More issues of The Coastland Times from Manteo, N.C. are now available in our Newspapers of North Carolina collection thanks to our partner, the Dare County Library. These issues span from September 1963 to August 1964 and touch on many regional events of the coast.

Within this span of issues is a column published by former U.S. Senator Samuel J. Ervin Jr. called “Senator Sam Ervin Says.” Ervin was from Morganton, N.C., and was known during his political career for opposing civil rights legislation. The Coastland Times was one of many N.C. papers that published Ervin’s column, including The Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.), The Yancy Record (Burnsville, N.C.), The New Bern Mirror (New Bern, N.C.), and The Transylvania Times (Brevard, N.C.).

Ervin’s column stands out today for how it differs from contemporary political propaganda. For one thing, it was published in local papers, which tend to focus on local and regional news. For example, one column from the September 13, 1963 issue runs next to a news brief headlined, “Sea Hags Will Meet,” referring to a local fishing club.

Another notable quality of Ervin’s column is that it is… relatively boring. Rather than employing inflammatory language or focusing on hot-button issues, Ervin tends to give technical overviews of the mechanisms of the Senate. In the column published on October 18, 1963, the Senator references a “controversial Foreign Aid Bill” and then writes, “Present prospects are that there may be no action taken by the Senate as a whole on the tax bill. There is a growing feeling that action on the tax measure should be postponed until after the President’s Budget message to Congress the first of the year.” Even though it is presumably written for a general audience, Ervin often chooses to use technical language and focus on bureaucratic details rather than argue for a bigger picture or stance.

You can read more of Ervin’s unexpected (by contemporary standards) columns and more of The Coastland Times in this latest batch of issues. You can also browse all of our digital newspapers in our North Carolina Newspapers collection. To see more materials from the Dare County Library, visit their partner page and their website.

Thanks to a nomination from the Neuse Regional Library, we’ve added 1,098 issues of the Jones County Journal, a newspaper published out of Trenton, N.C. This is one of only two newspaper titles we have for Jones County. Issues date from volume one, number one, published in 1949 through April 1971. Because the Journal was digitized from microfilm shot with high contrast, many of the photographs are not very clear but the text is quite sharp.

The tagline for the paper when it began through 1954 was “A Better County Through Improved Farm Practices” and much of the news in the earlier years revolves around agricultural methods and needs. There are also editorials,  personal news columns, and coverage of local events from election results to church picnics and barbecues. There’s quite a bit of coverage of the more populous Lenior County, perhaps in part due to the fact that the paper was published by The Lenoir County News Company. 

The Journal is focused on local news, from the front page on. For a number of years Maysville and Trenton have their own sections. Reporters describe national and international events through their impact on Jones County residents. For example, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the front page headline reads “Trenton Area Shares Nation’s Shock on President’s Murder.” Coverage of the Vietnam War is shared in the same way, like the Jones County veteran given half of the newspaper’s front page to describe his experience. Papers full of this kind of unique local reporting, with little to no syndicated content (content that a publisher paid for and was reused in newspapers throughout the world), are especially vital for research.

Digitization of the Jones Journal was possible thanks to generous funding from the North Caroliniana Society. You can find more materials we’ve scanned on behalf of the Neuse Regional Library on their contributor page. You can search thousands of issues of North Carolina newsppaers from all over the state using our  Newspapers landing page.

We’re pleased to have added to DigitalNC over 600 issues of the Jones County Journal, dating from the first issue in 1949 through 1961. This paper has been digitized on behalf of the Neuse Regional Library System which serves Greene, Lenoir, and Jones Counties. Due to the quality of the microfilm from which these scans were completed, most of the photographs in the newspaper are of poor quality or completely dark, however the text has rendered clear.

The Journal was published in Trenton, N.C. by the Lenoir County News Company. The first issue lists Mrs. Rachel Cox as editor and women are prevalent as news gatherers in that issue’s “Opening Remarks,” though this changes in later issues. 

The Journal features a lot of news and advertisements from the more populous nearby Lenoir County, but Jones County residents get more coverage as the paper matures. The paper covers tobacco farming and agriculture, local government, and personal news like weddings, obituaries, and social events. Many of the earlier issues discuss traffic and accidents as more and more residents purchased automobiles. 

Below is the front page of the Journal published right after Hurricane Hazel made landfall in the state in mid-October, 1954. Hazel caused casualties, severe flooding, and heavy property damage. In the United States, coastal and other eastern counties in the Carolinas suffered the most.  The front page below shows some of the worst hit Kinston homes and business after the storm.

Jones County is only lightly represented on DigitalNC, so we’re glad to add this newspaper for researchers. If you’d like to view other items we’ve digitized for that area, head over to the Counties page. You can also look at all of the work we’ve completed for Neuse Regional Library.