In this day and age, newspapers rarely print fiction. Of course, there is the occasional magical story written by a third grade class that appears every once a week in the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper, but for the most part, fictional stories of real substance are not published in newspapers anymore. This was not the case in the 1800's. Appearing in The Valley Star each week was...
Armed with biblical justification found in the book of Genesis, Reverend W. E. Edwards preached at length to a great crowd at the Granby Street Methodist Church, concerning the proper role of women. He claimed Eve's involvement in the first human sin left her with certain characteristics that trickled down to even the women seated there before him. In all women, Edwards claimed one found a...
In 1876, Dr. Cary C. Cocke, the owner of a large plantation in Fluvanna County, Virginia, was concerned about the security of one of his major investments, his crops. On January 24, 1876 Cocke received a letter from a store in Richmond, Virginia; the author of the letter regretfully informed Cocke that the wheat received from Cocke's farm fell short of the desired weight. At the time that...
The pictures of men from Auschwitz still loom in the minds of many Americans; however, our historical memory has lead us to forget the horrors we inflicted upon our own brothers during the Civil War. "No," was the common response to Confederate requests to trade Union and rebel POWs. The result was the needless deaths of thousands of men on both sides due to malnourishment, lack of medical care,...
Dolly Burge recorded in her diary feelings about events that happened in her life and impacted her. Her daughter's departure for college completely devastated Burge. Since her husband had died, it meant that she was living without her family. When her daughter decided to get married, it devastated her even more. She wrote about how upset she was in her diary entries. Burge felt that she had...
Mary Graves never imagined that she would be offered a teaching position in Caswell County when she visited as a guest preacher to local Presbyterian congregations from her Leesburg, Virginia home in 1876.Yet, Mary was offered a teaching position, and to her own surprise, left her home in Leesburg and moved to Caswell County to begin her teaching career. She accepted the position on the basis that...
Led by James Z. George and L.Q.C Lamar, Mississippi Democrats made plans to drive the local Republicans from office. The plan was to lure freedman with promises of protected civil rights and to threaten those who remained faithful to the Republicans. By the summer of 1875 the Democrats had created extralegal militias to encourage conversion by means of violence and intimidation. <br /> This...
The Baptists of Raleigh overflowed in the street outside the meeting house where Elder F.M. Jordan preached the gospel that night. The following day, March 6, 1876, the Holy Spirit called J.S. Allen, one of Jordan's followers, to build a meeting house to hold all of his Brother and Sister Baptists who wished to worship. Mrs. Hufman, a fellow Baptist, relayed the Holy Spirit's message to...
In a March edition of The Weekly Clarion in 1876, there was an advertisement for artificial limbs. Chas M. Evans was the supposed manufacturer of artificial limbs of the best quality. He had just recently lowered the prices of the limbs along with other enticements to show his southern patronage to former Confederate soldiers and citizens. Evans claimed that he would allow each customer...
In July 1875, Judith Page Rives wrote her last will and testament in which she left two thirds of her twelve hundred acres to her son Alfred and four hundred acres to her daughter Ella. She also gave Ella all of her jewelry and clothing, including a diamond brooch valued at 14,000 dollars. Mrs. Rives also left Ella her stocks. If Ella never married, Mrs. Rives wished for her to live with one of...