Lacking Yahoo, Google and Fox two hundred years ago, news seekers hereabouts turned to the Newbern Centinel for the latest doings. World events were typical: trade, pirates and death. Big names in the newspaper included French show boat and military leader Napoleon Bonaparte; and Fifth U.S. President James “Don’t-mess-with-my-hemisphere” Monroe.
Kentuckian and Speaker of the House Henry Clay made a few headlines, too. Maine became the 23rd state in 1820. The country’s population, according to that year’s census, was 9,638,453, of which 1,538,022 – about 16 percent – were slaves. The Centinel – sometimes spelled Sentinel – brought word of the death of frontiersman and explorer Daniel Boone, calling his age of 88 “extraordinary longevity.” Several articles considered the passing of Commander Stephen Decatur, Jr. The naval hero and fighter of Barbary pirates was killed in a pistol duel with another officer. Decatur was just 41.
On the local front, Christ Church was leasing its premium pews to the well-to-do during the Spring. Salmon Hall, librarian of the “Newbern Library”, called for the immediate return of all books held by patrons in preparation for the upcoming directors’ meeting. William Dunn advertised that his shop had received a shipment of American window glass from Baltimore. At the local theatre, “A Grand Melo Dramatic Spectacular” entitled Timour the Tartar or the Princess of Mingrella drew a crowd. Cabinet and furniture maker Gabriel M. Rains advised that he “continues to make coffins” of St. Domingo mahogany “and will execute every description of work … in the neatest manner and at the shortest notice.”
Two centuries ago, New Bern was a busy port. Sailing ships entering and clearing the riverfront docks were noted in each newspaper edition. They came from all over: Port-Au-Prince, Turks Islands, Guadeloupe, Charleston, St. Barts, Portsmouth, Boston, and New Orleans to name a few. One item reported in December told that the British Brig Nymph from London had been taken by “a Piratical hermaphrodite brig” off Haiti in November but that the captain and crew had survived and made land five days later. (The latter brig’s colorful description – in addition to being a pirate ship – meant she carried an unusual set of sails.)
Freight prices for the items traded most heavily here garnered a special weekly column in the paper. There we learn the ships ferried bacon, beef, butter, beeswax, brandy (French, apple and peach), corn, cotton, coffee, cordage, flour, Holland and country gin, pine planks and timbers, shingles, staves, lard, molasses, tar, pitch, rosin, turpentine, pork, rice, a variety of rums, salt, sugar, whiskey and wine. A busy port, indeed.
Few, we presume, expected us to read about these things 200 years later. We wonder if anyone in New Bern will read this in the year 2220.
by Edward Ellis, Special Correspondent
Eddie Ellis is the author of New Bern History 101 and other works about Craven County’s rich heritage. He can be reached at flexspace2@aol.com.
More at edwardellis.com