Thank you Mr. White for making it available here.

Thanks to the Tyrrell County Genealogical & Historical Society for your efforts to preserve and celebrate the people and history of our county.


Today’s topic:

MUTILATED CHARTER AND MAYOR’S COURT

Let’s have a short history lesson.

The Tyrrell region originally was populated by the Secota Indians. Their two principal villages were located at what would later become the Town of Columbia and Grapevine Landing in Gum Neck.

In 1788 the North Carolina General assembly passed a charter for the establishment of a town in Tyrrell County. This town was to be called Newport. The town of Newport, the first ever chartered for Tyrrell County, never materialized. 

Some four years later in 1793, the General Assembly chartered another town to be called Elizabethtown, which was to be located on the east bank of the Scuppernong River near the place then called Shallop’s Landing. Plans for the town included a courthouse, jail, public green, taverns and homes. The town was laid off in 1793 on John Hassell’s land and it was made the county seat in 1799. That year commissioners were named to erect buildings in Elizabethtown. 

On July 28, 1800, the first court was held in the town. The town’s name was changed to Columbia in 1801 because of a growing confusion with another Elizabethtown in North Carolina (Bladen County). The name Columbia was said to have been chosen in honor of Christopher Columbus. 

Columbia was primarily a waterfront town where agricultural goods, shingles and other products from upriver and nearby farms could be loaded onto larger schooners for transport to Edenton or Elizabeth City. From those locations larger boats sailed for the Caribbean Islands or to northern port cities. 

The town’s relaxed air was rudely disturbed in 1863 when Union troops, backed by gunboats, sacked and burned the town. It is said that the courthouse records were hidden by the slave of a local official who took them to his home for protection. To the delight of present day historians and researchers, many of the Tyrrell County’s early records are still intact.

The same cannot be said for town records.

Prominent names that served the town during the mid-1800’s included:

1854 – William W. Walker
Dr. Robert A. Shield
William D. Christopher
Romulus S. Knight
Benjamin S. Basnight

1866 – William D. Carsturputon
John McCleese
S.S. Hassell
E. Lee
William Harper

In 1885 town officials were empowered upon two days notice to empress into service any male citizen between the ages of 18 and 45, to work on the upkeep of streets. If that person did not show up for work and did not pay $1 to the Constable on the day before service was required, he was fined $5. This forced labor was only allowed if the town did not have enough money in the treasury to pay for the street work.

Also in 1885, “any person who shall expose his naked person to on within the view of the citizens of the town by bathing in the Scuppernong River or otherwise, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and be punished by a fine not exceeding $50, or by imprisonment not to exceed 30 days.”

Recovery from the War Between the States was slow. At the beginning of the 1900’s, Columbia was said to have looked more like a hastily thrown together frontier community than a century-old county seat. Two downtown buildings that date to about 1900, the Jule C. McClees Store (accounting firm) and the Sam Sykes Store (Red Wolf Coalition) are still in use. 

The Tyrrell County Courthouse was constructed in 1903 and is believed to be the county’s third courthouse building. The county jail is a 1910 brick structure.

We recently had someone ask at the town hall about the fire that destroyed the wooden downtown buildings, and the ordinance that requires all business buildings on Main Street to be constructed of brick. We know of no such fire and have no records of such an ordinance. In fact a wooden building was constructed on Main Street’s business section in 1980 – Fran’s Beauty Shop which now houses Expressions home accessories. By the 1930’s things were changing though as citizens got together and tore down most of the old stopgap buildings to make way for more substantial structures.

Johann Fredrick “Fred” Schlez opened his movie theater in September 1910 in a wooden two-story gable fronted building on Elm Street that had been used for commercial purposes (now Mac’s Oyster Bar) and the theater business survived for more than 40 years. He built the Columbia Theater building in 1930. 

The Spruill Brothers’ store was the town’s first two-story brick building. The Merchants and Farmers Bank/East Carolina Bank building dates to about 1905. The W.J. White Building dates to 1931, the Combs building to 1932. In fact most of the downtown buildings have a construction date during the 1930’s. A new era was underway.

In l908 the Norfolk & Southern Railroad put a spur into Columbia, which was terminated in 1948.

In 1920 the Columbia Electric Light Company was formed and lasted until around 1929 when it was sold to Virginia Electric & Power Co. During 1920 a bridge was also constructed across the Pint-O-Marsh linking the west bank of the Scuppernong River to the town on the east side.

In 1927 the local telephone company was established by one of the many Cahoons, which populated Tyrrell County. At their peak they had 300 subscribers and a long distance line to Plymouth.

The telephone rate in 1929 was $3.25 per month for a business line and $2 per month for a residential line.

In 1953 Trailway Bus Co., established a route to Columbia and in 1959 a new bridge spanned the Scuppernong River just south of the old bridge.

On the residential side, the irregular grid of streets and lots that form the underlying structure of the community’s townscape date originally to the platting of the town between 1793 and 1802, although the plan has evolved continuously over the past 200 years. The streets in the town are inclined ten degrees off of compass orientation. The 35-acre Columbia Historic District was formally listed on the National Register of Historic Places in March of 1994. Architectural styles range from Victorian to Craftsman, Tudor to Romanesque.

The oldest houses in town are probably the McClees-Coffield House (Davis-Cofield Inn), about 1880; the Meekins House on Main Street, about 1885, and the Spruill-Hassell House on Howard Street, about 1890.

Earlier I said that Columbia’s records are not complete. Scant might be a better word. 

We have sporadic board minutes dating to 1928. Had it not been for former Town Manger Carlisle Harrell’s quick thinking when a barn on the late Julian Poston’s property was being torn down, we would not have the few pieces of historical information that we do have. Poston, who from the late 1930’s through the 1960’s was Columbia Police Chief, Water and Sewer superintendent, Trash Collector, Tax Collector, Streets Superintendent and Town Administrator, had stored town records on his property since the town did not have space at a town hall. After his death, no one thought to relocate the records to a safe and secure location.

There are some interesting items from Columbia’s minute books. In 1928 the town’s tax valuation was $503,219; today it is $36,153,000.
The net debt in 1928 (water & light bonds) was $35,500; today it is $499,400 (sewer bonds).

In 1928, W.J. White was Mayor at a salary of $14.50 per month. The Mayor earns $291.67 per month today. Aldermen earned $1.50 per month.

In 1928 on a 4-1 vote the town hired L.K. or J.K. Bass (it shows up both ways in the minutes) as Constable at a salary of $100 per month. By 1939 Julian Poston had been hired as Police Chief and the town also had a night policeman. The Board of Aldermen have just voted to provide $76,000 per year to the Tyrrell County Sheriff’s Office for two officers to provide extra law enforcement for the town. 

In 1928 W.M. White was hired, from a half-dozen applicants who bid for the job, as Superintendent of the Municipal Electric Light Plant at a salary of $2,100 per year. The power plant was located in the building that later housed the fire station and town hall, the vacant green building that is located on the corner of US-64/Scuppernong Drive and S. Elm Street.

A 1931 business permit to sell fish and oysters cost $5. Today that same permit can be secured for $2.50.

The 1931 tax rate was $1.90 per $100 valuation; today it is 37 cents per $100.

By 1939 the effective tax rate was $2 per $100 ($1 general fund & $1 debt service), plus a $1.50 per voter pole tax for the general fund and 
75 cents per person pole tax for the debt service budget. There was also a $5 per person street tax.

The 1939-40 budget was $10,445. The current budget is $1,292,296.

Charles Griswell was hired in 1939 to “keep the cemetery in order.” He was paid $2 per week.

Columbia Mayors from the late 1920’s through the 1930’s included:
W. J. White
W. N. Norman
B. S. Davis
S. J. Holloway
J. Ernest Norris
Sam S. Woodley

I gave this presentation the title, “MUTILATED CHARTER AND MAYOR’S COURT”.

Two years ago I received a call from the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office asking if we had a copy of the town’s charter. We certainly did not have the original 1793 charter or the revised 1801 charter with the name change from Elizabethtown to Columbia. In fact we are not sure how many times the charter may have been rewritten.

It seems that the Secretary of State was interested in creating a database of charter dates for North Carolina’s municipalities, because a year earlier two towns had missed an opportunity to celebrate a significant anniversary because they had forgotten their charter dates.

What we have been able to find is a handwritten copy of the 1919 Charter for the Town of Columbia.

In March of 1919, the Board of Aldermen decided that a new charter was needed for the town. They described the original charter as “MUTILATED”.

That is, mutilated “by many private laws calculated to impede the progress of said town”.

On May 6, 1919, there was a vote by the “qualified voters of the town” that repealed the town charter and adopted a new charter for the Town of Columbia. The vote was 43 for repeal/adoption and 13 votes in opposition.

The new charter called for a Mayor as chief executive. No debt could be paid except on approval of the Mayor and the Mayor was to “keep strict watch on the head of the tax department and see that he collect all taxes due the town”.

The Mayor was responsible for the Mayor’s Court with authority to try all cases and impose sentences or fines prescribed by ordinances. The mayor had criminal, not civil jurisdiction. For this responsibility the mayor was paid $2 for each guilty verdict, and $1 if the person being tried was found innocent.

The Mayor was to be paid not less than $40 per annum, nor more than $200. His salary was “fixed” by the Aldermen annually. If the Mayor missed a meeting, the charter called for him to forfeit $5 for each absence.

The mayor was required to give a 30-day notice of intent to resign.

There was a secretary to the Board who was appointed by the Mayor and received $1 for each meeting, but was finned $2 for missing meetings.

The aldermen were compensated $1 per meeting and would forfeit $3 for each missed meeting.

Columbia’s new 1919 charter was a progressive charter.
All meetings were public. If any ordinance was being considered, “women of the town may take part and aldermen shall hear and consider their opinion and views on the subject”.

In 1919, the following served in office:

W.C. Hassell was Mayor Pro-Tem.
S.A. Armstrong was Secretary of the town.
W.A. Yerby was Notary public.
A.J. Cahoon was one of the Aldermen.

Columbia’s present charter is a collection of thoughts and actions taken by the town fathers over the many years from the beginnings in 1793. The last change in the town’s charter took place in 1976 when the Board of Aldermen changed two provisions: 
1) the term of office for Aldermen was changed from two-year 
terms to staggered four-year terms, and 
2) the form of government was changed from the mayor-council to
council-manager.

The mayor is elected every two years. Elections are held every two years on odd calendar years.

Columbia was originally a town of ¼ mile in size from every direction, out from the courthouse.

For the past 100 years the town consisted of 200 – 252 acres, but in the past three years annexations (mostly to the east) have increased the town’s geographic area to 607 acres, (607.818) with one pending annexation and two additional annexations possible within the next two to three years.

By World War II, Columbia’s population stood at about 1,100; after the war there was a steady out-migration and the 1980 census showed the population to be 758. Columbia’s population in the 2000 census was 851; the 2006 update was 842.

The End