New Bern Tours & Convention Services

03/30/2025

Maude Moore Latham
1871-1951

One of the incredible women who was instrumental in the reconstruction of Tryon Palace, the colonial governor's mansion. In January 1944 she established the Maude Moore Latham Trust Fund with an initial deposit of $100,000. In 1949 she increased the endowment by $150,000. She also donated $125,000 worth of antiques to furnish the palace. In her will, she bequeathed $3 million more to Tryon Palace. The Latham Fund continues to generate revenue for the operation of Tryon Palace to this day.

Sadly, she passed away in 1951 and never saw the completion of the reconstructed palace. Her daughter, Mary Gordon Latham Kellenberger assumed her leadership role of the palace project upon her death.

03/27/2025

Middle Street then and now. Join us for and some great views of Middle Street from one of our trolleys!

NewBernTours.com

It’s Wednesday, so “What’s in the Attic with Jim?”

Here’s a 1930s postcard view looking south on Middle Street. You’ll see a couple of the popular five-and-dime stores, Kress and McLellan’s, along with Belks Dept store in the distance. So much change, and yet so much remains the same. What memories do you have of Middle Street?

Warm, sunny days ahead - enjoy the beautiful weather and we’ll see you next week - “from the attic!”

[postcard from Ernie Richardson collection]

03/24/2025

The USS Elfredia, which was part of the NC Naval Militia, was docked in New Bern from 1909 to 1917.

03/22/2025

The Gertrude S. Carraway garden is located behind the Weigh Station near Tryon Palace. This peaceful garden is a wonderful place to relax while you await your trolley tour of New Bern.

Miss Gertrude S. Carraway [1896-1993] has been called the ‘first citizen’ of New Bern, the premier historian of the city, and, in her time, one of the most beloved people in town.

Notable accomplishments include her efforts to fund and rebuild Tryon Palace. Having attended UNC-Greensboro and Columbia University in New York she taught history, English and French. She became a feature writer, and authored hundreds of articles, news stories, dozens of booklets and six books. She was awarded three honorary doctorates for her achievements over the years.

Dr. Carraway received the keys to eight cities, was named a Kentucky Colonel, an Arkansas Traveler, a North Carolina Admiral, an Honorary Citizen of New Orleans, New Bern’s Woman of the Year, North Carolina Citizen of the Year, Tar Heel of the Week by The News and Observer, and received many other awards and honors for her work in historical preservation.

In 1956 she became the first director of the Tryon Palace Restoration.

Credit to Edward Barnes Ellis, Jr. author of New Bern History 101

03/08/2025

Margaret Wake Tryon
1732-1819

Margaret Wake Tryon was the wife of Governor William Tryon. The namesake for Wake County, she is one of only three women to have a North Carolina County named for her. She was known to avoid women's company and preferred to engage in men's conversation, particularly on the topics of government and military fortifications, which was considered unconventional at the time.

It was Margaret's family connections that aided in William Tryon receiving the Governorship from King George III. A wealthy London heiress, her father had been governor of the East India Trading Company in Bombay.

Margaret brought a large dowry to the marriage, the equivalent of $1.8 million in today's currency. She and William had one daughter, named Margaret after her mother. Their second child, a son born in Wilmington, NC died in infancy.

Margaret was apparently fascinated by aspects of government, military strategy and religion, and kept a large library at Tryon Palace. She read about and wrote a treatise on military fortifications, a subject she likely learned about from her father.

An excellent musician, she was talented on both the organ and spinet. Colonial sources described her as a ‘fine accomplish’d Lady’, and ‘a very sensible Woman, & indeed what you’d call a learned one.’ It’s said that she also insisted on being addressed as ‘Your Excellency’, her husband’s form of address.

03/06/2025

Dr. Lula Disosway
1897 – 1973

Lula Disosway originally trained to become a teacher, studying at the Women’s College, now known as UNC-Greensboro, earning a degree in teaching in 1918. She served as a teacher and high school principal for one year.

At age 21, Lula decided that she “could reach the poor, the lame and blind through medicine.” With financial help from the Episcopal Church and Diocese of East Carolina, she began her study of medicine. She attended Johns Hopkins University, earning a degree in medicine from Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia in 1925. She then became the first woman intern at the James Walker Hospital in Wilmington, NC.

Dr. Disosway served as a medical missionary for the Epsicopal Church from 1926-1941. Serving during two periods of war at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Shanghai, China. She later taught and received a professorship in Obstetrics.

After 1941, Dr. Disosway was tranfered to Hudson Stuck Memorial Hospital in Yukon, Alaska where she served as a physician, administator and cook.

After returning to New Bern to care for her ailing mother, she became the director of Good Shepherd Hospital from 1954-1967 and staffed the maternity clinic at Craven Community Hopsital from 1966-1973.

To learn more about the incredible history of New Bern join us for a 90 minute Historic New Bern Tour aboard one of our climate controlled trolley's. Tours are held Thursday-Monday at 2:00PM during the spring season.

Book your tour today https://www.newberntours.com/tours

03/04/2025

Born in New Bern in 1875, Bayard Wootten was a pioneer and an adventurer. Her remarkable career included many firsts: she designed the first trademarked Pepsi-Cola logo, she was the first woman member of the North Carolina National Guard and the first female aerial photographer in America.

Over the years she had studios in New Bern, Greensboro, and New York. Wootten was a member of the Pictorial Photographers of America, and the Women’s Federation of the Photographer’s Association of America. Her photographs have been compared to the work of both Dorothea Lange and Doris Ulmann.

Wootten moved to New York, and after a brief stint there and running a statewide portrait photographic service, she settled in Chapel Hill in 1928. She would remain there until her retirement in 1954. During her time there she received frequent invitations to exhibit her work, and assembled popular slide presentations based on her architectural and landscape photography. She also illustrated books for UNC Press, Houghton Mifflin and J.B. Lippincott publishers during that time.

Shortly after her retirement, she returned to New Bern where she died five years later.

03/01/2025

We are excited to celebrate Women's History Month and bring you vingnettes of the many women who contributed to the rich history of our historic town.

02/27/2025

Sarah Dudley Pettey
1868-1906
Buried in the Historic Greenwood Cemetery in New Bern

Born in New Bern, Sarah Dudley Pettey was the first free child of slave parents. Her father, Edward Dudley, was a farmer and a politician serving as a state Representative. Sarah attended a school established by the American Missionary Association for black citizens of New Bern and later continued at the coeducational New Bern State Colored Normal School. Upon finishing college at Scotia Seminary, a Presybetarian school for women, Sarah returned to New Bern as a teacher.

In 1888 she married Charles Pettey, a prominent black minister in the AME Zion Church. She becaome involved in the suffrage movement and used her husband's position as a minister and bishop within the church to deliver speeches on the rights of women to vote and the quality of both sexes.

Sarah reached many women through her column in the AME Zion Newspaper, where she promised readers that they could expect more from her than recipes, gossip, and church news. She declared that she would not be "narrowed down to the confines of womanhood."

02/23/2025

Saint Cyprian's is an historically black Episcopal parish in the Diocese of East Carolina. The oldest and first black Episcopal parish in North Carolina, founded in 1866.

In 1922 the church served as an emergency hospital for the victims of a disastrous fire which destroyed a large segment of the Black community.

Located on Johnson Street in the hisotric district of Downtown New Bern the church is still fully operational and hosts Sunday services as well as a Wednesday evening Bible Study.

These aerial photographs from local artist Ben Lindemann Photography show as it currently stands majestically overlooking Cedar Grove Cemetary.

02/22/2025

Samuel Jesse Battle

Samuel J. Battle, the first African American police officer in the New York Police Department, was born January 16, 1883, in New Bern, North Carolina. At the time, he was noted as the largest baby born in North Carolina at 16 pounds. Battle later grew to be 6’3’’ and over 280 pounds.

Growing up in the Reconstruction-Era South, Battle attended segregated schools in New Bern. As a teenager, he would find himself inspired to seek a future career in law enforcement after a teenage fall from grace. During a somewhat rebellious streak, Battle—the son of a Methodist preacher—was caught by his boss stealing cash from his safe. His boss, R.H. Smith, did not press charges because of his friendship with Battle’s father. However, Smith predicted Battle would be in prison within a year. Samuel Battle later said that he was determined to prove R.H. Smith wrong. He moved to Connecticut and then to New York City in 1901 and worked as a houseboy and red cap at the Sagamore Hotel.

In 1926 Samuel Battle became the NYPD’s first Black officer to achieve the rank of sergeant, and in 1935 he ascended the ranks to become NYPD’s first Black lieutenant. Finally, in 1941, Battle became NYPD’s first Black parole commissioner.

Despite his success as an officer, Lieutenant Battle faced a great deal of racism and bigotry from white citizens and officers. However, Battle often found that while he faced great adversity, a significant number of his peers held him in high regard—including many of his fellow officers and public officials. It would be these public officials who called upon Lieutenant Samuel Battle for answers when New York City found itself suffering the consequences of broader racial tension in the United States. In 1935, Battle was personally called upon by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to help diffuse the city’s first race riot of the 20th century.

Samuel Battle retired from the New York City Police Force in 1951 at 68. He was the highest-ranking African American on the force at that time. He died in New York City on August 7, 1966, at 83.

In 2009, New York City renamed West 135th Street and Lenox Avenue Samuel J. Battle Plaza in honor of his achievements.

Sources: NY Times
National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund

02/18/2025

Born April 8, 1924, in New Bern, N.C. Given name Robert Mann. Died Oct. 21, 2006, at age 82.

Mann played college football at Hampton Institute in 1942 and 1943 and at the University of Michigan in 1944, 1946 and 1947. Playing the end position, he broke the Big Ten Conference record for receiving yards in 1946 and 1947. After not being selected in the 1948 NFL Draft, Mann signed his first professional football contract with the Detroit Lions, where he stayed for two seasons. He later played for the Green Bay Packers for parts of five seasons until 1954. Mann broke the color barrier for both teams.

Mann led the NFL in receiving yards (1,014) and yards per reception (15.4) in 1949. He was asked to take a pay cut after the 1949 season and became a holdout when the Lions opened practice in July 1950. He was traded to the New York Yanks in August 1950 and released three weeks later. Mann charged that he had been forced out of professional football for refusing to take a pay cut. He signed with the Green Bay Packers near the end of the 1950 NFL season and was the team's leading receiver in 1951. He remained with the Packers through the 1954 season.

After his football career, Mann became a lawyer and practiced in Detroit. He was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1988 and died on October 21, 2006, at the age of 82. He was posthumously inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.

02/16/2025

Travel in style on your wedding day aboard the New Bern Trolley. What better way to transport your bridal party!?! Book your date today.

www.NewBernTours.com

02/12/2025

New Bern is like a rich tapestry of history that includes people of all backgrounds and nationalities. One especially remarkable story is that of Amelia Green, whose house in New Bern still stands on George Street just a few yards from Tryon Palace.

A “free woman of color” born circa 1740, she was a weaver who, in the early 1790s when, in her own words, she was “advanced in life,” began an eleven-year struggle to free various members of her family.

According to historians Green liberated her five children and two grandchildren, purchasing each of them for about $500 to $600. This sum would be equal to about $10,000 today.

A most remarkable woman, she saved her money and was determined to see her children freed before her dying breath.

Ironically, Green’s granddaughter, Kitty, married John Carruthers Stanly, a former slave himself and the son of a white landowner and an African slave, who grew up to become a wealthy landowner in New Bern and the largest free black slaveholder in the South.

To learn more about Amelia Green, John Carruthers Stanly, and Kitty, join us for a 90 minute historic trolley tour where history comes to life in the most amazing way.

Special thanks to Mashal Smith Photography for sharing this beautiful photograph and her gift of capturing the charm of New Bern in her art.

Book your tour at NewBernTours.com

02/11/2025

Mary Ann Cord, is the subject of "A True Story" by Mark Twain, which was first published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1874 and it really is a true story.

Mary found herself separated from her husband and seven children after all of them were sold at a Virginia slave market. Mary was living in New Bern where she was abandonded by the family who had purchased her as they fled during the Civil War. Mary was still living on the property after it was abandoned and finds herself face to face with none other than General Ambrose Burnside. She agrees to become a paid member of the Union General's staff and serves as the cook for he and his men.

One of the most incredible reunions occured on the property occupied by the Union Army and used as its headquarters. Mary and the youngest of her 7 children, Henry, were reunited. Young Henry had escaped and made his way to Elmira, New York where he trained as a barber. He joined the Union Army and through nothing short of a miracle he and his mother were reunited here in New Bern.

Henry returned to Elmira, NY after the war and took his mother with him. It was there that she met Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain. And as they say, the rest is history.

02/07/2025

William Henry Singleton
August 10, 1843 - September 7, 1938

Born on one of the largest plantations in Craven County, William Henry Singleton was the son of Lettis Singleton, a slave, and William Singleton, brother of the plantation owner, John Singleton.

The birth of William Henry created a rift between the brothers running the plantation and was a great embarassment for John Singleton, who sold young William Henry to an Atlanta widow when he was just 4 years old. She had a "slave farm", where she trained slaves for domestic service and sold them at a profit. Determined to rejoin his mother, at the age of seven William ran away and made his way back to New Bern.

William Henry's mother hid him for three years; he would hide under the floorboards to escape notice.

After the overseer at the plantation discovered William had returned, he sold William away from the plantation again.

William Henry was held for a time by a Mrs. Wheeler, who he said was kindly. But, hearing that she intended to sell him, he escaped to New Bern and found work for a time as a bellhop at the Moore Hotel. Finally, he returned to the Singleton plantation. His master (and paternal uncle) agreed to keep him and have him work in the fields.

In 1861 when the Civil War broke out, Singleton was quick to get invovled, but found himself trapped with the Confederate Army as a slave. Singleton did not want to be a servant in the Confederate Army, but wanted to be a soldier with the Union Army to fight for the freedom of his race.

When Singleton approached a Union soldier about fighting, and was declined -- Singleton decided to start his own regiment -- gathering up a thousand black men. He set up a recruiting station at the A.M.E curuch in New Bern.

The men drilled weekly, marching with cornstalks as weapons through the streets of New Bern. Singleton approached Colonel Ambrose Burnside, who was leading the occupation of New Bern for the Union Army. Burnside did not have authority to allow these black troops to fight alongside the Union Army.

In 1862 when Abraham Lincoln was meeting with Burnside, William Henry Singleton was introduced to Lincoln, who also declinded the offer of the black troops to fight for the Union. It would be two more years until Singleton's troops would be able to fully engage in fighitng for the freedom of their people.

When President Abraham Lincoln approved the use of blacks as armed troops for the Union Army, Singleton's recruits in February 1864 were designated part of the 35th United States Colored Troops (USCT). He served as the group's unofficial colonel. When it came time for action, the unit was assigned white officers, as were all the colored units.

The U.S. Army trained and armed the men and shipped the regiment to South Carolina, where they participated in the siege of Charleston.

02/06/2025

In May 1863 recruitment for the First North Carolina Colored Volunteers (NCCV) began, placing the regiment under the command of Colonel James Beecher, half-brother of writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. Recruitment was slow until Abraham Galloway negotiated terms of enlistment and humane treatment of black soldiers (more to come on A. Galloway as we highlight him on our news feed soon).

Colonel Beecher established the regiment’s campsite on the south bank of the Neuse River just outside of New Bern, and the first recruits went to work clearing land and setting up camp and a parade ground. By June 7, two of seven companies were in uniform and all had begun drill instruction. They were mustered in on June 30, 1863. During a farewell ceremony held at the Academy Green in New Bern on July 24, 1863, the “Colored Ladies Relief Association of New Bern” presented the regiment a silk flag emblazened with the word "Liberty".

Often referred to as refugees, freedmen, or contraband, these African Americans provided valuable service to the Union as spies, pilots, messengers, guides, and laborers. They also served in the United States Navy and as recruits for USCT units.

Along with their combat role, USCT units often thought of themselves as liberators and carriers of culture. They established churches, schools, lodges, and literary societies. Their very presence in an area offered vivid testimony to the end of slavery and the beginning of a new social order. The Christian Recorder reported that during the parade that followed the surrender of Wilmington, colored people (young and old) crowded the streets, cheering and exclaiming, “The chain is broken, joy! Freedom today.” Sergeant N. B. Sterrett, of the 39th USCT, asked one elderly African American woman if she was glad to see black troops. She replied, “It seemed that the good Lord has opened the heavens and handed you down in answer to my prayer.” Another woman reunited with her son, who had “left his home a slave, but had returned in the garb of a Union soldier, free, a man.”

The Academy Green site is one of two stops on our Trolley Tour, this is the site where the 35th Regiment gathered to begin their march into battle.


Sources: John H. Haley, PhD NCPedia, Bernard George, New Bern Sun Journal