The Latta Family Account Ledger [1812-1821] details the accounts of residents in and around Orange County at the time and includes many well known early Durham families such as the Lattas, Rigsbees, Mangums, Holloways, and Leighs.
This batch of materials is openly available for research and covers a range of topics. Genealogists looking for family histories can benefit as well as folks interested in education, entrepreneurism or religion. To learn more about the area please visit the Durham County Library website.
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.
Thanks to our new partner Museum of Haywood County History, a batch containing four new scrapbooks have been added to our website.
These scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings of club announcements like meeting time and place, upcoming community events, winners of annual awards, the election of officers, along with various accompanying photographs and other ephemera. These scrapbooks give insight into what life was like for some women, families and communities in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.
Thanks to our partner, Central Children’s Home of North Carolina, we now have a ledger documenting the enrollment of children during 1885-1919. The ledger provide histories of the children’s stay at the orphanage ranging in depth and breath.
Ledger entry indexing people with surnames starting with the letter “B.”
Ledgers of African Americans admitted into the Grant Colored Asylum, which was established by the NC legislature in 1883. The name was changed to the “Colored Orphanage Asylum of North Carolina” in 1887. Today it is known as the Central Children’s Home of North Carolina.
Information recorded in the ledger include the child’s name, town and county where the child is from, date of birth, date of admittance into the orphanage, a physical description and observations about the child’s character. Other information documented includes, the parent’s name(s) the church they belonged to and notes the parent(s) cause of death if applicable. Information about who recommended the orphanage and the person responsible for filling the application for admittance.
A new batch of 23 publications of the school magazine from Cape Hatteras School (now Cape Hatteras Secondary School) dating back from 1973 to 2000 has been digitized and made available on DigitalNC, courtesy of our partner, the Dare County Library.
The Sea Chest is a magazine written by students at Cape Hatteras School . While learning about journalism and everyday skills, the students use the publication as a way to document and preserve North Carolina coast culture. They would do this through their articles, interviews with community members, and photographs.
To learn more about the Dare County Library, you can find more information by visiting their partner page or taking a look at their website.
Our latest batch of materials from the Braswell Memorial Library includes a set of photographs showing the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad in the 1970s and 1980s. The Will, List of Heirs, and a Decree of Sale of Lands associated with Samuel E. Westray who died on February 15th 1894 is also included. Other documents associated with the Rocky Mount (N.C.) area are scans of a Christmas Card from James Phillips Bunn along with an invitation to the Grand Celebration Ball.
There are photographs showcasing different aspects of the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad operation throughout the multiple locations across North Carolina. You can see derailed trains, individual parts of the trains, candid photographs of people near the railroad along with portraits of products being transported.
The Family Lines System train
You can view the Westray will, Bunn’s Christmas card, Grand Ball Celebration invitation and all Railroad photographs here. These materials are now apart of the NC Memory collection. To see more materials from from the Braswell Memorial Library you can visit their partner page.
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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.
