here until his horse rests, and then sent to headquarters with guard, and can any arrangement be made that he could receive anything for his horse and arms? I would send scout out to Gatesville to pick up officers distributing ball tickets, but it might interfere with the ball. Possibly the commanding general might desire some United States cavalry to attend on the night of the 5th of November. Wynton suggests if our troops are to attend the ball that the force start early in the night, traveling rapidly to South Quay, sending 2 soldiers in citizens' clothes in buggy in advance, who, on arriving at the ferry at Lawrence, would call for the flat. The pickets collect the ferriage, and are anxious to bring passengers over. The flat could thus be secured and picketed captured. GEO. W. GETTY, Brigadier-General, Commanding. HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, October 31, 1863-6. 30 p. m. Major-General FRENCH: I learn from General Buford that General Merritt has gone to Elk Run (town), and Colonel Devin is on the road from Bealeton to Morrisville. They are both picketing to the front and toward Kelly's Ford and Ellis' Ford. General Buford will advise you of everything of any importance that transpires. He knows nothing about the report of the advance of a brigade of rebel infantry toward Morrisville or elsewhere. A. A. HUMPHREYS, Major-General, Chief of Staff. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Vol IX, Pages 193-194, Chapter XX. BATTLE OF ROANOKE ISLAND, NC. (Union) HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF NC, Roanoke Island, NC, February 23, 1862. GENERAL: Since my dispatch of the 20th, of which I inclose a duplicate, the expedition up the Chowan has returned, having reached as far as Winton. On the approach of the gunboat Delaware to the town a negro woman was discovered on the shore motioning the boat to approach. On arriving within 300 yards of the landing a large ambush of from 600 to 1,000 men was discovered, and before the boat could be stopped she was within easy musket range of the men, when they poured a volley into her, literally riddling the wheel-house and the upper joiner work, but fortunately no one was killed; nearly all the men were below. Several of those on deck had ball-holes through their clothes. Captain Rowan, who was on deck, and Colonel Hawkins, in the rigging made most miraculous escapes. The gunboats in the rear immediately hurried up, and by the use of a few shells dispersed the force, when the Ninth New York, under Colonel Hawkins, was landed. It was ascertained, after landing, that this negro woman had been sent down by her master, one of the captains, for the purpose of deceiving the boats, which was readily done, as it had been reported to the flag-officer and myself that but a few days before 500 loyal people at that place had raised the American flag. It was determined by Captain Rowan and Colonel Hawkins to burn all the military stores that could not be removed, with the store-houses and the quarters occupied by the troops, which constituted almost the entire town, there not being over twenty houses in the place. In one of the store-houses there was a large quantity of bacon, that could not be taken away by our people and it was also burned, together with all the heavy camp equipage, and, in fact, everything that could not be transported by our gunboats. The winds shifting after the fire was started caused the destruction of some few houses not occupied by the soldiers. It was ascertained during the stay at Winton that the Blackwater, the river up which the expedition was destined for the purpose of destroying the railroad bridge, had been effectually blockaded by the falling of trees across it at its narrowest parts, thus rendering it almost impassable. The expedition, therefore, returned, leaving some gunboats at Elizabeth City and the mouth of the Chowan. I have two expeditions organized in connection with the Navy to move upon Plymouth, at the mouth of the Roanoke, and Middletown, the outlet of Mattamuskeet Lake, the former commanded by Brigadier-General Foster and the latter by Brigadier-General Parke. They were to have started yesterday morning, but the dense for that prevails here a greater part of the time prevented the possibility of the vessels moving in the sound. In my next I will send you duplicates of instructions given to these two generals. The enemy is, I learn, very much disstracted by these frequent dashes on their coast, and seem to have but little idea where the next blow will be aimed. Before the end of the present week I hope to report to you some important movements, which are dependent upon the arrival of the naval ammunition, which has been hourly expected for several days. The health of the command continues excellent, and the drill and discipline is being perfected by the commanders of brigades. Our supplies, particularly coal, are not arriving as rapidly as I could desire. Clothing sent to us from Philadelphia is now being issued, and we shall need an additional supply of fully the amount originally sent. The drawers and shirts are said to be very poor. I have the honor to be, general, respectfully, your obedient servant, A. E. BURNSIDE, Brigadier-General, Commanding Department of NC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Vol IX, Page 195, Chapter XX. (Union) BATTLE OF ROANOKE ISLAND, NC. Report of Colonel Rush C. Hawkins, Ninth New York Infantry. STEAMER VIRGINIA, Off Roanoke Island, N. C., February 21, 1862. SIR: Agreeably to your orders of the 17th instant I called upon Captain Rowan, and made arrangements to embark my regiment on board of some of the gunboats of his division for the purpose of proceeding up the Blackwater and Nottoway Rivers and destroying the bridges of the Seaboard and Roanoke Railroad. At 12 m. of the 18th instant the regiment embarked and the expedition got underway, and that night anchored off the mouth of the Roanoke River, where it remained until 10 a.m.. of the 19th instant, and then commenced its journey up the Chowan River. Nothing of importance occurred until about 3.30 p.m.. The flag-steamer Delaware was about 1 mile ahead of any of the other boats. I was on the cross-trees of the mainmast, where I had been on the lookout for about two hours. The steamer was within 350 yards of the wharf at Winton when I discovered the high bank, which we were nearing very rapidly, was covered with Confederate soldiers. I immediately gave the alarm, but not in time to change our course until the steamer had got within 100 yards of the shore, when we received the whole fire of about 700 infantry or more, which continued until we had passed out of range up the river, where we turned around and commenced shelling the town, the enemy returning the fire with four pieces of artillery from the shore. In the meantime the gunboat Perry, having come within range, commenced firing from below. Soon after the enemy was dislodged and retired, when the Delaware returned down the river, receiving four shots as she passed the wharf. The whole fleet came to an anchor about7 miles below Winton. A consultation was held, and it was agreed to return the next morning and burn the town if found to be occupied by the rebels. About 11.30 a.m.. of the 20th instant our gunboats arrived and took their positions, some above, some below, and others opposite to the town, when our guns commenced firing, and in twenty minutes after my regiment landed, accompanied by three boat guns, under the command of Lieutenant Flusser, of the gunboat Perry. The guns were placed in positions so as to command the approaches to the town; the regiment drawn up in line awaiting the attack of the enemy. In the mean time parties of observation were sent out in all directions. It was soon ascertained that the enemy had retreated as soon as our force appeared in sight that morning, leaving everything behind except their arms and accouterments. Six companies of my regiment took possession of the main approach to the town and I commenced making a personal inspection of all the buildings. I found that nearly all of them had been taken possession of and had been occupied by the Confederate troops as quarters and store-houses. I then ordered that every building containing stores for the enemy and occupied by them as quarters should be fired, and placed guards in the others to see that they were not disturbed or destroyed. The property destroyed belonging to the Confederate forces consisted of bacon, corn-meal, flour, sugar, powder, mess-pans, camp-kettles, knap-sacks, haversacks, canteens, &c., the whole worth not less than $10,000. This, I believe, is the first instance during the war on our side where fire has accompanied the sword. It is to be regretted that such severe measures have to be adopted; they can only be justified upon two grounds-first, retaliation for trying to decoy us into a trap at the time of the firing into the Delaware. Evidence of this is that a negress, the property of one of the Confederate officers, was sent down to the wharf by her master to beckon the boat in to the wharf, when we were all to be slaughtered, or in the words of the negress, "Dey said dat dey wan't goin' to let anybody lib at all, but was goin' to kill ebery one's of'em." I infer from this that we were to received no quarter. Second, the buildings fired had been taken possession of by and were in the use of the rebel forces as store-houses and quarters, which forces had been raised, supported, and used by the States in rebellion for the purpose of subverting the Constitution and the laws of the United States. From information obtained at Winton we came to the conclusion that it would be impossible for us to accomplish the original object and aim of the expedition, so it had to be abandoned. The forces at Winton, as near as I could ascertain, consisted of the First Battalion North Carolina Volunteers (six companies), under the command of Lieutenant Colonel William T. Williams; one battery of light artillery; one company of the Southampton cavalry, and one or two companies of the North Carolina Militia, the whole under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Williams. I am happy to inform you that none of our forces were injured. The enemy sustained some loss from the fire of our gunboats on the 19th, but I am not able to state how many were either killed or wounded. The troops under my command and the officers and sailors on board of the gunboats behaved exceedingly well, and performed all of their various duties with great promptness and alacrity. I feel greatly indebted to Commodore S. C. Rowan and the lieutenants of the U. S. Navy, in command of the gunboats, for their kind care and attention to the comforts and wants of my regiment, and also of for their hearty co-operation in trying to carry out the object of the expedition. I am, most faithfully, your obedient servant, RUSH C. HAWKINS, Colonel Ninth Regiment New York Volunteers. ___________________________________________________________________

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