Bertie  COUNTY  NC  History - Courthouse Dedication 1887

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Neil Baker nbaker@coastalnet.com
(James D. Pierce assisted with this article)

http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/bertie.htm


CORNERSTONE OF BERTIE HISTORY 
Researched by Neil Baker from microfilm records
at the Lawrence Memorial Library
in Windsor 

WINDSOR PUBLIC LEDGER 
OCTOBER 5, 1887 
The Cornerstone 
The morning of Saturday, October 1 (1887), saw one of the
largest crowds in Windsor ever before gathered together.
The occasion was the laying of the cornerstone of a new
courthouse. 

The stone was laid by the Masons with imposing
ceremonies, Mr. C. H. Robinson, G.M. of the State,
delivering the dedication address, and the Hon. F. D.
Winston (delivering) the commemorative oration. Mr.
Winston’s speech was grand and sublime. 

The Edenton Silver Cornet Band furnished the music for
the occasion. After the ceremonies there was a public
dinner and all who wished could partake. The immense
crowd seemed to enjoy themselves and all left feeling
glad they came. (The Public Ledger) will publish at
length in our next issue the speech...... (of) the Hon.
F. D. Winston, together with interesting articles
appertaining to the day. 

~~~ 

Francis Donnell Winston (1857-1941) attended Cornell
University 1873-74 and was awarded an A.B. from the
University of North Carolina in 1879. He practiced law in
Windsor, was clerk of superior court 1881-82, was a state
senator 1887-89, served in the NC General Assembly 1889-
1900, and was once again in the legislature in the late
1920s; he was a judge of superior court 1901-02 and 1916,
elected lieutenant governor 1905-09, was U.S. district
attorney 1913-16. He was a trustee of the University of
North Carolina and president of the NC Bar Association,
as well as an active Mason and member of the Episcopal
Church. He married Rosa Kenney, daughter of Dr. S. B.
Kenney of Maine, who came south with the US Navy during
the Civil War and remained in Hampton Roads VA as a
government employee after the war, later settling in
Windsor. Judge Winston really was capable of making a
"grand and sublime" speech (as the correspondent wrote),
a statement with which readers certainly will agree after
digesting the lofty phrases of his dedication oration as
printed in The Windsor Ledger Oct. 12, 1887, and
excerpted here. 

~~~ 

WINDSOR PUBLIC LEDGER OCTOBER 12, 1887 (Excerpts from the
Oration)...... At that meeting of the court (1774) and as
preparatory to holding court in another place, the
justices ordered “That the Clerk of the court set up
advertisements at all the convenient places in the county
giving notices that the County Court House, Gaol and lot
of land on which the same stands is to be sold at a
public vendue the Monday before the next court. And
likewise the public warehouse on Cashie River.” So
important an event as the removal of the seat of
government at this day would create great excitement, but
it seems not to have caused a ripple in the breast of the
staid colonial justiciars, for the court record is silent
on that point. 

>From the records, the first court held at Windsor was at
August Term 1774, and no removal from this place has ever
been made. It seems that the jail at Wolfingdon was used
after the court was moved to Windsor, for at August Term
1774 the Sheriff was ordered “to repair the jail until a
new one was built at Windsor.” 

The first court held in this place was in a house
belonging to William Williams, ancestor of our townsman,
Dr. E. W. Pugh. From the best information I can gather,
it was the house now occupied by Mrs. Wm. S. Gray. I have
heard my uncle Tayloe say that that house was at one time
a place for holding the courts of the county. 

The next court place was at the house of Mr. Samuel
Milburn, which was a hotel ~ a long building, part two-
story, which occupied the lot where Thomas Gilliam Esq.
now lives. Our esteemed and venerable fellow citizen, Mr.
L. S. Webb, recollects the house well, when it was torn
down and replaced by James Reid’s saddle shop. It was
afterward the residence of the late Burrell Russell. 

I cannot ascertain the date when work was begun on the
old court house. I infer it was 1775, one year after the
courts were held in Windsor, for I find of record of that
date a deed from Samuel Milburn to the Commissioners and
Trustees for half an acre of land for the purpose of
erecting a court house, clerk’s office, jail, stocks and
pillory for the County of Bertie. 


Thomas Rhodes, grandfather of Mr. Jonathan S. Tayloe and
great-grandfather of L. S. Webb, was the contractor. Mr.
Tayloe told me that the walls were completed to the top
of the windows at the breaking-out of the Revolutionary
War, when work was suspended. 

It was completed in 1788, for in that year a tax of “14
pence on the poll and every one hundred pounds of town
property was levied to pay the debt due Thomas Rhodes for
building the court house.” 

The county rapidly grew in wealth and population, and the
volume of judicial business increased. More court
accommodations were needed, and in 1822 two wings were
added by Elisha Rhodes, and the building was then
completed as you have been accustomed to see it. 

For a year or two past, the subject of a new court house
has been discussed in a casual way, but nothing definite
was done until December of last year when the
Commissioners ordered a bill to be drawn authorizing them
to proceed with the work. At the January meeting of this
year, the bill was agreed upon and on the 17th day of
January, as your Senator in the General Assembly, I had
the honor to introduce the bill and have it passed
without alteration or amendment. The work was let out
June 1887, and the old building ...... has disappeared. 

In brief, fellow citizens, I have given you the history
of the old building and the new. Many hallowed memories
cluster around our old court house. I challenge any
county to produce a more honorable record for integrity
and efficiency than borne by the officers who have
presided in our county ~ the Johnstons, Cherrys,
Whitmels, Hills, Lewis Thompson, Jonathan S. Tayloe, the
Grays, Standleys, Jacocks, L. S. Webb, and him who but so
lately passed from us, the efficient clerk, the
gentleman, the generous friend, the charitable neighbor,
Wm. P. Gurley, dying as he lived, with decency and in
order. 

The lawyers who have practiced in our old court house
have been known and honored for their strict integrity,
sagacious counsel, great wisdom and peerless eloquence.
Their honored names make a jeweled crown befitting the
brow of any land. But they have all gone to the
undiscovered country, and nothing remains but their
actions which blossom in the dust that years scatter on
their tombs. Iredell, Moore, Barker, Stone, Wm. Cherry,
James Allen, W. W. Cherry, Gavin Hogg, Reynolds, David
Outlaw, Winston, Jos. B. Cherry, Garrett, Jordan, and
Bird. Break dead-silence in which their spirits rest, and
let us feel again the touch of their vanished hands and
the sound of their stilled voices. If ever the hosts of
the immortal bless the scenes of earth, come mighty
dwellers from the spirit land and breathe a benison (?)
on the work of this hour. 

It is not alone in the peaceful walks of life, but also
in the tented field (that) our county has reaped undying
fame by the daring of her sons. From the time gallant
Whitmel fell in the Revolution and received a soldier's
grave with intrepid Nash at Germantown ~ to the day our
Southern heart broke with grief at Appomattox ~ our
gallant sons have been the first in the field, foremost
to scale the breastworks, in the van of every charge, and
tardy rear of every retreat. 

The trying scenes the old building passed through is the
history and heritage of our common country. Its
unfinished walls heard the roar of musketry at Lexington,
Concord, Trenton, Bunker Hill, Kings Mountain, Guilford
Court House, the Cow Pens, Valley Forge and Yorktown. It
saw a handful of raw recruits led by undisciplined
officers face the stern and tutored regulars of the Old
World, and from the din and dust of battle, it saw the
beautiful figure of Liberty, Columbia, rise ~ bearing in
her uplifted arm the Torch of Liberty unquenched. 

It witnessed the rise of a long array of statesmen such
as the world never knew. The wisdom of Washington, the
bold daring of Green, Lee and Putnam, the sagacious
counsels of Jefferson, Marshall and Madison, the fiery
eloquence of Otis and Henry ~ all seemed to enter the
mortar that cemented its walls. Completed after the
grandest struggle for liberty the world ever knew, its
doors were ...... open when the alarum drum beat to arms,
and England’s host braved the fiery and intrepid Jackson
at New Orleans to suffer a crushing defeat. 

As I have said, its wings were added by Elisha Rhodes in
1822. It seems that the building was destined to bear the
din and strife of arms. Baptized in blood in its infancy,
its lintel sprinkled with blood on its completion, the
addition put thereto received its share of blood at the
plunder of the Alamo and the ensanguined field of
Monterrey. 

It has witnessed Southern sons, unaided, bearing the
"Lone Star" westward, and seen an empire carved from the
heritage of Montezumas. It saw the heroism of Taylor,
Bragg and Crittenden on the blazing heights of Buena
Vista. Its wall echoed the tread of our gallant soldiers
led by Lee and Scott, in the valleys, on the hills and
before the walls of Mexico. 

The last scenes of carnage witnessed by the old court
house were the most desperate, determined and deadly the
world ever saw. The former wars had been strife of
enemies, this war the battle of brother. Each section
contending for what it honestly believed was right. 

I will draw no contrast between these brave armies, those
true devoted men on either side. I only wish their great
struggle had been a united effort to expand the area of
free institutions, to extend the light of American
civilization, to enlarge and magnify all the beneficent
influences of American liberty. 

While we shed tears over the loss of gallant men of both
armies, we rejoice in their common bravery, truth,
fortitude and splendid achievements, and still more in
the fact that no one but Americans could have resisted as
the South did ~ and no one but Americans could have
persevered as the North did. Yet I but speak the simple
truth before the world and before Heaven when I declare
that human history from the beginning has failed to
furnish a brighter example of all the devoted qualities
of soldiers' duty than was daily exhibited in the army of
the South. 

I need not recall those who formed that glittering line
of bayonets on Marye’s burning hill, who met the red
storm of blood at Chancellorsville, who stepped like
bridegrooms to a marriage feast up the stony ridge of
Gettysburg, and meeting death from foemen worthy of their
steel, fell back like the sullen roar of broken waters
......