Thanks to our partners, Perquimans County Library and Pettigrew Regional Library, as well as funding from the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), a massive batch of The Perquimans Weekly adds 10+ years worth of issues to DigitalNC! This batch expands our current holdings to include the years: 1989 to 1992 and 2010 to 2020.

Commemorating the migration of Quakers from Perquimans County to the Northwest Territories during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, individuals donned their best Quaker costumes and hopped on their horses or into their horse-drawn buggies and wagons to participate in the Friends to Freedom Wagon Train that traveled through Perquimans County from March 17th to 20th in 2011.

The first two days of the event were set aside for riding the planned 25 mile trail. They started their journey at the Newbold-White House campsite, making stops in Beech Springs, Belvidere, Bagley Swamp, and Winfall. In Belvidere, around 400 people came out to celebrate the train with vendors, live entertainment, wagon rides, food, and promotion of the area’s historical homes and buildings.

On the last leg of the journey, the Train took the Causeway and historic S bridge to parade through Hertford before finally coming back to the Newbold-White House. The final day of the event ended with breakfast, a church service, and a driving course competition at the Newbold-White House site.

To view more issues of The Perquimans Weekly, please click here.

To learn more about the Perquimans Public Library, visit their website here.

To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please click here.

Thanks to our partners at Perquimans County Library and our staff at our Elizabeth City State University location, a brand new batch of the Perquimans Weekly issues have now been uploaded! The Perquimans Weekly has served Hertford and the surrounding area since 1934, posting every Wednesday for almost a hundred years. This batch spans from 2004 to 2009, and is the newest in a series of uploads that stretches back to the paper’s first year.

As a weekly local paper, Perquimans Weekly contained a strong focus on local events, people, and stories. These papers are full of reports on local school sports, editorials and opinion pieces on county politics, and advertisements for annual festivals. There’s also a focus on stories occurring on a state and even national level: reporters pay special mind to the 2008 election cycle, and the effects of the 2008 financial crisis can be felt throughout the period.

Still, these issues of Perquimans Weekly reflect the joy of life in Hertford. Reporters describe children going on ghost tours during Halloween, the Lady Tigers’ vollyball victories, and the meetings of the Chrome Pony Mustang Club. These articles reflect the many facets of life in the area, providing context for how Hertford has changed (yet stayed the same) throughout the decades.

This upload brings NC Digital one step closer to having a comprehensive database of the Perquimans Weekly’s entire record. You can read through NC Digital’s collection here, get up to date issues at the Perquimans Weekly website here, or visit the Perquimans Public Library website here.

This year, the arrival of summer has brought another batch of The Perquimans Weekly newspaper from Hertford, N.C. These papers are available thanks to our partner, the Perquimans County Library, and thanks to our staff at our Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) location, who digitized them. This batch expands the digital availability of The Perquimans Weekly into the 21st century with issues from 1994-2003.

One of the enduring qualities of this paper is the way it focuses on “Perquimans County and its people,” as the masthead claims. In this span of years, the paper’s sections include “Community,” “Perspectives,” “Religion,” and “Schools,” almost all of which are comprised of hyper-local stories, including “Fifth graders study ways to prevent pollution” and “Cable service poor, residents say.” There’s even a prominent business feature on three young entrepreneurs selling lemonade in front of the courthouse. As mentioned in a previous blog post, there is also frequent coverage of baseball star Jim “Catfish” Hunter, a pitcher for Kansas City and then the New York Yankees from 1965-1979.

You can see all available issues of The Perquimans Weekly here, and you can browse all of our digital newspapers by location, type, and date in our North Carolina Newspapers collection. To see more materials from the Perquimans County Library, you can visit their partner page and their website.

A few photos taken of ducks at the Perquimans River in a May 1984 article

New issues from The Perquimans Weekly are now digitized and online on DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Perquimans County Library, part of the Pettigrew Regional Library. Published out of Hertford, NC, the newspaper services Hertford, Belvidere, New Hope, Winfall, and other local areas. While our collection previously contained issues from 1934-1977, these new issues increase our collection with new material from 1944-1989.

An article about the Olympic Festival Torch passing through Hertford

As a weekly published newspaper, The Perquimans Weekly was often full of local headlines, political developments in the county, and municipal updates. There were often important state and national updates included, too. In 1987, as North Carolina was celebrating its 400th anniversary, it was also holding the U.S. Olympic Festival in the Piedmont region. At this time, people carried the Olympic Festival Torch from Wilmington to Raleigh, passing through Perquimans County that July. Around 100 citizens looked at the torch as it passed through Hertford, and local figures, including the County Manager and the Executive Director of the local Chamber of Commerce spoke and celebrated it at a local program.

To browse through other materials from the Perquimans County Library, part of the Pettigrew Regional Library, check out their partner page, or visit the website for the public library.

We’ve worked with a new partner, Perquimans County Library (part of the Pettigrew Regional Library), to share over 40 years’ worth of The Perquimans Weekly newspaper online. Published out of Hertford, N.C., The Perquimans Weekly includes news from Hertford, Belvidere, New Hope, Winfall and other local towns. Issues from 1934-1977 are now DigitalNC.

Interesting issues that caught our eye include the August 26, 1938 issue, which describes the opening of a bridge spanning Albemarle Sound. There was a huge parade and celebration of “new activity, new life, new contacts” brought by the bridge.

Headline from August 26, 1938 issue of The Perquimans Weekly

We also saw a few articles recognizing Perquimans native and Major League baseball player Jim “Catfish” Hunter, like one from October 26, 1972 covering Jimmy Hunter Day.

The ongoing restoration of the Newbold-White House, which dates from 1730 and is one of the oldest historic houses in North Carolina still standing, was a multi-year project that involved fundraising and promotion. In the Weekly, we found articles describing the house’s nomination for the National Register, the local Restoration Association’s successful drive to fund its restoration, and ongoing coverage of the restoration work, including the making of the shingles.

Excerpt from the November 28, 1974 issue of The Perquimans Weekly

This is the first community paper nominated from the far northeast corner of the state and we hope to hear from more institutions in that area. You can search The Perquimans Weekly together with many other titles on our Newspapers collection page.