Julian Boyd sent copies of his collection of folk songs from Pamlico County, North Carolina, to John Winslow Gordon and Frank Brown in early 1927. [1] Editors of Brown’s collection included material from sixteen people, including Minnie Lee who knew "O Lord. Won’t You Come by Here?"
I could find information on ten, who were born in 1908 or 1909. This made them seventeen-years-old in 1927, and seniors in the all-white high school. Two of the ten were girls, while five of the unidentified were female. When women marry and change their names, they become difficult to track online.
The history of Pamlico County contributed to problems identifying Boyd’s students. As mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019, the county was created in 1872 from parts of Craven and Beaufort counties. This created a break in the chronology of the Pamlico area. Unless individuals were prominent in one of the parent counties, they were not included in modern research by local historians.
1790 Census: number of households with last name in Craven and Beaufort counties
1790 Slaves: greatest number owed by one household
1850 Census: name appears in Craven County census
Cemeteries: number of Pamlico County cemeteries with last name
Items: number of items reprinted by Brown from individual
Clear genealogies existed for three students. Carlos Holton’s first known ancestor, Jesse Holton, was reported in Beaufort County in 1755. [2] Clifton McCotter’s immigrant ancestor, Hezekiah McCotter, was born in Maryland in 1742, and died in Craven County in 1792. Family tradition said he "came to this country from Scotland as a British Soldier in the Revolutionary War." [3]
James Tingle’s immigrant ancestor settled in Somerset County, Maryland, sometime between 1654 and 1683. [4] His son [5] and grandson, [6] moved to Craven County before 1764. The next in line, Shadrick Tingle, married Sally McCotter in 1794, [7] while Hezekiah McCotter’s son, Archibald, married Sidney Tingle in 1795. [8]
Traces exist for four other families in the area before the American Revolution, although they may not be the direct ancestors of the students. Choswell Dixon was born in 1735 in Beaufort County, [9] John Bennett was born in Craven County in 1743, [10] and Peter Bank’s father owned a farm near Goose Creek when Peter enlisted in the militia in the Revolution. [11]
Jonathan West was part of an Anabaptist community on the eastern side of the county in 1840. [12] Rosebud West’s ancestors on her father’s side could not be traced beyond her parents. [13] However, her mother’s maternal grandfather’s father, John Miller, was known to be in Craven County in 1786. [14]
Some new surnames appeared in the census for 1790 for Craven County. Then, in-migration seems to have stopped. New lands were available west of the Appalachians. Joe Mobley thought men from Pamlico County may have joined those moving to Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama after the Panic of 1819. [15]
The next influx of people came after the Civil War. First, there were Northerners who bought land for saw mills and railroads. Those industries attracted workers until the usable trees were gone. A 1913 hurricane destroyed what remained of the mills and wharves in the county. [16]
Men left for World War I, and didn’t return. The population of Pamlico County dropped from 9,966 to 9,060 between 1910 and 1920. [17] The students taught by Boyd were children of men who never left, or returned after they served in the military.
Pamlico County had no community or white church cemeteries; they all were on family land. When one examines names on the markers, it’s obvious most of the students’ families had intermarried like the McCotters and Tingles. [18] The surnames of 11 of the 16 were on grave stones in more than one family burial ground.
The Department of Agriculture said that few of the land holdings in the county were contiguous in 1930. [19] That would have followed from land being subdivided by deaths and re-aggregated by marriages. Overlapping kinship networks were spread wide.
West was the most ambitious of Boyd’s students. Her father was a farmer, but two of her sisters were stenographers in 1920. [20] Rosebud began training as a teacher at the Methodist’s Louisburg College, but returned to marry Alfred Earl Ireland in 1928. She worked as a substitute teacher in the county, and sang in the church choir. [21]
James Tingle also started college, but left after one year. He would have been in his sophomore year when the economy crashed in October 1929. He served in the army in World War II, [22] but returned to Pamlico County where he was interred in Alliance in 1966. [23]
Holton’s father was a farm laborer in 1900, [24] while his grandfather finished tables and one uncle worked in a saw mill. Other uncles and an aunt worked in knitting mills. [25] Carlos managed the electric cooperative’s office in Grantsboro. [26] He stayed active in the Disciples of Christ church, where he help develop Camp Caroline. [27] He died and was buried in 1973 in New Bern. [28]
Few of the other students, who could be identified, left Pamlico County. Graham Holton Wayne was living in New Bern in 1940 where he "was a presser in a garment factory." When he died in 1978, he had a farm in Craven County. [29] McCotter also was living in New Bern in 1940. [30]
Elsie Rawls was buried in Alliance in 1997. [31] Bryan Banks [32] and Frederick Livermore [33] lived in Grantsboro. Only Luther Belangia went far afield: he was a grocery store operator and was buried in Wake Forest. [34] His family was also the last to settle in the county.
If Pamlico County was not a folk community, in the traditional sense, Boyd’s students represented a small, rural enclave that had existed for generations in an isolated area.
End Notes
1. Julian Parks Boyd was discussed in the post for 6 February 2019.
2. Leo Toler. "Jesse Holton." Lee Toler’s Family Tree. Geneanet website.
3. Linda Dail. "Descendants of Hezekiah McCotter." NC Gen website. The Ancestry website has him born in Ireland in 1742. [35] McCotter was an Irish, not a Scots name. [36] None of the origin tales conflict with the possibility he moved to the area after the Revolution.
4. Marvin Permenter. "Hugh Tingle, Sr." Permenter and Spradlin History website. Last updated 13 July 2016.
5. Marvin Permenter. "Hugh Jr. Tingle." Permenter and Spradlin History website. Last updated 13 July 2016.
6. Marvin Permenter. "Joseph T. Tingle." Permenter and Spradlin History website. Last updated 13 July 2016.
7. "Shadrick Tingle (1769 - bef. 1799)." Wiki Tree website.
8. Dail.
9. Genevieve Annie Moniga. "Choswell Dixon." Geni website. 5 December 2014.
10. Tim Dowling. "John Bennett." The Dowling Family Tree. Geneanet website.
11. Joe A. Mobley. Pamlico County. Raleigh: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1991. 15.
12. Mobley. 11.
13. J.D. Larimore. "Joseph Allen West." Find a Grave website. 9 May 2014.
14. Leo Toler. "Person Page 17." Toler Family of Eastern North Carolina. Toler Genealogy website.
15. Mobley. 19. Craven County’s population increased by 5.6% between 1810 and 1820, but by only 2.5% between 1820 and 1830. [37]
16. Mobley. 80. The post-Civil War economy of Pamlico County will be discussed in the posts for 24 May 2020, 31 May 2020, and 7 June 2020. Hurricane Four struck the area on 3 September 2013, with the worst damage round New Bern. [38]
17. United States Census. Reproduced by Wikipedia. "Pamlico County, North Carolina."
18. Clifton McCotter’s mother was Flora Ethel Tingle. [39]
19. John T. Miller and Arthur E. Taylor. United States Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. Soil Survey of Pamlico County, North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1937. 6.
20. United States Census. 1910. Extracted by J.D. Larimore. "Joseph Allen West." Find a Grave website. 9 May 2014.
21. Rosebud West Ireland. Obituary. [New Bern] Sun Journal. 16 June 2000. 4.
22. J.D. Larimore. "James Arthur Tingle." Find a Grave website. 9 May 2014.
23. "James A Tingle, Jr." Lupton Family Genealogy website. Last updated 6 August 2014.
24. United States Census. 1900. Extracted by J.D. Larimore. "Ada M. Holton Roberts." Find a Grave site. 31 August 2015.
25. United States Census. 1900. Extracted by J.D. Larimore. "William Henry Holton." Find a Grave website. 15 January 2015.
26. Larry and Jerry Prescott. "Remembering An Electric Co-op Pioneer." North Carolina Electric Cooperatives. Carolina Country. September 2016.
27. Charles Crossfield Ware. Pamlico Profile. New Bern: Owen G. Dunn, 1961.
28. sandi gunter hawkins. "Carlos McIver Holton." Find a Grave website. 9 December 2014.
29. J.D. Larimore. "Graham Holton Wayne." Find a Grave website. 12 August 2014.
30. "Julia McCotter in the 1940 Census." Ancestry website.
31. Elsie Rawls Story. Obituary. [New Bern] Sun Journal. 7 February 1997. 4.
32. Victor T. Jones, Jr. "Sunday’s Obituary: Mittie Banks." Genealogy Jones and the Lost Crusade website.
33. Bernd Doss. "Benjamin Frederick Liverman." Find a Grave website. 4 September 2010.
34. Daniel Nathan Maltz. "Luther Dees Belangia." Geni website. 1 April 2018.
35. "Hezekiah Mccotter." Ancestry website.
36. "Last name: McCotter." Name Origin Research’s Surname DB website.
37. United States census. Reproduced by Wikipedia. "Craven County, North Carolina."
38. Wikipedia. "1913 Atlantic Hurricane Season."
39. "John Lawrence McCotter." Ancestry website.
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