December
13, 2010 Coats Museum News
Republican President William Taft was elected to follow President Teddy Roosevelt. Taft weighed 325 pounds when he was elected to hold office from 1909 to 1913. He had a special bathtub installed in the White House that would hold four normal-size men. While he was president, New Mexico and Arizona became the 47th and the 48th states. He was the first president to be paid $75,000 a year for serving as president. During his term, the presidential Oval Office was added to the White House and Taft urged the Congress to pass an income tax law. Fingerprints were used as evidence in court cases. Henry Ford used the assembly lines to produce Model-T Fords.
What was life like around Coats during those dates? Another Coats author, Daniel E. Stewart, in his book “Thank You Lord for a Good Life,” recorded what life for a single mother was like in the first three decades of the 20th Century in the small town of Coats. Daniel was born in Benson in 1903. His father Elmond, a very prominent farmer in the Bailey’s Crossroads region, had apparently decreased his landholdings due to his illness. Elmond Stewart had built a large, two story house which had the Johnston-Harnett County line running through the center of the house. The late Elder Frank Nordan shared with writer Rev. J.M. Mewborn that the house was built in that particular location so that Stewart’s children could attend school in either county. Local lore has it that that when Preacher Nordan lived in the house that he could marry a couple in the county of their choice.
James Elmond and Mollie Ennis Stewart faced much hardship after he became ill around 1903 with high blood pressure and Bright’s Disease. (When is the last time you have heard that ailment mentioned?) Young Daniel remembered that he would hide every Saturday morning when the Benson doctor would bleed his sick father to help with the high blood pressure. Obviously medical advances had been few in treating high blood pressure because bleeding was the treatment that eventually killed George Washington in the late 1790’s. Stewart reminded his readers that there was no electricity in our area. He even noted that cars were so few that people would gather to see an automobile when it was announced weeks ahead that one would be traveling through the area. Radio was not dreamed of but Edison had invented the phonograph. Daniel remembered that his parents had ordered one from Sears and Roebuck, Co. There were no water and sewer systems. He said about the only modern thing in Coats was the short-line railroad that ran from Dunn to Durham. Stewart shared that a big occasion was for kids and young folks to watch the train come into town about six o’clock in the evening.
Elmond had died in 1909 and after not being able to survive on the farm near Bailey’s Crossroads, Mollie moved her family to Coats where she had built a house in which she could rent out three or four rooms to boarders. This house is located next to the old 1946 Coats Theater (Town of Coats Maintenance Department in 2010) on Main Street. Mollie later sold this house because it did not produce enough revenue for her to support her family. Joel and Zilla Stephenson Keen of Four Oaks would later live in this house. In 1912, Mollie would move across town to McKinley Street to a seven bedroom, one kitchen, one living room and one dining room house built by Bennie F. Byrd circa 1908. This huge structure would later be referred to as the Stewart Hotel and the Old Hotel and boy are there stories to be enjoyed about the happenings at that location. Read next week to learn more about the Old Hotel as remembered by Daniel Stewart who lived there until he left for college.
A special thank you goes to those who gave Christmas gifts to the Coats Museum Endowment in memory of Nell Penny Williams and Jonah and Alice Johnson.
Republican President William Taft was elected to follow President Teddy Roosevelt. Taft weighed 325 pounds when he was elected to hold office from 1909 to 1913. He had a special bathtub installed in the White House that would hold four normal-size men. While he was president, New Mexico and Arizona became the 47th and the 48th states. He was the first president to be paid $75,000 a year for serving as president. During his term, the presidential Oval Office was added to the White House and Taft urged the Congress to pass an income tax law. Fingerprints were used as evidence in court cases. Henry Ford used the assembly lines to produce Model-T Fords.
What was life like around Coats during those dates? Another Coats author, Daniel E. Stewart, in his book “Thank You Lord for a Good Life,” recorded what life for a single mother was like in the first three decades of the 20th Century in the small town of Coats. Daniel was born in Benson in 1903. His father Elmond, a very prominent farmer in the Bailey’s Crossroads region, had apparently decreased his landholdings due to his illness. Elmond Stewart had built a large, two story house which had the Johnston-Harnett County line running through the center of the house. The late Elder Frank Nordan shared with writer Rev. J.M. Mewborn that the house was built in that particular location so that Stewart’s children could attend school in either county. Local lore has it that that when Preacher Nordan lived in the house that he could marry a couple in the county of their choice.
James Elmond and Mollie Ennis Stewart faced much hardship after he became ill around 1903 with high blood pressure and Bright’s Disease. (When is the last time you have heard that ailment mentioned?) Young Daniel remembered that he would hide every Saturday morning when the Benson doctor would bleed his sick father to help with the high blood pressure. Obviously medical advances had been few in treating high blood pressure because bleeding was the treatment that eventually killed George Washington in the late 1790’s. Stewart reminded his readers that there was no electricity in our area. He even noted that cars were so few that people would gather to see an automobile when it was announced weeks ahead that one would be traveling through the area. Radio was not dreamed of but Edison had invented the phonograph. Daniel remembered that his parents had ordered one from Sears and Roebuck, Co. There were no water and sewer systems. He said about the only modern thing in Coats was the short-line railroad that ran from Dunn to Durham. Stewart shared that a big occasion was for kids and young folks to watch the train come into town about six o’clock in the evening.
Elmond had died in 1909 and after not being able to survive on the farm near Bailey’s Crossroads, Mollie moved her family to Coats where she had built a house in which she could rent out three or four rooms to boarders. This house is located next to the old 1946 Coats Theater (Town of Coats Maintenance Department in 2010) on Main Street. Mollie later sold this house because it did not produce enough revenue for her to support her family. Joel and Zilla Stephenson Keen of Four Oaks would later live in this house. In 1912, Mollie would move across town to McKinley Street to a seven bedroom, one kitchen, one living room and one dining room house built by Bennie F. Byrd circa 1908. This huge structure would later be referred to as the Stewart Hotel and the Old Hotel and boy are there stories to be enjoyed about the happenings at that location. Read next week to learn more about the Old Hotel as remembered by Daniel Stewart who lived there until he left for college.
A special thank you goes to those who gave Christmas gifts to the Coats Museum Endowment in memory of Nell Penny Williams and Jonah and Alice Johnson.
