On October 21, 1866, Tom Dula was convicted of the murder of Laura Foster. Dula was hanged for the crime in May 1868.
Topics Related to This Day in North Carolina History
On October 20, 1898, John Merrick and six fellow investors met in the office of Dr. Aaron Moore to organize the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association.
Maj. Gen. Stephen Dodson Ramseur, born in 1837 in Lincolnton, led his division in the Shenandoah Campaign during the Civil War. On October 19, 1864, he was mortally wounded at Cedar Creek, Virginia.
On October 20, 1862, Annie Carter Lee, daughter of Robert E. Lee, died in Warren County. She had been ill with typhoid fever while visiting the Jones Springs resort there.
On October 19, 1948, President Harry S. Truman visited Raleigh and delivered the main address at the unveiling of the “Presidents North Carolina Gave the Nation” monument on Union Square, which surrounds the State Capitol.
On October 19, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered more than 8,000 troops to a combined Franco-American force at Yorktown. The surrender came on the heels of much fighting in North Carolina.
On October 19, 1874, R.J. Reynolds purchased his first lot, next to rail lines in Winston, from the Moravian Church.
Asheville author Thomas Wolfe turned his observations of growing up in his mother's boarding house, the "Old Kentucky Home" into his best known novel Look Homeward, Angel. His mother's boardinghouse is now the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, one of 27 state historic sites.