Bridget Madden

N.C. I.O.O.F.

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Above is a postcard showing an Odd Fellows’ Lodge in Beaufort, NC.  It turns out we’ve got a lot of materials relating to various secret societies and fraternal orders in North Carolina, including the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.  Interestingly, the card mentions that the lodge is over a hundred years old, which places the construction of the lodge to  ca. 1805-1815.

Below is an excerpt from the inside of the front cover of the “Ritual of a Subordinate Lodge under the Jurisdiction of the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,” published by the I.O.O.F. in 1908 (VC097 O22r).  While it was used in the Centennial Lodge of Elm City, it dates to roughly the same time the postcard was created.

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A Few NCC Tricks and Treats

Just in time for Halloween! Found in the stacks …

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Murgatroyd, Ebenezer, with illustrations by Herb Roth.  Cooking to Kill!  The Poison Cookbook.  Mount Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, ca. 1951.

This book is a great source of “comic recipes for the ghoul, cannibal, witch & murderer.”   It also includes inspired illustrations after each recipe.

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Carole Boston Weatherford. The Library Ghost. Fort Atkinson, WI: Upstart Books, 2006.

A librarian discovers a ghost lurking around her library at night trying to solve a riddle.

And last, but not least, a general interest essay titled, “All Halloween” by E.A. Hawes, published in the 1902 University Magazine.  This essay accounts several Halloween practices and superstitions, my favorite being:  “A similar rite is removing the yolk of a boiled egg, filling one half with sale and eating at “bed-time,” without drinking water.  If your dreams are of water, you will marry, if not, death will find you single.”

Seen at the Pinehurst Gun Club: Could this be Annie Oakley?

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The winter resort village of Pinehurst, N.C. began in 1895, and  the Carolina hotel opened there in 1901.  It was the largest hotel in the community, and at the time of its construction, the largest hotel in the state.  Pinehurst featured several other hotels, boarding houses, and cottages for rent, but none offered the same services, amenities, and recreational opportunities as The Carolina.

One recreational activity offered by the hotel was the gun club, which enabled guests to take lessons from instructors and also featured exhibition demonstrations by the instructors.  The image above is an excerpt from a postcard depicting an event at the Gun Club,  and shows a woman in a white dress shooting a rifle.  To see the entire postcard, click on the image.

While we’re not certain, it’s possible that the woman depicted here is Annie Oakley …

After a long stint in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West traveling show, Annie Oakley and her husband, Frank Butler, came to live at The Carolina in 1915.  They had positions on the hotel’s staff, and Annie would give exhibitions and shooting lessons at the gun club, and Frank was in charge of the skeet range.  Her lessons and biweekly demonstrations were extraordinarily popular.  In the six years she worked at The Carolina, she gave lessons to hundreds of people each winter season.

This postcard dates to when she would have been employed by the hotel, and the large crowd gathered to watch (don’t miss the two boys on the roof of the club house!) suggests that this was not an event to miss.

This is the only postcard we have of the Gun Club, but you can view other postcards of The Carolina (and some of its other recreational activities) here.

Reference
Flory, Claude R.  1966.  “Annie Oakley in the South,” in North Carolina Historical Review, 43(3), 333-343.

NC State Fair Opens Today!

The 2009 N.C. State Fair opens today!

Visit http://www.ncstatefair.org/2009/ for more information.

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This photographic postcard shows a winning stalk of Simpkins’ Prolific cotton seed, and the card’s caption mentions that it won the first place premium at the 1910 state fair.

The NCC has a run of NC State Fair premiums, rules, and regulations. I’m not sure if this cotton stalk won the Simpkins’ Prize or the Cotton Contest (or both), but in 1910, the prizes for each were as follows:

    Simpkins’ Prize, First prize $25.00
    Cotton Contest, First premium $50.00

Notes on the Built Environment: Cliffside, NC

In 1851, Raleigh Rutherford (R.R.) Haynes was born in Ferry, Rutherford County.  When he was 20 years old, he moved to Union County, South Carolina, with his younger brother to work in the cotton fields.  Two years later, around 1870, he returned to Rutherford County and invested the money he made in a general store and a sawmill.   By reinvesting his money, Haynes was able to become a wealthy landowner and successful industrialist.

In 1885, Haynes opened the first successful textile industry in Rutherford County in Henrietta.  Over time, he built several more very successful textile mills along the Second Broad River.

One of these was Cliffside, which Haynes began work on in 1900.  It was to be a mill and company town located on the Second Broad River, like Haynes’ other mills.  In North Carolina Architecture, Catherine Bishir writes that when it was built, Cliffside was one of the last (and largest) water-powered textile mills (p. 432).

Cliffside was likely named for the extremely steep and rocky hills all over the area.  The company town was home to around 900 employees, who all lived white cottages.  The company town featured a downtown with a main street that featured many services and entertainment opportunities.

Before he died in 1917, R. R. Haynes had planned to build a community center for the mill town of Cliffside.  It was designed to have a wide variety of services and leisure activities including  a library, movie theater, gymnasium, beauty shops, banquet hall, barbershops, baths, and a cafe.  The community center was completed in 1922 and named the “R. R. Haynes Memorial Building,” in his honor.

Below are two postcards depicting the R.R. Haynes Memorial Building and two postcards of other aspects of town life in Cliffside.

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Exterior of the R. R. Haynes Memorial Building in Cliffside.  The entrance at the right is also the entrance for the movie theater.  Movie posters are visible near the entrance.

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Interior view of the lobby in the Haynes Memorial Building.  Although it’s difficult to tell from the postcard, the table tops were inlaid with checker boards!

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View of the Cliffside United Methodist Church, built in 1912.  A typical Cliffside house can be seen behind and to the right of the church.  Haynes built several schools and churches for the towns’ residents.

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Interior view of the Lakeview Dairy farm, which provided milk for the town until the 1950s.  The dairy farm was located across from the mill.

The R. R. Haynes Memorial Building and many millworkers’ houses were torn down in the 1960s and 1970s, but the building’s  clock tower was turned into a monument and placed on Cliffside’s Main Street, where it still stands today.

NC Architect Henry Bonitz

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The postcard above shows the Knights of Pythias Orphanage in Clayton, NC.  It was built by North Carolina architect Henry Bonitz in 1909.

In 1893, Bonitz was part of the first graduating class from the recently opened College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (which would later become North Carolina State University).  As such, Bonitz was one of the first trained-in-state professional architects. Bonitz was originally from Goldsboro, NC, but his family later moved to Wilmington.  His office was located in Wilmington, and many of his projects were done in and around New Hanover County, but not exclusively.

You can read more about Bonitz’s life and work in his entry in NC Architects and Builders, an online biographical dictionary presented by NC State’s Libraries.  Make sure to catch the anecdote about what became of his architectural drawings that were done on linen!

Eating Our Way Through the Carolinas by I. Chow Down

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Eating Our Way Through the Carolinas by I. Chow Down.

Found in the stacks: Incredible 1980s restaurant guide featuring recommendations from travelers; also the most unique author name in our catalog: Down, I. Chow.

Restaurant recommendations are organized by region and cover 5 regions throughout North and South Carolina: Western NC, Central NC, Eastern NC, Western SC, and Eastern SC.

Local restaurants from the greater Chapel Hill area that receive mention include Allen’s Barbecue, the Carolina Coffee Shop, and K&W Cafeteria (specifically the one year University Mall).

Humorous Map of UNC

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Above is an excerpt of a map of campus recently added to NC Maps.  If you click on the image, it will take you to the map’s full record in the NC Maps digital collection.  The original map is located in the William Lanier Hunt Papers in the Southern Historical Collection.  The map was drawn by Mary C. Dirnberger in 1933.

The map highlights campus buildings, events, UNC culture, and a few Franklin Street landmarks.  I especially enjoy the movie theater near the bottom, to the right of center, which reads “Movies or 1:30 Class.”

Charlotte Observer, October 1, 1942

67 years ago today, this is what the front page of the Charlotte Observer looked like. Given the great concern over the scrap metal shortage during World War II, the paper used its front page as a venue for appealing to citizens for help.

From the same issue, we’ve also included a political cartoon featuring the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo, as well as the “real” front page of the Observer, which ran on the third page.

Charlotte Observer 1942, Front Page