Return to Currituck Co.
Because of the importance of water for military transportation and the county’s closeness to Norfolk, VA., Federal troops occupied Currituck County early in the war and sometimes camped on the courthouse grounds. Union troops under Gen Ambrose E. Burnside marched into the county in 1862. In December 1863, three columns of U.S. Colored Troops led by Gen. Edward A. Wild converged here on a raid from Elizabeth City. They liberated slaves, destroyed Confederate camps, and occupied the courthouse grounds. Federal Soldiers carried off many early county court records; some were returned in 1976.
On July 23, 1903, Henry M. Shaw Camp No. 1304 , North Carolina Confederate Veterans, met at the courthouse and had dinner on the grounds. According to Adjutant General J.B. Lee, “By 12 o’clock the yard of the court house and those of the hotels were filled with a solid mass of humanity. Old Veterans; ... parents with their ... children; young men with their best girls; and old maids and batchelors [sic] made the crowd one of the largest ever assembled in Currituck county.”
Original photo owned by Margaret Pritchard. Can any of our researchers identify anyone in this photograph from 1903?
A few of these men have been identified. Can any of our researchers identify the others?
1. 21. 2. 22. 3. 23. Wilson Wright 4. 24. 5. 25. [Samuel] Salyear 6. 26. Jerome Bunnill Lee 7. Nathaniel Hathaway 27. Isaac Doxey 8. 28. 9. 29. 10. 30. 11. 31. 12. 32. John M. Willey 13. 33. Mager Everton Woodhouse [see photo] 14. Jim Evans 34. 15. 35. 16. 36. 17. Wiley O. Walker [see his headstone] 37. 18. 38. 19. 39. 20. 40. The Confederate monument has an unusual construction history. The original design featured a Confederate soldier atop an obelisk, similar to many such monuments that adorn courthouse greens across the South. Confederate veterans erected the base in 1912, and the project then languished until November 1922, when Northern publishing magnate and philanthropist Joseph P. Knapp offered to complete the memorial. County commissioners accepted his proposal, but the idea of a Northerner completing the monument prompted an editorial in the local paper and local opposition. After a framed drawing of the revised design was placed in the courthouse, opposition subsided, the red granite globe weighing 2,397 pounds was added, and the monument was completed.
Drawing of original design
UCV Monument at Currituck Courthouse
© 2011 Kay Midgett Sheppard
