Harry McKown

December: Old Christmas

This Month in North Carolina History

The Outer Banks town of Rodanthe oldxmashas long maintained a custom once observed in many parts of North Carolina: the celebration of “Old Christmas.” After observing modern Christmas on December 25th, people in Rodanthe and a few other places on the Outer Banks enjoy another Christmas Day on January the 5th.

Historians agree that Old Christmas arose from a change in calendars. In 1752 the government of Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar to replace the less accurate Julian calendar. To make the change, eleven days were dropped from the month of September 1752 in Britain and all of her colonies. This made Christmas day fall on December the 25th, but many North Carolinians continued to celebrate Christmas on the old date in January.

Ultimately, only on the Outer Banks was the day preserved. One feature of Old Christmas in Rodanthe is the appearance of “Old Buck,” a four-footed creature looking something like a bull which is said to roam the forest during the year. At Christmas he appears to dance and frolic among the celebrating children and adults. Music, bonfires, and oyster roasts also mark this unusual North Carolina event.

Sources
Kane, Harnett T. The Southern Christmas Book: The Full Story from Earliest Times to Present: People, Customs, Conviviality, Carols, Cooking. New York : D. McKay Co., 1958.

Image Source:
“Dare County: Rodanthe: Old Christmas, circa 1920s-1930s,” P0078_0181, Ben Dixon MacNeil Photographic Collection (P0078), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

September 1987: The Blue Ridge Parkway

This Month in North Carolina History

The dedication of the last section of the Blue Ridge Parkway, including the spectacular Linn Cove Viaduct at Grandfather Mountain, in September 1987, marked the completion of one of America’s most popular scenic roads.Image of car on dirt road

Running 469 miles from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Great SmokyMountains National Park on the North Carolina-Tennessee border, the Parkway was a notable public works project of the Great Depression and the fulfillment of a dream first promoted by Joseph Hyde Pratt, State Geologist of North Carolina.

Pratt advocated construction of a “Crest of the Blue Ridge Highway” and between 1909 and 1912 surveyed the North Carolina portion of a road that would run from Marion, Virginia, to Tallulah Falls, Georgia. The photograph on this page shows a car on the “Crest of the Blue Ridge Highway” in 1911. Pratt was ahead of his time in recognizing the potential economic impact of automobile tourism and foresaw the scenic appeal of the mountains of western North Carolina for vacationing Americans. The one short portion of the “Crest of the Blue Ridge Highway” which was actually constructed was later incorporated into the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Pratt’s surveys are remarkably close to the final location of the great mountain road.

Suggestions for Further Reading
Jolley, Harley E. The Blue Ridge Parkway. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1969.

Buxton, Barry M. and Stephen M. Beatty, eds. Blue Ridge Parkway: agent of transition: proceedings of the Blue Ridge Parkway Golden Anniversary Conference. Boone, NC.: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1986.

Image Source:
“On the Crest of the Blue Ridge Highway, the Grove Road, Up the Mountain, East of Asheville, N.C.” In Southern Good Roads, January 1912, p. 8.