Historic Rocky Mount, NC

06/26/2021

There is something peaceful about visiting Unity Cemetery. While now mostly overgrown and filled with pine trees, Rocky Mount's oldest African American cemetery is still a special place. The graveyard predates the city being incorporated with the oldest grave marker from 1834. Due to legal issues of who owns the family plots (some public and some private), the 18-acre cemetery has been in a state of disrepair for decades. There have been multiple attempts to restore it. The most recent one started at the beginning of this year. Residents from all walks of life organized a monthly cleanup that raised awareness and secured a promise from local government to take up the issue of its care again. Similar efforts are happening at historic black cemeteries across the U.S., including in neighboring cities Wilson and Durham (check out and respectively). Read more about them in the book pictured and find out about Unity's cleanup effort at the link in the bio or bit.ly/histrmtnc11..
Dred Wimberly is one notable African American buried in Unity. A former slave to the Battle family, he started his own business as a carpenter in Rocky Mount after emancipation, and then was elected as a representative to the NC General Assembly in 1879 and 1887 and to the NC Senate in 1889. He was part of a group of 111 African Americans elected to the NC legislature from 1868 until 1900. No African American was elected again after that until 1969 because of legal discrimination under Jim Crow. Wimberly, whose home stands directly across the street from Pineview Cemetery, was buried in Unity in 1937 while Pineview was still segregated..
"What we owe the future is not a new start, for we can only begin with what what has happened. We owe the future the past, the long knowledge that is the potency of time to come. That makes of a man's grave a rich furrow. The community of knowing in common is the seed of our life in this place."
- Wendell Berry, At a Country Funeral
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04/27/2021

Jim Thorpe played baseball for the Rocky Mount Railroaders in 1909.

This never gets old.

04/10/2021

Ever walk around downtown wondering what some of the old buildings used to be? Here is one worth checking out: the Planters National Bank building on the corner of Main St and Sunset. It was designed by architect H.W. Simpson of New Bern and built in 1907. Much of the building's original facade is gone, but you can still see a few clues like a "Night Depository" box on the outside. It is now a church. Planters Bank was founded after bright leaf to***co took off in Rocky Mount in the late 1800s. Farmers needed a place to collect and deposit money after "going to market" in town. Planters became the largest bank in the area, survived the Great Depression, and eventually merged with People's Bank to become Centura in 1990..
James Craig Braswell was the bank president and chairman from its founding in 1899 until his death in 1951. The man epitomized community involvement -- board of aldermen, school board, chamber of commerce, boards of local businesses, the YMCA, Masons, Kiwanis, and the Methodist church. He would also walk to work and back every day from his home two blocks away on 128 N. Church St (now PNC Bank). In short, he was a very visible part of the community, to the effect that his obituary dubbed him "Mr. Rocky Mount". With such visibility usually comes criticism, however, and Braswell's leadership garnered a reputation for "old money" and "top down decision making". Explore more about the Braswells at , and about Planters at the PNC Legacy Project at the link in the bio or bit.ly/histrmtnc10.
"There are always sure to be more springs." - L. M. Montgomery

03/30/2021

Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina in 1907, Susie Sharp was an absolute trailblazer! 👏

In 1949, she became the first female judge in the history of North Carolina, appointed by Governor Kerr Scott! Later in 1962, Governor Terry Sanford made her the first female Associate Justice of the NC Supreme Court, and in 1974, she was the first female in the United States to be elected Chief Justice of a state supreme court!

You can learn more about her in our , “Law and Justice: The Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1819–2019.” The exhibit closes after April 3, so don’t miss your chance to experience it! bit.ly/3czyExo

02/12/2021

Did you know that the musical great Thelonious Monk had roots in Four Oaks, NC?

Monk’s ancestors were enslaved laborers on the Cole Plantation, the property adjoining John and Amy Harper’s homestead. During the Civil War Battle of Bentonville (March 19-21, 1865), the Cole Plantation was destroyed while the Harpers' house was used as a field hospital.

After Emancipation, many of the formerly enslaved laborers at Cole Plantation remained in the area. Hinton Cole, the grandfather of Thelonious Monk, was 13 when he was emancipated. Hinton, his half-brother Levin, and Levin’s wife Harriet remained in Four Oaks and moved to a nearby farmhouse. Hinton later married Sarah Ann Williams of Newton Grove between 1875 and 1877. The newlyweds settled down to work as sharecroppers, moving to Wayne County during the 1890s. There, Hinton changed his surname to that of his father, “Monk.” The Monks raised a total of 10 children, all of whom received at least some formal education.

The seventh child, Thelonious Sr., learned to play the piano in his spare time. After leaving his parents’ home, Thelonious Sr. moved to Rocky Mount in search of employment. It was there, in Rocky Mount, that he married Barbara Batts, and future jazz pianist, Thelonious Monk Jr. was born on October 10, 1917. The family moved to New York City when Thelonious, Jr. was five years old. He began playing the piano soon after. Thelonious Monk, Jr. went on to become one of the greatest jazz pianists of the 20th century.

Visit Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site to learn more.

📷: Thelonious Monk Jr., Minton’s Playhouse NY, 1947. The Library of Congress, LC-GLB23- 0619.

11/14/2020

Machaven is one of the most distinctive houses in Rocky Mount and is especially picturesque in the fall. Located on the edge of downtown where the historic Villa Place neighborhood begins, it was built in 1908 for James Williams (J.W.) Hines and his wife Mary Matilda Hines. The Hines' house is one of the last surviving many-columned "neoclassical revival" mansions like it in Rocky Mount, built by businessmen in the first half of the 20th century. Machaven has had several other uses over the years and also sat unused, but after a recent facelift it has been repurposed as a wedding and event venue as of 2019. Find out more information at and see some inside shots of the building there as well..
Hines, who made his fortune primarily supplying ice for trains to carry refrigerated food between New York and Florida, is credited with being the driving force behind bringing the Atlantic Coast Line repair shops to Rocky Mount when it was still a small town. The shops became the railroad line's northern regional headquarters and brought thousands of jobs and rapid growth at the turn of the 20th century. It is hard to overemphasize the importance of this development in Rocky Mount's history, although Hines himself would not take the credit according to Chamber of Commerce literature in 1911. Whatever the case may be, the city would not look the same today without him. Read more about Hines at the link in the bio or bit.ly/histrmtnc9.

11/12/2020

ncIMPACT looks at how historic preservation brings new talent and tourism to a community.

11/12/2020

It looks like Facebook got out of sync with posts on Instagram. Sorry about that!

11/12/2020

Nothing like a walk at the cemetery. Rocky Mount's 70-acre Pineview Cemetery on the Edgecombe side of the city is worth a stroll even when it's not Halloween. The city's oldest public cemetery, there are many local notables buried here including Benjamin H. Bunn, the first mayor of the city in 1867. 16,000 total have been laid to rest here, and the setting, especially in the older sections, is a hidden beauty. Read more about the attraction of cemeteries from one author who grew up next to Pineview and calls Rocky Mount his hometown at the link in the bio or bit.ly/histrmtnc8..
“The sunlight now lay over the valley perfectly still. I went over to the graveyard beside the church and found them under the old cedars...I am finding it a little hard to say that I felt them resting there, but I did..I saw that, for me, this country would always be populated with presences and absences, presences of absences, the living and the dead. The world as it is would always be a reminder of the world that was, and of the world that is to come.” - Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow.

11/12/2020

Thelonius Sphere Monk was born on this day, October 10, in Rocky Mount in 1917 and lived here until he was 5 when his parents moved to New York City. The above artwork of him playing at the piano is by Collin Williams () and can be found for sale at . Monk is something of an enigma. Part of it has to do with the fact he was the composer of standards that many other famous jazz musicians have played. Monk's composition, "'Round Midnight", is the most recorded jazz song of all time (linked in the bio or at bit.ly/histrmtnc6). His biographer Robin D. G. Kelley chronicled how he spent many hours laboring over his music in order to support his family..
That work ethic was largely instilled into him by his mother, Barbara, who lived with him in New York City. She was born in Rocky Mount and grew up in the African American neighborhood Crosstown, which today is the northeast corridor in downtown. She married a farmer named Thelonius (Sr.) who emigrated to the city looking for the promise of a new life and had found work as a railroad laborer. The two settled down in the working class neighborhood Around the "Y" where Monk was born. The neighborhood gets it namesake from the Y shape bend in the railroad tracks pictured. Monk still has family in North Carolina, and his cousin, Bobby, says his NC roots are unappreciated. Bobby has been campaigning to erect a statue of Monk in the city for the last several years. See the link or bit.ly/histrmtnc7 to learn more about the Monk US Memorial Foundation..

11/12/2020

If you were a to***co farmer 50+ years ago, September would be the time of year you'd be harvesting to***co. Harvesting was backbreaking work done from sun up to sun down. But it was also done in community with family, friends, and neighbors. Traditions and rituals formed around it. To***co could also be potentially lucrative as a cash crop that allowed small farmers to bring in income above subsistence, going all the way back to Jamestown, VA in the 1600s. Eastern NC's variation, "bright leaf", took off after the Civil War, and Rocky Mount was a hub of that activity. To***co fields like this still dot the outskirts of town. Read more about the life of a to***co farmer (already being memorialized in the 1960's) in the article linked in the bio or go to bit.ly/histrmtnc4..
"I can say, for example, that the to***co harvest in my own home country involves the hardest work that I have done in any quantity...This work usually occurs at some time between the last part of August and the first part of October. Usually the weather is hot; usually we are in a hurry...But many of my dearest memories come from these times of hardest work. The to***co cutting is the most protracted social occasion of our year. Neighbors work together. They are together all day every day for weeks." - Wendell Berry, Economy and Pleasure bit.ly/histrmtnc5.
***co ***cofarmers

10/27/2020