Leaving the County

More time travel through the collections of the Kellenberger Room

Spring with shelter, believed to be Alum Spring, Onslow County, NC. Photograph c. 1920. Springs, places where ground water regularly flowed to the surface, once dotted the countryside. A valuable source of clean drinking water, those that had a particular mineral content, were also prized for their supposed medicinal properties.  Alum Spring in Onslow County was just such a location valued for its healing waters and attractive woodland setting.

by John B. Green III

While the Kellenberger Room contains thousands of photographs of New Bern and Craven County, we have, from time to time, acquired interesting photos of other areas of eastern North Carolina.  As extensive travel is discouraged at this time, let the Kellenberger Room take you on a little Sunday afternoon drive.  We promise to get you home before dark. 

St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Bath, NC, photograph c. 1910. Begun in 1734, St. Thomas stands as the oldest surviving church building in North Carolina.  Long a local tourist attraction , the church was repaired and restored between 1936 and 1941 under the leadership of the Rev. A.C.D. Noe.  Little of the original interior of the church survives with the exception of the remarkable 1765 wall-mounted memorial to Mrs. Margaret Palmer, wife of Col. Robert Palmer, surveyor general of the colony.

Atlantic Hotel, Morehead City, NC, photograph c. 1930.  For more than fifty years the Atlantic Hotel was one of the premier summer resorts in the Southeast.  Built in 1880 on the Morehead City waterfront, the Atlantic provided comfortable rooms, good food, dances and balls, and sound side bathing and sailing.  The hotel survived changing fashions and increased competition and stayed open even through the first years of the Great Depression only to be destroyed by fire on April 15, 1933.

Foscue House, Jones County, NC, photograph c. 1930-1940.  Built in the 1820s by prominent Jones County planter Simon Foscue, Jr., the Foscue House is similar in plan and decoration to a number of New Bern side-hall houses of the same period.  The house was restored by the Foscue Family in the 1980s and is occasionally open to the public.

Elmwood (Grist House), Washington, NC, photograph by William Garrison Reed, 1884. The earliest portion of the Grist House was constructed in the early 19th century but by about 1860 the house had been greatly enlarged and remodeled, becoming Washington's grandest Italianate mansion. It remains a private residence today.

A Photographic Mystery

or, Who are all those people and what's that shiny thing they're looking at?

Dedication of the Otway Burns monument, Beaufort, NC, 24 July 1901, photographer unknown.

by John B. Green III

From time to time we run across photographs in our collection that bear no identifying marks or inscriptions.  The image above is just such an item - people dressed in the style of ca. 1900, gathered somewhere in an outdoor setting, and crowded around what may be a monument of some sort. Fortunately, the image looks familiar - similar to an image we have seen somewhere before.  And, upon closer examination, the monument becomes recognizable.  It isn't in New Bern but it isn't all that far away.  A quick check of our shelves provides the answers to what, when, and where.

Title page,  Walter Francis Burns, Captain Otway Burns: Patriot, Privateer and Legislator (New York, 1905)

Among our North Carolina biographies can be found a small volume by Walter Francis Burns entitled Captain Otway Burns: Patriot, Privateer and Legislator.  Published in New York in 1905, the book details the life and career of the author's grandfather, Captain Otway Burns, one of North Carolina's notable figures from the War of 1812.  Opposite page thirteen appears the photograph below - same crowd, same monument, different camera position. 

Dedication of the Otway Burns monument, Beaufort, NC, 24 July 1901, photographer unknown.  From Walter Francis Burns, Captain Otway Burns: Patriot, Privateer and Legislator (New York, 1905)

The two photographs were taken on July 24, 1901 in the Old Burying Ground at Beaufort, N.C. during the dedication of a new and impressive monument marking Otway Burns' grave. Crafted in the New Bern monument works of Joe K. Willis, the large block of Georgia marble was topped by a cannon said to be from Otway Burns' famous privateer Snap Dragon.

Portrait of Otway Burns, from Walter Francis Burns, Captain Otway Burns: Patriot, Privateer and Legislator (New York, 1905)

Otway Burns (1775-1850) was a mariner, shipbuilder, and legislator who lived at various times in Onslow County and Carteret County.  He is best remembered as the co-owner and captain of the privateer Snap Dragon during the War of 1812 when he led three successful voyages against British shipping. 

Postcard view of Burns monument, Beaufort, NC., c. 1960. Private Collection

Burns is also remembered today in the names of Otway, a community in Carteret County, and Burnsville, the county seat of Yancey County.  His wartime exploits were honored by the U.S. Navy in the naming of two destroyers - the U.S.S. Burns (DD-171), in commission from 1919 to 1930, and the U.S.S. Burns (DD-588) which saw extensive service in the Pacific during World War Two.