School History of North Carolina : from 1584 to the present time

The State of North Carolina is included between the parallels 34° and 362° north latitude, and between the meridians 752° and 842° west longitude. Its western boundary is the cr...

The mountains of North Carolina may be conveniently classed as four separate chains: the Smoky, forming the western boundary of the State; the Blue Ridge, running across the Sta...

A knowledge of the geology of a State affords the key to its soils; since the soils are formed by the disintegration of the underlying rocks, more or less mixed with animal or v...

That portion of America now known as the State of North Carolina was once inhabited by Indians. For many ages before Columbus came across the seas in the year 1492, they had hel...

1570. The sixteenth century of the Christian era was one of the most wonderful periods in the world's history. The recent invention of the printing-press had scattered books and...

1584. When the little ship Hind reached England, and it was known how Sir Humphrey Gilbert and so many of his men had gone down into the depths of that mysterious ocean which wa...

We cannot easily realize, in our day, what excitement and enthusiasm were felt in England when the two ships returned and exhibited the Indians, the potatoes, the tobacco and ot...

It must have been a sore trial to Sir Walter Raleigh when he learned that his colonists had returned to England. He had sent over a ship with abundant supplies, which reached Ro...

The story of the attempted settlement on Roanoke Island is the story of one of the world's tragedies. Misfortune seemed to be the doom, not only of the colonists, but of many ga...

After the discovery of North Carolina, in 1584, by Amadas and Barlowe, many years had gone by before the period now reached in this narrative. Not only had James succeeded Eliza...

1. King Charles II., who thus bestowed this vast dominion upon a few of his friends, was in marked contrast, as a sovereign, to Queen Elizabeth. He was a gay, dissolute, shamele...

After Sir William Berkeley had put Governor Drummond to death in the manner described, Governor Stephens was sent in 1667 to take his place. Stephens was a ruler of ordinary abi...

1674. Samuel Stephens, upon his death in 1674, was succeeded by George Carteret as Governor of Albemarle. The oldest member of the council was entitled by law to the place, but...

When John Culpepper had ended his administration the authorities in England sent over John Harvey as Governor. Little is known of him or of his successors, John Jenkins and Henr...

Thomas Carey, who had already reached the positions of Speaker of the House of Assembly and Lieutenant-Governor, was promoted to be Governor in 1705. He had been a leader in opp...

With the conquest of the Tuscaroras and their allies, a great danger was removed from the settlements in Carolina. Tom Blount and his people were assigned a tract of land as a t...

Upon the death of Governor Eden in 1722, Colonel Thomas Pollock, as President of His Majesty's Council for North Carolina, assumed the place of Governor, but he died in a short...

During the government of North Carolina by Gabriel Johnston, there was still much trouble from the buccaneers. These were pirates who chiefly infested the West Indies, where the...

King George selected Major Arthur Dobbs, as Governor of North Carolina; and at New Bern, on November 1, 1754, he entered upon the discharge of his duties. He was a man of high t...

Some months before the death of Governor Dobbs there had come over from England a handsome, polished and genial officer who wore the uniform of the Queen's Guards. This was Lieu...

In the middle and western counties of North Carolina in the period referred to, there was collected a large increase of population. Immigrants had come in large companies from S...

James Hasell, as President of the Council, assumed the conduct of affairs until the arrival of the new Governor. This new Governor, Josiah Martin, was born 22d April, 1737, and...

1774. By this time the propriety of holding a general or Continental Congress, composed of delegates or representatives duly chosen by the several colonies, had suggested itself...

After the meeting of the first Provincial Congress, at New Bern, there were, to all observers of intelligence throughout the world, evident signs of an approaching rupture betwe...

It had been seen at New Bern that Colonel Harvey's days were numbered, and Samuel Johnston had been empowered, in case of the Moderator's death, to order an election for another...

1776. The new year, 1776, found Governor Martin still lingering on board the Cruiser in the Cape Fear River. He was closely watched by Colonel James Moore, who kept his Command...

The Hillsboro Congress of August, 1775, formally inaugurated a war of resistance to British oppressions, but to the Halifax Congress of April, 1776, was left the crowning glory...

After the public avowal by the people of North Carolina, through their newly organized Congress at Halifax, in April, 1776, of a fixed purpose to secure, by force of arms, absol...

All of the North Carolina Continentals were with General Washington early in the new year 1777. They reached him in a great emergency. His army had just been driven from New Yor...

The capture of Savannah caused uneasiness in all the Southern States. It was seen at once that Georgia was but a starting point in a general scheme of transferring hostilities f...

When the great disaster at Charleston became known to the North Carolina Tories, and they fully realized that British troops were close at hand, the spirit that had seemed crush...

The disaster at Camden left North Carolina without defence against invasion by the British under Lord Cornwallis. But the spirit of Governor Nash and his people was high, and th...

General Greene soon became aware that his great trouble would be in obtaining food in sufficient quantities to feed an army large enough to meet the British in open field. Gener...

When the British commander found that General Greene was completely beyond his reach, he marched to Hillsboro and there erected the Royal standard. In consequence of his proclam...

When Lord Cornwallis left Wilmington, on his way to Virginia, there were no British troops left in North Carolina except about four hundred regulars and some Tory recruits, whic...

1. On the 19th of October, 1781, as has been previously stated, Lord Cornwallis surrendered himself and his army to General Washington, at Yorktown, in Virginia. The timely arri...

1. During the years that followed upon the close of the Revolution the people of North Carolina were busied with the restoration of their ravaged fields and the development of t...

1. The new State of North Carolina now became divided and excited as to her position in the confederation of States. Each day was demonstrating more clearly the failure of the c...

1. When North Carolina had thus taken her place in the Federal Union, and the whole system of State and National polity became perfected in America, many hearts beat with gratit...

1. In the last days of the eighteenth century men became more and more plainly divided into two political parties. Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, a man of decided genius and con...

General Davie ceased to be Governor to become one of three Commissioners to Paris. He had been appointed Major-General to command North Carolina's contingent, when it seemed tha...

The Republic of America was wisely ruled during the eight years of Mr. Jefferson's administration as President. He was not only the greatest of political philosophers, but a con...

James Turner, of Warren; Nathaniel Alexander, of Mecklenburg; David Stone, of Bertie, and Benjamin Smith, of Brunswick, had served in turn as Governors of North Carolina during...

When hostilities ceased it seemed a great thing to the people of North Carolina once more to enjoy the full benefits of trade and commerce. British cruisers had made all foreign...

In the decade following the enactment of the Missouri Compromise there was prodigious material growth in every section of the American Union. In North Carolina the real prosperi...

1. While the Republic of the United States was so divided and agitated as to matters of policy touching the interests of all the Union, there were, at the same time, many issues...

There had been many changes effected among the people of North Carolina by the lapse of time when the year 1836 came in. Bartlett Yancey, the two Drs. Caldwell and Archibald Hen...

It will be remembered that in 1767 the first school was incorporated by the Legislature of North Carolina, by the act in favor of the academy at New Bern. In this, and subsequen...

1. When the year of our Lord 1842 had come, peace and prosperity were in all portions of North Carolina. Society was still divided into three classes. These were: the white peop...

Governor Dudley was opposed by ex-Governor John Branch, of Halifax, as the candidate of the Democratic party in 1838. Governor Branch had been in the Cabinet of General Jackson,...

No single year in human records has been more prolific of change and social advancement than that which witnessed the overthrow of King Louis Phillipe in France and the general...

1. The female seminaries of Salem, Raleigh and Greensboro were supplemented, in 1843, in the establishment, by the Chowan and Portsmouth Baptist Associations, of another female...

The election of General Franklin Pierce to the Presidency, in 1852, was considered by many as a rebuke to those who had been so clamorous in the North against the compromise of...

After seventy years of party struggles touching the relations of the General Government to the individual States, the Presidential contest of 1860 opened with such notes of viol...

The people of North Carolina loved the Union of States that had been in such large part constructed by the heroism and wisdom of their own fathers. They well knew its value to t...

By the fortune of war in the Revolution, as again in 1812, the State was nearly always left with a small proportion of her own troops to defend the home of their birth. So, also...

Amid the exultation that filled the hearts of the people of North Carolina for the victories around Richmond, there was grief in many families for heroes fallen in the discharge...

When the year 1863 had come upon the American States in their bloody and wasting quarrel, there was nothing to indicate any solution of the great controversy. Many bloody battle...

In spite of the great Federal success in acquiring territory in North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and elsewhere, and notwithstanding the increasing hardships everywhere fel...

The fourth year of the great war opened on North Carolina with grief in almost every family; still, with diminished hopes and increased exertions for the general defence, they l...

In 1864 Colonel Vance was re-elected Governor of North Carolina. At his first election he was personally very popular, was a soldier in the field, had been in actual battle, had...

1. With the fall of Fort Fisher the fate of Wilmington was sealed. With the Federal troops in such a position the port was most effectually closed. The last connection of the be...

When General Johnston became aware of General Lee's retreat, he was informed that his next duty would be to effect a junction of his forces with those withdrawn from Petersburg....

1. When the bulk of the vast armies that had effected the overthrow of the Confederacy was marched northward and disbanded, the full extent of the ruin that had been wrought was...

President Andrew Johnson, as has already been stated, was born and reared in the city of Raleigh. He went to Tennessee after reaching manhood, and, though blessed with small adv...

There was in North Carolina great indignation at the result of the enforced changes wrought in the polity of the State by means of the various congressional enactments. Stranger...

On the 21st of May, John W. Stephens, then a Senator from Caswell county, was secretly murdered in an unused room in the courthouse at Yanceyville. A large concourse filled the...

The election of 1870 resulted in a great triumph for the people. Opponents of the administration were elected to the Legislature in overwhelming majorities, and a determination...

In the years that had passed since the close of the war between the States, the people of North Carolina had been continually looking forward to the hour when the State should b...

Previous to the introduction of Whitney's cotton gins there had been much attention bestowed by the people of the State upon the cultivation of flax. This crop was never reared...

In this state of advancement as to her material interests, North Carolina again became excited in 1876 over the choice of new men for Chief-Magistrates, both of the Republic and...

The Raleigh & Gaston Railroad originally connected the two places that gave name to the route. It was necessary in reaching Raleigh from the Albemarle region to go to Weldon, an...

It would seem natural that the connection of Sir Walter Raleigh with the history of North Carolina should have added to the literary tendencies of a people blessed with such a g...

As was intended by the men who framed the Constitution of North Carolina at Halifax in 1776, the University of the State has long held the leadership of such institutions in the...

In the financial prostration consequent upon the late war, a large debt was due from North Carolina to creditors who held the bonds of the State. That portion of these bonds whi...