The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center is pleased to announce that new materials from our generous partners at North Carolina Central University are now available for viewing and research purposes on DigitalNC! The materials consist of publications from historically Black Churches in and around Raleigh, Durham, Henderson and Oxford North Carolina, a handmade scrapbook consisting of newspaper clippings detailing Black law enforcement officers and agents in Durham and educational materials pertaining to The North Carolina Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers, Inc and the North Carolina Teachers Association. These materials give insight into Black life in the region.
The North Carolina Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers, Inc was founded in 1927 with the mission to improve student attendance rates, promote the overall health of students, lengthen the school year (NCpedia). Additionally local chapters raised money to buy land for schools, beautify campus grounds and to purchase musical instruments and other supplemental educational materials (NCpedia). In the 1950’s and 60’s local units garnered the support of radio and V ads along with a membership of over 300,000 participants to meet financial goals (NCpedia). The materials we have from the North Carolina Congress of Colored Parents and Teacher’s, Inc. are from the mid to late 1960’s. During this time education was still racially segregated by law. However, in 1969 the organization merged with it’s white counterparts and became known as the North Carolina Parent-Teacher’s Association. History of the north Carolina Congress of Colored Parents and Teachers Inc. was gathered from NCpedia.
We have publications for the North Carolina Teachers Association as well. The North Carolina Teachers Association serve African American educators across the state of North Carolina. The organization originated as early as 1881. Educators from across the state would meet annually at various schools for networking and skill sharing sessions. The organization eventually merged with its white counterparts in 1970 when racial segregation ended (NCpedia). We have the a special edition souvenir program from 1970 honoring Mrs. Ruth Braswell Jones, who served as president from 1968-1970. The bulk of materials we have for the North Carolina Teachers Association are standard publications called the Teachers Record that document notable events and accomplishments of Black educators in North Carolina along with their annual conventions. The history of North Carolina Teachers Association was gathered from NCpedia.
You can also browse through materials from historically black churches in and around the region.
We are excited to welcome a new partner and announce our first batch of materials from Tri-County Community College! Founded in 1964, TCCC is located in Murphy, NC in mountainous Cherokee County. The materials in this upload include over 40 course catalogs and 8 yearbooks from 1975-1985, providing researchers with a trove of information on the programs and students of TCCC from 1967 to the present day.
The Ladies’ Aid Society minute books are a fascinating resource for learning not only about women’s public life and women’s societies, but noted challenges in Mount Holly and how they were being addressed by a portion of the community. These minute books also feature lists of member names, attendance records, constitution and by-laws, mission statements, and handwritten documents detailing the history of the Society and its different iterations from 1896 to the 1920s.
The Ladies’ Aid Society of the Mount Holly Presbyterian Church was started on October 13, 1896 when the reverend called a meeting of the ladies of the church to organize. The Society was fairly active from 1896 to 1899 with members of the Society making bonnets, aprons, quilts; using dues to help pay for church improvements and debts; and donating to the Barium Springs Home for Children.
Around 1900, there was a period of inactivity until early January of 1906, when the ladies of the church met with the pastor to revive the Society. From 1906 to 1917, the revived Society continued to help pay for improvements to the church and property including the (partial) purchase of a bookcase for the Sunday school; a plate and baptismal bowls; two Psalms and hymns with music for the choir; and a manse. In addition to these improvements, the Society made several donations of clothes to the Barium Springs Home for Children.
In November of 1917, the ladies organized the Missionary Society. Extremely active in their first year, they bought a service flag for the church, pieced a quilt for Barium Springs Home for Children as well as donated to their dining room fund, raised $300 to help build a new church, and sent collection to foreign missions. Nothing is noted about the activities of the Society in the period between 1918 to 1923 in a document outlining the history of the Woman’s Auxiliary found between the pages of the Woman’s Auxiliary Minutes [1928-1932]. However, the Minutes of Missionary Society [1918-1924] fills in the silence of this period with detailed accounts of their meetings and planned activities such as raising money for the dining fund, finishing quilts, appointing ladies to clean up the church on a monthly rotation, and more. The Missionary Society was eventually disorganized in 1923.
However, by the end of 1923, the Woman’s Auxiliary was organized with sixteen enrolled members and contributions given to seven different causes. Similar to previous iterations, the Women’s Auxiliary continued to raise money for various causes and improvements for the church through successful fundraising and events such as the circa 1928 picnic supper at the Kiwanis Club of Gastonia.
To view more materials from the First Presbyterian Church of Mount Holly, view the exhibit page here.
We are happy to announce the addition of three new yearbooks from King’s Mountain High School in King’s Mountain, N.C., contributed by our partner the Mauney Memorial Library! These issues of Milestones cover the years 1970, 1971, and 1973 and depict classic ’70s fashion, hair, and wisdom. These yearbooks are full of snarky captions, allusions to the political issues of the era, and insights into the state of modern life.
Located just outside of Charlotte, King’s Mountain High School is still active today. Its rich history is well-represented on our site, with yearbooks dating from 1939, photographs, and programs. Do you recognize anyone you know? To view more yearbooks from other schools across North Carolina visit The North Carolina Yearbook collection linked here.
Three Charlotte-area high school yearbooks are now available on DigitalNC, thanks to our partners at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library! 1953 and 1954 yearbooks from West Mecklenburg High School have been added to our existing collection of West Mecklenburg High yearbooks. These volumes are now the earliest West Mecklenburg High available on the site. We are also excited to upload a new yearbook from Paw Creek High School. This 1951 yearbook depicts a slice of North Carolina teenage life in the early 1950s, and is our first from that decade.
Thank to our partner, Lee County Libraries, batches containing five scrapbooks,1962 yearbook from Sanford High School, and 15 Sanford city directories are now available on DigitalNC! The scrapbooks in this batch adds three Sanford Woman’s Club scrapbooks spanning from 1964 to 1968; a North Carolina’s Finer Committee’s 1955 community projects; and one filled with newspaper clippings related to various Sanford, North Carolina topics from 1957 to 1958. In the second batch are 15 Hill’s Sanford city directories from 1954; 1964; 1966-1978. Included among the city directories are is a yearbook: the 1962 Sanford High School.
In 1955, the Finer Carolina Committee’s head, Dr. J. F. Hulin, reported on the five different community projects from that year. The Sanford, North Carolina’s Finer Carolina Committee Community Projects [1955] scrapbook provides a look into these projects as they were happening using newspaper clippings as well as photographs. Before each new section is a document that provides a detailed list of accomplishments, news, and tasks completed related to that project.
The photographs featured in this post provide a visual for an accomplishment under Project Number Three: General Clean-up and Beautification where neighbors worked together to clean up a littered field and turned the area into a park which featured playground equipment contributed by local Sanford merchants.
While we are no strangers to digitizing large objects here at DigitalNC, our newest partner, the Hyde County Historical and Genealogical Society, gave us quite the scanning challenge with their 1934 Mattamuskeet Lake Migratory Bird Refuge Grant Map! Measuring in at 6ft 4in by 3ft 9in, the map was over a foot longer than our largest scanning table. Since it was impossible for us to scan the whole map in one shot, we had to utilize our Phase One camera and its removable table top to scan the map in parts using a horizontal scrolling type technique.
A portion of the map was set up on the table top with small weights carefully applied to hold the map in place and edges down while library carts and people supported the parts of the map off the table. Once a portion was scanned, the weights would be removed, the map shifted for the next portion (with overlap), and weights reapplied. This process was repeated over 30 times. Afterwards, the scanned images were pieced together to create an impressive full digital image of the map which shows the boundary of the lake and parcels of land along with individual parcel owner names, dates the land was acquired, and parcel acreage. A more detailed version of the map can be viewed here on DigitalNC.
Lake Mattamuskeet is recognized as North Carolina’s largest natural freshwater lake—stretching 18 miles long, seven miles wide, and averaging only two to three feet deep. While the lake may be shallow, its history is certainly not. The following paragraphs provide some information about the lake’s ancient and more recent past, but detailing its full history is beyond the scope of this blog post. If you are interested in learning more, please visit the resources that are linked at the end of this post.
At least 800 years before England’s 1584 expedition arrived at Roanoke Island, the coastal region of the state was occupied by several small Native American tribes, including the Algonquian-speaking Machapunga (also known as the Mattamuskeet or Marimiskeet American Indians). The Machapunga were a small tribe of the Algonquin language living in the Pungo River area who migrated south from the Algonquin peoples of the Powhatan Confederacy.
At that time, the Mattamuskeet were known as skillful watermen who made their boats and nets of size interlocks for herring, drum, shad, netting needles, and floats. In addition to their work on the water, they hunted; trapped; gathered berries, nuts, and fruit; and farmed. They grew plants such as corn, beans, pumpkins, goosefoot, sunflowers, knotweed, and squash. The women of the Machapunga are specifically noted as being fierce warriors. Today, the genealogical descendants from the original historic Mattamuskeet Indians of Hyde County, along with the original historic Roanoke-Hatteras (Croatan) Indians of Dare County comprise the Alogonquian Indians of North Carolina.
In 1934, the Mattamuskeet Lake Migratory Bird Refuge Grant Map was created—showing parcel boundaries along with providing the name of the parcel’s owner, the acreage, and the date it was acquired. Some names present on the map, such as Collins, Barber, Chance, Clayton, and Bryant, can trace their American Indian heritage back to the Mattamuskeet. The same year the map was published, the lake was acquired by the United States Government and the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge was established. This was likely a result of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies that helped provide jobs and relief to citizens during the Great Depression. Today, the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge (which includes the lake and surrounding area) remains federally protected and supports “large numbers of wintering waterfowl, as well as a variety of breeding songbirds, mammals such as black bear and bobcat, and other wildlife.”
To learn more about the Hyde County Historical and Genealogical Society, please visit their website linked here.
To view more maps of North Carolina on DigitalNC, click the following link.
Always fun are the photographs from events attended and held by the NCNW Durham Section such as the 2016 Harambee Old School Gala! The Gala pictures feature members along with their friends and families dressed up and having a great time.
Thanks to our partners at the Ocracoke Preservation Society, DigitalNC is proud to announce decades worth of Ocracoke history are now available online! This upload is a collection in multiple parts and includes The Mullet Wrapper newsletter, a compilation of marriage records, half a century’s worth of obituaries and funeral programs, books detailing Ocracoke’s cemeteries, and a detailed list of historic sites from the National Register of Historic Places. Almost every aspect of island life is represented within these records: from parades and exhibits, to local nuptials and obituaries, to the discovery, exploration, and conservation of historic sites.
One of the best ways to become acquainted with the history of Ocracoke Island is to read through The Mullet Wrapper, Ocracoke Preservation Society’s biannual newsletter. Named after the practice of wrapping freshly bought fish in newspapers, The Mullet Wrapper provides a detailed glimpse into the myriad efforts made to preserve Ocracoke history. Within its pages are articles teaching historic home preservation, profiles on notable locals, and news on upcoming educational talks and events. Our collection spans from The Mullet Wrapper’s inception in 1997 to 2017, and even includes two years of newsletters published before The Mullet Wrapper received its name! A highlight of this period is seeing the development of historians understanding of Fort Ocracoke, a sunken structure resting underneath Ocracoke’s bay. The Mullet Wrapper’s publication begins around the fort’s discovery, and as the issues progress more and more articles are released detailing information, eventually ending in the construction of a Civil War memorial near the site.
Additional context is provided for Ocracoke’s history in the form of an extensive report from the National Register of Historic Places. This report details every single historic building, landmark, or structure within Ocracoke’s Historic District, a neighborhood nestled around the bay’s shores. Two maps (one highlighted and one untouched) provide an essential key for understanding the layout of the island, and are themselves a part of preservation history. If you desire additional context, we’ve also uploaded two books containing records of the island’s over eighty historic cemeteries. Each book includes records of the interred, maps of cemetery layouts, and additional context for family or particular sites.
The society’s records also include almost four decades of deaths in or around Ocracoke Island. Funeral programs, obituaries, and hand-written eulogies have been collected and collated for every Ocracoke native’s death, including those occurring hundreds of miles away. Beginning in 1973 and ending in 2021, each year contains a list of every recorded death alongside any related written material. This includes articles published outside of Ocracoke (in the instance of former state senator George Warner), prayer cards for the deceased, and a massive collection of eulogies written by local pastor Jimmy Creech. Reading through these records imparts the sense of just how interconnected community becomes on an island.
Whenever you need a break from the weight of death, refresh with a wedding! Our uploads include a log of local marriages in and around Ocracoke Island that extends as far back as 1735, featuring an extensive list of nuptials, dates, and locations. More recent marriages also include copies of individual marriage certificates from the deed of registers, dating back to the middle of the twentieth century. A personal highlight of the collection are a pair of authentic marriage records from a ceremony taking place in 1912: one between E. Spencer and N. Gaskill, and the other between Albert Stephen and Marnie Spencer.
You can access this absolute bumper crop of history online at DigitalNC here. Still not satisfied? Read more about Ocracoke’s history and preservation at our partners website here, or look through more Ocracoke material on their partner 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.
![Map title and associated information. United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Biologial Survey. Jay. N. Darling. Chief.
Mattamuskeet Lake Migratory Bird Refuge Grant Map.
New Holland Corporation Tr[?].
(3)
Hyde County. North Carolina.
R.C.F. Surveyor.
1934.
Scale 1:15,840
[Bar for scale]](https://www.digitalnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/default-1-1-1024x623.jpg)
