Going through a collection of old papers a couple of years ago, I came across a rather simple item; a newspaper advertising receipt from the summer of 1870. It’s shown here at the bottom of the page and records a five dollar charge for an “Administrator’s Notice” for the “sale of the land estate of [illegible] Willis.” Such everyday business items were once commonplace but few have survived to the present.
I kept a copy, came across it a few times over the next many months, and began to notice more and more of its detail. The ad had been placed in The New-Berne Daily Times – back when New Bern had both a hyphen and an “e” at the end – by the presumptive estate administrator, S. W. Willis. A note was written long-hand on its border: “Left for collection by Times Office.”
Next to that is a rather striking piece of artwork for something as mundane as a receipt. [See enlargement at right]. Victory carries the American flag while lofting a laurel wreath in the air. Above that is an admonition to “READ the TIMES!” and below it we’re informed that a subcription is “Six Dollars Yearly.”
On its left border appears the vertical motto: “The Times is a Live Newspaper, and stands or falls by Square Dealing.” On the right is the name of the editor, Ethelbert Hubbs, whose signature is at the bottom of the receipt.
Though many volumes of this newspaper are preserved in archives, efforts to learn more of the Willises from the actual printed notice were thwarted by the lack of all editions of The Times for 1870. Additional research identified a farmer named Samuel W. Willis, age 28, in Ward 3 New Bern, but nothing absolute.
The editor, Hubbs, left a much more discernible trail.
Second Lieutenant Ethelbert Hubbs arrived in New Bern on March 14, 1862, a date some readers will recognize as the day of the Battle of New Bern. He was with the 9th New Jersey Infantry Regiment, also known as the Jersey Muskrats, a part of the victorious Union invasion force led by Gen. Ambrose Burnside.
Hubbs would spend much of the remainder of his life in New Bern, first as an officer with the federal occupying force and, after his voluntary discharge in September 1863, as a Treasury Department special agent in charge of “Abandoned Lands and Plantations.” Following that service, he was the prosperous proprietor of the newspaper and of the Hubbs & Company General Store. His partner in the store was his brother, Orlando, another of the “transplanted Yankees” who arrived during the war.
Ethelbert Hubbs (1836-1919) was a Craven County commissioner during the Reconstruction period of the late 1860s when Republicans – the victors of the Civil War, liberators of the slaves, and occupiers of the South – ruled North Carolina. During this period he was part of a committee of charitable aid after a crop failure when, according to New Bern historian Alan Watson, “people were found literally starving in their homes.” In 1881, Hubbs also served as New Bern’s postmaster. His elegant home was near the river at the corner of Change and East Front Street.
Orlando Hubbs (1840-1930) also became a prominent Republican politician during Reconstruction. He was elected sheriff of Craven County in 1871 and later to the U.S. House of Representatives for the second district of North Carolina. Several decades after the war, political winds shifted back to the Southern Democrats. Thus the Hubbs brother returned home to further success in Smithtown, Long Island, N.Y. They lived long lives and are buried among relatives in the nearby Commack Cemetery.
All that from a 150 year old receipt.
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.
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