![Hill's Albemarle (Stanly County, N.C.) City Directory [1965], page 19](https://www.digitalnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/stanly.png)
Hill’s Albemarle (Stanly County, N.C.) City Directory [1965], page 19
The new additions bring the count of Albemarle city directories to nine, documenting the business history of the city from 1910 to 1965. These directories, as well as all of those hosted on DigitalNC, are full-text searchable across the site. This makes it easy for researchers to find the names, locations, and dates of relevant information.
City Directories are useful for more than just research. They are also full of unique, local advertisements, like the one shown below. Ads like these demonstrate the creativity and style of business owners of the time period. They can also be a lot of fun!
The two directories are linked below:
To learn more about the Stanly County Museum, please visit the contributor page or the website. To view more city directories from your area, please browse the North Carolina City Directories Collection.
![Hill's Albemarle (Stanly County, N.C.) City Directory [1965], page 73](https://www.digitalnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/stanly2.png)
Hill’s Albemarle (Stanly County, N.C.) City Directory [1965], page 73
An excerpt from student Cora Belle Lee’s survey
New materials from Stanly County Museum are now up on DigitalNC. Included in this batch is a student survey from the 1920s, a 1944 ledger from the Albemarle Canteen, an attendance register from the Efird School, an Albemarle City Directory Supplement Edition from 1937, four issues of American and Efird Mills News & Views, and two scrapbooks.
The student survey from a girls boarding school in the 1920s gives a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the girls at the school, and includes information like each student’s favorite expression, flower, song, dish, and their “greatest desire”. Greatest desire responses ranged greatly from girl to girl and included, “to be a nurse”, “love and be loved”, “to see Europe”, “to get married”, “play a piano”, “go out west”, “to be a stage acteur”, “to be a missionary”, and “to go home (now)”. These questions also give us insight into the personalities of the individual girls. While some answered the questions dutifully, others had a bit of fun filling in their answers. In one survey, a girl responded that the color of her hair was white and that she was 8 ft tall. A few girls, in what must have been an inside joke, responded that their “first date with a boy” was in “1492”, with one girl responding “Aug. 9, 1922. (a real date)”. This fun notebook would be a good resource for investigating popular songs, slang, and dishes of the period, and it offers a wonderful personal connection to the girls at this school.
An excerpt from student Elva Jane Cathey’s survey
Candy recipes pasted directly onto the pages of the Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1918
Another unique object in this batch is an extensive scrapbook comprised of various news clippings pasted over the pages of the Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1918. It includes recipes in the first few pages, and then newspaper articles about births, marriages, and deaths in and around Albemarle.
To see the new materials click the links below:
To learn more about the Stanly County Museum, take a look at their partner page, or visit their website.
Lions Club Scrapbook [1958], page 31
Lions Club Scrapbook [1958], page 32
The latest batch of material from the Stanly County Museum includes memorabilia from the Albemarle Lions Club as well as several yearbooks from Albemarle Senior High School.
The unique items from the Lions Club feature several members from their early activities with the club and follows them through leadership roles within the wider national organization. These items could be very useful for those interested in studying the history of Albemarle during the mid- to late twentieth century as the scrapbooks contain many newspaper clippings documenting the Lions’ activities in the area.
These new materials include additions to both the North Carolina Memory Collection, including scrapbooks and callings cards, as well as to the Images of North Carolina Collection, including photo albums and group composites.
Several of the highlights from this batch include:
In addition, five more yearbooks from Albemarle Senior High School are now available. DigitalNC has published 20 yearbooks from this school. They date from as early as 1927 and document many changes in fashion, culture, and education over the decades.
You can view all of the recently digitized yearbooks from Albemarle High School below:
To learn more about the Stanly County Museum please visit their contributor page or the website.
Map of Stanly County, published by Brevard Garrison Motor Company
We’ve added new items from the Stanly Count Museum to DigitalNC.
The latest additions to the Images of North Carolina Collection document several different decades of development in Stanly County.
Agriculture, especially cotton, was the primary economic source for the Ablemarle area during the early twentieth century. Wiscassett Mill is one of the oldest cotton and textile mills in the area, and employed many people from Stanly county. The large, panoramic images feature several of the mill’s buildings and some of the employees who kept the operation running.
Three of the four maps document new housing developments planned for the growing area during the late 1930s. The Map of Whispering Pines and Map of Forest Hills are good examples of middle class planned communities that were popping up throughout North Carolina during this period. Forest Hills was Stanly County’s first residential subdivision of this kind. The Map Showing Redivision and Additions Etc. to Forest Hills shows the growth and success of the community after only a short twelve years.
All of these images document the growth of Stanly County, especially in Albemarle, during the first half of the twentieth century. They could be of interest to anyone researching city planning and residential developments or those interested in the economic history of textiles in Stanly County and North Carolina.
In addition, the Museum was able to fill in some missing issues of The Full Moon, Albemarle High School’s student newspaper. This includes an early issue from 1929, which appears to simply be an invitation to a mock wedding upon graduation or some sort of inside joke (of which there are always many in student newspapers.
You can access all of the recent additions from the Stanly County Museum at the links below:
- Map Showing Redivision and Additions Etc. to Forest Hills, Albemarle, N.C.
- Map of Whispering Pines, Stanly Co., N.C.
- Map of Forest Hills, Albemarle, N.C.
- Wiscassett Mills, Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 Mills Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 8 Not Shown
- Wiscassett Mills Co. 1923, Card Room No. 8 and Spin Room No. 8
Here are the new issues of The Full Moon:
To see more from the Stanly County Museum, check out their contributor page or visit the website.
The Stanly County Museum has provided a number of additional high school yearbooks and directories for the city of Albemarle to be added to DigitalNC. The yearbooks come from Albemarle High School, Norwood High School (now South Stanly High), New London High School (now North Stanly High), Endy High School, West Stanly High School, and Stanfield High School.
Sports page from the 1960 Cross Roads yearbook, “Then and Now”
Future Homemakers of America, West Stanly High School 1965
Future Farmers of America, West Stanly High School 1965
These yearbooks provide an intriguing look into the lives of students. They showcase the fashions, clubs and activities of North Carolina students, some that will be familiar to students today and some that have been abandoned over time (Did your class have child mascots? How about a superlative for Best Looking?).
For more information about the Stanly County Museum and their materials, visit their contributor page on DigitalNC or their home website.
Yearbooks from eleven different Stanly County schools are now available on DigitalNC.org. They come to us from the Stanly County Museum in Albemarle.
Senior class mascots from Ridgcrest High School’s The Fledgling, 1948.
Albemarle, N.C. Schools
- Albemarle High School: 1941, 1949
- Endy High School: 1952, 1955
- Ridgecrest High School: 1948
- Millingport High School: 1948
New London, N.C. Schools
- New London High School: 1955
- North Stanly High School: 1964
Norwood, N.C. Schools
Oakboro, N.C. Schools
- West Stanly High School: 1964
- Oakboro High School: 1950
Stanfield, N.C. School
- Stanfield High School: 1950
The Stanly County Museum has shared a large number of items through DigitalNC. They can be viewed here.
More materials from the Stanly County Museum have now been digitized and posted online at DigitalNC. Most of the material that has been added in this batch comes from the Dr. Francis Joseph Kron Collection. There are a number of papers and letters concerning the many legal battles that the Kron family were involved in, mostly concerning rights to land and contesting wills. Later letters display Dr. Kron’s frustrations with the unceasing attacks, in one declaring that North Carolina is a “vast lunatic asylum” for allowing these suits.
Portion of a letter written by Dr. Kron
Also included in this batch are a number of miscellaneous letters from the Kron family and letters from people enslaved by the family (Elizabeth and Adele Kron, who kept the surname Kron) and a variety of legal documents including birth certificates for some of the members of the Kron family who were born in Europe, and statements of allegiance to the United States.
Pledge of allegiance to the United States, signed by Dr. Kron
For more information on the Dr. Francis Joseph Kron Collection, see the exhibit website, or this previous blog post.
Unrelated to the Kron papers but also provided by Stanly County Museum are three panoramic photographs. Two of these photographs feature factory workers. The third is a photo that was taken at the 1912 Young Women’s Christian Association Conference, and it includes representatives from a number of women’s colleges.
YWCA Conference
All of the Stanly County Museum materials available on DigitalNC can be viewed here.
Two ledgers and one document of a financial transaction from the Stanly County Museum have now been added to the North Carolina Memory collection of DigitalNC.
The first ledger shows transactions kept by William Henry Wall (1888-1967), a respected Stanly County resident and son of former enslaved people. Of especial interest is a sketched out plan on pages 5-6 for Kingville, an African-American community in Albemarle. A number of the names in this ledger also appear in the papers of the Dr. Francis Joseph Kron Collection.
The second ledger comes from the Stanly County Home, and it documents the inmates at the home between the years 1919 to 1955, including the inmate’s name, reason for being admitted into the home, and dates of release or death, in which case cause of death was recorded.
Page from the Stanly County Home Inmates ledger
The document mentioned above is also associated with the Home; it is an account of the costs of some lumber that were sent to the home for construction on the porch.
You can view all of Stanly County Museum’s materials on DigitalNC.
Excerpt from the Common School Register, September, 1860. The instructor closed the school during fair weather to “pull fodder.” Later that month, attendance decreased to “a very few in number.”
Perhaps you saw our recent tweet showing students holding a large bound volume of aerial photographs? This volume was one of two that were included in a recent batch of items digitized for the Stanly County Museum.
Other items in this batch include a group of indentures from 1795 – 1886. These are some of the oldest items on our site. Common surnames in the indentures include Blackwelder, Ridenhour, and Lyerly.
The final two items from this batch are the Stanly County North Carolina Common School Register (1838-1863) and the Albemarle School District Census (1906). The latter includes students’ names, ages, and whether they were male or female, and what we believe are parents’ names. The former includes a bit more detail, including attendance records, grades, and the occupations of parents. Down the right hand pages are notes from the teacher that are a diary of sorts, describing school activities, visitors, the weather, as well as an expulsion and several deaths. Also, be sure to take a look at the school rules, enumerated on page 7. No whooping or hallowing!
View all of the materials on DigitalNC from the Stanly County Museum.
The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center recently digitized a variety of materials from the Stanly County Museum in Albemarle, N.C. Prominent in the materials is information on the Jones family.
The Jones Family Materials
Brothers James Read Jones, left, and Will Jones (circa 1861-1862). Both were soldiers from Indiana in the Union army. Their letters, among others, comprise the Jones Family Letter Collection from the Stanly County Museum.
The Jones Family Letter Collection was donated to the Stanly County Museum by Janice H. Mitchener. The letters, which number in the hundreds, are correspondence between James Read Jones, his wife Achsah Gilbert Pleas Jones, and various friends and other members of their family. The complete, numbered letters appear first in the collection (Letters 1-169), followed by incomplete letters (Loose 1-51). Biographical information about the Jones family is at the end of the letter collection (Documents 1-5). The numbered letters are roughly grouped–first are James Read Jones’s letters, and then Achsah Gilbert Pleas Jones’s letters (for a chronology, see Document 5).
The correspondence tracks many threads: the couple’s relationship, from infancy to past marriage, and the life and death in 1862 of Will Jones, James Read Jones’s brother. Though the letters date from January 1861 to April 1894, the bulk of the letters date from 1861-1862, when James and his brother served in the Union army. As Documents 2-4 detail, Sergeant J. R. Jones was mustered into Company E, 36th Regiment of the Indiana Infantry, in September 1861. He met Achsah Gilbert Pleas and on April 7, 1862, just after the Battle of Shiloh, they were married. Sgt. Jones was promoted to Second Lieutenant in March 1862 but discharged for an inguinal hernia on December 2, 1862. He then spent much of his life traveling the world as a Quaker minister, while Achsah raised their children in North Carolina. Achsah and Jimmy were married until Achsah’s death in 1898.
The Jones Family materials also includes a scrapbook. The James Read Jones Scrapbook of Writings is a collection of letters and newspaper clippings by or about James Read Jones. Dated materials in the collection range from 1885-1911. The scrapbook includes many newspaper columns and articles written by J. R. Jones, as well as assorted correspondence, photographs, and poems.
School newspapers
Also new are newspapers from two Albemarle schools. There are two late 1930s issues of The Seven Stars newspaper from Albemarle Central Elementary School, and several volumes of The Full Moon newspaper from Albemarle High School:
- Volume 11, numbers 3-4 (December 14, 1934 – February 14, 1935)
- Volume 12, numbers 1-6 (October 18, 1935 – May 15, 1936)
- Volumes 24-33 (October 3, 1958 – May 24, 1967)
- Volumes 56-63 (September 1990 – June 1998)
Other new materials include:
- Dr. Francis J. Kron: A Report Prepared for the Division of State Parks, North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development. A report on the life, dwelling, and writings of Dr. Francis J. Kron, by Robert O. Poplin, Jr., The report also includes interviews conducted with family and acquaintances. The Kron house was used as the model for the lodge and bathrooms at Morrow Mountain State Park in Stanly County, N.C.
- Business Books: Unidentified Business Ledger, most likely from a general store (1849-1850); E.M. Asbury and Company Business Ledger and Minute Book (1902-1909); Marlise Hotel Register (1908-1910)
- Two minute books (1970-1976, 1976-1984) from Delta Kappa Gamma, Eta State (N.C.), Psi Chapter. The Delta Kappa Gamma Society International is a professional honor society for women educators.
Postcard of a buggy on the railroad tracks in Albemarle, N.C. circa 1905.
- A History of the Albemarle Woman’s Club, 1915-1965 (1965)
- Images of Stanly County: Portraits of the Jones and the Hearne families, several additions to Stanly County postcards, and a mysterious photograph of Burton Tucker. Though the picture is dated 1892, Tucker is believed to have been murdered by Alec Whitley in Arkadelphia, Arkansas in April 1891.
