Additional issues of the Hyde County Herald, published out of Swan Quarter, are now available on DigitalNC. These were provided by the Outer Banks History Center and scanned at our Elizabeth City office. Dating from 1939-1945, they join later issues from 1948-1957 which were already shared online thanks to the efforts of staff at Wilson Special Collections Library for the National Digital Newspaper Program.
One frequently mentioned Hyde County location is Lake Mattamuskeet, the largest natural freshwater lake in the state. In 1934 it was established as a National Wildlife Refuge stewarded by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and it remains a crucial refuge for birds and other wildlife. The Herald talks about the importance of the lake and its wildlife for tourism and the ecosystem.
During the war years the paper turns to local efforts to support the troops as well as news items about Hyde County residents fighting in the war. The investments in the Naval Auxiliary Air Station at Manteo and facilities at a naval base on Ocracoke show the war’s financial and developmental impact on the coast.
You can view all of the issues of the Hyde County Herald that we have available here. All items we’ve scanned for the Outer Banks History Center are available through their contributor page. Everything we have about Hyde County can be found on the Hyde County page.
Sometimes, it’s easy to feel like the problems of today are unique to our time and place, but this latest batch of the Carteret County News-Times (1960-1963) demonstrates that people have been working through similar problems for at least 50 years. One issue, from March 16, 1962, somehow touches on big storms flooding the area (and the difficulty of insuring coastal property), U.S. House elections, and redistricting—almost as if it were printed in 2022.
Luckily, no one died in the nor’easter that hit Morehead City and the rest of the coast in March 1962, but the storm did cause quite a bit of damage. A paper from the preceding week (March 2, 1962) pictures flooding along some of the commercial streets and describes buildings that were not up to code to withstand the storm. One commissioner reported that an insurance firm in New York abstained from insuring the area because of the building code problems. A week later, a headline reads (perhaps unsurprisingly): “Red Cross Says Best Way to Help Dare Is Give to Local Red Cross.”
Another front page story describes a bid for the 3rd Congressional District by Morehead City resident S.A. Chalk Jr. Chalk Jr. ran against incumbent David Henderson in the Democratic primary (though in a much different Democratic party than we think of today). He accused Henderson of voting for “policies that are bound to cause even further trouble,” saying, “He claims he’s conservative, but his voting records do not bear this out.” Chalk Jr. still lost the primary, apparently, as Henderson went on to represent the district until 1977.
Aside from the familiar arguments of House elections, the article also mentions that Harnett County was added to the district in 1960. And while the headlines haven’t changed much over the last 50 years, the list of counties included in the 3rd District certainly has. In 1962, the district included 10 counties: Carteret, Craven, Duplin, Harnett, Jones, Onslow, Pamlico, Pender, Sampson, and Wayne. In 2023, the district will expand and morph to contain parts of 15 counties: Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Duplin, Hyde, Jones, Lenoir, Onslow, Pamlico, Pitt (partly), Sampson, and Wayne (partly). For visual thinkers, an interactive map of NC’s congressional districts can be found here.
We are excited to welcome new partner Robersonville Public Library to DigitalNC. With this addition, we are adding Robersonville and Martin County generally to our coverage map. Our first batch from Robersonville includes several yearbooks from Robersonville High School, as well as Abstracts of Deed Books, Robersonville Cemetery Records, and books on the history of Martin County.
Robersonville High School from the 1957 yearbook
The high school yearbooks cover 1954 through 1967 for Robersonville High School and give a great glimpse into what life was like for students in Martin County at the time. Alumni who have moved out of the area will be particularly interested in these materials.
The two books on the history of Martin County compiled by Martin County residents Francis M. Manning and W. H. Booker based on historical documents and oral histories. Martin County History Volume I chronicles more than two centuries of the county’s past, beginning with the arrival of colonists in the area that was previously only inhabited by native peoples. Martin County History Volume I explores notable events, individuals, and even inventions through 1976.
Some of the inventions discussed in Martin County History Volume I include octagon soap, and a filleting machine.
Religion and Education in Martin County 1774-1974, also authored by these two local historians, includes information about Martin County churches, their congregants, their leadership, and even details regarding a nineteenth-century missionary movement within the county. Part two of the book details the development of the county’s school system, including photographs and details of public and private schools alike.
Students stretch outside of the Willamston Academy in Martin County in an image from Religion and Education in Martin County 1774-1974.
Martin County genealogists may be especially interested in these new materials. Included in this collection are Abstracts of Deeds from 1774 to 1801, Will Books from 1774-1868, and two collections of cemetery records for Robersonville area cemeteries. These cemetery records including the new and old cemetery sections for the Robersonville Cemetery, the Grimes Cemetery, the First Christian Church Cemetery, and the Roberson Cemetery. These binders provide grave locations for many deceased residents as well as veterans status, dates of birth and death, and the names of plot purchasers for all included cemeteries.
Robersonville Public Library is part of BHM Regional Library, serving Beaufort, Hyde, and Martin Counties. To see more from the Robersonville Public Library, visit their partner page here on DigitalNC or check out their website.
While we are no strangers to digitizing large objects here at DigitalNC, our newest partner, the Hyde County Historical and Genealogical Society, gave us quite the scanning challenge with their 1934 Mattamuskeet Lake Migratory Bird Refuge Grant Map! Measuring in at 6ft 4in by 3ft 9in, the map was over a foot longer than our largest scanning table. Since it was impossible for us to scan the whole map in one shot, we had to utilize our Phase One camera and its removable table top to scan the map in parts using a horizontal scrolling type technique.
A portion of the map was set up on the table top with small weights carefully applied to hold the map in place and edges down while library carts and people supported the parts of the map off the table. Once a portion was scanned, the weights would be removed, the map shifted for the next portion (with overlap), and weights reapplied. This process was repeated over 30 times. Afterwards, the scanned images were pieced together to create an impressive full digital image of the map which shows the boundary of the lake and parcels of land along with individual parcel owner names, dates the land was acquired, and parcel acreage. A more detailed version of the map can be viewed here on DigitalNC.
Lake Mattamuskeet is recognized as North Carolina’s largest natural freshwater lake—stretching 18 miles long, seven miles wide, and averaging only two to three feet deep. While the lake may be shallow, its history is certainly not. The following paragraphs provide some information about the lake’s ancient and more recent past, but detailing its full history is beyond the scope of this blog post. If you are interested in learning more, please visit the resources that are linked at the end of this post.
At least 800 years before England’s 1584 expedition arrived at Roanoke Island, the coastal region of the state was occupied by several small Native American tribes, including the Algonquian-speaking Machapunga (also known as the Mattamuskeet or Marimiskeet American Indians). The Machapunga were a small tribe of the Algonquin language living in the Pungo River area who migrated south from the Algonquin peoples of the Powhatan Confederacy.
At that time, the Mattamuskeet were known as skillful watermen who made their boats and nets of size interlocks for herring, drum, shad, netting needles, and floats. In addition to their work on the water, they hunted; trapped; gathered berries, nuts, and fruit; and farmed. They grew plants such as corn, beans, pumpkins, goosefoot, sunflowers, knotweed, and squash. The women of the Machapunga are specifically noted as being fierce warriors. Today, the genealogical descendants from the original historic Mattamuskeet Indians of Hyde County, along with the original historic Roanoke-Hatteras (Croatan) Indians of Dare County comprise the Alogonquian Indians of North Carolina.
In 1934, the Mattamuskeet Lake Migratory Bird Refuge Grant Map was created—showing parcel boundaries along with providing the name of the parcel’s owner, the acreage, and the date it was acquired. Some names present on the map, such as Collins, Barber, Chance, Clayton, and Bryant, can trace their American Indian heritage back to the Mattamuskeet. The same year the map was published, the lake was acquired by the United States Government and the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge was established. This was likely a result of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies that helped provide jobs and relief to citizens during the Great Depression. Today, the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge (which includes the lake and surrounding area) remains federally protected and supports “large numbers of wintering waterfowl, as well as a variety of breeding songbirds, mammals such as black bear and bobcat, and other wildlife.”
To learn more about the Hyde County Historical and Genealogical Society, please visit their website linked here.
To view more maps of North Carolina on DigitalNC, click the following link.
This week we have the final 35 newspaper titles for this project up on DigitalNC! Over the past 11 months we have uploaded over 2.4 million pages of North Carolina newspapers – bringing our total number of newspaper pages on DigitalNC to 4,175,076 and our total number of titles on DigitalNC to 1,161 – all freely available to anyone! In this closing batch we have our first paper from Bower, North Carolina (which you may know as Clemmons today) and an article in the Union Republican about Stokes County’s would be Wright brother: Jacob A. Hill.
Jacob Hill, Winston-Salem Journal, March 9, 1902
Before Orville and Wilbur’s iconic first flight in 1903, the race to create a manned flying machine was fiercely competitive. One of the contenders was a man from Vade Mecum Springs named Jacob Hill. Hill was born 1862 in Davie County and had been fascinated by the flight of birds ever since he was a child. In 1901 he decided to take that curiosity a little further and solve “the problem of aerial navigation” by building his own dirigible.
Union Republican, March 14, 1901
Danbury Reporter, December 5, 1923
Mr. Hill’s machine could have been the first piloted aircraft, but we’ll never know for sure if it could actually fly and be controlled. Momentum ran out when Hill couldn’t secure funding for his invention. According to Thomas Parramore’s First to Fly, witnesses claimed the craft could get off the ground, but couldn’t do much more than hover in place. Even though Hill’s airship became something of a local joke for a time, the legacy of his wild aspirations continues to live on in North Carolina history.
Danbury Reporter, December 15, 1904
Business Guide, February 16, 1906
Over the past year, we’ve added millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, we have made them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
This week we have another 30 newspaper titles up on DigitalNC! In the September 3, 1891 issue of Boone’s Watauga Democrat we have an article describing the terrible train wreck of Bostian’s Bridge in Statesville. This fatal accident sparked a legendary North Carolina ghost story, but perhaps even scarier are the boogeymen railroad companies would often create to avoid accountability: train wreckers.
Watauga Democrat, September 3, 1891
News and Observer, July 7, 1898
By 1891 the railroad system in America had exploded, allowing for easier cross-country travel and bringing with it fresh new paranoia about disasters and scary strangers coming to your town. Blaming a wreck on some shady character was a lot easier than paying a fortune on settlements due to negligence. Almost immediately after the August 27, 1891 accident, the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company put out ads offering a $10,000 reward for the apprehension of the perpetrator, leading to many being accused and arrested (conveniently with the help of a railroad detective).
News & Observer, September 4, 1891
Greensboro Workman, September 16, 1891
Asheville Citizen, October 15, 1891
Wilmington Messenger, February 3, 1892
News & Observer, August 29, 1897
Durham Daily Globe, September 26, 1891
The editor at Statesville’s Landmark provides us with an incredibly detailed account of the accident and the recovery effort, complete with interviews from survivors and witnesses where they describe rotten cross-ties and rail workers throwing this evidence into the creek below the bridge. Many of those interviewed make a point to mention that there were no signs of robbery after the crash, which doesn’t exactly support the idea of this being some dastardly deed by a bandit.
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
We have another 30 titles up on DigitalNC this week! This batch brings us our first newspapers from Dallas, Fairmont, Lake Landing, Maiden, and Newland, North Carolina!
In the January 8th, 1891 issue of the Monroe Enquirer-Register we have an ad for a fledging discount store in Monroe, North Carolina called The New York Racket, which will become the shopping mall staple we know as Belk. Founded by William Henry Belk in 1888, the store would change its name to Belk Brothers in 1898 and go on to become one of the largest department store chains in the country.
January 8th, 1891
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
In the United States, copyright expires for some types of published materials a certain time period after their publication. In 2022, many materials published in the U. S. before 1927 are now out of copyright. Each year that boundary year moves forward by 1; in 2023 the boundary will be “published before 1928.” This is one of the reasons many sites like ours share a lot more materials published before that moving target. In addition, we have a workflow where certain types of publications from 1927-1963 undergo copyright review where we determine if they are likely to be out of copyright and low risk to publish online.
Because of the forward movement of the copyright boundary year and some other reasons related to fair use, we’ve been able to add the newspapers listed below to DigitalNC. These titles were also selected to help bolster representation of certain geographic areas on our site. In content, these issues feature many highlights, including descriptions of prohibition-era beer busts in Hayesville and a comical column of national news from Maxton.
From the 1960 Quarterian, Swan Quarter’s High School Yearbook
Today we’re highlighting recently added yearbooks from a number of eastern North Carolina high schools from the 1940s to early 1960s. We lack a lot of yearbooks from the easternmost counties in North Carolina so it’s always a pleasure to add more. This batch includes a range of schools in a variety of counties:
These yearbooks were contributed for digitization from a private individual, and the Outer Banks History Center is acting as contributor. Take a look at other high school yearbooks from the Outer Banks and nearby counties on our high school yearbooks page.
In the March 8th, 1914 issue of The News and Observers we have an article detailing a practice game played by the Baltimore Orioles while in Fayetteville. This happens to be the game where a 19 year old George Herman “Babe” Ruth hit his first home run as a professional baseball player. Ruth was also given his iconic nickname “Babe” while in Fayetteville on this trip.
The News and Observer, March 8th, 1914
Image via The Fayetteville Observer
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
About
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.
Additional issues of the Hyde County Herald, published out of Swan Quarter, are now available on DigitalNC. These were provided by the Outer Banks History Center and scanned at our Elizabeth City office. Dating from 1939-1945, they join later issues from 1948-1957 which were already shared online thanks to the efforts of staff at Wilson Special Collections Library for the National Digital Newspaper Program. 
One frequently mentioned Hyde County location is Lake Mattamuskeet, the largest natural freshwater lake in the state. In 1934 it was established as a National Wildlife Refuge stewarded by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and it remains a crucial refuge for birds and other wildlife. The Herald talks about the importance of the lake and its wildlife for tourism and the ecosystem. 
![Map title and associated information. United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Biologial Survey. Jay. N. Darling. Chief.
Mattamuskeet Lake Migratory Bird Refuge Grant Map.
New Holland Corporation Tr[?].
(3)
Hyde County. North Carolina.
R.C.F. Surveyor.
1934.
Scale 1:15,840
[Bar for scale]](https://www.digitalnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/default-1-1-1024x623.jpg)
