On February 22, 1856, the new “Insane Hospital of North Carolina”—renamed Dorothea Dix Hospital a century later—admitted its first patient, suffering from “suicidal mania.” Previously, families kept mentally ill members at home or local governments confined them in jails or poorhouses.
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On February 21, 1764, famed frontiersman Daniel Boone sold land near what is now Mocksville to settle debts before exploring westward. Aaron Van Cleave, a former ship’s captain from New York, paid Boone “80 pounds Proclamation money of the state of North Carolina” for his 640 acres at the forks of the Yadkin River.
On February 21, 1903, prominent attorney Ernest Haywood shot and killed Ludlow Skinner, the son of a popular Baptist minister, in broad daylight on Raleigh’s busy Fayetteville Street.
On February 21, 1893, the General Assembly adopted Esse Quam Videri as the official state motto. Translated from Latin, the phrase means “To be rather than to seem.”
The phrase is a quote from the De Amicitia, an essay on friendship by the Roman author and politician Cicero that dates to 44 B.C. Similar sentiments can found in early texts by the Greek poet Eschylus and the philosopher Socrates.
Noted Halifax County judge and historian Walter Clark first selected the phrase and drafted the bill for the General Assembly to consider.
On February 21, 1933, Nina Simone, often called the “high priestess of soul,” was born in the small town of Tryon in Polk County.
Determined to become one of the first highly-successful African-American concert pianists, Simone spent a summer at the famed Julliard School after graduating high school in Asheville in 1950. Denied admission to music school in Philadelphia, Simone took menial jobs there.
On February 20, 1885, 22 years after Emancipation, freedmen in Edgecombe County incorporated Princeville, the state’s first town founded by African Americans.
Its claim to first in the nation is rivaled only by Eatonville, Florida. Along with James City in Craven County and Roanoke Island in Dare County, the community was among the state’s three resettlement colonies for former slaves.
On February 20, 1948, Piedmont Airlines launched its first passenger flight. The flight took off from Wilmington and arrived in Cincinnati after making several stops.
On February 20, 1980, Joseph Banks Rhine of Durham, a controversial investigator into the paranormal, died.
Rhine, with his pioneering work in parapsychology, gained national notoriety for himself and Duke University, where he worked.
On February 20, 1862, Union troops burned Winton, a small village in Hertford County overlooking the Chowan River.
On February 19, 1925, the North Carolina House defeated the Poole anti-evolution resolution. The resolution, introduced by D.