December 19, 2011 Coats Museum News
Many of you are checking and double checking your Christmas list making sure no one is left out to share in the joy, hope, peace and love of this 2011 Christmas season. After that task is completed, hopefully some of you will check out the list in today’s column to see if any of the names in it were on the lists from your family’s Christmas past.
These names were property owners in 1925 in the town of Coats but please consider the possibility that some merely owned property in Coats but resided elsewhere. The following is only a sample of those listed in the Harnett County News April 30, 1925 edition: Arthur Barber, J.I. Byrd, Mrs. Leonia Avery, Mrs. Lou Barnes, Mrs. Ila Bolton, W.D. Boon, Mrs. Haywood Bowden, W.H. Dupree, W.F. Ennis, J.C. Faircloth, Mrs. J.C. Faircloth, W.T. Hodges, Nora Hayes Honeycutt, Elizabeth Johnson, Mrs. Oscar M. Johnson, Mrs. Laurence Johnson, A.L. Johnson, John A. Langdon, Grand Lee, Ellis Goldstein, G.S. Matthews, C. D. Matthews, J. Ray Moore, H.S. McKoy, H.R. Norris, Alonzo Parrish, R.L. Bryant, Mrs. N.T. Patterson, D.I. Pleasant, Willie Pope, Lonnie Pope, James Raynor, Mrs. Ralph Raynor, Mrs. C.H. Ryals, C.H. Ryals, Mrs. Saphonia Stanley, Mrs. Mollie Stewart, and W.I. Stewart.
Surely some of these property owners were patients of Dr. Harry C. Roberts. Many would have witnessed his leadership on the town board. Some likely knew that the young doctor had lived in the Mollie Stewart Hotel when he arrived in Coats in December of 1912. Probably some of them checked out the doctor’s young bride when the couple moved into the hotel while waiting for their Sears and Roebuck house to be assembled next door to the hotel. (The Roberts house is the current Colonial Corners.) Many of them surely had waved and thrown up their hats to him as he flew his plane over houses and fields. Many of them recognized his funny looking car and were elated to hear it coming when someone had beckoned him to a loved one who needed his doctoring skills.
These taxpayers and their neighbors and hundreds of other readers of the newspaper were shocked and saddened to read and hear that Dr. Roberts had crashed his plane and died from the injuries that he had incurred on that Sunday afternoon at about 3:30. He was pinned under his plane and had to be cut out with an ax recalled Garland Whittington in a 2003 interview with this writer. The doctor was at an altitude of about 200 feet when he crashed at his landing field which was made from a cotton patch. He was rushed to the hospital but even he knew the chest injuries were ugly. He died on Tuesday after developing pneumonia. A grieving wife, who had to be attended to by physicians, survived him. Dr. Roberts left two sons, Clarence and Haywood, who were about 8 and 10 years of age. Dr. Roberts, the prominent doctor, was buried after an impressive funeral which was attended by hundreds from the community and every section of Harnett County and surrounding counties. He was a beloved citizen who had a strong arm in the commercial and industrial life in Coats (Harnett County News April 30, 1925).
It is only human for the folks in the Coats area to be so saddened by the death of so many outstanding citizens. Landmarks like the flourmill and hosiery mill could be rebuilt, but Claud Stewart, N.T. Patterson, T.V. Stewart, and Dr. Harry C. Roberts could not be replaced as easily.
Time moved onward and on May 1, 1925, the new speed law went into effect. Drivers could travel at 35 MPH on highways. That was five miles faster than before. In residential sections, the speed was 20 MPH. In business sections, 12MPH was no longer the magic speed-now it was 20 MPH.
The highway speed limits were not the only changes that occurred in 1925. Proposed changes were made in the numbering of school systems in Harnett County--Barclaysville (#36), Oakdale (#51), Gregory (#52), Coats (#53), Turlington (#54), Parker (#55), Sorrell (#56), and Penny (#57). The colored schools proposed numbers were Black River (#151), Turlington (#153), and Coats (#154) (Harnett County News May 14, 1925).
M.L. Ballard of Kipling was named as supervisor of the county’s roads. The highway commission perfected the organization with W.J. McStewart as chairman and W.P. Byrd as secretary. The initial meeting of the highway commission met in the newly added offices in the courthouse. J. B. Ennis represented Grove Township as road commissioner. There was a scramble in some districts to get on the powerful commission (Harnett County News July 5, 1925).
In 1925, Harnett County had 110 Confederate pensioners. Twenty-nine were soldiers and eighty-one were widows. Read next week’s Coats Museum News” to see if any of these pensioners were your ancestors.
Thanks to Lynda and Robie Butler for their contribution to the Coats Museum Building Fund to honor a friend’s birthday. Is that called planting a tree for others to enjoy the fruit from it? A special thank you to all the readers of the Coats Museum News in 2011 and I wish each of you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS from the folks at the Coats Museum.
Please be mindful that this article appeared in the December 19, 2011 edition of the Daily Record.
Many of you are checking and double checking your Christmas list making sure no one is left out to share in the joy, hope, peace and love of this 2011 Christmas season. After that task is completed, hopefully some of you will check out the list in today’s column to see if any of the names in it were on the lists from your family’s Christmas past.
These names were property owners in 1925 in the town of Coats but please consider the possibility that some merely owned property in Coats but resided elsewhere. The following is only a sample of those listed in the Harnett County News April 30, 1925 edition: Arthur Barber, J.I. Byrd, Mrs. Leonia Avery, Mrs. Lou Barnes, Mrs. Ila Bolton, W.D. Boon, Mrs. Haywood Bowden, W.H. Dupree, W.F. Ennis, J.C. Faircloth, Mrs. J.C. Faircloth, W.T. Hodges, Nora Hayes Honeycutt, Elizabeth Johnson, Mrs. Oscar M. Johnson, Mrs. Laurence Johnson, A.L. Johnson, John A. Langdon, Grand Lee, Ellis Goldstein, G.S. Matthews, C. D. Matthews, J. Ray Moore, H.S. McKoy, H.R. Norris, Alonzo Parrish, R.L. Bryant, Mrs. N.T. Patterson, D.I. Pleasant, Willie Pope, Lonnie Pope, James Raynor, Mrs. Ralph Raynor, Mrs. C.H. Ryals, C.H. Ryals, Mrs. Saphonia Stanley, Mrs. Mollie Stewart, and W.I. Stewart.
Surely some of these property owners were patients of Dr. Harry C. Roberts. Many would have witnessed his leadership on the town board. Some likely knew that the young doctor had lived in the Mollie Stewart Hotel when he arrived in Coats in December of 1912. Probably some of them checked out the doctor’s young bride when the couple moved into the hotel while waiting for their Sears and Roebuck house to be assembled next door to the hotel. (The Roberts house is the current Colonial Corners.) Many of them surely had waved and thrown up their hats to him as he flew his plane over houses and fields. Many of them recognized his funny looking car and were elated to hear it coming when someone had beckoned him to a loved one who needed his doctoring skills.
These taxpayers and their neighbors and hundreds of other readers of the newspaper were shocked and saddened to read and hear that Dr. Roberts had crashed his plane and died from the injuries that he had incurred on that Sunday afternoon at about 3:30. He was pinned under his plane and had to be cut out with an ax recalled Garland Whittington in a 2003 interview with this writer. The doctor was at an altitude of about 200 feet when he crashed at his landing field which was made from a cotton patch. He was rushed to the hospital but even he knew the chest injuries were ugly. He died on Tuesday after developing pneumonia. A grieving wife, who had to be attended to by physicians, survived him. Dr. Roberts left two sons, Clarence and Haywood, who were about 8 and 10 years of age. Dr. Roberts, the prominent doctor, was buried after an impressive funeral which was attended by hundreds from the community and every section of Harnett County and surrounding counties. He was a beloved citizen who had a strong arm in the commercial and industrial life in Coats (Harnett County News April 30, 1925).
It is only human for the folks in the Coats area to be so saddened by the death of so many outstanding citizens. Landmarks like the flourmill and hosiery mill could be rebuilt, but Claud Stewart, N.T. Patterson, T.V. Stewart, and Dr. Harry C. Roberts could not be replaced as easily.
Time moved onward and on May 1, 1925, the new speed law went into effect. Drivers could travel at 35 MPH on highways. That was five miles faster than before. In residential sections, the speed was 20 MPH. In business sections, 12MPH was no longer the magic speed-now it was 20 MPH.
The highway speed limits were not the only changes that occurred in 1925. Proposed changes were made in the numbering of school systems in Harnett County--Barclaysville (#36), Oakdale (#51), Gregory (#52), Coats (#53), Turlington (#54), Parker (#55), Sorrell (#56), and Penny (#57). The colored schools proposed numbers were Black River (#151), Turlington (#153), and Coats (#154) (Harnett County News May 14, 1925).
M.L. Ballard of Kipling was named as supervisor of the county’s roads. The highway commission perfected the organization with W.J. McStewart as chairman and W.P. Byrd as secretary. The initial meeting of the highway commission met in the newly added offices in the courthouse. J. B. Ennis represented Grove Township as road commissioner. There was a scramble in some districts to get on the powerful commission (Harnett County News July 5, 1925).
In 1925, Harnett County had 110 Confederate pensioners. Twenty-nine were soldiers and eighty-one were widows. Read next week’s Coats Museum News” to see if any of these pensioners were your ancestors.
Thanks to Lynda and Robie Butler for their contribution to the Coats Museum Building Fund to honor a friend’s birthday. Is that called planting a tree for others to enjoy the fruit from it? A special thank you to all the readers of the Coats Museum News in 2011 and I wish each of you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS from the folks at the Coats Museum.
Please be mindful that this article appeared in the December 19, 2011 edition of the Daily Record.
