Support Your Local Library - Rent a Row Boat!

Or how a determined group of ladies purchased a disused yacht club and turned it into a library

Silver Cross Retreat, home of the King's Daughters Library,
photo attributed to Edward Gerock, c.1895.

By John B. Green III

This week's "treasure" from the Kellenberger Room is a photograph and the third item relating to the history of the library which we have examined in recent weeks.  The photograph is of a large boathouse which had been constructed over the Neuse River at the foot of Broad Street in 1891 for the New Bern Yacht Club.  Four years later the fortunes of the yacht club had declined and, in a most unlikely turn of events, the club sold the building along with five row boats to the New Bern branch of the King's Daughters, a Christian philanthropic organization.  New Bern's "Whatsoever" circle of the King's Daughters had been formed in 1890 and counted among its many laudable goals the creation of a public library for the town.  By 1895 the local King's Daughters felt the need of a permanent meeting place as well as a home for their growing library.  On July 29, 1895 they acquired the New Bern Yacht Club building and soon thereafter renamed it The Silver Cross Retreat as a reference to the national emblem of their order.

The building was put into good repair as were the five rowboats which had come as part of the purchase.  The second floor was used for meetings of the King's Daughters and as the home for the library.  Building and boats could be rented for special events with the proceeds supporting the library.  The Retreat became a popular spot for waterfront musicales in the evenings and the library grew in size and use.  When first formed in 1890 the library had been open to all members of the community but by 1896, under the operation of the "Mission Ten" circle, it was felt necessary to convert it to a subscription library in order to more adequately cover the operating expenses.

After four years of successful operation The Silver Cross Retreat suffered a blow from which neither  it nor the King's Daughters Library could survive.  The wind and storm surge of the unnamed hurricane which struck New Bern and coastal North Carolina October 30 through 31, 1899 heavily damaged the Retreat.  The wharf leading to the building as well as the platform around the Retreat were washed away.  The building was left battered and isolated on its pilings out in the river.  Soon thereafter the King's Daughters decided to relocate their headquarters and library and the Retreat was offered for sale.  Eventually the King's Daughters found the operation of a library beyond their means and a distraction from their charitable work in the community.  By 1902 they had donated their collection of books to the newly formed New Bern Circulating Library which would eventually become the New Bern-Craven County Public Library of today.

Silver Cross Retreat, home of the King's Daughters Library,
engraving based on a photograph by Edward Gerock, c.1895,
from The Silver Cross (New Berne Edition), 1895. 
Image courtesy Tryon Palace, New Bern, N.C.

This brings us back to our featured photograph.  Owned by Mrs. G. Tull Richardson of Bellair Plantation, the photo was copied on December 6, 1983 by John B. Green III (your blogger) and Peter B. Sandbeck for the New Bern-Craven County Photographic Archive.  Some thirty years later the Kellenberger Room was able to acquire the photograph at the sale of the contents of Bellair.  There has always been a question about the photo - Does it represent the boat house during its ownership by the New Bern Yacht Club or the King's Daughters?  This is of some importance if we want to describe it as representing our library's first home, however short-lived.  In examining the image for inclusion in this post a symbol or device could be seen in the gable end of the boathouse although it was indistinct.  The symbol's identity became clear when the above engraving was examined.  Based on a photograph by New Bern photographer Edward Gerock, the engraving appears in the "New Berne" edition of The Silver Cross, the national newspaper of the King's Daughters.  This edition was published by the local King's Daughters in the fall of 1895 as a fund-raising effort for the newly purchased Silver Cross Retreat.  In the gable end of the building in the engraving can be clearly seen a large Maltese cross, the symbol of the King's Daughters national organization and the origin of the Retreat's name.  The photograph does show the building when it housed the King's Daughters Library!  Two copies of this special edition can be found today in the collections of Tryon Palace Historic Sites and Gardens which provided the scan of the engraving for this post.

A Different Sort of Library

Treasures from the Kellenberger Room

Featuring books, pamphlets, photographs, documents, and the occasional object from the collections of the New Bern-Craven County Public Library

by John B. Green III

Bookplate, Newbern Library Company, c. 1803

In our last post we touched on a bit of the history of the New Bern-Craven County Public Library.  Before our current library existed, however, or any of its predecessors - the New Bern Public Library, the New Bern Library, the New Bern Circulating Library, or the King's Daughters' Library - there was the Newbern Library Company, a very different sort of library.

The model of the public library of today, supported by government funding, and available to all members of the community, while not unknown in the 19th century, was rarely seen. The more common form of a library was a subscription library where the books and amenities of the institution were available only to those who owned stock in the library or paid an annual membership fee or both.  The Newbern Library Company was just such an institution.

Founded in response to an 1802 bequest of 100 pounds from New Bern teacher and merchant Thomas Thomlinson and incorporated by an act of the General Assembly in November 1803, the Newbern Library Company counted among its officers and stockholders many of the leading merchants, planters, and civic leaders of the town.  Initially successful at attracting subscribers and accumulating a large and valuable collection of books, the library was soon beset by two problems which would never quite be solved - the failure of members to pay for the stock they subscribed to or the periodic fees which the company officers were compelled to assess when funds fell short - and the failure of members to return the books they had borrowed.

Carolina Federal Republican (New Bern), 26 April 1817

The True Republican and
Newbern Weekly Advertiser, 19 June 1811

Although the library would continue to function at least through 1836, it eventually succumbed to these two problems.  Its collection of books was moved to a room in the county courthouse where they still were on the morning of January 15, 1861 when the courthouse burned.  Fortunately, those who saved the county records from the fire also thought enough of the Library Company's books to rescue them as well.  They were described at that time as ". . .The Newbern Library, embracing a large number of historical works, many of which are not re-printed and hence more valuable."  Fourteen months later New Bern would fall to the Union army and the collection would never be mentioned again.

Anna Seward, Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin, 

Philadelphia, 1804

Which brings us to today's treasure from the Kellenberger Room.  It is a book, Anna Seward, Memoirs of the Life of Dr. Darwin, chiefly during his residence in Lichfield, with anecdotes of his friends, and criticisms on his writings, Philadelphia: at the Classic Press, for Wm. Poyntell, & Co., 1804, bound in full calf and bearing the bookplate of the Newbern Library Company.  The writings of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), English physician and naturalist and grandfather of Charles Darwin, were known on both sides of the Atlantic and would have been an appropriate acquisition for the Newbern Library Company.  Whether it was borrowed and never returned by a stockholder of the company or was purloined by some Union Army lover of literature will never be known.   What is known is that a sharp-eyed denizen of the Kellenberger Room spotted it on a certain online auction site and secured its return to New Bern.

All that glitters is not gold - sometimes it's silver!

Treasures from the Kellenberger Room

Featuring books, pamphlets, photographs, documents, and the occasional object from the collections of the New Bern-Craven County Public Library

by John B. Green III

Two-handles cup, sterling silver,
possibly Barbour Silver Company, ca. 1912.

Here at the Kellenberger Room we collect the usual things that a library and archive would collect - books, pamphlets, maps, newspapers, documents, and photographs. We generally don't collect objects although we have acquired a handful over the last hundred years or so, mostly relating to the history of the New Bern-Craven County Public Library as an institution. It is unusual, therefore, to come across an object in our collection, made of sterling silver no less, which at first glance bears no relationship to the history of the library or to New Bern. The cup's inscription and a bit of research, though, provides the answer to our ownership.


The cup is inscribed "Leah J. Stevens, From Friends, For Excellent Service in Graded School, Beaufort N.C., July 25th 1912." The name is a familiar one, for Leah Jones Stevens (1864-1928) was one of the founders of this library. The New Bern-Craven County Public Library can trace its origin to the year 1890 when a local chapter or "circle" of the International Order of the King's Sons and Daughters was established by Miss Carrie D. Mayhew. Also known as "The King's Daughters and Sons" or KDS, this "interdenominational Christian philanthropic" organization had been founded in New York City in 1886. Miss Mayhew quickly established the creation of a free, circulating library as the circle's principal community effort. When Miss Mayhew's health began to fail in 1895, Leah Jones Stevens assumed the leadership of the library effort and was responsible for securing the purchase of the library's first home, the former New Bern Yacht Club building on the Neuse River at the foot of Broad Street. This building, formerly a boat house and club house, sat on pilings over the river and was approached by a wharf. The purchase included five row boats which were repaired and rented by the library. The library was reorganized in 1902 as the New Bern Circulating Library, eventually becoming the New Bern Public Library and finally the New Bern-Craven County Public Library in the 1960s.

Portrait, oil on canvas, of Leah Jones Stevens,
by Georgia Pearsall Hearne, 1937, based on an earlier image.

Leah D. Jones (Mrs. Charles L. Stevens) is remembered not only as a founder of the library but as a pioneer educator in North Carolina having taught for more than thirty years in both private and public schools. She was a leader in state-wide efforts to improve teacher training and the quality of school buildings. She served as superintendent of the Beaufort Graded School in 1911 and 1912 and is said to have been the first woman to serve as a school superintendent in North Carolina. It was during her time at Beaufort that she received the silver cup now in our collection.


Leah Jones Stevens died in New Bern on May 24, 1928. Her family presented the above portrait to the library in her memory in 1937.

Before the flowers fade

Treasures from the Kellenberger Room

Featuring books, pamphlets, photographs, documents, and the occasional object from the collections of the New Bern-Craven County Public Library

by John B. Green III

Grave of William Thomas McCarthy, March 1898,
Cedar Grove Cemetery, photographer unknown

When we revived the Kellenberger Room blog six weeks ago we promised that the new series of posts would highlight some of the "interesting, rare, and in some cases, just plain odd" items in our collection.  This week we discuss one of our oddities - perhaps the oddest item in our extensive photograph collection - an 1898 image of a freshly-made grave in Cedar Grove Cemetery.

The grave is that of William Thomas McCarthy, popular New Bern attorney and state senator, who died young and much lamented on March 25, 1898.  While his funeral was attended by a large crowd of mourners and his family was surely grief-stricken by his untimely death, why would they have commissioned a photograph of his grave and then had it elaborately framed for display?  The answer may lie in the 19th century's romanticizing of death and mourning.

In a time before modern medical care, many parents could expect to lose at least one of their children and many adults died before the age of sixty.  With sudden, often unexplained, death ever-present,  survivors who could afford to do so expressed their grief through ever-more elaborate funerals, monuments, floral displays, and a variety of  mourning clothing, jewelry, and memorial objects.  Among the more unusual memorials were photographs today known as posthumous or post-mortem.  In these images the deceased were posed as if asleep in their beds, or in the case of deceased infants, in the arms of their parents. Other photographs show the deceased prepared for burial and placed in the open coffin or casket.

The photograph of the elaborately decorated grave of William Thomas McCarthy can be loosely grouped with posthumous or post-mortem images.  While it doesn't show the actual remains of McCarthy, the numerous floral tributes do include a photograph of McCarthy taken during his lifetime. [see enlarged detail below]  The McCarthy family was thus able to preserve, through the medium of photography, memories of their loved one and the tributes paid to him by family and friends.

Detail of above image showing photograph believed
to be of William Thomas McCarthy