Issues of The Sampson Independent newspaper from 1924-1928 are now on DigitalNC. This joins several other earlier titles from Sampson County but these are the first from this time period. The Independent was published in Clinton, N.C.
Issues from early 1925 include a sketch and proposed floor plan for a new county home. County homes were places paid for by the local government. People could or were often forced to live in county homes when they did not have enough money to support themselves, were unable to care for themselves, had severe illnesses, or were otherwise judged to need supervised housing. The floor plan, above, shows a building segregated by race, with separate hospital wards, bathrooms, kitchens, and dining rooms. Not featured in the plan are “tubercular wards” for tuberculosis patients, which the article beneath the sketch said would be built nearby. I couldn’t find an announcement of the opening of the county home but an article on the front page from December 10, 1925 talks about furnishings being purchased and says “it is thought that they [residents] will occupy their new quarters within a few days.”
The Independent issues include a good mix of syndicated and local content. Local and personal pages like this one, found towards the middle and back of the paper, are particularly long. They list families hosting visitors, residents traveling abroad, and even news about found pets like the article at right. There are separate columns for news particular to Autryville, Boykins Bridge, Keener, Lower Johnston, Mary’s Chapel, Mingo, Mt. Vernon, Owen Grove, Roseboro, Rosin Hill, Spell Town, and illiams Mill.
You can view all of the issues we have online for The Sampson Independent here, and find links to all of our Sampson County newspapers on this page.
