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Topics Related to This Day in North Carolina History
On December 20, 1820, Tennessee farmer and Edgecombe County native John Bell died at his home in Robertson County, Tennessee. Decades later, Bell’s demise was attributed to the “Bell Witch,” a poltergeist that allegedly tormented the family between 1817 and 1821.
On December 19, 1929, Governor O. Max Gardner sponsored a “Live at Home” dinner. The purpose of the special meal, the signature event of Live at Home Week, was to “emphasize North Carolina products and industries.”
On December 19, 1777, the Continental Army, including the North Carolina Brigade, entered winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.Among the North Carolinians present at the Pennsylvania camp was 19-year-old, Major Willam Polk. Polk spent much of the harsh winter recuperating. He had been shot through the mouth while shouting orders at Germantown that October—the ball that hit him knocked out teeth and shattered his jaw.
On December 18, 1742, John Wright Stanly was born.
On December 18, 1767, an agent of England’s Wedgwood potteries finished extracting several tons of fine white clay from the mountains of North Carolina.
On December 17, 1776, the Fifth Provincial Congress at Halifax issued the North Carolina Declaration of Rights.
On December 17, 1894, John White, who during the Civil War purchased supplies for North Carolina in England, died of a stroke.Born in Scotland in 1814, White emigrated to Warrenton in 1828 to join his brother who was already living there. By the outbreak of the Civil War, he had become a prominent merchant.
On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first successful powered flight in a heavier-than-air craft. The story of the Wright brothers began in Dayton, Ohio, where they owned and operated a bicycle store. Seasonal slumps in sales forced the brothers to expand, and they decided to try designing a self-propelled aircraft.
On December 16, 1959, the Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society was formed in Kitty Hawk. With a motto of “Birds Fly—Men Drink”, the society continues to party each year from the afternoon of December 16 until 10:45 a. m. on December 17, the time at which the Wright brothers “allegedly” took their first flight. They are “dedicated to the principle that two Wrights made a wrong at Kitty Hawk.”
On December 16, 1870, the specially-designed Fresnel lens of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was lit to mark Diamond Shoals. The lighthouse lit in 1870 is counted as the second of three at Cape Hatteras.In 1794, Congress authorized the original 90-foot sandstone tower, completed in 1802. By the 1850s, complaints were voiced about the inadequacy of its light and, in 1861, during the Civil War, it was damaged by Union shelling.