North Carolina Daughters of the American Revolution 124th Conference - Durham, 2024

 The 124th State Conference had a busy schedule with elections, voting for by-law changes and budget.  Our Chapter garnered several awards for Brunswick Town members and the Chapter.  We met old friends and new ones.  The Junior Thrift Shop was as popular as it is every year and Crossnore Schools had their wonderful loomed products on display and for sale.  We enjoyed speakers and delicious luncheons and dinners with entertainment in the evenings.  State Regent Mary Sands worked as a State Teller for the 3rd year and assisted many members through the voting process.  The newly elected officers will be announced in the Tarheel Digest.

These photos were taken at Friday's dinner at the North Carolina Society Daughters of the American Revolution 124th Conference in Durham, NC 2024.

State conference Friday night dinner.

DAR State Regent at the 124th State Conference

Registration

DAR Member Courses Workshop

                                                   

Sunday table decoration

     Group photo of  DAR ,e,bers at the 124th State Conference 

Tour of Brunswick Town was Enjoyed by Brunswick Town NSDAR Chapter

Our  Brunswick Town NSDAR chapter membership chair arranged a Saturday, April 13, 2024 tour.  A large group of members gathered at Brunswick Town to learn more about the history of this town that was first established in 1726 along the Cape Fear River. It was destroyed by the British. Brunswick Town existed for 50 years until it was burnt in a 1776 raid by British forces during the American Revolutionary War and never rebuilt. The remnants of this Colonial town still remain today as a historical park. 

Brunswick Town Daughter Honors Her Own Her Daughter

Brunswick Town DAR Public Relations chair and her husband attended the opening of the Brandy Myers Memorial Playground in Carolina Beach, NC on April 10, 2024. Brandy is their daughter who died at age 10 of leukemia. 

The park is located at the Carolina Beach Lake Park, located at 400 Lake Park Blvd. S.

“It means everything. This whole thing means everything to us because, first of all, it allows our daughter’s memory to always live on, but look at the kids. They’re having such a great time. That’s what it’s all about,” Brandy's mother said.

Google - Go to WECT Brandy Myers Memorial Playground to view the video? You can see the children having a great time.

Information from the 

CAROLINA BEACH, N.C. (WECT)

     Here are some photos of the new playground. If you Google  WECT and look at the video you will see children actually playing at each station. There is even a place where blind children can read in braille if the station is appropriate for them to use. 

Brunswick Town DAR Daughters Had a Tea Party at their April 2024 meeting

 

Today at our Brunswick Town DAR meeting our membership committee chairs organized a special tea. They brought a big urn of hot water, a variety of special teas, and some tasty treats for us to eat. The members brought beautiful teacups with saucers and wore spring hats. This gave new members a chance to visit other members before the meeting. Hope we do this again.

Brigadier General Dan Hickman - Guest Speaker at the April Brunswick Town DAR Meeting

Dan Hickman, was our guest speaker at our April meeting. He is a retired Brigadier General living in Wilmington, North Carolina. His Army career began with service as an infantry private. He subsequently served as an Army warrant officer pilot and section leader during the Vietnam War and received a direct commission based on combat experience afterward. As a citizen soldier, he successively commanded an infantry company, an infantry battalion, and a mechanized infantry brigade in the Army Guard.

He is a graduate of the Army War College, the Army Command and General Staff College, numerous Infantry schools, and Army Flight School. His civilian education includes a BS from Embry Riddle University and an MS from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He served in combat with Bravo Troop, 3rd/17th Air Cavalry, during the height of the Vietnam War. He later served in combat with the 1st Infantry Division during the Iraq war, where he commanded the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team near the Sunni Triangle. He published newspaper and magazine articles before writing A Thousand Chances.

https://www.nationalguard.mil/portals/31/Features/ngbgomo/bio/7/726.html For additional information about Brigadier General Dan Hickman go to the website. 

Dan Hickman grew up on a farm at Hickman Crossroads, Brunswick County, NC. He is a proud member of Sons of the American Revolution through his sixth great grandfather Samuel Hickman and cousin to two of our chapter members.

                                            Brigadier General Dan Hickman

Dan grew up on a farm at Hickman Crossroads, Brunswick County, NC. He is a proud member of Sons of the American Revolution through his sixth great grandfather Samuel Hickman and cousin to two of our chapter members.

The Edenton Tea Party

Brunswick Town DAR public relations chair presented information about the Edenton Tea Party at our April DAR meeting. On May 10, 1773, Tea Act 1773 which was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses. It was also to help the struggling company survive. A related objective was to undercut the price of illegal tea that was being smuggled into Britain's North American colonies. Smuggled tea was a large issue for Britain and the East India Company, since approximately 86% of all the tea in America at the time was smuggled Dutch tea.

Now, up in Boston, the colonists were not happy about this. But they had not been happy for at least the past 8 years, because you see in 1765, that’s when the Stamp Act was imposed as a direct tax on the colonies The Stamp Act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper from London which included an embossed revenue stamp on it. These printed materials included legal documents, magazines, playing cards, newspapers, and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies, and it had to be paid in British currency, not colonial paper money and it was out of the Stamp Act that the Sons of Liberty were born on the 4th of August of 1765. That was the day a group of notable men from Boston protested in the streets and hung in effigy Andrew Oliver, a distributor of stamps for Massachusetts.

The drumbeat of dissent was underway, and by December 16, 1773 - just seven months after the Tea Act went into effect – the Sons of Liberty, disguised themselves as Native Americans and destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent into Boston Harbor by the East India Company. Their war cry was “taxation without representation”.

Now, back here in North Carolina, in the town of Edenton, located on the coastal Albemarle Sound near the mouth of the Chowan River, a socialite named Penelope Padgett Hodgson Craven Barker - we’ll just call her Penelope Barker for short – was busy leading her own political protest in response to the Tea Act. On October 25, 1774, Penelope led 51 women to sign a statement of protest vowing to give up tea and boycott all other British products "until such time that all acts which tend to enslave our Native country shall be repealed."

That petition was published in colonial newspapers and in London. Barker herself sent a "fiery letter" to London. In London, the women of Edenton were mocked in the London papers with a political cartoon entitled "Edenton Tea Party" portraying the women as bad mothers with loose morals.

However, in the Colonial American press, the women were praised as patriots. Soon, other women followed suit by swearing off tea. Southern women danced in ballgowns made from homespun fabric which started a homespun movement. Northern women had spinning bees for the production of homemade material. And in Charles Town, now Charleston, SC, a shipload of imported East India Company tea was locked away in a port for months because it could not be sold with the tax. At the start of the Revolution, a group of patriots gathered that tea and sold it to other patriots to fund the rebellion against the British. They had also ousted royal officials and agents at the time. These Daughters of Liberty, like the Sons of Liberty, had direct consequences on what was to come in the war between Great Britain and the American Colonies.

In 1908, a plaque was dedicated by the DAR placed in the North Carolina state Capitol Building a plaque honoring the Edenton Tea Party. And in 1940, a marker was placed at West Queen Street, which is also US Business 17 in Edenton by the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program that states, "Women in this town led by Penelope Barker in 1774 resolved to boycott British imports. Early and influential activism by women. It was the "first recorded women's political demonstration in America".

Book Club Update

 Visit the Tab for the Book Club on the blog.

       

The Liberty Daughters Book Club, hosted  Saturday, March 23, 2024. They read the book, " A Girl Called Samson," by Amy Harmon was discussed by DAR members. Collectively the book received an 8.5 rating out of a possible 10. The book is based on the story of Deborah Samson, who was born in Massachusetts and bound out as an indentured servant due to her family's poverty. Desiring independence and impassioned by the revolutionary cause, she disguises herself as a soldier and enlists in the Continental Army. Long after the war ended she fought for her right to receive a pension as a soldier and is the first female to receive a pension as a member of the Armed Services. After an enlightening discussion of the book, the group adjourned to Lucca Italian Chophouse for lunch. The Liberty Daughter's next book club meeting is scheduled for May  The book for discussion is The Sewing Girl's Tale: A story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America by John Wood Sweet. The time and place will be determined.

Vietnam War Veterans Day is March 29th

 

The Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act, signed into law in 2017, designates March 29 of each year as National Vietnam War Veterans Day. Most states celebrate “Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day” on March 29 or 30 of each year.

A Genealogy Research Reference Collection for Public Use is being Assembled at Brunswick Community College

SUPPLY - A genealogy research reference collection for public use is being assembled at Brunswick Community College; the initial donated books are from Brunswick Town Chapter National Society Daughters of the Revolution which is coordinating the collection in conjunction with BCC.

“We’re very pleased about this collaboration with BCC,” said Brunswick Town Chapter NSDAR Regent . “Interest in genealogy has obviously grown exponentially. We see that in the increasing interest in joining DAR by locals as well as residents who have moved here from other parts of the country. We also want to thank BCC President Gene Smith for his endorsement of the effort and the library staff for their knowledge and enthusiasm.”

BCC Librarian Katherine Knibbs noted that the state community college system has encouraged the development of collections such as this to meet the public’s interest in genealogy. “It’s in our mission to meet the needs of the public,” she said.

Patrons will be able to view and scan pages from books in the collection. BCC has made available a large flatbed scanner, desks, chairs and bookshelves. Brunswick Town chapter is applying for an America 250 grant through NSDAR to purchase a dedicated computer, archival storage materials, flash drives and other materials for the room. Public contributions to the room are also welcomed.

Community members, especially genealogy buffs, are encouraged to donate their family genealogies and other materials to the library. Bible records, which are very valuable to genealogical research and proofs for lineage society applications, may be taken to the library where volunteers will scan the family records along with the Bible’s cover and copyright pages. The scanned records will be made available to researchers. The Bible will be returned to the family. Should you have digitized copies of family records, you may email them to bcclrc@brunswickcc.edu or BTDARRegistrar@gmail.com or drop them off at the library on a thumb drive.

Collection of materials and assisting researchers will be done in part by volunteers. “We hope interest will be great among local history and genealogy buffs, and that these individuals will sign up to volunteer in the new library,” said Regent Sands.

Following is a partial list of the materials that may be accepted for the room:  family histories with complete citations (unsourced collections will not be accepted), local history books that include names and places (generalized histories will not be accepted), Bible records, cemetery records, obituaries (with the publication source and date cited), photographs with identifications, church records, loose family papers, maps, vital records and/or indexes, city directories, military records, land records/deeds, tax records, court records, diaries and journals, oral histories.

Complete guidelines for use of the collection are being developed, but will include:

all materials must be used inside the room, personal items such as coats and bags must be left in a secure area outside of the room; laptops, scanners etc. may be used in the room to record research; only pencils – no pens – may be used in the room.

The collection is housed in a room within the college’s library on the second floor of Building A.  The Genealogy Research Room will be open Monday – Thursday 10-3, and other times by appointment.

To donate to the collection, it is preferable that you call the library at 910-755-7331 to discuss your intended donation and a possible appointment time. Donations are limited to one container of items at a time. Accepted materials are limited to the items listed above, and DAR representatives have the final say as to what can and cannot be accepted for permanent placement into the collection. 

Information from chapter PR chair

Watch WECT tonight at 5:30 - Brunswick Town DAR Chapter

Tonight at 5:30 WECT is running a piece on the NEW Brunswick Town Genealogical Library at Brunswick

Community College (BCC)

The segment includes Dr. Smith and two of the chapter members. This actually was on WECT around 6:20.

                         Brunswick Town Chapter Registrar

               Brunswick Town Chapter 2nd Vice-Regent

                                   BCC President Gene Smith