Rivers, Geographic Information on North Carolina, our special collection and archives North Carolina room is only at the main branch. We do have small collections in the library. We have books because people like to read these books. The main one is here at the branch and this is part of the o owen berry branch. The particular thing about this question is there is a bit of everything. Information about the owen letters. The governor of North Carolina, this is his family. They were enslaved by the family and his name was omar sied. He was born in africa, around the area where the senegal river is in an area called futa. He was raised in a family that was quite well off. He taught people in his village. Something happened. There is questions on what exactly happened but he was sold in a slavery and brought into the port of charleston and had a slaverholder there who treated him quite kindly. This was in his own words from his autobiography. After that he was purchased by a gentlemen who was not treated him kindly. He ran away and made his way to fayetteville, North Carolina where he was caught as a runaway slave. There the sheriff realized he waa literate man. He contacted the sheriff and the sheriff contacted john owen and let them know they had a gentlemen who was an escaped slaved and would you be interested in talking to him. John owen came and decided to take omar home with them. He is living with the owen family and they realized how intelligent he was and they invite other scholars to come speak in arabic with him and he has conversations with him and they said he was one of the most wellspoken gentlemen we have talked to from that area. When we received the collection, we saw that there was actually some of his original writing. This is the journal of the daughter eliza and he wrote in her journal in arabic so there is some of his writing that exists. This is particularly interesting because he was born around 1770 so this writing is probably from 1830 and the family kept these passed them along. A lot of people thought he was a prince so some called him prince morrow. From what i understand, he didnt dissway them from believing in these legends. A lot of people dont realize wilmington does have a claim to fame with a president. Woodrow wilsons father was a presbyterian minister and he served at the First Presbyterian church here. When the Woodrow Wilson or tommy as he was known locally came here it was around november 1874. He was at Davidson College and became ill and they sent him here to rest and take time off. He was here until 1875. While here, he had quite a few adventures. From this local newspaper, there is a great story about how it is believed he had the first bicycle in wilmington and that he wrote it in the river. This is the kind of bicycle he would have owned. They also have a page where this is from a biography of him and he actually signed it and donated it to the library. Now for something that is not so hap happy to talk about. In 1928, when the early elected government was overthrown. What we have here are just a few images i pulled from the collection. This was taken during the burning of the hall. There is fire in the crowd helping burn the building. This was the africanamerican newspaper that was printed and the press was kept in this buding the photographs that are chilling are ones that mark where people are killed. This photograph is one where a white gentlemen was killed and there is an x here and it says this is where a white man was killed. This photograph here is where two africanamerican gentlemen were murdered. There is two xs in this photograph as well. I think a North Carolina room like this is very important to the community because it gives easy access to the material. I think that people still and more and more so assume that you can find everything online. Really, you cant. You really cant. Especially when you are looking at archival materials and geneology material. You cannot find this online. So being open all the hours we are, people can come in and ask a question and we can answer it. We get all kinds of different questions and we do our best to find the answers for people. We are on the banks of the
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.