King Solomon's Lodge No. 1

Tucked away on a side street by a cemetery, nearly hidden from view behind trees and houses, sits one of New Bern's and North Carolina's most significant structures.

King Solomon's Lodge No. 1, as photographed by Peter B. Sandbeck c.1980. From Peter B. Sandbeck, The Historic Architecture of New Bern and Craven County, North Carolina, 1988.

by John B. Green III

Late in the afternoon of March 14, 1862, the African American population of New Bern, free and enslaved, experienced a sea change.  As the first elements of the Union Army entered the town to begin a years-long occupation, many of the legal and social restrictions that had burdened generations began to fade away.  In the months and years that followed, African American churches, some of which had existed prior to the war, began to flourish and civic and fraternal organizations began to appear.  The first of these organizations was King Solomon's Lodge No. 1, Free and Accepted Masons.

Newspaper notice announcing the organization on September 27, 1865 of King Solomon's Lodge No. 1. New Berne Daily Times, Friday, 29 September 1865

King Solomon's Lodge was organized in New Bern on September 27, 1865 by Paul Drayton, Past Grand Master of the National Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. Drayton, acting under the authority of the Prince Hall-affiliated Grand Lodge of New York, had come to establish Masonic lodges among the African Americans of the south.  The Rev. James Walker Hood, African Methodist Episcopal Zion missionary, became the first master of King Solomon's Lodge.  Hood's appointment began the tradition of King Solomon's Lodge having among its membership leaders of the community as well as religious and political leaders on the state and national levels.  Hood would later become the first Grand Master of Prince Hall freemasonry in North Carolina as well as Bishop of the A.M.E. Zion Church in the state.

King Solomon's Lodge No. 1, June 2019.
Photo by the author

King Solomon's Lodge No. 1 was an energetic organization from the start, holding local meetings and helping to establish other lodges in the state.  The spring and summer of 1870 was an especially momentous time in  the life of the lodge.  On March 1st, officers of the lodge traveled to Wilmington, North Carolina to join those of four other lodges in forming the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of North Carolina.  Seven days later the lodge recorded the deed for a prominently-situated lot on Queen Street opposite St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church.   March 26th saw the passing of an act of the state legislature incorporating King Solomon's Lodge No. 1.  And lastly, construction of a proper lodge building for King Solomon's, on their newly purchased lot, was underway by June.

The lodge building was constructed in the Italianate style with a bracketed cornice and a louvered cupola crowning the low hip roof.  The two-story frame structure followed a side-hall floor plan with one principal room per floor.  The second floor was reached by a traditional New Bern stair with an oval-in-cross-section handrail, square newels, and plain pickets.  An ornamental panel framed by pilasters supporting an arch with keystone was incorporated into the façade at the second-floor level. Although now weathered, this panel was probably painted with the name of the lodge or with Masonic imagery.  The second-floor lodge room was supplied with appropriate Masonic furnishings.

Soon after its completion the lodge building was named Drayton Hall in honor of Past Grand Master Paul Drayton who had founded the lodge. Drayton had died four years earlier in 1866.  The building became the scene of balls and other social events, political rallies, temperance conventions, and public commemorations of the Emancipation Proclamation.   King Solomon's Lodge met regularly in its second-floor lodge room, hosted the Grand Lodge on occasion, and permitted other lodges and fraternal organizations to use the building.  Drayton Hall served as a center for the African American community and continued in that role for decades.

Masonic Code of the M.W. Grand Lodge of North Carolina, F. & A.A. Masons (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1910) Locally-owned copy now in the collection of the Kellenberger Room.

King Solomon's Lodge miraculously survived the Great Fire of December 1922 which destroyed many structures around and near it.  In October 1923, however, the City of New Bern decided to expand Cedar Grove Cemetery adjacent to King Solomon's Lodge. The lodge's Queen Street lot, which it had occupied since 1870, was condemned and the lodge building was moved by the city approximately two hundred feet northeast to a city-owned lot on Howard Street. The city then deeded the Howard Street lot to King Solomon's Lodge in 1924 in exchange for the lodge's original Queen Street lot.  The lodge building was repaired and reopened and has continued in use to this day.

King Solomon's Lodge No. 1 was recognized in 2003 as a contributing structure in the New Bern Historic District of the National Register of Historic Places and was honored by the State of North Carolina in 2010 with the dedication of a North Carolina highway historical marker adjacent to the lodge. King Solomon's Lodge remains an active lodge with a membership that is proud of its heritage.  Although damaged by a 2009 fire, the brothers of King Solomon's Lodge have repaired the building and hope to make additional repairs which will preserve the structure for future generations.

North Carolina Highway Historical Marker dedicated October 23, 2010.
Photo by the author

Down by the River

An old photograph reveals a lost way of life

Creek or river landing, New Bern vicinity, c.1890.

by John B. Green III

The collections of the Kellenberger Room include several albums of mounted photographs of New Bern and vicinity.  This photo, although unidentified, is from a small album containing other photos easily identified as New Bern.  The scene is of a creek or river landing with people engaged in what was once a familiar activity all over eastern North Carolina - hauling logs to water deep enough to float them downstream to waiting sawmills.  Trees were felled and cut in lengths by axes and two-man crosscut saws.  A two-wheeled vehicle known as a log cart was then rolled into place over a log. The log was attached to the underside of the cart by grapples or log-tongs and one end of the log was raised by a winch-like device, allowing it to be dragged or "skidded" along the ground.

The photo above features a log cart hitched to a brace of oxen.  The cart has two wheels approximately eight feet in diameter, with a lever-operated winch above the axle for lifting the log.   Once delivered to the landing, the log was rolled into the water and connected with other logs to form a raft.  Flattened iron spikes with rings called chain dogs were driven into the logs.  Chains were then passed through the rings to secure the logs to each other.  A tug or small river steamer then towed the completed raft downstream to the sawmill. 

Chain dogs, found along the Neuse River waterfront, New Bern
Author's collection

The importance of the timber and lumber industry to New Bern's economy during the second half of the 19th Century and well into the 20th Century is evidenced by the number of mill-related paper items found in the manuscript collections of the Kellenberger Room.  What follows is a selection of business and advertising items related to the dozens of lumber mills that once existed here.

Trade card, Tuscarora Mills, New Bern, NC, c. 1870-1880

Selection of lumber mill billheads, New Bern, NC, 1869-1908

Advertising ink blotter, Neuse Lumber Company, New Bern, NC, ca. 1910

Man and Machine

Gilbert Waters and his Buggymobile

Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert S. Waters and the Buggymobile,
800 block, Broad Street, south side, c. 1939

by John B. Green III

New Bern, like most towns, has had its share of beloved characters and legendary contraptions.  Gilbert S. Waters and his Buggymobile more than fit the bill in both categories.

Gilbert Stanley Waters (1868-1950) came to New Bern with his family about 1890 and was employed at the buggy and carriage factory of James W. Stewart on Broad Street.  By March 1891 Gilbert Waters and his father G.H. Waters had purchased the factory from Stewart and renamed it the G.H. Waters & Son Buggy and Carriage Factory.  The Waters factory proved to be a successful business where Gilbert displayed his talent in designing and constructing horse-drawn vehicles of all types.

G.H. Waters & Son Buggy and Carriage Factory,
400 Block Broad Street, north side, c.1900
Photo courtesy of the New Bern Firemen's Museum

The legend of the Buggymobile begins in the year 1899 when Gilbert visited the big city of Baltimore, Maryland and first saw automobiles on the streets.  Returning to New Bern he began to tinker with the idea of building a horseless carriage of his own design. Some accounts state that he had completed a working vehicle by 1900.  Other versions of his automobile appeared on the streets of New Bern in 1903 and 1907.  Failing to acquire financial backing for the large-scale production of his vehicle, he returned his focus to the buggy and carriage works.  Renamed G.S. Waters & Sons upon the retirement of his father in 1904, the factory continued to prosper and in 1917 was moved to a new and larger facility in the 800 block of Broad Street near Bern Street.  The business changed with the times adding the sale of automobile tires along with auto repainting, recovering of car tops, and reupholstering auto interiors.

Gilbert Waters and the Buggymobile, Broad Street, c.1939.
Photo courtesy of the North Carolina State Archives

Waters retained the 1903 model of his vehicle and named it the Buggymobile.  As the years passed Waters and the Buggymobile made occasional appearances on the streets and in the local press.  By the 1930s, however, Gilbert Waters was regularly driving the vehicle about town and the local interest in the Buggymobile soon grew to state and then national publicity.  Congressman Graham A. Barden tried in 1936 to get the Smithsonian Institution to exhibit the early vehicle.  New Bern's indefatigable historian and newspaper reporter, Gertrude Carraway, published an illustrated article in The State magazine for October 16, 1937 entitled "First Car in the State."  The North Carolina Hall of History (now the North Carolina Museum of History) attempted to acquire the Buggymobile for exhibition in Raleigh.  The climax arrived in March of 1939 when Waters was invited to bring the Buggymobile to New York City and appear as a guest on the popular CBS radio program "We the People."  Mr. Waters was interviewed and then, to the wonder of the nation-wide listening audience, Waters cranked the Buggymobile and the engine roared to life.  The show paid all of Waters' and his son Robert's expenses while in New York including rooms at the Hotel Commodore.  The Buggymobile appeared in at least two nationally syndicated cartoon features - Strange as it Seems and Globe Trotting.

Nationally-syndicated newspaper column Globe Totting --by Melville, 
featuring Gilbert Waters and the Buggymobile, 1939.

Waters continued to drive the Buggymobile until 1948 when he donated the 1903 vehicle to the North Carolina Museum of History.  It remains on display to this day.  Its creator, Gilbert Stanley Waters, passed away on February 15, 1950 and was buried beside his wife in Cedar Grove Cemetery two days later.

Hidden in plain sight

or how an unidentified flea market find revealed a great Riverside house

Richard W. Davis House, 82 Griffith Street, photo ca. 1905.

by John B. Green III

When this photograph was acquired locally for the library's collections in 1985, it bore no identifying inscriptions or photographer's marks.  It was believed to be a New Bern photograph, it felt like a New Bern photograph, and it was cheaply priced, but those were about the only reasons we had for acquiring it. 

The photograph shows a late 19th century or early 20th century Queen Anne-style house with a large open area or field beside and behind it and other houses and structures in the distance.  If it were a view of New Bern it was probably taken in Riverside, the city's first major suburb.  Riverside was laid out in 1894 north of town and along the Neuse River by William Dunn. Originally agricultural land known as Dunn's Fields, the development was expanded further north in 1912.  Riverside had houses of this vintage in its earliest section.   A quick check of the first blocks of National Avenue and North Pasteur streets revealed no such house but turning up North Craven Street (formerly Griffith Street) disclosed the subject of the photograph hiding demurely behind a large tree.

Richard W. Davis, ship's engineer, is believed to have had the house built shortly after he acquired parts of lots 89 and 90 from William Dunn in 1903.  Although its porch posts and balustrades have been replaced, it has otherwise survived in good condition.  A recent photo of the house located at 1005 North Craven Street (originally named and numbered 82 Griffith Street) appears below.

Present-day view of the Richard W. Davis House,
1005 North Craven Street (formerly 82 Griffith Street)
Photo by the author