The Presidential visit few remember

James Monroe comes to New Bern in 1819

Portrait of James Monroe, by Gilbert Stuart, 1817. National Gallery of Art.

by John B. Green III

New Bern has experienced four presidential visits in its long history.  The visits of George Washington in 1791 and Harry S. Truman in 1948 have long been celebrated and have entered the folklore of the town.  For some reason, though, the visit of President James Monroe in 1819 is little remembered or celebrated.  Yet President Monroe, like Washington twenty-eight years earlier, included New Bern in his southern tour of the United States, and his visit was as elaborate and festive as Washington's.

Carolina Centinel (New Bern), 17 April 1819.

New Bernians followed the progress of President Monroe's journey through Virginia and then into North Carolina through newspaper accounts.  As his party neared New Bern, the local preparations began to be made.  Monroe was a Freemason like Washington, and so New Bern's St. John's Lodge No. 3 prepared a welcoming address to deliver to Monroe just as they had for Washington.  The leaders of the town likewise prepared addresses and special events for the President's visit.

Carolina Centinel (New Bern), 3 April 1819.

Monroe and his party, which included Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, arrived at the outskirts of town on Saturday, April 10, 1819.   They were met by a welcoming committee and escorted to their lodgings through streets thronged with citizens. The Coor-Bishop Home, at that time the town-house of planter George Pollock, was placed at Monroe's disposal for the length of his stay.  Once the president was settled in the waterfront home, the local U.S. Revenue Service cutter fired a national salute from just off-shore.  

Coor-Bishop House, 500 block East Front Street. New Bern-Craven County Public Library.

Later that evening Lucas J. Benners, Master of St. John's Masonic Lodge, visited the president and delivered the Lodge's welcoming address.

James Monroe's reply to the Lodge, Minute Book 3, St. John's Lodge No. 3, New Bern, NC.

The following day, Sunday, was spent quietly with  Monroe and his aides, and Calhoun and his wife attending Christ Episcopal Church.

Christ Church, from the Price-Fitch Map, c. 1822-1824. N.C. Division of Archives and History.

Monday, April 12th, was the president's last full day in New Bern.  The main event was a dinner at St. John's Lodge in the afternoon.  On the way to the Lodge, the president and his party stopped at the nearby New Bern Academy where they were welcomed by the 225-member student body, all dressed in their finest.

New Bern Academy, from the Price-Fitch Map, c. 1822-1824. N.C. Division of Archives and History.

The dinner at the Lodge was a grand and lengthy affair with twenty-two toasts offered on patriotic themes.  After Monroe and his party retired for the evening, a further five toasts were offered honoring Monroe, Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, "The Star-Spangled Banner," and John Louis Taylor, Chief Justice of North Carolina and Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of North Carolina.

St. John's Lodge No. 3, photo c. 1862. U.S. Military History Institute.

President James Monroe left New Bern on the morning of April 13th, 1819, bound for points south.  A small group of town officials and citizens accompanied the President for a short distance before bidding him farewell.  Thus ended the presidential visit that few New Bernians today remember.

Colonial Revival

or how a business man and an architect "overhauled" an 18th century house

By John B. Green III

Coor-Bishop House, 200 block New Street, detail from a ca. 1900 photograph. New Bern-Craven County Public Library

To most observers the structure known today as the Coor-Bishop House appears to be an early 20th century example of the Colonial Revival movement in American architecture.  Few realize that it is in fact a colonial structure dating from the late 1770s.  The house visible today is the result of the 1906-1907 remodeling of a much older structure.

Coor-Bishop House, detail from a ca. 1900 photograph, showing the gable end of the house facing the Neuse River. New Bern-Craven County Public Library

The house is believed to have been constructed by New Bern merchant James Coor in the late 1770s.  As originally built, the house was a large two-story center-hall plan residence, two rooms deep, with a gable roof and two interior chimneys.  It was constructed on the northwest corner of East Front and New streets and faced New.  Coor sold the house to Thomas Emory in 1778.  In 1806 it became the town home of George Pollock, one of the wealthiest planters in the state.  It was here in 1819 that Pollock entertained President James Monroe and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun during their visit to New Bern.  By the late 19th century the house was the property of the Manly family who sold it to New Bern merchant E.K. Bishop in 1900.

E.K. Bishop, from Carraway, Crown of Life, 1940.

Edward K. Bishop (1860-1951) was a successful commission merchant and dedicated churchman and philanthropist.  After acquiring the Manly property Bishop hired New Bern's prolific architect Herbert Woodley Simpson to design plans for remodeling the old home and W.E. Brock to supervise the construction.  The result was a near complete rebuilding of the house, inside and out, between 1906 and 1907.  As the New Bern Daily Journal remarked on May 1, 1907, the original house had been "overhauled to such an extent that the identity is essentially lost."  Not only was the appearance of the house changed but it was also reoriented on its lot by being moved back several feet and turned ninety degrees to face East Front Street and the Neuse River.

Herbert Woodley Simpson (1870-1945), New Bern architect.

Coor-Bishop House, first floor plan by Herbert Woodley Simpson.

The only significant portion of the original house remaining after this drastic remodeling was the fine mahogany-trimmed stair, a near duplicate of the stair in the John Wright Stanly House. 

Coor-Bishop House as remodeled 1906-1907. New Bern Historical Society

While the Coor-Bishop House today is a fine example of the Colonial Revival style, and while it is good that the 18th-century stair was saved, we are left wondering what the rest of the original interior was like and what happened to it.  A clue to its disposition may lie in an advertisement which began running in the Daily Journal the month the reconstruction was completed.