Sometimes a doorstep isn't just a doorstep . . .

 It's a tombstone!

Slate tombstone of Christopher Neale, 1784. Photo by author, 1980.

by John B. Green III

When I was a kid, my grandmother had a neighbor and friend named Mrs. J.S. Miller. Mrs. Miller lived in a large two-story house that stood across Neuse Boulevard from my grandmother's home. Although I didn't know it at the time, Mrs. Miller's home had replaced an earlier house that had been the center of a large plantation that had existed from the late 18th century through the mid-19th century. 

J.S. Miller House, formerly located at 1813 Neuse Blvd. Photo c. 1980.

My grandmother would sometimes take me along on her visits to see Mrs. Miller.  On one such visit, we followed Mrs. Miller through her kitchen and out the back door to see a  prized flower growing in the yard.  When we turned to go back into the house, Mrs. Miller cautioned me to step very carefully and respectfully on the large stone doorstep.  She explained that her late husband had salvaged the stone from an old cemetery that had once existed on the farm.  He had placed it face down to  hide the inscription.  It had served as the kitchen doorstep for many years.  My thoughts at this moment ran something like this: A tombstone? You mean, like dead people have? Is it haunted?  Is there a ghost? 

When we got back to my grandmother's house, I peppered her with questions.  She said that Mrs. Miller was telling the truth.  My grandmother remembered an old family graveyard that had stood near Mrs. Miller's house, and that it had been destroyed when the road had been widened. Wow!

Time passed. My grandmother died in 1973, and Mrs. Miller died in 1979, leaving the property empty and for sale.  By this time, I had graduated from college, worked as an archaeologist in Georgia, as an archivist and microfilm camera operator for the State Archives, and was working on a book about New Bern's history.  The property eventually was sold to a billboard company who, in 1980, offered all the buildings on the property to the New Bern Preservation Foundation.  I had never forgotten the story of the doorstep/tombstone and knew that the heavy equipment that would be used to move the buildings would damage or destroy it.  I couldn't let that happen.

 Christopher Neale tombstone. The inscription reads as follows: In Memory of/ Christopher Neale Esqr./ who departed this life/ Novr. [5], 1784, aged 47 years,/4 months and 27 days./ If you knew t[    ]an, remember.

Late one afternoon, I drove into Mrs. Miller's backyard and around to the kitchen door.  There was the doorstep just as I had remembered it.  Now, bear in mind that I was trespassing, and contemplating, for the noblest of historical and preservation purposes, making off with that stone.  The large stone was made of a thick slab of gray slate. I managed to lever it onto its edge long enough to see the name Christopher Neale and the date 1784. 

I knew that Neale had held a number of public offices in New Bern and Craven County, including assemblyman, militia captain at the Battle of Alamance, town treasurer, member of North Carolina's Fifth Provincial Congress, and Craven County Clerk of Court. His tombstone ought to be preserved, but it was too heavy for me to move by myself.  I needed an accomplice.  Naturally, I called Miss Gertrude.

Warrant signed  in 1784 by Christopher Neale as Clerk of Court of Craven County. Author's collection.

Gertrude Sprague Carraway, New Bern historian, journalist, author, former President General of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and first director of the Tryon Palace restoration effort, knew exactly what to do.  The next day, a Tryon Palace truck and two Tryon Palace groundsmen met me at Mrs. Miller's old home.  In short order, they had Christopher Neale's tombstone loaded into the truck and on its way to Tryon Palace. There it would be placed on a new brick foundation in the "Wilderness" area of the river-side gardens of the Palace.  Although the stone had been saved, its presence in the gardens never really made much interpretive sense and was difficult to explain to the average visitor. There it remained, however, for more than ten years, before being uprooted, for the third time in its history, and moved to storage. 

And so, dear readers, I will close with this question: When was the last time you took a good, hard look at your back doorstep?  It might not be what it seems.

The Things that Walk in the Door!

 Recent donations to the Kellenberger Room

Photograph, 300 block of Pollock Street,  looking west, ca.1900. Photographer unknown.

by John B. Green III

The Kellenberger Room is both a local history room and a family-history research center.  We are always on the lookout for appropriate materials to add to our collections and are always delighted when such items walk in the door in the hands of generous donors.  Here is a selection of recent donations.

"An act for granting further aid to his Majesty, to repel the French, and Indians in their alliance, from their encroachment on his Majesty's territories in America and other purposes." North Carolina Assembly, Session of November 1754, New Bern, NC.

We start with the oldest item: nine dis-bound leaves, pages 113-132, of the Acts of the North Carolina Assembly that cover the years 1754 to 1760.  There were several collections of the laws of North Carolina published in the 18th and early 19th centuries.  These pages are possibly from one of the collections of the laws compiled in the first decade of the 19th century and published in New Bern by Francois Xavier Martin.  Martin, a native of  Marseille, France, and later a resident of Martinique, moved to New Bern in the 1780s.  He taught French and learned the printing trade before studying law. He later moved to Louisiana where he served as that state's first Attorney General. The page shown contains a 1754 act to provide money to help fight the French and Indian War.

Engraved portrait of William H. Washington, ca.1855.

The next item is a pamphlet made by binding, in plain paper, six dis-bound pages of a biographical sketch of William H. Washington (1813-1860), New Bern attorney and member of Congress.  Shown here is the engraved portrait of Washington, which serves as a frontispiece for the article. The article may have been removed from one of the biographical works compiled by John Livingston and published in New York in the 1850s.

Photograph of the 200 block of  Middle Street, looking south, ca. 1900. Photographer unknown.

 

The third donation consists of two photographs. The first, seen at the beginning of this post, is of the 300 block of Pollock Street, looking west, ca. 1900.  The second, seen here, is a photograph of the 200 block of  Middle Street, looking south, ca. 1900. The photographer, in both instances,  is unknown.

New Bern, North Carolina, Founded by De Graffenried in 1710, Colonial New Bern, New Bern of Today, by Emma H. Powell, 1905. 

The fourth item is a booklet entitled New Bern, North Carolina, Founded by De Graffenried in 1710, Colonial New Bern, New Bern of Today, by Emma H. Powell and published in 1905.  The booklet is both a history of the town as well as a promotional item displaying the modern amenities of New Bern. Seen here is a page from the historical section.  The top photograph shows a table, clock, and teapot which  survived in New Bern and had traditions of having been part of the original furnishings of Tryon Palace.  The bottom photograph shows the 18th century communion silver of Christ Episcopal Church.

The Athenian, November 1911.

The last item is the November 1911 edition of The Athenian, the student literary publication of New Bern High School.  The lead article is by future New Bern historian, Gertrude S. Carraway, entitled "Some Unmarked Historic Spots in New Bern and Vicinity," and is probably the first published article by Miss Carraway.

Benson J. Lossing and the Palace

or, why generations of North Carolinians believed that Tryon Palace had been a three-story building

Engraved view of Tryon Palace from Benson J. Lossing, The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, volume II, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1855.

by John B. Green III

By the time that Benson John Lossing published his Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution in 1852, there were few people still living who could remember the long-gone governor's palace in New Bern.  Designed by English architect John Hawks and constructed in the 1760s by Royal Governor William Tryon, the Palace had served as the royal governor's residence and then as the first state capitol of North Carolina following the Revolution.  A late night fire had destroyed the main building of the Palace in 1798 and by Lossing's time only the West or stable wing survived on the site.

Title page from New Bern historian John D. Whitford's copy of The Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution

Benson J. Lossing (1813-1891), illustrator and engraver, editor and publisher, was also one of America's most popular historians of the 19th century.  Lossing is today considered to have been one of the first Americans to utilize modern standards of historical research.  He traveled thousands of miles interviewing participants in, or eyewitnesses to, the events he chronicled.  His books made extensive use of original documents which were quoted within the text or within footnotes.

Elevation of Tryon Palace by John Hawks, 1766, Francis Lister Hawks Papers, New-York Historical Society, as published in Fiske Kimbal and Gertrude S. Carraway, "Tryon Palace," New-York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin, January 1940.

In the course of preparing the illustrations for the Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, Lossing sought out the Rev. Francis Lister Hawks of New York, grandson of John Hawks, the Palace architect. Rev. Hawks had in his possession a number of his grandfather's original plans for the Palace including the elevation seen above.  Lossing based his rendering of the Palace on this plan.  His engraving of Tryon Palace, showing a three-story central block, would serve as the definitive illustration of the legendary building for the next eighty years.  The image was copied and modified numerous times for use in books and pamphlets, postcards and souvenirs.  The original plans in the possession of Rev. Hawks were all but forgotten and the possibility that other, perhaps conflicting, plans for the Palace might exist was not considered. 

Postcard, Tryon Cotillon Club, M.E. Whitehurst, publisher, c. 1915

This all changed in 1939.  In that year New Bern historian Gertrude S. Carraway, in response to a growing interest in reconstructing Tryon Palace, began the search for John Hawk's plans for the building.  Using as a starting point Benson J. Lossing's statement that the drawings were "in the present possession of a grandson of the architect, the Reverend Francis L. Hawks, D.D., L.L.D., rector of Calvary Church in the city of New York" Miss Carraway contacted various members of the Hawks family.  None knew where Rev. Hawks' papers were.  Eventually, through contacts in the Episcopal Church, it was discovered that the papers were in the collections of the New-York Historical Society.  The Historical Society quickly confirmed that the Palace plans were still present in Rev. Hawks' collection.  The plans were published for the first time in January 1940 in a article written by Miss Carraway and noted architectural historian Fiske Kimball for the Bulletin of the New-York Historical Society.  

Elevation of Tryon Palace by John Hawks, c.1766-1767, Public Record Office, London, as published in Alonzo Thomas Dill, Jr., "Tryon Palace: a Neglected Niche of North Carolina History," North Carolina Historical Review, April 1942.

There was just one problem.  Although the New York plans showed Benson Lossing's three-story Palace, the dimensions of the two wings did not match the dimensions of the surviving West wing in New Bern.  Was the New York plan a preliminary and ultimately rejected version of the Palace?  Had there been a revised set of plans and could they possibly survive?   In an effort to answer these questions, Dr. Christopher Crittenden of the North Carolina Historical Commission, wrote to the British Public Record Office in London.  Might they possibly have plans for the governor's palace in North Carolina?  The answer was yes!  They had the plans which Royal Governor William Tryon had transmitted in 1767 to the Board of Trade for approval.  These plans had dimensions which matched the surviving stable wing and the still visible remains of the Palace foundations.  The accompanying elevation, however, showed a two-story building not a three-story building.  After much study, the two-story version was chosen as the version most likely to have actually been built in New Bern.  This is the version, with some modifications, that was reconstructed in the 1950s by the State of North Carolina and opened to the public in 1959.

Rendering of proposed reconstruction of Tryon Palace, postcard, c.1955

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.

Boo!

Houses and Hauntings

By John B. Green III

As All Hallows' Eve is upon us, it seems appropriate to trot out a perennial favorite -  Miss Gertrude Carraway's ghost stories article.  An early version of the article was published in 1941.  The version presented here was published on June 4, 1960 in the special edition of the Sun-Journal commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of New Bern and was reprinted a number of times over the years.  The text of this "blog" edition appears courtesy of the Sun Journal.  Historic photographs have been added from the collections of the Kellenberger Room.

The Sun-Journal (New Bern, NC), Saturday, 4 June 1960, p. 15 B.

Ghost Stories Add Enchantment to Many Old Homes Here

Strange Events Being Explained by Disbelievers

Ghosts walk in some of the old buildings in New Bern, according to legends which have come down through the years. 

The clank of chains as the clock strikes midnight has been heard in years past at the Taylor-Ward home, where, it is said, "Ol' Miss Fanny" is still residing in spirit.  She was a remarkable woman during her lifetime, but some of the colored folk were afraid of her and warned others that if they didn't watch out "Ol' Miss Fanny" would "get 'em."

Isaac Taylor House (Taylor-Ward House), 228 Craven Street, photo c. 1908.

One night several persons were spending the night in the home to see if Miss Fanny really did rattle chains at midnight.  In the middle of the night they were suddenly awakened by something which sounded like chains.  The ghost story seemed true.  But eventually they learned that the noise was really only an advance fire alarm being sounded next door in the old City Hall.

Another tale associated with the Taylor-Ward house is that a sad, white face can sometimes be seen through the windows, as if a ghost were staring at passersby.  A young woman who lived there long ago is said never to have gone out on the street after her lover failed to appear on their wedding day.

Old City Hall, 220-226 Craven Street, photo c. 1908.

More attractive spirits are associated with the Bryan-Ashford house.  Former occupants and neighbors reported they could hear sweet strains of piano waltzes in the wee, small hours of the night, interspersed with musical voices and laughter.

On one occasion, while a gala party was in progress on the first floor, a guest happened to go upstairs.  To her amazement, she declared, she saw a "ghost" party in an upper front room.  There was music of a previous century.  Light, airy figures in hoop skirts and knee breeches gracefully tripped through a minuet.  Excitedly the visitor called to her friends to come up and see the strange sight.  But her voice dissolved the spell.  The colonial scene disappeared instantly.

Bryan House and Office (Bryan-Ashford Home), 603-605 Pollock St., photo c. 1930.

The late Miss Sadie Eaton, who long resided in the mansion, told many stories of peculiar occurrences there.  Once when she was about 16, she said, she and her mother returned from church.  Because of a recent illness, her mother told her to remain downstairs.  The mother went upstairs.  Later she rebuked the daughter for having gone upstairs instead of remaining downstairs.  Miss Sadie insisted she had not stirred from her downstairs chair.  The mother turned deathly pale, but gave no explanation then.  Some months later she told the family physician about her experience.

"While I was upstairs in my bedroom, unlighted except for moonlight, I distinctly heard Sadie coming up the stairs.  She entered my room and went to my bureau, leaning over it, with her head in her hands.  She was so quiet and strange-looking that I finally said, 'Well, why don't you say something?'  To my astonishment, nobody was there.  Sadie declared she had not been out of her chair.  The only explanation I can make is that it must have been my daughter, Lily, who died of diphtheria a few years ago."

A three-year-old granddaughter spent a night in this house.  During the night she called frantically for her grandmother.  When the latter went to her, the child could only say, "Lady, lady."  The grandmother questioned her, and the little girl explained, "I saw a lady - white like sugar."

A neighbor once spent the night with Miss Sadie's brother, Sam Eaton.  He was late getting in from a party.  So he took off his shoes in the lower hall and tiptoed softly up the steps.  Just as he passed Mr. Eaton's bedroom, he heard a weird noise, followed by loud gongs.  Remembering the house's reputed  "ha'nts," he shrieked loudly, dropped both shoes and fled precipitously to Sam's room, where he jumped into bed still dressed.  When Sam learned the cause of the excitement, he explained to the guest that the old grandfather clock on the stairway always made a peculiar loud noise a few seconds before it began to strike twelve.

Denby-Primrose House (Primrose-Henderson House), 318 Craven Street, photo c. 1936.

Once a Negro was hanged from the rear kitchen of the Primrose-Henderson house, it is said, leading to the idea that the old brick house was haunted.  Another version differs.  A slave, supposedly owned by the Custis family in New Bern, felt that he had been mistreated, so he decided to run away.  He took refuge in the attic above the brick kitchen.  For days he stayed there until he managed to slip out and find passage on a sailing vessel.  In his "free" home he is reported later to have become a famed preacher and author.

Clark House, 300 block Craven Street, west side, photo c. 1925.

When the ancient Clark house on Craven street was razed, workmen found the bones of a century-old human skeleton, giving rise to speculation concerning murder mysteries connected with that "haunted" house.  According to official records, a murder by a former house occupant was solved, and Capt. Edward Tinker was publicly hanged for it in 1811.

The sea captain went to Baltimore on his sailing vessel with passengers and freight.  With him he brought back an Irish lad named "Edward."  Upon his return home, he said that they had run into a severe storm in Pamlico sound and that in transferring several thousands dollars worth of gold to lifeboats they had accidentally dropped it overboard.  All crew members signed statements to this effect except Edward.

Soon afterwards the boy was offered a job on a revenue cutter, but this did not suit Captain Tinker.  One Sunday night, according to the accounts of the trial, the captain called Edward to go to his plantation with him.  A third person, who later turned state's evidence, accompanied the two toward Brice's creek.

At the Trent River marshes the captain asked Edward to stir up some ducks, but, instead of shooting the ducks, he was alleged to have shot the lad.  Then he was said to have tied the body with rocks, and to have thrown it into the river.  Sometime later it drifted ashore.  Tinker was indicted for murder.  He broke out of the New Bern jail, but was recaptured in Philadelphia and brought back.  Found guilty, the captain was hanged.

The late John S. Holland also used to tell a story about the Clark house.  He volunteered to keep watch there in 1921 the night after the death of Dr. J.D. Clark, but had not expected to stay up alone there.  He sat reading by himself in a lower room until long past midnight.  Across the hall, through two open doors, he could see the coffin in the other living room.

About 2 a.m. he grew sleepy.  Hoping to wake himself up sharply, he dumped a large amount of coal on the fire.  Suddenly he was startled to hear a lot of loud talking and chattering from across the hall.  He almost dropped the coal scuttle.

Only lamplight was used, so he could not see distinctly.  Nor could he make out exactly what was being said, though it sounded like "Get it from Kress."  Knowing that nobody was downstairs with him he crept cautiously across the hall to see if the corpse had come to life.  That was not the case.

When another exclamation was heard, he traced the sound to a white object on the floor.  He plucked up enough courage to pull off the cloth.  Beneath it was the Clark parrot in its cage, having been covered up with its night cloth to keep out the light.  The parrot had burst into talk upon being disturbed from its slumbers by the noise of coal being heaped on the fire.

In an adjoining house moved to the site when the Clark house was razed, a cook was shot by her ex-husband, who then committed suicide in the kitchen.  In that room there was a rocking chair, which the servant had often used.

A month or more after the two deaths, Mrs. G.A. Farrow and her mother, the late Mrs. B.R. Morris, were in the kitchen talking about the tragedy.  Suddenly the rocking chair started to rock of its own accord, they reported.  Mrs. Farrow asked her mother, "Do you see what I see?"  The answer was a low "Yes."  Immediately the chair stopped rocking.

On three occasions Mrs. Farrow said she heard water running in the kitchen sink.  Going to see if she had accidentally left the water spigot turned on, she would find it turned off tightly but water would still be in the sink.

A number of other phenomena have been reported from this house and other places in the vicinity.  Although they may be explained naturally, they do make interesting "ghost" stories.