On June 14, 1838, a boiler on the steamship Pulaski exploded while the ship was off the North Carolina coast. The vessel was bound for Baltimore from Savannah. She carried a crew of about 36 and close to 150 passengers, many of whom were killed immediately by the scalding steam. Others drowned or perished when struck by falling wreckage. Two of the Pulaski’s small boats with survivors made it to shore the following day, landing in Onslow County.
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On June 14, 1908, arranger, composer and orchestra leader John Scott Trotter was born in Charlotte.
A piano student from a young age, Trotter began playing piano professionally with Hal Kemp’s band after meeting Kemp as a student at UNC. At the end of his first year Trotter left college to continue with the band, serving as their arranger as well as the pianist.
In 1936, Trotter left Kemp’s band and began orchestrating for Bing Crosby, an association that would last for almost 20 years.
On June 13, 1940, the USS North Carolina (BB-55) was launched at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, beginning a highly decorated career. Commissioned on April 9, 1941, the ship became the first of ten fast battleships to join the fleet in World War II. The North Carolina and her sister ship, Washington, comprised the North Carolina Class of battleship.
On June 13, 1905, old-time musician Lesley Riddle was born in the Silvers Gap community north of Burnsville. Riddle learned to play blues and gospel songs on the guitar after losing most of a leg in an accident at a cement plant. He had to adjust his picking techniques to use only his thumb, index finger and little finger after losing two fingers in a shotgun accident.
On June 13, 1929, Governor Robert W. Scott was born in Alamance County to family active in the state’s political and social life.
After attending school at Duke and N.C. State, Scott returned home to manage his family’s dairy farm. He served in the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps in Asia before being elected the state’s lieutenant governor in 1964.
On June 13, 1903, Ambrose Jessup Tomlinson spent much time in prayer at the “fields of the wood” in Cherokee County and had a revelation that the local Holiness church was the Church of God as prophesized in the Bible.
On June 12, 1942, the U.S. Army Air Force took over Seymour Johnson Field for use as a training center. In 1941, the Works Progress Administration built a municipal airport south of Goldsboro; the dedication was held one week before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The field was named for Seymour Johnson, a Goldsboro native, U.S. Naval Academy graduate and test pilot for Grumman Aircraft who died in a crash shortly before the war.
On June 12, 1886, James G. Hanes, founder of Hanes knitwear, was born in what’s now Winston-Salem.
On June 11, 1937, Eleanor Roosevelt kicked up her heels with the homesteaders at Penderlea. The First Lady visited Pender County to check on the progress at one of her husband Franklin’s premier homestead sites.
During the depths of the Depression, Wilmington industrialist Hugh MacRae conceived the idea of creating a model farm community at Penderlea on a grand scale. He had experimented with similar communities across southeastern North Carolina early in the 20th century.