Dred Scott: Score one for slaveholder rights

The Supreme Court… decision in the Dred Scott case…  is the most important decision ever made by any Court in this country…. It fortifies as by a wall of brass the rights of the slaveholder in the States and in the common territories.

The idea of the abolitionists, that a slave is free as soon as he touches the soil of a free State, is again exploded; for it is declared that he remains a slave, though sojourning in a free State, and the right of his owner to his body and to his services cannot be affected.”

— From the Raleigh Standard, March 11, 1857

A Tragedy of Speed: Parson Moss and his sermon on the Titanic disaster

In ancient days they sought to build a high tower reaching to the skies, that should successfully withstand all storm and flood. The twentieth century steamship is the modern equivalent of the Tower of Babel. For, in her strength and mechanical skill, she defies the elements, and within her hospitable area promises to seafaring folk immunity from the perils of the deep. Need we wonder, then, that the corporation, overconfident in its provisions against wind and wave, should make speed even when warning of danger had gone before? Let us grant this vessel, gone to her doom, was not built to be a miracle of speed; that on her maiden voyage she was not seeking to make a record. Yet the contagion of speed was upon her, for she was almost at her speed limit in a dangerous region, of which her officers had been warned. How far the steamship company was responsible for such reckless seamanship we may not know. The sins of a corporation, however, are not solitary sins; and it is a superficial thing to denounce the corporation and forget that it is but a part of the social organism–a large and vigorous part, ’tis true, but only a part.

-From A Tragedy of Speed: Sermon on the Wreck of the Titanic by Rev. William D. Moss

Like other preachers around the country, Reverend William D. Moss took the Titanic disaster as the subject of his sermon on April 21, 1912. Moss shared his message from the pulpit of Washington Heights Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., where he served as pastor. But, in the months following his sermon, he would return to Chapel Hill and the congregation whom he had served from 1904-1908.

“Parson Moss,” as he was known to his Chapel Hill congregants, was a native of Ontario, Canada. He was educated at McGill University in Montreal and ministered to several congregations in Canada before heading south, reportedly seeking improved health.

Photograph of Rev. W.D. Moss

Moss’s second sojourn in Chapel Hill lasted for 20 years. Upon his death from a heart attack at age 66 in October 1932, the minister was remembered by The News and Observer for “his custom, not to wait for students to call on him, but to visit them in their dormitories and fraternity houses. The boys always felt free to confide in him and to discuss with him their most intimate problems.” The N&O‘s tribute is borne out by the words of one UNC student. Albert Coates, a 1918 graduate of the University and, later, the founder of the Institute of Government, wrote of Moss: “He would talk over our problems and perplexities with us by the hour and help us get the tangles out of our thinking.” In 1928 Moss would serve as the officiant at the wedding of Coates and Gladys Hall.

The News and Observer reported that Moss’s sermons “were of the liberal type that stressed the values of truth, goodness and beauty.” According to the newspaper, Moss’s ministry motivated James Sprunt, a Wilmington cotton exporter, philanthropist and loyal Presbyterian, to underwrite construction of Chapel Hill’s Presbyterian church.

Another of Moss’s admirers was Dean (later Chancellor) Robert B. House, who described Moss as an artist. “He was an artist in paying attention to the very person he happened to be talking to on the very thing they happened to be talking about,” House told The News & Observer in 1940. “He never seemed to be wanting to have done with a person, a time or a thing, as though to get on to something more important.” House was among a group of several UNC professors and administrators who, in 1940, assembled Moss’s sermons into a volume for publication by the UNC Press.

“A Tragedy of Speed,” however, was published on its own in 1912.

First page of A Tragedy of Speed sermon
A page from "A Tragedy of Speed: Sermon on the Wreck of the Titanic"

Deal to sell Grove Park Inn after 60 years

"Big Room" and fireplace at Grove Park Inn
After 60 years as owners, the Sammons family plans to sell the Grove Park Inn to a private equity group. KSL Partners of Denver say they will spend $25 million on renovations in time for the inn’s 100th birthday in 2013. Along with guest rooms, the spa and the restaurant, the inn’s signature Great Hall (termed the “Big Room” in the postcard above) will undergo changes. The sale price was not disclosed.

We’ve got plenty of postcards of the Inn in times past.

‘I held the same Bible… and I was perfectly happy’

“For the first time in the history of Greensboro, N.C. (pop. 73,703), a Negro took office last week as a member of the city council…. Though Greensboro is 23 percent Negro, Dr. William Milford Hampton, 38, got so many white votes that he didn’t even need the large majority he rolled up in the Negro districts. ‘Further tribute to the evolution of interracial relations,’ editorialized the Greensboro Daily News. After the swearing-in, fellow Councilman John Van Lindley said: ‘I held the same Bible with him, and I was perfectly happy.’

“New Jersey-born Councilman Hampton got his medical training at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, moved to Greensboro in 1940. ‘You live better in the South,’ he said.”

— From Time magazine, May 28, 1951

Perhaps a larger factor in Hampton’s victory than white support: single-shot voting in black precincts.

Pedro tips his sombrero to beer laws, stuffed animals

“South of the Border… happened by accident. In 1949 the adjoining North Carolina county voted itself dry and [Alan] Schafer, the Miller beer distributor thereabouts, suddenly found himself long on stock and short on retailers. So he bought three acres on the state line, planted a pink 18- by 36-foot cinder-block shack there and called it South of the Border Beer Depot….

“Schafer got… the state liquor folks… off his back by swapping ‘Beer Depot’ for ‘Drive-In’ and building a diner, its menu a short list of sandwiches. ‘Grilled cheese. Grilled ham. Peanut butter and jelly,’ he recalled when I visited him years later….

“So it may have stayed, a simple outlet for Miller beer, had a salesman not run out of cash one night in the early ’50s, wandered into the diner and pitched a deal: If Schafer gave him enough money to reach New York, he would hand over all of his samples. Schafer walked outside to the man’s station wagon. It was filled with stuffed animals. Schafer bought them, ‘took about a five-times markup, and I put these animals on all the shelves,’ he said. and in three weeks they were gone. ‘And I said: Jesus.’ ”

— From “Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways” by Earl Swift (2011)

Yellow fever struck hard on N.C. coast

“With few exceptions the [Civil War] years passed without significant outbreaks. [One] epidemic, carried in by blockade runners, struck Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1862, taking almost 450 lives…An 1863 yellow fever attack on the Union army at New Bern was the worst; 700 soldiers lost their lives.”

— From “Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged America and Walter Reed Discovered Its Deadly Secrets” (2005) by John R. Pierce and Jim Writer

Recalling Past Easter Sundays in Old Salem

Postcard of crowd at Easter Sunday service in God's Acre

Postcard of flowers and people in God's Acre on Easter Sunday

People in City of Equal Dead in Old Salem

Worshipers and musicians will assemble early Sunday morning for the 240th Easter sunrise service in Old Salem. According to the Salem Congregation, the first Moravian sunrise celebration of Easter occurred in the town of Herrnhut in Saxony (now a part of Germany) in 1732. A group of men met in the town’s graveyard to sing hymns “and meditate upon the great fact of Christ’s death and resurrection.” From that date forward, the sunrise service became an annual feature of the Easter celebration for Moravians around the world. In Old Salem the same order of worship has been followed since 1772, when the first celebration was held by Moravians in that community.

Admittedly, the postcards above fail to capture the real beauty of the service, which emanates from the assembled brass band. The top postcard appears to show a group of musicians on the right end of the short row of worshipers.

It’s the season for yard signs


The daffodils have been and gone, but the dogwoods are at their peak. This year yard signs for and against Amendment One are popping up like dandelions–a sign that the 2012 election season is not far off. Soon we should start seeing signs for the primaries in May. Who knows, the Republican presidential race may still be undecided. Wouldn’t that guarantee that we will be bombarded with mailings and robocalls?

The North Carolina Collection attempts to document the heritage of the state—and that includes our politics. We have a good political ephemera collection–flyers, postcards, fundraising letters, etc.–and it has grown in recent years through donations from friends of the collection. Since 2008 we have received over 1,400 pieces of campaign ephemera from across the state. This postcard was one of my favorites from 2008.

Would you help us this year? Just set aside the mailers and flyers that you get, stuff them in an envelope, and send them to:
Eileen McGrath
Associate Curator, North Carolina Collection
PO Box 8890
Wilson Library, CB#3930
Chapel Hill, NC 27515-8890

We’re interested in contests at all levels—everything from the Republican presidential primary to the race for county sheriff. Scholars of the future may be particularly interested in the literature for and against Amendment One.

We have difficulty saving larger pieces such as yard signs. If you see a yard sign or billboard that seems striking or distinctly representative of a particular campaign or issue, would you photograph it and send the file to us an email attachment? Please tell us where and when you took the picture. Email those files to levon@unc.edu

Thanks for helping us build this collection.

Campaign donors’ checks really were in the mail

“North Carolina’s Governor Luther Hodges, a courtly textileman who came out of retirement to enter public life four years ago, likes to keep his books straight. Assured of re-election after romping through the May 26 primary with a record 401,082 votes, popular Democrat Hodges last week proceeded to clear up his accounts with a businesslike gesture that sent chills through other politicians across the country.

“His renomination campaign, the governor announced candidly, had cost 25% less than the $40,000 raised for his campaign fund. Each of the 329 contributors, with the exception of himself, his wife and a tiny band of close advisers, would get a 25% refund. Said Hodges after the checks were mailed out: ‘It occurred to me that this was the only proper thing to do.’ ”

— From Time magazine, June 25, 1956