• The Great Migration of African Americans from Putnam Co. GA to Lincoln Co. NC (1920-1930)

    Compiled and Edited by Herbert W. Stanford III 28 January 2022 By 1920, for African-Americans in the South, the optimism of the Reconstruction era had turned into 30 years of Jim Crow disenfranchisement and race-based violence.  To escape this terror and to hopefully find a better life, the “Great Migration”

  • From Bess Chapel to Newbold

    School for African Americans in Lincoln Today “separate but equal” may elicit a blank stare from students hearing it for the first time. For Lincoln County, howeve, it was very much the normal state of education until the late 1960s. In 1859, Bess Chapel Methodist Church was established by local

  • An Empty Tomb: The Story of a Marriage

    As recalled by local historian David C. Heavner, 1918-2007 As my granddaughter, Jessica Bailey Kuster, and her father-in-law Jack Kuster were busy trying to make a plot of the graves at St. Luke’s (Episcopal Church), I was walking around observing the headstones. Near the west end of the church I

  • Weave a Family Tapestry Through Oral Histories

    Genealogy is much more than names and dates. They say everyone has a story, and it’s true. The precious memories of your parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and family friends, are all threads of your family’s tapestry. Often you hear, “I wish I had asked that question while

  • The Famous Harp Peddlers of Crouse

    From an article that appeared in the Lincoln County News, June 17, 1913; Milton Tiddy, Editor and Proprietor   On Monday, May 23, 1913, four famous musicians from the Crouse area boarded the train amid a flow of tears. These boys stood on the rear platform of the car gazing

  • 1907: Lincolnton Threatens War!

    It is awful but true. Lincolnton’s integrity was called into question in August of 1907, resulting in some tongue-in-cheek sabre rattling between neighboring cities. It began with a story in the August 13 Lincoln County News, when Dr. R.A. Yoder, pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church, reported witnessing a comet in

Book your tickets