Thanks to our partners at Northampton County Museum, new issues of the Northampton County Times-News are available on our website DigtalNC! These include issues from 1970-1971 and 1972-1973. You can also view other issues of Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald using keyword(s) and date.
Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library in Edenton has funded digitization of an additional 12 years of the Chowan Herald. This new content means that you can now search the entire run from the first issue in 1934 through December 2014.
The new issues cover 2003-2014. The Herald is published in Edenton, one of North Carolina’s oldest historic cities. There are articles that describe moving the 1886 Roanoke River Lighthouse and the renovation and re-opening of the historic Chowan County Courthouse which was originally built in 1767. There’s also an article declaring a home on East Queen Street to be the oldest in the state after dating the wood timbers to 1718.
This area in particular felt the push and pull of development opportunities during this time. The paper covers pushback by residents as retailers like Wal-mart and Lowe’s scope out sites for stores. Many issues cover the potential development of an outlying landing field or OLF by the Navy, which drew criticism for its potential impact on the Pocosin Lake Wildlife Refuge. In the end the Navy withdrew plans for an OLF in North Carolina.
You can search and browse the entire run of The Chowan Herald on its landing page. Other materials related to Chowan County that are available on our site, including newspapers, city directories, and more, can be searched and browsed on the county landing page.
We have added issues of the Martin County Enterprise & Weekly Herald and the Bertie Ledger-Advance thanks to Martin Community College and the Bertie County Public Library. Coverage includes December 2019-December 2020 issues of the Enterprise & Weekly Herald and January 2022-November 2022 issues plus a special edition issue from March 15, 2000 of the Ledger-Advance.
The majority of newspapers on our site date from the early to mid-19th century, so we’re always interested in adding more recent issues when possible. In the Enterprise & Weekly Herald issues shared today you can read about the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and how a more rural county navigated national, state, and local regulations and concerns.
The issues of the Ledger-Advance cover a later date and talk about the lingering effects of COVID-19. The last issue in this batch mentions Bertie County’s Tricentennial celebrations in November 2022. Bertie County, originally part of Chowan County, was one of the first formed in the state as larger counties were split into smaller portions. Also included in this batch is a special edition from March 15, 2000 that offers reflections on recovery from Hurricane Floyd.
Portrait of Marvin Tupper Jones organizing recovered materials from the Newsom Store.
Historically, Hertford County is home to people with Indigenous and African American backgrounds. The community has always been fairly small and like a lot of small farming communities in the South, Hertford County has seen lots of people move out of town and not return. However, there is still a community that is proud to live in Hertford County due to the natural beauty and rich history of the area.
Residents like Marvin Tupper Jones, are passionate about unearthing and preserving the legacies of former members in the surrounding tri-cities area of Hertford County. The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center had the privilege to partner with the Chowan Discovery Group and gain insight about the entrepreneurship of the Newsom and Hall families in Ahoskie. Willian David Newsom (1822-1916) is described as being a born-free North Carolinian who would later become a teacher, farmer and storekeeper. He was also once the largest landowner of the Winton Triangle community (Winton-Cofield-Ahoskie).After the passing of Newsom, his son-in-law, James Hall (1877-1932), took over the family store and also co-founded the Atlantic District Fairgrounds in Ahoskie. Physical remnants of the Newsom and Hall families are seen throughout these materials.
The Newsom family store in Hertford County, NC.
This batch also gives a look inside recordkeeping in the early 1900’s through invoices, checks and ledgers associated with the family general store family store. In spite of the family store’s current condition, at one point in time, people were shopping and congregating here; we have lots of receipts.
Zoning Map for Roanoke – Chowan Community College in October 1973.
Digital NC is excited to add new materials from our partner Roanoke – Chowan Community College to our collection. Founded in 1967, Roanoke – Chowan Community College is a two-year community college located in Hertford County, North Carolina. The new items added to our collection include status reports from 1969 and 1975, handbooks related to the goals and objectives of the community college from 1978 – 1979, and long-range plans from the 1990s.
Most interesting in the collection are the expansion plans for R-CCC, including the October 1973 Master Plan. The Master Plan details the new projected additions, such as new classrooms and buildings that would benefit the community college and the community of Hertford County as a whole.
Currently, the community college offers associate degrees in numerous fields and transfer options to different colleges across the state of North Carolina. Visit their website here to learn more about Roanoke – Chowan Community College. You can also find other materials in our R-CCC collection on our website.
Special thanks again to Roanoke – Chowan Community College for their partnership!
Front page of the June 26, 1969 issue of The Northampton Times-News.
Thanks to our partner, Northampton County Museum, issues spanning 1967 to 1969 of The Northampton County Times-News are now available on our website.
Published squarely in the middle of the desegregation of North Carolina schools, these issues detail county officials’ efforts at maintaining segregation through a policy entitled “Freedom of Choice.” Though this push back against desegregation mirrors the history of many other counties in the state, the Times-News has really detailed local reporting on the topic and doesn’t shy away from talking about race-related tensions.
In 1967, the U.S. Attorney General brought a lawsuit against Northampton County schools claiming the county failed to desegregate them as required. The lawsuit cited the continuing separation into all white and all Black schools, the latter of which were inferior in resources and infrastructure. This front page from August 1, 1968 announces the resulting court order that mandated desegregation. With an enrollment of 74.5% Black and 25.5% white students, Northampton County Schools were required to assign students to schools based on geography. Faculty were also desegregated, and the local Black high school, Willis Hare, was closed. After the partial integration of the high schools, a plan for lower grades followed in June 1969 (above).
To view all issues issues of the Northampton County Times-News available on our website, please click here.
Thanks to our partner the Northampton County Museum, we now have three additional years of The Roanoke-Chowan Times. These issues, from 1926-1928, feature local news from Rich Square, Roxobel, Seaboard, Potecasi, and Kelford, N.C., as well as other nearby towns.
The hyper-local news sections from these issues is a big part of their charm. Often, the front page is divided into columns with the name of the town at the top. The news items range from newsworthy (as we would think of that term today) to the intimate. Here are three examples from the September 2, 1926 issue:
Although the personal items are fun to read in retrospect, it’s probably a relief that this kind of journalism is less common today.
Another interesting characteristic of this paper is it’s adoption of the first line of the North Carolina state song in its masthead: “Carolina, Carolina, heaven’s blessings attend her.” The paper speaks to the song’s widespread popularity in the state; the lyrics were written by North Carolina Supreme Court Judge William Gaston in 1835, but the song wasn’t officially adopted until 1927. The first instance in our records where the first line appears is in the April 23, 1903 issue—more than 20 years before it was made official.
This batch of papers is particularly exciting for us because it’s the first set of papers scanned on the new equipment at our satellite location, NCDHC East at Elizabeth City State University.
Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library in Edenton has funded digitization of an additional 19 years of the Chowan Herald. This new content means that you can now search the entire run from the first issue in 1934 through June 2001.
The new issues from 1983-2001 cover local political and town government news, tourism, business and residential development in the area, local events and community organizations, crime and local disasters. One of the larger construction projects represented in this timespan is the replacement Albemarle Sound Bridge. You can see news about the conception, construction, and dedication of the bridge (including an article on the partial collapse during construction which delayed its completion). (Here’s an article about the original bridge, which you can read about through earlier issues of the Herald.)
You can search and browse the entire run of The Chowan Herald on its landing page. Other materials related to Chowan County that are available on our site, including newspapers, city directories, and more, can be searched and browsed on the county landing page.
Our second partner in Bertie County is Historic Hope Plantation, which is a foundation that runs the Hope Plantation historic site in Windsor, NC. The Foundation was established in 1965 by Bertie County citizens concerned about the fate of the decaying Hope Mansion. According to their website, the site’s “mission is to provide educational, cultural and recreational benefits for the public by the preservation, maintenance and the administration of Historic Hope Plantation as an element of the heritage of the Roanoke-Chowan Region and as an illustration and interpretation of agrarian life in Eastern North Carolina from 1760 to 1840.”
The majority of materials in our first batch from Historic Hope are materials relating to the running of the site, including a very large collection of brochures and programs detailing fundraisers for the museum, as well as visitor pamphlets. The brochures tell a story themselves, showing how historic house museum interpretation has evolved over time, since the earliest one in 1956 to present day 21st century interpretation that is less decorative arts focused and more focused on telling the story of all those who lived and worked at the plantation, particularly enslaved people. Some of the staff’s research is also included in the batch, including the court documents of those newly freed men and women who attested their cohabitation before the Civil War ended in order to gain recognition of marriage from the state, as well as research papers written by those affiliated with the site.
Other related Bertie County materials are also included, particularly a 1954 yearbook from W.S. Etheridge High School which served the Black community of Bertie County before integration.
Just over 130 new issues of The Chowan Herald are online and ready to view. The issues span the early 1980s, from 1981 to mid-1983. These additions to our digital newspaper collection are made available thanks to our partners at Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library.
Serving Chowan County, North Carolina from the city of Edenton, The Chowan Herald focused on local news happenings along their side of the Abermarle Sound. Local politics frequently made front page news, especially during the local elections to county board offices.
At other times, The Chowan Herald focused on their community members, as evidenced by DeMint Frazier Walker’s obituary. A prominent community figure and principal of the eponymous high school for thirty one years, Walker’s accomplishments were detailed in the front page article located to the right.
To view all issues of The Chowan Herald, starting with our earliest issue from 1934, click here. To learn more about Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library, you can visit their homepage here.
This blog is maintained by the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center and features the latest news and highlights from the collections at DigitalNC, an online library of primary sources from organizations across North Carolina.
