Colonial Period

Dear Aidan,

Thank you for visiting NCpedia and especially for taking time to share your project and questions. That sounds like a terrific project!!

So – North Carolina’s first newspaper published in the colony was the North-Carolina Gazette. It was first published on August 9, 1751. Before that, colonists in North Carolina would have had the Virginia Gazette, published in Williamsburg from 1736 to 1780, as their primary source of news printed in the colonies.  Colonists undoubtedly received papers from other colonies and from England. It does also seem reasonable or at least possible that North Carolina colonists may have seen Publik Occurrences as the paper may have possibly made its way into the hands of some through travel or perhaps mail.  But unfortunately, we don’t have a very easy way of finding this out as the paper had only one issue in 1690 before it was shut down and we don’t have an easy way to look into collections to see if it was mentioned as read by North Carolinians. Additionally, North Carolina’s earliest colonists lived in what was known as the Albemarle up in the far northeastern corner of what is now the state during the late 17th century.  Today the colonies would be Currituck, Camden, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Chowan. Colonists came south from Virginia and the land was fairly inhospitable. News they received at the time would have been through Virginia.

But you are in luck with the North-Carolina Gazette. Issues of the paper that exist have been digitized and are available online at the NC Digital Collections.  Here is a link to the collection for that paper: http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/search/collection/p15016coll1/searchterm/no... And here is a link to the newspaper collection in general:  http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/search/collection/p15016coll1. I believe that the first edition of the paper is not available – it looks like the November 15, 1751 edition is the earliest.

I’m also including some additional resources for you about the history of papers in North Carolina:

•    NCpedia search results for “newspapers”: https://www.ncpedia.org/gsearch?query=newspapers.  You may want to scroll through these results. The first entry, “Newspapers part 1” is the first of a multi-part article on the history of the state’s newspapers and should be helpful: https://www.ncpedia.org/newspapers.  Also look at the references and additional resources included with NCpedia articles. They’ll take you to additional helpful information.

•    An article published in 1965 in the North Carolina Historical Review talks about the early papers in North Carolina: http://www.ncpublications.com/colonial/nchr/subjects/elliott.htm.  There is a lot of useful information there too.

I hope this helps!  Please let me know if you need additional help or have more questions and I would be glad to help you further.

Good luck with your project!

Best wishes,
Kelly Agan, Government & Heritage Library

Hi Wendy,

Thank you for visiting the NCpedia.

I am including here the link to the Genealogy page on the NC Government & Heritage Library website -- http://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/ghl/resources/genealogy.html.

Please visit the page to learn more about researching your North Carolina ancestors.  You'll find helpful tutorials and resources as well as contact information to contact the library with research questions.

Best wishes,

Kelly Agan, NC Government & Heritage Library

Dear Jasmine,

Thanks for visiting NCpedia and asking your question.

That's a very difficult question to answer. The development of the North Carolina colony most likely cannot be traced to a small number of people.  Instead, it is more likely the accumulation of contributions from many, such as government officials, educators, clergy, merchants, writers and newspaper people, and artisans, among others. You may want to look at these NCpedia resources to get you started:

• Governors:  This list is in reverse chronological order, so scroll to the very bottom of the page for colonial era governors
• Colonial Period Overview
• Roanoke Island
• Colonial Agents
• Early Settlement
• Women's Roles in Pre-Colonial and Colonial NC
• Naming Places in Early North Carolina

Entries also include links to other NCpedia articles.  You may find clicking on the blue linked text helpful for taking you to additional useful information.

Good luck and best wishes,

Kelly Agan, Government & Heritage Library