Dairy Princesses for Warren, Granville, and Vance counties are crowned in 1956.
Now available on DigitalNC are seven scrapbooks from Granville County Public Library. These volumes belong to the larger Hays Collection, a large collection of Oxford and Granville County scrapbooks compiled by local historian Francis B. Hays over the span of more than 75 years.
DigitalNC now has digitally published through volume 43 of the Francis B. Hays Collection. The items are grouped by topic: Oxford and Granville Men and Women, Granville County Family Histories, Granville County Marriages Oxford History, By or About Frances B. Hays, Granville County Histories, and Granville County Schools.
Photograph of Mystery Farm No. 43, which belonged to the Currin family.
The two topics most recently updated are Granville County History and Granville County Schools.
- Granville County History: The fifth and final volume of general county history features a series of clippings from the local newspaper’s Mystery Farm contest. The newspaper would post aerial photographs of unidentified local farms, and members of the community would write in and give information about the farm. The newspaper would then run a story identifying the farm and the contest winner. For more mystery farms, see the volume starting at page 144.
- Granville County Schools: Volumes I-VI trace the development and wide expansion of mostly public schools in Granville County from 1911-1958. The scrapbooks include newspaper clippings
Photographs from 1925 of the newly built Creedmoor School, Stem School, Stovall School, Wilton School, Berea School, and Oak Hill School in Granville County.
and photographs, as well as occasional memorabilia like the 1954 commencement program from Oxford High School. The latter pages of Volume VI cover Granville County church history, especially of articles and pamphlets from numerous Baptist churches in the region. It also includes the address by William A. Devin at the Grassy Creek Baptist Church Bi-Centennial Celebration in 1954.
For more information about the Francis B. Hays Collection or to browse by scrapbook topic, click here.
Granville County Public Library has contributed yearbooks and some manuscript volumes to DigitalNC, including the first yearbook on the site from Warren county.
Yearbooks
- The Warrentonian [1949] John Graham High School, Warrenton, N.C.
- Pep-Pac [1948] [1956] Henderson High School, Henderson, N.C.
- Nahiscoan [1954] Nashville High School, Nashville, N.C.
Other Items
You can view all of Granville County Public Library’s content on DigitalNC.
Granville County Scrapbooks
Several scrapbooks from Granville County Public Library are now available on digitalnc.org. They are divided into three sets, all indexed by last name and organized by date:
- Families of Granville County – includes newspaper clippings featuring family members, event announcements, wedding and birth announcements, family histories, family trees, and miscellaneous items (such as postcards or Christmas cards)
Families of Granville County – Hobgood & Horner from the F-H Volume
Granville Marriages II, Gertrude Knopf to Clifton Bradford
These scrapbooks belong to the larger Hays Collection, a many volume collection of Oxford and Granville County histories created by Francis B. Hays over the course of more than 75 years.
The last several pages of Oxford and Granville Men and Women, vol. 7 feature articles about Mr. Hays. Written in 1958, when Mr. Hays was 91 years old, these articles explain his process and philosophy behind gathering all of this information and organizing it into these volumes, and discuss — among other things — Mr. Hays’ love for chess, his past as an editor and druggist, and his history of helping school children and “Granville’s migrants” in history projects and genealogical inquiries. In addition to these articles is an article by Mr. Hays called “It was News in 1911.”
These materials are part of an ongoing digitization project. More volumes to come!
Yearbooks from several high schools in Granville County are now available online in the North Carolina High School Yearbooks digital collection. There are 54 volumes online, ranging in date from 1899 to 1962. The yearbooks are from the collections of the Granville County Public Library in Oxford. The following schools are included:
Thanks to our partner, Granville County Public Library, batches containing a May 1947 issue of Oxford High School’s student newspaper; several years of yearbooks from Middleburg High School and Kittrell College; two W. H. Smith account books; and one photograph of Middleburg High School’s women’s 1937 basketball team!
While we have several Kittrell College bulletins available on DigitalNC, this batch brings us our first yearbook issues for the college which are from 1960, 1968, and 1969. In addition, the yearbooks in this batch from Middleburg High School fill in previous gaps on DigitalNC with issues from 1938, 1939, 1947, 1948 and 1949.
To learn more about the Granville County Public Library, visit their website here.
To explore more yearbooks from across North Carolina, visit our North Carolina Yearbook collection.
To view more materials from Granville County, visit our Granville County page here.
Thanks to our partner, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, new issues from five North Carolina newspapers are available on our website. These include:
There are also new issues of Oxford Public Ledger, courtesy of our partner Granville County Public Library, and The Yadkin Ripple, thanks to Yadkin County Public Library.
To browse all of our newspapers by location, date, and type, take a look at our North Carolina Newspapers collection.
This week we have another 60 titles up on DigitalNC! While these papers cover all of North Carolina, almost one third are from Statesville alone!
In the October 3rd, 1902 issue of Elizabeth City’s Tar Heel, there is an interview with Reginald Aubrey Fessenden’s assistant, Professor Saint Marie. Fessenden was a pioneer in early radio, or “wireless telegraphy,” and was conducting experiments at Manteo on Roanoke Island. In the interview, Prof. Saint Marie seems somewhat pessimistic about the process and its possibilities, which might be due to Fessenden abruptly ending their contract with the Weather Bureau the previous month after conflict arose over ownership of the patent.
Tar Heel, October 3, 1902
However, less than two months later The News and Observer reported that Fessenden’s invention had greatly improved and could now send transmissions to Washington, D.C. On Christmas Eve, 1906, he conducted the first radio broadcast by reading a bible verse and then playing ‘O Holy Night’ on his violin for the ships off the coast of Massachusetts. By 1909, according the the Charlotte Evening Observer, he had perfected the process for which he laid the foundation on the Carolina coast.
News and Observer, November 23, 1902
Evening Chronicle, April 14, 1909
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
This week’s additions include:
Elizabeth City
Moravian Falls
North Wilkesboro
Oxford
Pittsboro
Rutherfordton
Salem
Salisbury
- The Evening World (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1895-1898
- Weekly World (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1895-1896
- Salisbury News (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1878
- The Salisbury Press (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1888
- The Tribune (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1872
- The Daily Gazette (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1865
- The Rowan Whig and Western Advocate (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1852-1855
- The Salisbury Herald (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1855-1857
- The Weekly Jubilee (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1852
- The Prohibitionist (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1881
- Salisbury Weekly Sun (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1897-1904
- Salisbury Globe (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1904-1905
- The Salisbury Daily Index (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1899-1900
- Salisbury Daily Truth-Index (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1900-1901
- Daily Herald (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1891-1896
- North Carolina Herald (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1885-1898
- The Industrial Record (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1899
Selma
Shelby
Siler City
Smithfield
Statesville
Stonewall
Tarboro
Taylorsville
Wadesboro
Warrenton
Washington
Wilson
Windsor
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
This week we have another 38 newspaper titles up on DigitalNC! In this batch, we have issues spanning 33 years from Oxford, N.C. paper Oxford Public Ledger. In addition to being the county seat for Granville County, Oxford is also home to the first female parachutist and inventor of the ripcord: Georgia “Tiny” Broadwick.
Georgia was born April 8, 1893 and weighed only three pounds at birth, earning her the nickname “Tiny.” She was married at age 12, had a child at 13, and was widowed before she was 15. In 1907, her life changed forever when she saw The Broadwicks and their Famous French Aeronauts perform aerial stunts at the North Carolina State Fair. She left home, joined the Broadwicks travelling show, and was legally adopted by the show owner, Charles Broadwick, making her “Tiny” Broadwick.
Georgia ‘Tiny’ Broadwick, 1911. Via Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
In an exhibition in Chicago the week of September 16, 1912, Broadwick became the first woman to parachute from a plane. In 1914, jumped into Lake Michigan, making her the first woman to parachute into a body of water. Also in 1914, she debuted the ripcord in a parachuting demonstration for the U.S. Army, performing the first planned free-fall jump from an airplane. By the end of her career she is said to have performed over 1,100 jumps.
Wilmington Star, January 10, 1914
Over the next year, we’ll be adding millions of newspaper images to DigitalNC. These images were originally digitized a number of years ago in a partnership with Newspapers.com. That project focused on scanning microfilmed papers published before 1923 held by the North Carolina Collection in Wilson Special Collections Library. While you can currently search all of those pre-1923 issues on Newspapers.com, over the next year we will also make them available in our newspaper database as well. This will allow you to search that content alongside the 2 million pages already on our site – all completely open access and free to use.
This week’s additions include:
- Toisnot Transcript (Toisnot, N.C.) – 1876
- Rocky Mount Progress (Rocky Mount, N.C.) – 1880
- The Warsaw Brief Mention (Warsaw, N.C.) – 1880
- The Albemarle Observer (Edenton, N.C.) – 1914-1915
- The Messenger (Fayetteville, N.C.) – 1887-1888
- The Times-Herald (Littleton, N.C.) – 1906-1909
- The Maxton Union (Maxton, N.C.) – 1889-1891
- Waynesville Courier (Waynesville, N.C.) – 1888-1911
- The Waynesville News (Waynesville, N.C.) – 1888
- Siler City Leader (Siler City, N.C.) – 1892
- The Troy Times (Troy, N.C.) – 1888
- The Daily News (Waynesville, N.C.) – 1886
- The Farmer’s Friend (Morganton, N.C.) – 1898
- The Norlina Headlight (Norlina, N.C.) – 1914-1924
- The Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1889-1901
- Oxford Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1901-1911
- Public Ledger and Oxford Banner (Oxford, N.C.) – 1912-1913
- Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1913-1919
- Oxford Public Ledger (Oxford, N.C.) – 1919-1922
- The Tri-Weekly Examiner (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1869-1872
- The Weekly Examiner (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1871-1872
- The Salisbury Examiner (Salisbury, N.C.) – 1881-1883
- The Great Sunny South (Snow Hill, N.C.) – 1898
- The Stovall Courier (Stovall, N.C.) – 1898
- The People’s Paper (Warren Plains, N.C.) – 1895-1896
- Washington Weekly Progress (Washington, N.C.) – 1887-1888
- Washington Progress (Washington, N.C.) – 1888-1891
- The Roxboro Herald (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1881
- The Person County News (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1882-1883
- Person County Courier (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1893-1896
- The Courier (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1896-1910
- The Roxboro Courier (Roxboro, N.C.) – 1911-1917
- The Argonaut (Rocky Mount, N.C.) – 1894
- The Selma News (Selma, N.C.) – 1887
- The Messenger (Siler City, N.C.) – 1898-1900
- The Woman’s Right (Wadesboro, N.C.) – 1874
- The Sunny Home (Toisnot, N.C.) – 1881-1883
- The People’s Press (Salem, N.C.) – 1851-1892
If you want to see all of the newspapers we have available on DigitalNC, you can find them here. Thanks to UNC-Chapel Hill Libraries for permission to and support for adding all of this content as well as the content to come. We also thank the North Caroliniana Society for providing funding to support staff working on this project.
A cartoon from the March 13, 1941 The Owl
Some say that high school student humor is a bit sophomoric; as evidence to the contrary, we’ve uploaded several student newspapers (thanks to our partner, the Granville County Public Library) that will at least make you smile.
First up are a couple of jokes from the Oxford High School Student Paper, The Owl. These jokes are from their “This n’ That” section of the March 13, 1941 issue.
This section also includes some stellar student profiles. One “Sophisticated Senior” lists her favorite pastime as “flirting” and her hobby as “catching beau.” A “Silly Sophomore” prefers to spend her time “eating” and aspires to be a “Bulls’ Eye Egg thrower.”
For a bit of darker humor, the 1967 senior class of J. F. Webb High School ran an extended graduation joke in the form of a “Last Will and Testament,” describing what each person left behind to an underclassman.
Items I and II leave “appreciation,” “respect,” and “esteem” to the principal and teachers. Item III leaves “old books,” “battered lockers,” and some hangout spot called “The Cave” to the student body in general. Item IV is where things start to get personal.
Many students opted for the “I leave my book, ‘How to Get Girls to Like You,’ to my friend Tommy” joke. A few, like Ellen Franklin and Wayne White, left treasured spots. Ronnie Daniel seems to be the only one who bequeathed a “kiss, bear hug, and a love lick on the top of his head.”
In Stovall High School’s paper, The Breeze, the back page is covered in miscellany briefs, including “A Second Grade Letter” by Margaret Gill. Even though Margaret didn’t seem to find it funny that her ducks drink so much water, it’s certainly entertaining to read.
This 1958 issue of Chapel Hill High School’s Proconian didn’t have the established humor section of some previous issues, though it did have a sassy note commenting on current affairs.
The full list of added newspapers (some by students and some for the community) includes:
- The Owl (Oxford, N.C.) – 1941-1959
- The Spectator (Oxford, N.C.) – 1967-1971
- Berea Gazette (Berea, N.C.) – 1923
- The Breeze (Stovall, N.C.) – 1923
- Proconian (Chapel Hill, N.C.) – 1958
- The Granville Enterprise (Oxford, N.C.) – 1914
- Granville County News (Oxford, N.C.) – 1929
- Oxford Mercury (Oxford, N.C.) – 1842
To see more materials from the Granville County Public Library, visit their partner page or their website. You can browse all newspapers in our North Carolina Newspapers collection.
Thanks to our partner, Granville County Public Library, five yearbook issues from 1957 to 1962 are now available on our website. This batch adds Polkton High School to our list of schools with available yearbooks and expands on our holdings of Middleburg and Jefferson High School. Featured in the yearbooks is a look into education in the northern part of the state including the various clubs and sports offered at each school and photographs of fun school events.
1961 Middleburg High School Bus Drivers
To learn more about Granville County Public Library, please visit their website.
For more yearbooks from across North Carolina, visit our yearbook collection.
