Rich Genealogy History in Carolina Origins

By Joe Garonzik

In 1663, England’s King Charles II ceded the Carolinas to Anthony Ashley Cooper and seven other proprietors who had supported the Stuarts in ending the Cromwellian Revolution and returning Charles II to the throne. Notwithstanding the 16th-century exploits of Sir Walter Raleigh and legendary Virginia Dare, it was a group of Virginians who established North Carolina’s oldest settlement along the Albemarle Sound in 1653–a full decade before the installation of the Lord Proprietors.

The Crown divided the Carolinas in 1691, although North Carolina would not receive its own governor for another 20 years. British, Huguenot, German and Swiss populated the North Carolina tidewater during the first half of the 18th-century. New Bern, established primarily by Germanic immigrants under the impetus of Christopher de Graffenried, would become the largest city in the colony. Large numbers of Scots Highlanders and Scots-Irish, many by way of the Great Wagon Road through Pennsylvania and into the Shenandoah Valley, populated the western part of the colony. Eighteenth-century North Carolina was also noteworthy for its large Quaker population and for Wachovia, a Moravian settlement in Forsyth County.

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Libraries Are Such Peaceful Places

As a reader and author, libraries are both a treasure trove and a retreat for me. Their peace and quiet are calming and the endless shelves of books are wonderful to see – let alone read! Librarians are helpful and knowledgeable, and they’re usually great characters.

I love bookstores, but libraries have something so intriguing about them. While the internet provides an instant, practical research tool, sometimes doing a little digging through real pages informs research for a book in a new way.

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Libraries Forever!

By Kathleen K.  My favorite trip as a young child was going to the library. There were always new books to look at, read and discuss. In every community I have ever lived in – and there have been quite a few – I have ALWAYS gone to the local library to get a library … Read more

For the Love of Books

By Sara T.

I was five when I got my first library card. It was green and beige and I got to “sign” the back – clear evidence of my terrible kindergarten handwriting. My mom and I would take weekly trips there, a bag load of books hanging from her shoulder and an eager kid with a gap-toothed smile pulling on her arm to get inside.

I grew up in the pages of “Corduroy” and “Harold and the Purple Crayon,” “Junie B. Jones” and “Little Critter.” And when I got tired of imagined classrooms and lost buttons, I found “Harry Potter,” “Nancy Drew” and “Charlie Bone.” Books were the one thing my mom would always splurge on when I was young. Who needed more clothes or toys when you could have books – a quasi-toy that I would play with for much longer than my Barbies.

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Travel

By Lori Z.  The library is a portal to a larger world. It goes beyond books and media. Library programs have introduced my family to singers, actors, artists and writers from around the world. It reminds us that we are part of a much larger community and has gifted us with a different perspective than … Read more

Bookmobile Beginnings

By Stephanie W. 

I grew up in a remote northern Ontario town, where the public library was, at first, too far away to visit. But a bookmobile came around every 3 weeks, and we were allowed to check out 2 books at a time. I had learned to read early, and always finished my 2 books within days, which left me waiting, eagerly, for return visits. Then when I was 8, a tiny branch library opened in a local strip mall, and my life changed. I virtually lived there, and devoured first the children’s section, and then, with my parents’ signed permission, the adult section. I read everything from Encyclopedia Brown to the Encyclopedia of Human Biology. My parents stressed the importance of education and reading, but were anything but wealthy, and could never have afforded to buy me everything – or much of – what I devoured. I directly credit libraries for the fact that I never thought that lack of money meant that I would be shut out of the joys of education, reading, or knowledge.

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Diving Into a World of Possibilities……

By Tina G.  I’ve gone to the Library all my life….It opens a world of possibilities for reading novels, self help, fantasy, websites. I took my girls when they were very young and each received their very own library card…. We went every week to read, find new adventures in books and do homework projects…. We … Read more

Summer Fun Circa 1974

By Sandy H. 

As a child, I participated in our town library’s summer reading program.

As an incentive to read, the librarian created a bulletin board filled with bookworms. The board was marked off at 10 book intervals, ending with 100. Children were allowed to move “their” worm forward based on the number of books read. After giving my weekly oral book reports to a library volunteer, I was allowed to move the worm with my name on it up the chart. I liked that.

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