Topics Related to This Day in North Carolina History
On July 18, 1918, Union County World War I soldier Samuel I. Parker advanced directly into machine-gun fire, killing the gunner with his pistol.
On July 18, 1585, the Indian village of Aquascogoc was burned by men from the second of three Roanoke Voyages.
The voyagers on the second expedition left England in April 1585 with the goal of establishing a new colony on Roanoke Island. After arriving on the Outer Banks in June, a detachment of colonists, with Native American Manteo as their interpreter, explored the mainland and visited several villages, including Pomeiok, Aquascogoc and Secotan.
On July 18, 1963, Governor Terry Sanford announced the establishment of the North Carolina Fund, an interracial antipoverty initiative that predated and anticipated President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty.”
Sanford laid out his course in a speech at N.C. A&T State University in April 1963, rejecting segregation and proclaiming, “We must move forward as one people, or we will not move forward at all.”
On July 18, 1670, German-born explorer John Lederer ended his trip through the Carolina Piedmont north of what’s now Roanoke Rapids. Lederer’s expedition predated the much better-known trip led by naturalist John Lawson by 30 years.
Trained as a physician in Hamburg, Lederer arrived in Virginia in 1669, where Governor William Berkeley encouraged him to search for the Pacific Ocean. His journey helped allay many of the colonists’ fears about the backcountry.
On July 17, 1752, Colonial-era Governor Gabriel Johnston died.
Johnston served in the colony’s top job for 18 years, holding the post longer than any governor in North Carolina’s history down to the present day. Perhaps even more remarkable is that, due to problems collecting the rents and taxes that paid his salary, he was left uncompensated for 13 of those years.
On July 17, 1967, legendary jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane died.
Born in 1926 in the small Richmond County town of Hamlet, Coltrane and his family moved to High Point by the time he was 3-years-old. Coltrane’s love of music developed early, and he played both clarinet and saxophone in high school.
On July 16, 1857, Thomas Stonewall Jackson married Mary Anna Morrison at “Cottage Home,” the Lincoln County plantation of the Morrison family.
The couple first met through Morrison’s sister, Isabella, who was married to D. H. Hill, a faculty member at what’s now Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Jackson, who had previously attended West Point and fought in the Mexican-American War, was on the faculty of the Virginia Military Institute, also in Lexington.
On July 16, 1978, long-time state treasurer Edwin Gill died in Raleigh. Gill was known as “Mr. Integrity” during his more than 30 years of service as a public finance official.
Born in Laurinburg in July 1899, Gill opened a law practice there in 1924 after attending what’s now Duke University in the early part of the decade. He represented Scotland County in the legislature for one term before working as Governor O. Max Gardner’s private secretary.
On July 17, 1970, the “South’s Woodstock” was launched at Love Valley. The rock festival swelled the small Western-themed community of about 100 people to almost 200,000.
Located north of Statesville, Love Valley was the creation of Andy Barker in 1954, who had always wanted to live like a cowboy in an Old West town. The idea of the rock festival was Barker’s and he charged $5 a person for the three-day event.