National Farmers' Union (1910)

(click on photograph for larger image)

The National Farmers Union (officially Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union of America) is a national federation of State Farmers Union organizations in the United States. It is the second largest general farm organization in the country, after Farm Bureau. The organization was founded in Point, Texas, in 1902 and is now headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Today, the organization continues its original mission: to protect and enhance the economic well-being and quality of life for family farmers and ranchers and their rural communities. It does this by promoting legislation and education beneficial to farmers, and by developing cooperative buying and selling methods and businesses.

National Farmer's Union Website

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Hamer General Store (Caswell County, North Carolina)

(click on photograph for larger image)

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Albion Winegar Tourgee (1838-1905)

Karcher, Carolyn L. A Refugee from His Race: Albion W. Tourgée and His fight against White Supremacy." Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

From the Publisher: During one of the darkest periods of U.S. history, when white supremacy was entrenching itself throughout the nation, the white writer-jurist-activist Albion W. Tourgee (1838-1905) forged an extraordinary alliance with African Americans. Acclaimed by blacks as "one of the best friends of the Afro-American people this country has ever produced" and reviled by white Southerners as a race traitor, Tourgee offers an ideal lens through which to reexamine the often caricatured relations between progressive whites and African Americans. He collaborated closely with African Americans in founding an interracial civil rights organization eighteen years before the inception of the NAACP, in campaigning against lynching alongside Ida B. Wells and Cleveland Gazette editor Harry C. Smith, and in challenging the ideology of segregation as lead counsel for people of color in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case.

Here, Carolyn L. Karcher provides the first in-depth account of this collaboration. Drawing on Tourgee's vast correspondence with African American intellectuals, activists, and ordinary folk, on African American newspapers and on his newspaper column, "A Bystander's Notes," in which he quoted and replied to letters from his correspondents, the book also captures the lively dialogue about race that Tourgee and his contemporaries carried on.

Caswell County Sheriff

Caswell County, North Carolina has had the following men occupy the office of sheriff:

David Shelton 1777-1779
Thomas Rice 1779-1780
John Atkinson 1780
James Rice 1780
David Shelton 1780-1783

John Douglas 1783-1785
James Saunders 1785-1787
Robert Parks 1787-1789
Spillsby Coleman 1789-1790
Thomas Brooks 1790-1792

William Swift 1792-1793
Adam Sanders 1793-1795
Azariah Graves 1795-1797
James Williamson 1797-1799
William Muzzle 1799-1801

Gabriel Lea 1801-1802
William Rainey 1802-1804
Samuel Johnson 1804-1805
Archibald Samuel 1805-1806
John Stamps 1806-1814

Nathan Williams 1814-1815
George Williamson 1815-1832
Thomas L. Lea 1832-1842
John K. Brooks 1842-1850
Frank A. Wiley 1850-1856

Jesse C. Griffith 1856
Christian Strader 1856-1860
Jesse C. Griffith 1860-1879
Barzillai Graves 1879-1891
T. P. Womack 1891-1894

John T. Donoho 1894-1900
Abner Fitch 1900-1907
Thomas N. Fitch 1907-1919
Will Burton 1919-1920
John H. Gunn 1920-1929

John Y. Gatewood 1929-1936
John H. Gunn 1936-1950
John Y. Gatewood 1950-1951
J. Whitt Powell 1951-1953
Lynn Banks Williamson 1953-1958

Frank B. Daniel 1958-1966
Bobby E. Poteat 1966-1978
James I. Smith, Jr. 1978-2002
Michael L. Welch 2002-2018
Tony Durden 2018-

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North Carolina State Archives: Caswell County

Guide to Research Material in NC State Archives - County Records & State Records

CASWELL COUNTY

Established in 1777 from Orange County.
Some records were said to have been destroyed during occupation
by militia troops during Reconstruction.

ORIGINAL RECORDS

BONDS

Apprentice Bonds and Records, 1777-1921; 2 volumes, 2 Fibredex boxes.
Bastardy Bonds and Records, 1780-1905; 1 volume, 2 Fibredex boxes.
Officials’ Bonds and Records, 1777-1907; 1 volume, 3 Fibredex boxes.
Tavern Bonds, 1777-1868; 1 Fibredex box.

Soil Conservation Service

This May 5, 1940, image depicts Yanceyville, North Carolina, Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees releasing a queen bee into a new hive. Honey from these hives was provided to the camp mess (NRCS image — click to enlarge).

Roll call at camp SCS-NC-5, Yanceyville, North Carolina, May 4, 1940
-- National Archives College Park 35G No 228CC (click to enlarge)


Enrollee sighting through an engineer’s level at camp SCS-NC-5,
Yanceyville, North Carolina -- National Archives-College Park 35G No 263
(click to enlarge)

The Civilian Conservation Corps played a critical role in the history of the Soil Conservation Service, predecessor to the Natural Resources Conservation Service. March 31, 2008, marks the 75th anniversary of President Franklin Roosevelt’s signing of the law authorizing the Emergency Conservation Work, the earlier official name of the CCC. As Governor of New York, FDR had hired unemployed youth to reforest abandoned farmland. In 1932, one-fourth of America's men between the ages of 15 and 24 could not find work. Another 29 percent worked only part-time. Incoming President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed on March 21, 1933, that Congress create "a civilian conservation corps to be used in simple work, not interfering with normal employment, and confining itself to forestry, the prevention of soil erosion, flood control, and similar projects."

Soil Erosion Service

Later that year on September 19, a soil scientist in the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils Hugh Hammond Bennett was selected to direct a new agency -- the Soil Erosion Service (SES) in the Department of the Interior. Bennett had been supervising a group of soil conservation experiment stations in soil erosion problem areas. He proposed to establish watershed-based demonstration projects near the research stations where the new agency could utilize the information from the stations to demonstrate the practicability of using soil and water conservation methods. He knew that the work of CCC enrollees could be invaluable in convincing the cash-strapped farmers during the Depression to try new methods that required some labor to install. The CCC allotted 22 camps, far fewer than had been requested, to the Soil Erosion Service for the third camp period, April 1-September 30, 1934. and then extended them for the fourth enrollment period October 1, 1934 – March 31, 1935. Another 17 camps were assigned, making a total of 51 camps for the fourth period. Practically all of these camps were located on the demonstration project work areas. As the drought deepened, another 18 camps were assigned to SES specifically for drought relief work.

Soil Conservation Service

The successful demonstration during the period September 1933 to April 1935 increased the support for a national soil conservation policy and program. When the act of April 27, 1935, created the Soil Conservation Service in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Congress provided more funds and the new Service expanded its operations nationwide. In fiscal year 1937, SCS supervised the work of an average 70,000 enrollees occupying 440 camps. Ninety percent of the camps worked not on a watershed-based demonstration project but in a 25,000 acre work area. As local communities began organizing soil conservation districts and signing cooperative agreements with USDA in 1937, SCS began supplying a CCC camp to further each district's conservation program. During the life of CCC, SCS supervised the work of more than 800 of the 4,500 camps. African-American enrollees worked in more than 100 of those camps.

CCC Indian Division

SCS also supervised work by Indian CCC enrollees on the Navajo Project area, which was composed of the Navajo and Zuni reservations and the Pueblos. The Indian CCC, which was initially designated the Indian Emergency Conservation Work (IECW) and after 1937 the Civilian Conservation Corps-Indian Division (CCC-ID), differed significantly from the CCC operations on the public and private lands. At the request of Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved a separate Indian CCC on April 27, 1933. The CCC had a goal of organizing camps of 200 to 250 men. The Indian CCC could establish smaller camps and in some cases establish family camps.

In fact, camps were not required in the in CCC-ID as some enrollees lived at home and traveled daily to the work site. All enrollees were Indians. The employees of SCS and the Bureau of Indians Affairs (BIA) were combined into the Navajo Service. In this working arrangement, SCS employees supervised many Indian CCC enrollees on the Navajo Project. On other reservations, BIA supervised the work alone.

Conclusion

The experience for both SCS staff and the enrollees, provided SCS a trained technical core of workers for years to come. Former enrollees joined the staff and during the early years, CCC funds provided for nearly half of the agency's workforce. In addition to contributing to the passage of the Soil Conservation Act of 1935, the CCC also was instrumental in helping the soil conservation district movement get a healthy start. When the states began enacting soil conservation district laws in 1937, it came as no surprise to the SCS field force that the first districts were organized near CCC camp work areas. CCC's real contribution, however, lay in proving the feasibility of conservation. The positive public attitude associated with CCC work, including soil conservation, helped to create an atmosphere in which soil conservation was regarded, at least in part, as a public responsibility. Your contact is NRCS Senior Historian J. Douglas Helms, at 202-720-3766.

Source: Natural Resources Conservation Service

See Also: Civilian Conservation Corps

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Tobacco and Slave Ledger Preservation Project

Caswell County, NC 1840's Tobacco and Slave Trading Ledger Collection

"April 8th, 1841 I have just learned with great sorrow that President Harrison is no more- the whole Nation should, yes, I believe they will mourn, Great God what a calamity, Oh, Lord receive him. Blessed be they who die in the name of the Lord."

The ledger consists of 148 pages of recorded tobacco and slave trading information dating from 1837 to 1845. There are letters, bills of sale and other documents dating from 1837-1855.

Part I Tobacco

The first part of the ledger concerns the prizing, buying and selling of tobacco from Caswell County plantations. Important facts such as person selling tobacco, the type and condition of the crop, and location sold are recorded. It is also noted how the tobacco is transported to market. The tobacco was prized into hogsheads. The hogsheads weighed about 1400 lbs full. The hogsheads were taken to Milton on heavy wagons. Once in Milton the hogsheads were loaded onto a bateaux and shipped via the Dan River to the market in Danville, Virginia.

Caswell County North Carolina July 20, 1841 Tobacco sold in Lynchburg, Richmond, and Petersburg.

Part II Slave Trading

The second part of the ledger is a rare and important record of the North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina slave trade during the 1840's. Expansion of the cotton kingdom during the 1830's greatly increased the demand for slave labor in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. The need for slave labor began to decline in the old tobacco belt region of the upper south. Many enslaved people were "sold south" as a result of debt and estate settlements and economic conditions.

A list of enslaved people by name, some are recorded with surname. The cost of the trip to Surry County, NC for the auction is noted as $22.85.