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27/02/2023

The term, el dorado, is Spanish for “the golden one”

Dallas, NC
22/02/2023

Dallas, NC

Who remembers the local Howard Johnson’s and the restaurant you’d eat at for Sunday lunch?
22/01/2023

Who remembers the local Howard Johnson’s and the restaurant you’d eat at for Sunday lunch?

18/01/2023

Learn important facts by visiting historic towns and cities throughout North Carolina. We've sorted them from oldest to newest in order of the founding year.

17/01/2023

On Jan. 16, 1975, the state of North Carolina obtained Thomas Wolfe’s “Old Kentucky Home” from the city of Asheville. The boardinghouse at 48 Spruce Street was the setting for Wolfe’s first novel, Look Homeward, Angel. He renamed it “Dixieland” and incorporated his own experiences among the boarders into the novel.

Image: Thomas Wolfe and his mother Julia pose on the front port of the “Old Kentucky Home.” Image from N.C. Historic Sites.

11/01/2023

☞Today in Old-West History -- On today’s date 106 years ago, Wednesday, January 10, 1917, famous U.S. Army Scout, buffalo hunter, & Wild-West showman William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846-1917) met his earthly demise at the age of 70 when he died from the effects of kidney failure at Denver, Colorado.

☞Requiéscant In Pace, Buffalo Bill Cody.

☞Born at the town of Le Claire in Iowa Territory, William Cody began his working career at the age of eleven following his father’s death, employed as a mounted messenger for a railroad company.

☞During the War Between the States (1861-1865), Bill Cody served in a guerrilla group loyal to the Union & then in the Seventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry.

☞In 1868, Cody was appointed chief of scouts for the Fifth U.S. Cavalry, & during the next year his Western-frontier exploits became nationally famous when noted author Ned Buntline (1821-1886) wrote his first dime novel -- with Buffalo Bill as the heroic protagonist.

☞In 1872, Cody won the Medal of Honor, led the hunting party of Grand Duke Alexis of Russia along with George Armstrong Custer, & was persuaded by Ned Buntline to act in his play, “The Scouts of the Plains,” which started Cody on his entertainment career.

☞Over the next decade, Cody alternately took to the frontier or the stage, & in 1883 he organized his famous “Wild West Show” -- an open-air extravaganza featuring horses & riders in a variety of displays that included reenactments of legendary frontier events. For the next three decades, the show toured across the United States & Europe.

☞In 1895, Cody was instrumental in founding the town of Cody, the county seat of Park County, Wyoming where he opened several inns & hotels, & established the TE Ranch, where, in his spacious ranch house, he entertained notable guests from Europe & America.

☞It has been stated by several noted historians that by the turn of the 20th century, Buffalo Bill Cody was the most recognizable celebrity on the face of the Earth.

☞The 1916 photograph depicts the moustachioed & bearded visage of Buffalo Bill Cody at the age of 70 during the last year of his life.

09/01/2023

January 9th

ON THIS DAY in North Carolina history…

1878:
She is born in June of 1854 in Guilford County, the daughter of a Methodist minister. Tabitha Anne Holton's early life is hidden from history, but she was well-educated and fluently spoke four languages.

She had three brothers, all of whom were attorneys. Through her brothers, she evidently befriended many members of the Greensboro Bar who lent her books on the law and tutored her themselves, as she had "no regular preceptor." ("Preceptor" is a 19th-century word for teacher or instructor.) She learns enough to tutor her brothers for the bar, and then, in January of 1878, she travels with her brother Samuel to Raleigh to take the Bar exam for herself at the State Supreme Court. It is a first, no woman in North Carolina history has ever taken the exam, and the outcry is immediate.

The first consideration is the question of whether the Supreme Court even has the power to admit a woman. She is ordered to appear on January 9th, with an attorney, to present her case. The opposition is led by former state Supreme Court Justice and UNC professor William H. Battle. Battle made the argument that a southern lady should not be "permitted to sully her sweetness by breathing the pestiferous air of the courtroom."

However, Albion W. Tourgée appeared as counsel on her behalf. Tourgée is a long-time opponent of Battle's, and he relishes this chance to argue with Battle on the state's most important jurisprudence stage. His long argument (which was reported at length in the Raleigh Observer of January 10th) proves convincing, despite the stiff resistance. The Court takes only a 10 minutes recess before allowing Tabitha to take the State Bar Exam.

She is escorted from the National Hotel by her brother Samuel, who had taken the bar examination at the regularly scheduled time the preceding day. Though the questioning was done in private, it was reported that Tabitha Anne Holton passed without missing a single question. Her license is dated January 8th, the day on which the men had taken the examination.

And so it is ON THIS DAY, Tabitha Anne Holton becomes North Carolina's first female licensed, practicing, attorney at law.

Kevin E. Spencer, Author, North Carolina Expatriates

For Debbie

Pictured:
- Tabitha Anne Holton

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