Watauga County, much like the rest of Appalachian American, has a rich history of old-time music and two of the most prominent musicians from the area were Doc Watson and Frank Proffitt. In these 1964 and 1965 issues of Boone’s Watauga Democrat, we have many articles celebrating their lives and achievements.
Doc Watson and Son, Merle October 15, 1964
Arthel “Doc” Watson (March 3, 1923-May 19, 2012) hails from the small community of Deep Gap, which is about 10 miles east of Boone, and was one of nine children. Despite being blind since infancy, Watson learned to play a variety of instruments at a young age including guitar, banjo, harmonica, and fiddle. By the time of his death Doc had won an astounding seven Grammys but he didn’t release his first solo recording until 1964, at the age of 41. His eponymous debut includes a version of the song Frank Proffitt made famous, Tom Dooley (or Dula), and the two were both featured on the bill for the 1964 Newport Folk Festival.
Frank Proffitt was born June 1, 1913 and would pass away a year after his Newport encounter with Watson on November 24, 1965. Proffitt resided in the north-west portion of Watauga County in Reese, North Carolina and crafted his own instruments in addition to mastering them. In 1937, folklorists Anne and Frank Warner travelled to Western North Carolina, recorded Proffitt’s version of the murder ballad Tom Dula(story told in detail here by our own Sophie Hollis) and passed it on to Alan Lomax. This version would make it into Lomax’s book Folk Song U.S.A. and became a hit in 1958 when the Kingston Trio released a cover titled Tom Dooley. This would greatly increase Proffitt’s popularity as an American folk singer and he would even go on to represent North Carolina at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
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.
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 61 titles up on DigitalNC, including our first additions from Charleston, Culler, Red Springs, Rutherfordton, and Sanford! Included in this batch, on the front page of the February 28, 1872 issue of Raleigh’s Weekly Sentinel, is an article detailing the final heist of Robeson County folk hero Henry Berry Lowry.
Portrait thought to be of Henry Berry Lowry. Via the State Archives of North Carolina
Henry Berry Lowry, a Lumbee Native American, was the head of the mostly Native outlaw group known as the Lowry Gang. In addition to typical outlaw activities, the Lowry Gang also helped other Native Americans avoid Confederate work conscription and fought alongside Union soldiers who had escaped Confederate prison camps. While Lowry did often resort to murder to settle personal feuds, he was also considered a sort of Robeson “Robin Hood.” When they committed robberies, they would often share the spoils with the community and would return items such as horses as soon as they were no longer needed. They were known to be “respectful” robbers and would let you off the hook if you could show you didn’t have much.
The Weekly Sentinel, February 28, 1872
In 1869, governor William Holden put a $12,000 bounty on Lowry’s head, which resulted in bloody conflict over the next few years. After successfully evading capture, Lowry planned his final heist in February of 1872. The gang stole a safe from a local carriage manufacturer and were bold enough to take another from the sheriff’s office, walking away with $22,000 (about $520,000 today) and then he disappeared. The bounty was never collected and he was never heard from again. Some locals claim they saw him at a friend’s funeral years later, but we will likely never know what happened to Henry Berry Lowry.
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.
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 34 titles up on DigitalNC! In this batch we have an article from the Durham Tobacco Plant describing the construction of a new factory being built by W. Duke, Sons & Co., which contained a machine that would revolutionize their tobacco business: The Bonsack machine.
Durham Tobacco Plant, July 16, 1884
In 1881, Virginia native James Bonsack created the first industrial cigarette rolling machine, a task that was done meticulously by hand up until this point. Bonsack partnered with W. Duke, Sons & Co. in 1884 and supplied them with one of his machines that could roll 250,000 cigarettes in a single day, the equivalent of 48 employees. While this acquisition would make the Dukes the leading cigarette producer in the country, the automation of the process forced many skilled rollers out of work.
W. Duke, Sons & Co. 1884 factory. Image via opendurham.org
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.
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.
Thanks to funding from the State Library of North Carolina’s LSTA Grant and our partner, Johnston County Heritage Center, over five hundred issues from 1911 to 1925 of The Smithfield Herald are now available on our website. These issues expand DigitalNC’s previously digitized issues from 1901 all the way to 1925.
The paper was first published weekly in Smithfield, North Carolina in 1882 under the name The Weekly Herald. In the late 1880s, the paper was renamed a second and final time to The Smithfield Herald. Articles in the paper focus on local as well as national news. Over one hundred years later, The Smithfield Herald continues to be published in Smithfield, North Carolina.
A special Sunday edition of the paper was printed when William B. Cole, a rich mill owner in Rockingham, North Carolina, was acquitted of the charge of murder. According to the paper, Cole was on trial for the murder of his daughter’s lover and former serviceman—William B. Ormond. The paper is unclear about what motive Cole had to murder Ormond.
After several hours of deliberation and pressuring one of their fellow jurors, the jury concluded that the mill owner was not guilty of the murder of Ormond. The writer’s mention of the defendant as a wealthy man in the article points to the suspicion that he may have been acquitted thanks to his money.
Although found not guilty, the judge would not release the defendant until he proved that he was sane. A day after the verdict was read, Cole attended a hearing in Wilkesboro to determine whether or not he should be sent to the State Hospital for the Insane in Raleigh. It is not mentioned in the two articles about this story if Cole was released or sent to the hospital.
To read more about the William B. Cole case, click here and here.
To learn more about the Johnston County Heritage Center, please visit their website.
To view more newspapers from across North Carolina, please click here.
Carolina Baptist newspaper masthead from September 2, 1857.
Thanks to our partner, Wake Forest University, there are 19 new newspapers added to DigitalNC. Dating from 1857 to 1925, these newspapers were written for Christian communities from the mountains to the Piedmont to the coast of North Carolina.
Most of the newspapers are affiliated with the Baptist denomination, and their audiences vary in size and geography. Some were published for specific churches, like the Broad Street Worker “Devoted to the interests of Broad St. Baptist Church” in Winston, N.C. Others were published for a wider audience by regional, state, or national organizations, like the North Carolina Baptist Missionary Worker and The Gospel Herald published by the Boards of the Baptist State Convention, and the Conflict published by the Anti-Evolution League of America.
To look through the 58 issues of these publications, click the links below:
Four new scrapbooks have been digitized and uploaded from the Wayne County Public Library. These scrapbooks follow the career of Bobby Wilson (full name Robert Monroe Wilson) as he played baseball for three baseball teams, the Wilkes-Barre Barons (in 1945 and 1946), the Baltimore Orioles, and the San Diego Padres.
Newspaper clippings from Wilson’s time with the Orioles
Although he played baseball around the country, Bobby Wilson was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina. He played second base and shortstop, and many newspaper clippings discuss Wilson’s speed and his ability to steal bases. As seen in the image above, his base running skills occasionally played a big role in his team’s performance.
Cartoons depicting Bobby Wilson’s base running abilities
The Wayne County Public Library has contributed a number of other scrapbooks pertaining to baseball and local baseball players. To browse all of the material Wayne County Public Library has contributed, you can visit their contributor’s page.
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.
