Old Photographs

Time travel for the self-isolated.

Cutting-Allen House on original site, 200 block, Broad Street, north side. The house was constructed c. 1793 and moved to its present site on New Street in 1980.

by John B. Green III

Once in a while it's OK to do a little time traveling by enjoying some old photographs.  The Kellenberger Room has hundreds of them. These are from our Minnette C. Duffy Collection and date between 1930 and 1940. Mrs. Duffy was one of the founders of the New Bern Historical Society and one of the early leaders in the effort to restore Tryon Palace.  We will continue to post old photographs of New Bern in  the days and weeks to come in the hope that they provide a pleasant diversion in these stressful times.

Eli Smallwood House portico, 500 Block, East Front Street, east side. The Smallwood House was constructed c. 1810-1812 by New Bern merchant and planter Eli Smallwood and contains some of the finest Federal-period woodwork in the city.

Coor-Gaston House, southwest corner, New and Craven streets. Constructed c. 1785 by James Coor, the house's most illustrious owner was William Gaston, member of Congress and justice of the State Supreme Court. Gaston composed the state song, The Old North State, in 1835.

Edward F. Smallwood House, northwest corner, New and Craven streets. Constructed c. 1840-1845 by Dr. Edward F. Smallwood,  the property also contains his free-standing office constructed c. 1850 just to the north on Craven Street.

Charles Slover House, southwest corner, Johnson and East Front streets. Constructed 1848-49 by Charles Slover, merchant and ship owner, engaged in trade with the West Indies.

Early cannon, 400 block, East Front Street, east side. Eighteenth century cannon unearthed on Middle Street in 1930 and placed by the New Bern Historical Society along the East Front Street parkway in 1933.

William Gaston and the Swiss Bell Ringers

or, how North Carolina got its state song

by John B. Green III

William Gaston (1778-1844) - native New Bernian, prominent attorney, U.S. Congressman, North Carolina Supreme Court justice, champion of religious freedom - accomplished much during his lifetime by which he might be remembered today. Yet the average North Carolinian, if asked to identify Gaston, would probably either draw a blank or, after some thought, declare him to be the author of the state song. They might not know the words or the tune, but somewhere, probably in elementary school, they were taught that Gaston wrote The Old North State. 

Engraved portrait of William Gaston, mid-19th century.

The origin of the North Carolina state song, with slight variations, is as follows.  About the year 1835, a troupe of Swiss Bell Ringers, or in some versions, Tyrolean Singers, gave a concert in Raleigh. The tune of one of the songs presented proved very popular with the audience. William Gaston was living and working in Raleigh at that time while serving on the state supreme court. Gaston became familiar with the tune, liked it, and at some point decided to write lyrics for the song that would honor North Carolina and might serve as a state anthem. The tune, with Gaston's lyrics, quickly became popular as The Old North State and was sung and enjoyed by generations of North Carolinians.  The title, by the way, refers to North Carolina's status as the northern-most of the two Carolinas and probably dates to early 19th century.

William Gaston's law office in Raleigh, NC, where he is said to have composed The Old North State. From Mrs. E.E. Randolph, "The Old North State" A Study Lesson on the State Song, Raleigh, NC: State Superintendent of Public Instruction, n.d.

The Old North State was published numerous times over the years but never received any official sanction as the state song until 1927. In that year the North Carolina legislature, responding to a request from the North Carolina Daughters of the Confederacy, passed an act which ordered that William Gaston's song "known as 'The Old North State,' as hereinafter written, be and the same is hereby adopted and declared to be the official song of the State of North Carolina."

The Old North State, a Patriotic Song, written by the late Wm. Gaston of North Carolina, Philadelphia: George Willig, 1844.  Sheet music published in the year that William Gaston died.

The lyrics of the first verse and chorus, essentially as Gaston wrote them, and codified by the legislature, follow:

Carolina! Carolina! Heaven's blessings attend her!

While we live we will cherish, protect and defend her;

Though the scorner may sneer at and witlings defame her,

Our hearts swell with gladness whenever we name her.

Chorus:

Hurrah! Hurrah! The Old North State forever!

Hurrah! Hurrah!, the good Old North State!

The Church That Might Have Been

Design for a chapel, 1834, from Edward T. Davis and John L. Sanders,
A Romantic Architect in Antebellum North Carolina:
The Works of Alexander Jackson Davis

By John B. Green III


Judge William Gaston, lawyer, congressman, and state supreme court justice, was one of the founders and patrons of New Bern's fledgling Roman Catholic congregation in the early 19th Century.  The congregation met in private homes but Gaston soon sought to secure a permanent place of worship.  Through his son-in-law Robert Donaldson of New York, Gaston had become acquainted with the nationally-known architect Alexander Jackson Davis.  Davis was an energetic proponent of the various romantic-revival architectural styles then becoming popular.  Between 1834 and 1840 Davis supplied Gaston with at least two sets of plans and renderings for a Roman Catholic chapel in the Gothic style.  Buttressed and spired, with tracery windows, the chapel would be the purest expression of the Gothic-Revival style in New Bern and North Carolina and a dignified home for the town's Catholics.  But it was not to be.  Architectural exuberance and religious fervor soon ran head-long into a practical bishop with an eye on the bottom line.

Design for a chapel, 1840, from Mills Lane, Architecture in the Old South: North Carolina

The Right Reverend John England, Bishop of Charleston, had organised the parish of St. Paul in New Bern in 1824.  He had worked closely with William Gaston to promote the local congregation and to secure a place of worship.  But he balked at the cost and complexity of the proposed Gothic chapel.  Counseling Gaston to build a church at a cost and in a style which could easily be erected in New Bern, the Bishop supplied a sketch plan of a plain frame church.  With the plan in the hands of New Bern builder Hardy B. Lane, the result was the St. Paul's Catholic Church on Middle Street familiar to generations of New Bernians.  Completed in 1841, the wood-frame church combined late-Federal and Greek-Revival details.  Although significantly altered in appearance by the 1896 addition of an entrance tower, the church is still recognizable as the building which Bishop England approved.

St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church, photo ca. 1862. U.S. Army Military History Institute

Although his grand Gothic chapel would never be constructed, Alexander Jackson Davis did leave one tangible reminder of his connection to William Gaston and New Bern.  Upon Gaston's death in 1844, his family asked Davis to design a suitable monument for his grave. The resulting classically styled sarcophagus, executed in Italian marble, marks Gaston's final resting place in Cedar Grove Cemetery to this day.

Grave of William Gaston, Cedar Grove Cemetery, New Bern, photo ca. 1910, from Mary Louise Waters, A Short Historical Sketch of New Bern, N.C.