Topics Related to This Day in North Carolina History

Antacid Inventor Had Chapel Hill Ties

Sheet music sponsored by Emers

John Hyman of Warren County

On July 23, 1840, John Hyman, the first African American to represent North Carolina in the United States Congress, was born into slavery in Warren County.

Vermont Royster, Wall Street Journal Sage

On July 22, 1996, Vermont Connecticut Royster, a journalist affiliated with the Wall Street Journal for 60 years, died.

Prolific Poet Carl Sandburg

American poet, journalist, biographer and folk musician, Carl Sandburg wrote a third of his works and spent the last 22 years of his life at Connemara, his antebellum home in Flat Rock. There, in an upstairs garret, Sandburg wrote, and in a downstairs bedroom, he died at age 89.

Precepts for Colonial Government Set, 1669

The Fundamental Constitutions

Modest Beginnings for Duke University Hospital

On July 21, 1930, Duke University Hospital opened to patients after three years of construction.

Hillsborough Convention Fails to Ratify Constitution

On July 21, 1788, 270 delegates convened in Hillsborough for what would become a two-week debate on ratifying the national Constitution that had been drafted in Philadelphia in 1787.

Surveying of the State Boundary and the Block House Near Tryon

The Block H

Sensational 1890s Murder in Winston-Salem

On July 20, 1892, Ellen Smith was fatally shot by Peter DeGraff near the Zinzendorf Hotel in Winston-Salem. The murder became the subject of a popular turn-of-the-century ballad, “Poor Ellen Smith.”

Rocky Mount Mills Burned by Union Troops, 1863

On July 20, 1863, Union cavalry led by Gen. Edward Potter torched Rocky Mount Mills, the second cotton mill in North Carolina after the short-lived Schenck-Warlick Mill in Lincoln County.