November 8, 2024 Coats Museum News
Readers of the most recent Coats Museum News columns, have you discovered some of the varied reasons why people had left their native lands on foreign soils to come to a “New World”? Can you imagine what it was like on the wooden vessels that brought them here? You must be wondering what happened once they landed. First, please be aware that there were no Native American welcoming parties for the passengers; however, there were countless problems awaiting them.
What were they? I ask you-how do you think the earliest settlers procured food, clothing, shelter and tools to carve out a new life? Lefler and Newsome in their book the “History of a Southern State,” (p.20) shared that after a bitter experience, the settlers learned that only a few of their “supplies” could be obtained from England- for such obvious reasons as distance, slowness of transportation, smallness of ships, poverty of settlers, and indifference of the people back home.
Therefore, the passengers on those vessels came to depend upon the resources at hand. They found that the wilderness, whether it was on the coast or as they moved along the streams, rivers and forest inland, could supply most of their needs. Barlowe in his report to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584 wrote that they were the “goodliest and best fish in the world.” The forest abounded with animals which the settlers found both useful and destructive-rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, beaver, fox, buffalo-“the largest beast of the forest,” “monstrous strong and swift” elk, deer in “great plenty” and bears which were very common. The entire Carolina region was teeming with birds and wild fowl especially turkey in “flocks of 500 or more,” pheasants, quail, wild geese, ducks and wild pigeons so numerous that that they could fly “one flock after another for above a quarter of an hour together.”
The woods and waters supplied the settlers an abundant supply of food, clothing, and building materials, without which the settlement would have been impossible. It was with this unlimited supply in the forests that enabled the pioneers to push into the wilderness and survive.
Let’s wait until next week to see how the settlers utilized all the natural resources of the land in order to survive. More ships of immigrants would settle this new land and grow their families and by the mid1770’s were willing to fight to be independent of those on the foreign soils from whence their ancestors had lived.
Belle Williams is a name familiar to many and she was a beloved lady at the Coats Senior Center. I hope she somehow knew the impact she had on preserving the everyday history of the town of Coats via her “Notes from Coats” printed in the Daily Record. The column was a valuable resource for those of us who helped compile the “The Heritage of Coats, NC” published in 2005.
Belle shared in her December 22, 1994 “Notes” that sympathy was extended to the families of Mary Dennis, John Messer, Jr. and Rachel Langdon. Others who were shut-ins were Baxton Pollard, Carl Williams, Alice Lou Roberts and Carolyn Messer. Word was that M. Gene Stewart, a former Coats mayor who served during the Harnett County Centennial in 1955 and was currently a resident of Carolina Beach, was very ill in a Wilmington Hospital.
The 1994 Christmas season was in full swing. Spotlights, window candles, wooden reindeer with sleigh and wreaths adorned with red velvet bows beautified the town and countryside in the Coats area. Mr. and Mrs. Russell Carroll of Coats had something that lit up their household. It was Taylor Lee Carroll who was born on Thursday, December 8th at Rex. Princess was the mother.
How many of you associated a particular food with a specific holiday? Belle noted that folks in Coats had likely enjoyed corned ham and collards at Christmas after having had turkey and dressing at Thanksgiving. Surely plans were being made to have black eye peas and hog jowl on New Year’s Day.
Were people trying to decide whether to eat at the Harnett Trading Company, Max Matthews’s farm, Ebenezer Church with Tommy Ennis as chef at Ebenezer Presbyterian Church or to simply eat at home?
This I do know. All the activities planned for the memorial lights by the Coats Scouts Troop 779 and the live nativities were rained out, but good news was that that many local folks were home from the hospital in time to enjoy Christmas with families and friends. Wade Stephenson, Jesse Ray Mann and Tommy Carroll had returned after being hospitalized around Christmas.
Lottie Lamm has left home to travel to spend the holidays with her sister Toby and Mel Rhodes in Virginia. Ruth Parrish spent the holidays with her son Aubrey Riggs in Swansboro. Alice Lou Roberts and Ophelia Roberts had Shearin Roberts as their guest from Florida (Daily Record Dec. 29, 1994).
The folks at the Coats Museum want to wish many more birthdays for Josephine Walden who celebrated her 80th last weekend. Knowing her children and friends, I am positive it was the best one yet for this amazing mother, sister and friend to many in Coats.
Every tick of the clock moves time forward toward December 1995 which will bring my collection of Coats history to an end. So let’s enjoy the final year of our journey into yesteryear.
Readers of the most recent Coats Museum News columns, have you discovered some of the varied reasons why people had left their native lands on foreign soils to come to a “New World”? Can you imagine what it was like on the wooden vessels that brought them here? You must be wondering what happened once they landed. First, please be aware that there were no Native American welcoming parties for the passengers; however, there were countless problems awaiting them.
What were they? I ask you-how do you think the earliest settlers procured food, clothing, shelter and tools to carve out a new life? Lefler and Newsome in their book the “History of a Southern State,” (p.20) shared that after a bitter experience, the settlers learned that only a few of their “supplies” could be obtained from England- for such obvious reasons as distance, slowness of transportation, smallness of ships, poverty of settlers, and indifference of the people back home.
Therefore, the passengers on those vessels came to depend upon the resources at hand. They found that the wilderness, whether it was on the coast or as they moved along the streams, rivers and forest inland, could supply most of their needs. Barlowe in his report to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584 wrote that they were the “goodliest and best fish in the world.” The forest abounded with animals which the settlers found both useful and destructive-rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, beaver, fox, buffalo-“the largest beast of the forest,” “monstrous strong and swift” elk, deer in “great plenty” and bears which were very common. The entire Carolina region was teeming with birds and wild fowl especially turkey in “flocks of 500 or more,” pheasants, quail, wild geese, ducks and wild pigeons so numerous that that they could fly “one flock after another for above a quarter of an hour together.”
The woods and waters supplied the settlers an abundant supply of food, clothing, and building materials, without which the settlement would have been impossible. It was with this unlimited supply in the forests that enabled the pioneers to push into the wilderness and survive.
Let’s wait until next week to see how the settlers utilized all the natural resources of the land in order to survive. More ships of immigrants would settle this new land and grow their families and by the mid1770’s were willing to fight to be independent of those on the foreign soils from whence their ancestors had lived.
Belle Williams is a name familiar to many and she was a beloved lady at the Coats Senior Center. I hope she somehow knew the impact she had on preserving the everyday history of the town of Coats via her “Notes from Coats” printed in the Daily Record. The column was a valuable resource for those of us who helped compile the “The Heritage of Coats, NC” published in 2005.
Belle shared in her December 22, 1994 “Notes” that sympathy was extended to the families of Mary Dennis, John Messer, Jr. and Rachel Langdon. Others who were shut-ins were Baxton Pollard, Carl Williams, Alice Lou Roberts and Carolyn Messer. Word was that M. Gene Stewart, a former Coats mayor who served during the Harnett County Centennial in 1955 and was currently a resident of Carolina Beach, was very ill in a Wilmington Hospital.
The 1994 Christmas season was in full swing. Spotlights, window candles, wooden reindeer with sleigh and wreaths adorned with red velvet bows beautified the town and countryside in the Coats area. Mr. and Mrs. Russell Carroll of Coats had something that lit up their household. It was Taylor Lee Carroll who was born on Thursday, December 8th at Rex. Princess was the mother.
How many of you associated a particular food with a specific holiday? Belle noted that folks in Coats had likely enjoyed corned ham and collards at Christmas after having had turkey and dressing at Thanksgiving. Surely plans were being made to have black eye peas and hog jowl on New Year’s Day.
Were people trying to decide whether to eat at the Harnett Trading Company, Max Matthews’s farm, Ebenezer Church with Tommy Ennis as chef at Ebenezer Presbyterian Church or to simply eat at home?
This I do know. All the activities planned for the memorial lights by the Coats Scouts Troop 779 and the live nativities were rained out, but good news was that that many local folks were home from the hospital in time to enjoy Christmas with families and friends. Wade Stephenson, Jesse Ray Mann and Tommy Carroll had returned after being hospitalized around Christmas.
Lottie Lamm has left home to travel to spend the holidays with her sister Toby and Mel Rhodes in Virginia. Ruth Parrish spent the holidays with her son Aubrey Riggs in Swansboro. Alice Lou Roberts and Ophelia Roberts had Shearin Roberts as their guest from Florida (Daily Record Dec. 29, 1994).
The folks at the Coats Museum want to wish many more birthdays for Josephine Walden who celebrated her 80th last weekend. Knowing her children and friends, I am positive it was the best one yet for this amazing mother, sister and friend to many in Coats.
Every tick of the clock moves time forward toward December 1995 which will bring my collection of Coats history to an end. So let’s enjoy the final year of our journey into yesteryear.