Virtual Vietnam Veterans

I was contacted by a researcher collecting the images of Vietnam War Veterans who were killed in the war.  These images were to be matched up with the Virtual Vietnam Wall of Faces and the deceased veteran’s grave on Find a Grave.com.  The researcher was looking for a picture of a Wilson County Marine who was killed in Vietnam in 1968.  His name was Marvin Bullock and he was a graduate of Speight High School in 1968.  Try as I might, I could not find a yearbook for Speight but I did find a graduation picture in the Wilson Times from that year.  The picture is not that great quality so the researcher is pursuing some family members that I found the names and telephone numbers for.  Hopefully an image of Marvin will soon grace the wall with his comrades who gave their lives in a distant war.

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Civil Rights Program

Otis Newsome (yes her name is Otis!), granddaughter of the murdered WWII vet, Otis Newsome, and JD candidate Rosie Nevins

The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice program that we had last Thursday night at the library was quite excellent.  Rosie and Molly, the JD candidates, had a well researched and thoughtful presentation on the three African American WWII veterans that were victims of racial violence in Wilson and Johnston counties in the 1930’s and 1940’s.  Although there was low attendance, there was still a spirited discourse on how to reconcile and keep the memories of people  and their families alive who did not  any receive any justice  for the crimes that were committed against them

Wilson’s New Civil War Trails Marker

The top right picture on the marker was what the Hospital looked like during the Civil War era.

Interior of the museum.

The last remnant of the old hospital.

Yesterday I was able to attend the unveiling of Wilson’s new Civil War Trails Marker for the Wilson Confederate Military Hospital No.2 Museum (see earlier post).  There I met the mayor of Wilson, the NC tourism director and John Hackney, the WWII P-51 pilot I posted a picture of recently. The marker looks great but the museum still needs a lot of work.  However, it was very interesting to walk inside of the building and see the restoration in progress.

Racial Violence in North Carolina

Tomorrow at five in the assembly room I am hosting two JD candidates from Northeastern Law School in Boston, MA.  They are giving a presentation of their findings on the 1940’s era murders of 3 African American men in Wilson, NC.  Their work is a part of Northeastern Law School’s ongoing Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, a program that tries to shed light on Jim Crow era murders of African Americans in the South who were killed due to racial violence but no one was convicted of the crime.   They contacted me a couple of weeks ago to see if I could help them find family members of people in involved in the murder trial of Otis Newsome, a WWII vet and funeral director who was killed in cold blood in 1948 while trying to buy a bottle of brake fluid.  I was able to find and interview the son of the prosecutor who was able to give the law candidates access to his father’s files on the case.  It should be a very interesting presentation and I am honored to be a part of it.

16th Century Spanish Fort found near Morganton, NC

From its founding 1566 to its destruction by Native Americans 18 months later, Fort San Juan was the  innermost European penetration into the American interior in the 16th century.  Its hard to believe that there was a Spanish Fort right at the foot of the North Carolina Appalachians in the mid 1500’s but it is true.  Last June while excavating the proto-historic Cherokee town of Joara, archaeologists from Tulane, Warren Wilson College and the University of South Carolina discovered a European style moat, Spanish huts and military artifacts.  Fort San Juan was built by the Juan Pardo expedition, an expedition that  was instructed to follow in Hernando DeSoto’s earlier (and incredibly destructive) path in order to create a link to the Mexican silver mines.  Unfortunately for them they were way off geographically and managed to anger the local Native Americans who well remembered DeSoto’s disastrous visit with his armored knights and 300 pigs 20 years before.  The archaeologist from USC, Chester DePratter, is one of the foremost experts on the Spanish in the Southeast and he also worked on the coastal fort of Santa Elena on present day Parris Island, South Carolina (where the Pardo expedition set off from) with legendary archaeologist Stanley South.

For further reading on the Pardo and DeSoto expeditions I strongly recommend one of my favorite books of all time, Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun and another great book, The Juan Pardo Expeditions both by the late preeminent Southeastern anthropologist, Charles Hudson.

Sgt. John Gray Lamm, 36th Armored Infantry

Just created a splash page for an interview that I did with WWII veteran Sgt. John Gray Lamm.  This will be a part of the Digital NC Wilson County’s Greatest Generation project.

Wilson Confederate Military Hospital Museum

Letter from Dr. S.S. Satchwell

On Tuesday July 23 at 11 am, there will be an unveiling of the Civil War Trails marker for the Wilson Confederate Military Hospital Museum.  It is located on 401 Goldsboro St. N. Wilson, NC 27893.

Here is a description of the hospital from the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources:

The Confederacy organized its Medical Department late in 1861 and within months, in April of 1862, the North Carolina General Military Hospital No. 2 was established in Wilson in what had once been the Wilson Female Seminary. Dr. Solomon Sampson Satchwell, who had graduated from Wake Forest College and studied medicine at New York University before serving as a military surgeon with the Twenty-fifth North Carolina Infantry, was appointed Surgeon-in-Charge. In the 1864 Confederate States Medical and Surgical Journal the Wilson hospital was listed as one of twenty-one principal hospitals in North Carolina. It served those wounded in fighting along the coast.