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Oxcart pulling naval stores

An engraving from Frederick Law Olmsted's 1856 book A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States. A slave leads a team of oxen pulling a cart loaded with barrels of turpentine along a dirt road through the woods. To the side, another slave is chopping...

Format: image/illustration

Border Belt Farmers Museum

Not only will students learn about the history of tobacco farming, they will discover other important industries to this southern North Carolina county.

Format: article/field trip opportunity

Rankin Museum of American and Natural History

This wonderful museum has artifacts from Native American tribes, a Civil War exhibit, farming tools of days gone by, and exhibits of North American animals and fossils.

Format: article/field trip opportunity

The remains of a foundation of a building in historic Brunswick Town

These are the remains of a foundation of a building in historic Brunswick Town, in Brunswick County, North Carolina. In the mid-1700s, this town was a bustling shipping and political center. It was known for exporting tar, pitch, and turpentine, essential...

Format: image/photograph

Longleaf pine savanna

In Wetlands of the coastal plains, page 3

We begin with the longleaf pine savanna. We start with this habitat not only because longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) is the official state tree, but also because these habitats are simply beautiful to behold. These communities evolved...

By Dirk Frankenberg.

Naval stores and the longleaf pine

In Colonial North Carolina, page 6.4

North Carolina's extensive longleaf pine forests provided the natural resources needed to produce materials needed to build and maintain ships -- not only timber but tar, pitch, and rosin. These "naval stores" became North Carolina's most important indusstry in the eighteenth century, but today, the longleaf pine forests are nearly gone.

Format: article

By David Walbert.

Naval stores

In Teaching about North Carolina American Indians, page 3.3

Introduction From early Colonial times until the Civil War, the naval industry was important to North Carolina. The term naval stores describes all products of the gum of the pine tree. The name itself explains its use in the shipbuilding industry....

Format: lesson plan (grade 4 Social Studies)

By Gazelia Carter.

Lake Waccamaw Depot Museum

Take a field trip to the Lake Waccamaw Depot Museum and learn about the history and people of Columbus County.

Format: article/field trip opportunity

Tar Heels pitch in

In North Carolina in the Civil War and Reconstruction, page 2.7

"Tar Heel," evidence indicates, was a derogatory nickname applied to North Carolina soldiers by others in the Army of Northern Virginia. It was a natural, given that the boys from the piney woods oftentimes were harvesters of tar, pitch, and turpentine. It...

Format: article

Jones Lake State Park

A visit to Jones Lake Park not only teaches students about the habitats and animals that can be found there, but the phenomenon of the Carolina Bays is also explored.

Format: article/field trip opportunity

The importance of rice to North Carolina

In Colonial North Carolina, page 6.2

Rice was a very profitable crop in the late 1600s. People in foreign lands were already familiar with it, and it was gaining popularity as a food for the growing slave trade. Rice production helped support North Carolina's economy for many years, relying largely on slave labor. The abolition of slavery marked the beginning of the end of rice plantations in North Carolina.

Format: article

By Keri Towery.

Antebellum North Carolina

Primary sources and readings explore North Carolina in the antebellum period (1830–1860). Topics include slavery, daily life, agriculture, industry, technology, and the arts, as well as the events leading to secession and civil war.

Format: book (multiple pages)

New Spring Goods

In North Carolina in the Civil War and Reconstruction, page 7.16

Advertisements in a Plymouth, North Carolina, newspaper in May 1865, celebrating the return of peace -- and of consumer goods from the North. Includes historical commentary.

Format: newspaper

Commentary and sidebar notes by David Walbert and L. Maren Wood.

Colonial North Carolina

Colonial North Carolina from the establishment of the Carolina in 1663 to the eve of the American Revolution in 1763. Compares the original vision for the colony with the way it actually developed. Covers the people who settled North Carolina; the growth of institutions, trade, and slavery; the impact of colonization on American Indians; and significant events such as Culpeper's Rebellion, the Tuscarora War, and the French and Indian Wars.

Format: book (multiple pages)

Midwives and herbal medicine

In North Carolina in the New Nation, page 2.3

Excerpts from the medicine recipe book of Rachel Allen, who lived near Snow Camp, North Carolina, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, show how residents of the backcountry treated wounds, illness, and disease.

Commentary and sidebar notes by L. Maren Wood.

The First Provincial Congress

In Revolutionary North Carolina, page 2.6

After the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, Britain retaliated with a series of punitive measures that colonists called the "intolerable acts." In August 1774, North Carolina's colonial leaders met at New Bern to set out their princples, to plan further opposition to Britain, and to choose delegates to a Continental Congress. This excerpt from the proceedings of that First Provincial Congress includes historical commentary.

Format: document

Resources on the web

Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections

Documents the music, history and culture of Florida. Completed as part of the Florida Works Project Administration program this collection includes the music and stories of the various ethnic groups throughout Florida. Also included are performances by Zora... (Learn more)

Format: website/general

Provided by: Library of Congress