Tryon Palace in NC Going Forward

From The Sun-Journal:

New Tryon Palace Commission Chairman William C. Cannon Jr. is far from new to the Palace and its mission.

A third generation supporter of Tryon Palace, his grandmother, Ruth Coltrane Cannon, was one of the women involved with New Bern’s Gertrude Carraway in the Society for the Preservation of Antiquities and the Daughters of the American Revolution that uncovered what was left of a historic artifact and helped restore and preserve it.

Cannon said that was in a time in the early 20th century when there were few opportunities for women in the workplace and those women’s avocation was a career based on solid commitment that took much of their time and heart.

That influence translated into money, by way of fundraising and personal contribution.

Kay Williams, Tryon Palace director, said one early gift from Bill Cannon’s grandmother actually bought the gates to the Palace that remain.

Williams said the group of early enthusiasts stayed focused from the late 1920s until Tryon Palace’s reconstruction and opening in 1959.

TRYON PALACE

Bill Cannon has served on the Tryon Palace Commission for 10 years in various capacities including secretary and, prior to his recent appointment, as vice chairman.

Cannon and his wife, Ann Cannon, have continued that family tradition of gatekeepers, co-chairing the fundraising effort for the North Carolina History Center.

“We love New Bern, and what we’ve seen of Craven County and the people we know who share the same excitement about its history,” he said. “We love Tryon Palace, Mitchell’s Hardware, the whole town” and said he’ll probably spend “more time than I really have” in his effort to keep the complex going.

Sitting across a large 1700s dining table in the Commission House this week, Cannon recalled his most memorable early impression of Tryon Palace as a teenager.

“After I was old enough to drive, a friend and I went to the beach and we stopped here and bought a ticket and went in. I still have a picture in my mind of the black and white marble floor in the foyer from that day.”

Williams said she, staff, and commission members “are very excited about Bill Cannon’s leadership”

Commission member Alice Graham Underhill agreed. “Bill Cannon has been a strong commission member in the past and a great supporter of Tryon Palace and New Bern. I’ve very happy he’s accepted the chairmanship. He has the ability to continue the tradition of leadership we’ve had in the past.”

Cannon is a graduate of Wake Forest University in Winston Salem with degrees in business administration and economics and serves as vice chairman of Carolina HealthCare Systems.

He said that how the North Carolina state “budget will be structured is our big unknown and how that’s going to affect Tryon Palace is as yet unknown. The proposed cuts are extensive. What the Tryon Palace Commission hopes is that there will be some restructuring of the deepest cuts.”

To help accomplish that, Cannon said “I expect I’ll be spending about as much time in Raleigh as in New Bern” over the coming months.

He lives on a farm in Concord, not a long drive from Raleigh, and he is a private pilot and said it only takes about an hour to get to New Bern.

“I don’t think there is any question there will be cuts” from previous state funding, he said, but as drafted, “beginning in July 2012 with the beginning of the 2013 budget year, there are draconian cuts planned.”

“I can’t see into the future but I believe there will be some significant change in those,” Cannon said. “I know there is some support.”

 Regardless of where the money comes from, “Tryon Palace will have to operate more efficiently, leaner, and with a higher percentage of private money in the public-private mix” that is currently 30 percent private, 70 percent public funding for Tryon Palace complex including the N.C. History Center.

More private money must be secured from donations, endowments, and ticket receipts to keep Tryon Palace’s mission for historical preservation and education alive, he said. Going forward more of its operational funds will have to come from big donors and Friends of Tryon Palace, of which there are about 10,000.

“Our job is to go out and raise additional revenue from any kind of event we can hold and to maximize shop sales and visit numbers to continue to do the education that makes us an important part of North Carolina History,” Cannon said. “According to our mission, we are going to keep state, regional, and colonial history alive for the next generation. We’re going to do it — preserve and teach North Carolina history in any manner possible.”

Cannon met with New Bern and Craven County leaders this week, he said, and “with the Tryon Palace staff, “simply to tell them that I’m honored to work for them and work with them. We have such a dedicated staff here of wonderful people with wonderful talents and character.”

“The jewel that is the History Center only opened 18 months ago,” he said. “It is hard for me to think that with all the state money that just went to build it, they won’t work to keep it open, given all the positives that are in the future for Tryon Palace.”

He complimented Linda Carlisle, secretary of N.C. Cultural Resources, as “a wonderful friend of Tryon Palace. I’m not sure many people in New Bern know how hard she worked in the last budget session with the legislature.”

Cannon and Williams said Tryon Palace Commission plans to hold a town meeting near the end of March at the N.C. History Center to talk about the changes commission member and Palace staff sees coming and to answer questions with as much information about Tryon Palace future operations as they can.

Regardless of how complete the information on state funding will be by then, Cannon said: “I can promise the Tryon Palace will survive.”

 

“The Military History of North Carolina”

Battle at Guilford Courthouse, 1781

I have been asked to co-author a new book, “The Military History of North Carolina,” part of a developing series by Westholme Publishing.  Not sure the title will remain as is, but it is OK for now.   I am handling the colonial and revolutionary period, Mark Bradley will handle the mid-19th century and beyond.  Looking at 2014 to be finished.

Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene

2 New Articles

 

I just published two new articles in the same week, last week:

“‘Too Grievous for a People to Bear’: Impressment and Conscription
in Revolutionary North Carolina,” The Journal of Military History, 73 #4, October, 2009.

and

“The Greatest Terror Imaginable: Cornwallis Brings his Campaign to Goochland, 1781,” Goochland County Historical Society Magazine, Vol. 47, October, 2009.

“TOO GRIEVOUS FOR A PEOPLE TO BEAR”

My article titled “TOO GRIEVOUS FOR A PEOPLE TO BEAR”: IMPRESSMENT AND CONSCRIPTION IN REVOLUTIONARY NORTH CAROLINA is scheduled to appear in the Journal of Military History later this year.

The Journal of Military History, the quarterly journal of the Society for Military History, has published scholarly articles on the military history of all eras and geographical areas since 1937. The Journal is fully refereed. It publishes articles, book reviews, a list of recent articles dealing with military history published by other journals, an annual list of doctoral dissertations in military history, and an annual index.

‘The Cure for all our Political Calamities’

My article, “‘The Cure for all our Political Calamities’: Archibald Maclaine and the Politics of Moderation in Revolutionary North Carolina,” is due to appear in the July issue of the North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 85, #3.  The issue will come out in 3 weeks or so.

Those interested in obtaining a copy can contact the NCHR here:

North Carolina Historical ReviewHistorical Publications Section Office of Archives and History4622 Mail Service Center

Raleigh, NC 27699-4622

919-733-7442

919-733-1439 (fax)

 

 

 

http://www.ncpublications.com

NC Rev War Site “Endangered”

The Trading Ford area along the Yadkin River has been identified by the National Park Service American Battlefield Protection Program as a site at risk from rapid urban and suburban development.

The park service released its “Report to Congress on the Historic Preservation of Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Sites in the United States” last week.

The Trading Ford was included in the survey along with other historic sites that comprise the “Race to the Dan River.” A linear resource, the inclusive “Race to the Dan River,” is listed in the “Roads, Trails, and Waterways Needing Further Study” section of the report. These are resources that due to their size and complexity had no equivalent survey methodology that allowed them to be represented in an equitable manner.

Inland Whale in N.C.

Here is an interesting recent article on archeologists and a paleontologist digging up the bones of a 1,000,000 year old whale in Lake Waccamaw, N.C., in Columbus County.

P.S.  In case you were wondering how old the earth is, check out this tedious and lengthy website which “explains” how to calculate it based on the Bible, but never comes up with a clear answer at the end!  Looks like they think it is about 13000 years old. 

N.C. Revolutionary War Battlefield Trip

The next Corps of Discovery trip is to three Revolutionary War battlefields around Burlington, NC.  Please join the Corps of Discovery on Saturday, March 29, 2008 for this free guided trip to the sites of the Battles at Clapp’s and Wetzel’s Mills and Pyle’s Defeat, also called “Pyle’s Hacking Match”.  If you are interested, there will be an optional afternoon trip the another Revolutionary War battle site at Lindley’s Mill.

Please forward any questions to Bob Yankle  byankle@triad.rr.com  
Webmaster and Principal Photographer, NCSSAR and Staff Photographer,
SCAR.
 
Charles B. Baxley
Editor / Publisher
Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution
www.southerncampaign.org
cbbaxley@truvista.net

A year from now at the North Carolina Museum of History

February 12, 2009 — at the North Carolina Museum of History.  A program to commemorate the 200th birthday of the sixteenth President and contrast leadership styles of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Speakers slated are Dr. Paul Escott of Wake Forest University, Dr. Jospeh T. Glatthaar of UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Loren Schweninger of UNC-Greensboro, Dr. John David Smith of UNC-Charlotte, Dr. William Harris of N.C. State University, and Dr. Heather Williams of UNC-Chapel Hill. This program will be offered in cooperation with the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. Dr Jeffrey J. Crow, Deputy Secretary, Archives and History, is North Carolina’s state liason to this commission.

“AN EXTREME VIOLENT SPIRIT”

My paper topic at the 2008 Society for Military History meeting at Ogden, UT in April will be “An Extreme Violent Spirit: War, Peace and Enmity in Revolutionary North Carolina.”  Here’s my introduction:

More than anything else, the struggle for American independence in North Carolina was a civil war, especially after the British concentrated their Southern offensive there in late 1778.  This was not only a traditional military contest between regular armies in the field, but a bloody internal struggle marked by plundering, property destruction, violence and murder as well.  These concurrent conflicts created great difficulties for Patriot military and civilian leaders in all of the nascent southern states in their attempt to establish and maintain order and stability.  The need to secure the state was of paramount importance for North Carolinians, who recognized even before 1783 the necessity of ending uncontrolled violence among the citizenry as the most imperative part of this process.  Patriot leaders during this period had to balance the need for an end to violence as the war ended, with the strong desire among many Whigs to seek vengeance and reprisals against their disaffected enemies.  Although moderates sought to limit the retributive violence and calls for punishment during and after the war, and worked to foster a spirit of conciliation in order to bring peace, prosperity and order to the state, this was a position not universally shared by all supporters of the American cause, which frustrated efforts to insure leniency toward Tories as the state moved from war to peace.

Rare NC Currency

This note is printed on fine quality period white laid paper, and was recently offered for sale at auction.  N.C. currency from the Revolution or colonial era is very rare, primarily because so much of it was printed on poor quality paper, or was burned upon redemption through taxation.  This note is very nice….

By the way, James Davis was N.C.’s first state printer.  According to an article on-line, In August 1751, Davis published the first North Carolina newspaper, The North Carolina Gazette. The weekly was published until 1761. Several years later, Davis began a second newspaper, The North Carolina Magazine: or Universal Intelligencer. Foreign news dominated the paper. Ads were mostly merchants’ lists of goods, legal notices and notices seeking runaway slaves.

The publication title returned to The North Carolina Gazette in 1768 and finally ceased publication in 1778, when his son, Thomas, his primary helper, went to fight in the Revolutionary War. The newspaper lasted longer than any other early paper – 10 years.

Davis, born Oct. 21, 1721, also printed currency, legislative journals and session laws. He printed at least 100 titles during the 33 years he served as public printer. Although most of the titles were official government books, he published the first nonlegal book written by a North Carolinian and published in the state, Clement Hall’s “A Collection of Many Christian Experiences.”

He served in the General Assembly as a representative and was elected to the Council of State. Before he died in 1785, Davis also served as county sheriff, justice of the peace and commissioner of the Port of New Bern. Davis also was selected to open the state’s first post office in 1755.

Davis’ son, Thomas, became state printer in 1782. He also started his own newspaper in 1785 in Hillsborough, The North Carolina Gazette.

“The Cure for All Our Political Calamities”

 

An article I submitted in September to the North Carolina Historical Review has been accepted, and will be published in July 2008.  It is entitled “‘The Cure for All Our Political Calamities’: Archibald Maclaine and the Politics of Moderation in Revolutionary North Carolina.”  Maclaine was a moderate attorney from the Wilmington area, whose son-in-law George Hooper, a merchant, was a lukewarm Loyalist forced to leave the state in 1781 for his shallow support of independence.  Maclaine opposed such measures as property confiscation and banishment as punishment for loyalists’ activities, but faced staunch opposition from state “radicals” or “democrats” such as Thomas Person and Griffith Rutherford, whom Maclaine called “bloodthirsty.”

This comes from one of my eleven dissertation chapters, and will be the first of my work to see the light of day as far as publication.  I hope to publish one more chapter as well, and am waiting to hear about that one.  I previously published an article on N.C. and the Seven Years’ War in NCHR, back in 2002, so I am pleased to be working with editor Anne Miller again.