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.
On December 16, 1859, John A. Copeland Jr., was executed for his participation John Brown’s raid on the United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
Copeland, a free person, was born in Raleigh in 1834. In 1843 his family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, and became involved with the abolitionist movement. In 1858, Copeland assisted in the rescue of a man who was arrested for being a fugitive and was arrested for his actions but never tried.
On December 15, 1862, federal and Confederate forces clashed at what’s today known as Seven Springs, but was then called Whitehall.
Part of Union General John G. Foster’s raid from New Bern to Goldsboro in late 1862, Foster’s contingent of three companies of cavalry and several pieces of artillery entered Whitehall hoping to capture or destroy the railroad bridge.
On December 15, 1836, Confederate spy Emeline Jamison Pigott was born in Carteret County. Living on a farm on Calico Creek, near what is now Morehead City, she witnessed many of the hardships the Civil War brought on, when Confederate, and later, Union soldiers were encamped nearby.
On December 14, 1786, Robert Howe, Continental army general, died on his way to Fayetteville to serve in the state legislature.
Born in 1732 in New Hanover County, Howe inherited a considerable fortune and owned several large plantations in the region. When Brunswick County was formed, he was elected to the colonial assembly, a post he held for six terms. He also served as a militia officer and commanded Fort Johnston from 1769 to 1773.
On December 14, 1862, Union forces under the command of Gen. John G. Foster launched their second attack on Confederate Gen. Nathan G. “Shanks” Evans at the First Battle of Kinston.
On December 13, 1986, Ella Baker, civil rights leader and organizer of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), died. Called “the mother of the civil rights movement” by one scholar, Baker culminated a life dedicated to civil rights work by helping to establish SNCC at her alma mater, Shaw University, in April 1960.
On December 13, 1951, North Carolina dressmaker Molly McCoy Hancock died.
Born in 1863, McCoy grew up in Rockingham County with her five siblings. Her mother owned one of the first sewing machines in the area and wove her own cloth. Hancock learned how to be a seamstress by watching her mother work. She found the work to be so engaging that she ended up designing and making dresses for her sisters and classmates.
On December 12, 1985, Arrow Air Flight 1285 crashed during take-off in Gander, Newfoundland. The chartered flight was transporting 248 soldiers from the 101st Airborne back to their base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, ending a six-month peace-keeping mission in Sinai, Egypt.
Their flight was to deliver them home to their families just in time for the Christmas holidays. Thirty years later, the loss of Arrow Air Flight 1285 remains the worst plane crash involving a peace-keeping force in the history of the U.S. military.