A large number of funeral programs from the Chatham County Historical Association have been added to the Chatham County Funeral Programs digital exhibit. The programs are primarily from African American families who lived in or had strong ties to Chatham County.
Memorial Services for James Odell Alston
The Homegoing Celebration in Loving Memory of Mother Ollie C. Burnette
In Memorium Larry Edward Scurlock
The programs added recently include several from the Alston, Burnette, Scurlock, and Baldwin families.
Another North Carolina county now has high school yearbooks available in DigitalNC, thanks to the Chatham County Public Library. Yearbooks spanning 1949-1964 from Pittsboro High School in Chatham County are now online. Pittsboro High School opened in the early 1900s and closed in 1972 following the integration of Chatham County schools. During that time it served as the main school for grades 1-12 in Pittsboro, NC.
To view more materials from Chatham County Public Libraries, visit here.
More than 1,000 early issues of The Chatham Record, a weekly newspaper published in Pittsboro, are now available in the North Carolina Newspapers digital collection. The papers cover the years 1879 to 1901, a crucial period in North Carolina history as the state emerged from war and reconstruction and engaged in fierce political battles that would resonate throughout the twentieth century.
The Chatham Record covered local businesses and social news, but also had more of a literary bent than many of the papers we’ve worked on. Many issues include poetry and short stories, often featured on the front page.
Issues of The State’s Voice, published in Dunn, NC from 1933-1935, have been added to DigitalNC. Published by O. J. (Oscar J.) Peterson, this paper is much more of an editorial vehicle than many other papers at the time. The entire front page is devoted to his thoughts on one or more news items or topics of the day. His other interest was in writing informational essays about various parts of the state, like the one in this issue about Orange County and Hillsboro(ugh).
Over the years, Peterson managed a number of newspapers besides The State’s Voice including the Chatham Record, the Sampson Democrat, and the Lumberton Argus. Aligning with the Democratic platform of the time, Peterson expresses strong opinions in his paper about prohibition, public education, and economics. His editorials are so pointed that they are alternatively lauded or criticized in other papers.
In the final issue of the paper, Peterson says: “The publication of the State’s Voice has been an interesting experience, or experiment, in several respects.” The paper was intended to be read statewide, and was launched upon a “highly intellectual basis with a confessed non-public appeal.” He seems to attribute the demise of the paper in part to a lack of intellectuality amongst his subscribers, despite many of them being prominent in the state.
This paper was added on behalf of the Harnett County Public Library. You can view all of the materials contributed to DigitalNC from Harnett County Public Library on their contributor page.
Thanks to our partner, Chatham County Public Libraries, the 1972 and 1973 yearbooks for Chatham Central High School are now available on DigitalNC.
The Home Economics classes at Chatham Central High School offered students instruction and experience in sewing, planning menus and budgets, first aid, child care, and cooking. However, for those interested in learning more about and gaining more experience in cooking, the school offered a food service class. This class provided refreshments for club activities along with catering in the community. And according to The Centralia [1973] Chatham Central’s food service class gained a positive reputation among students and the public for their catered confectioneries!
To learn more about Chatham County Public Libraries, visit their website here.
For more yearbooks from across North Carolina, visit our North Carolina Yearbook collection.
Over four hundred issues of The Chatham Record were recently digitized from their microfilm formats and added to DigitalNC. These new issues range from 1923 to 1929 and supplement those from 1878 to 1904 which were already available. Printed in Pittsboro, North Carolina, The Chatham Record provided weekly news to the people of Chatham County. This paper is made available thanks to a nomination from our partner Chatham County Public Library.
Regular news included updates about local farming, businesses, significant individuals, social events, and others, supplemented with statewide, national, and international news. Some typical clippings are shared below:
To learn more about The Chatham Record and view all issues, click here.
Thanks to our partners at the Chatham County Historical Association, DigitalNC is pleased to announce that several new issues of the North Carolina Anvil are now available online! The North Carolina Anvil was a local paper published in Durham during the late twentieth century. It was advertised as an “alternative” paper with a progressive, anti-war perspective.
Now, four new issues from 1970 and 1983 have been added to NC Digital’s collection. They join a collection of over three hundred already-digitized issues, and extend NC Digital’s coverage of the publication by three years. Interested in reading about North Carolina politics weekly from an angle “combative to the point that it was difficult to survive financially” (according to contributor Barry Jacobs)? You can find the complete collection of newspapers here. Interested in more Chatham County history? Learn more about the Chatham County Historical Association here.
Two yearbooks from Chatham County Historical Association are now online, the 1970 Creations yearbook from Horton Public School, the Pittsboro school for the Black community and the 1963 Phantomaire, from Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City.
1970 was the last year that Horton High School graduated a class. It became Horton Middle School the following year, in light of integration that was merging several white and Black student populations in Chatham County. Horton is named for George Moses Horton, an enslaved man from Chapel Hill who taught himself to read and was the first Black man published in the south, with a book of poetry he composed.
To view more materials from Chatham County Historical Association, visit their partner page. To view more yearbooks, visit our North Carolina Yearbooks collection.
Thanks to our partner, Chatham County Public Library, a transcript of R.B. Paschal’s diary entries dating from 1860-1861 and 1863-1864 are now available on our website.
In 1854, R.B. Paschal was elected the Chatham County Sheriff and served six consecutive terms. In addition to his career as sheriff, Paschal served in the House of Delegates in 1865 and North Carolina Senate in 1866. Entries are brief and focus mainly on the weather, daily activities mostly related to farming, and sometimes news of the war. The diary as a whole gives a window into how the Civil War affected Chatham County directly, with accounts of local men who were arriving back from fighting or taken prisoner of war. It also includes accounts of Paschal overseeing the trade of enslaved people in Chatham County, a reminder of the duties assigned to the position of sheriff. Place names and people’s names, white and Black, are included in the diary.
A page from the R.B. Pashcal diary transcript.
For more information about the Chatham County Public Library, please visit their website.
More information about the diary and R. B. Paschal can be found here.
Thanks to our partner, Chatham County Public Library, a batch containing Pittsboro High School yearbooks for 1952, 1957-1958, 1966-1970 and a publication about Horton High School are now available on our website.
To learn more about the Chatham County Public Library, please visit their website.
For more yearbooks from across North Carolina, visit our yearbook collection.
