In Bertie, they've always had hope

WINDSOR -- When members of the Federal Writers' Project passed through Windsor during the Great Depression, they missed some of the ways people in Bertie County were scraping by.

A booming bootleg liquor business shipped thousands of gallons of corn whiskey by boat to New York and Philadelphia, according to Harry Louis Thompson, Windsor's resident historian. One distillery on the Cashie River near town ran around the clock, its steam boiler whistling to signal shift changes to everyone within a few miles.

Another local endeavor was less practical: people flocked with shovels to the former farm of Gov. Charles Eden, who was allegedly in cahoots with Blackbeard the pirate in 1718. Throughout the 1930s, Eden's Bertie County farm was pockmarked with holes dug by treasure seekers.

"Blackbeard's gold became the dream of half the county," Thompson said.

Even in describing Hope House, the town's biggest historical landmark, the writers missed something: "The abandoned home of David Stone, Governor of North Carolina (1808-1810). It was once the show place of the county, with a secret stairway, spacious ballroom, gambling rooms, and solid wooden gutters."

Hope House had fallen on hard times, but it was never abandoned, according to Thompson and Ben Speller, a Bertie County native and former dean of library science at N.C. Central University.

Families of black sharecroppers lived in the first floor of the two-story house.

"There were two or three different families, including the Grandy family," Speller recalled. "He was married to an Outlaw, one of my relatives."

The omission of the sharecroppers may have been inadvertent, or maybe a reflection of the status of blacks in the Jim Crow South.

Since then, the story of Hope House sheds some light on the race relations in the state, as the site moved from segregation to integration.

Home to sharecroppers

Until the 1960s, the mansion was home to sharecroppers who got water from an outside pump and used an outhouse.

In the 1960s, some members of Bertie County's wealthier families began planning to restore the house to its former grandeur.

Thompson recalled a 1965 meeting between state archivist Christopher Crittenden and a delegation from Windsor eager to restore the plantation house.

Crittenden examined a large black and white photograph of the house: broken railings, ramshackle stairs, an empty second floor and gray wood siding, a hint that the house once boasted paint.

Crittenden stared at the photo.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Hope is hopeless," he pronounced.

That was the perfect response, Thompson said.

"Don't tell Eastern North Carolinians, 'You can't do that,' because they will," Thompson said. "And don't tell them they have to do it, because they won't."

Getting the backing

They did. The Historic Hope Plantation foundation held fundraisers and got some serious state help from Sen. Monk Harrington, a powerful figure in the General Assembly.

The foundation was largely the effort of the white elite of Bertie County, with a smattering of black professionals, Speller said.

"It was the upper middle class, interested in historic preservation and opera and socializing and balls," Speller said. "Let's face it, farmers are not interested in wearing black ties."

Story begins to change

The foundation opened Hope House to the public in 1972. For its first 20 years, the historic site focused on the beauty of the house: the balls, the exquisite cabinetry, the architecture and the 1,400 books behind glass doors in Stone's library. When the talk was of people, it was largely Gov. Stone, his 10 daughters and one son, and the balls.

"The story was primarily the plantation owner and family; very little was said about slaves," Speller said. "That wasn't a conscious thing; it was just the model used around the country."

In the 1990s, the foundation decided to reach out more to blacks, who make up 65 percent of the county population. Speller joined the board. Local educators designed programs focusing on the African-American history at the plantation. Slave quarters were rebuilt in the basement under Gov. Stone's bedroom.

Most telling is the trajectory of the Governor Stone Ball, a fundraiser held every two or three years. The first ball in 1968 was an extraordinarily formal affair for a poor county, featuring an orchestra, formal attire, pre-ball parties, lavish decorations and a champagne breakfast.

Once an almost entirely white affair, the most recent ball was about half black, half white. "It turned out to be the best one we've ever had," Speller said.

'A lot of stability'

Blacks are now participating at every level of the local economy and government, working as county commissioners, judges and managers.

"There is a lot of stability and common sense among blacks and whites," Speller said.

While race relations have improved, Bertie County is feeling the bite of the recession. Unemployment is high; wages are low. The county's big employers are a chicken processing plant and a prison.

Farmers whose ancestors dug for Blackbeard's gold on Eden's farm are trying to cash in on alternative fuels, planting soy or corn or sorghum, Thompson said.

And what has replaced the Depression-era distillery that produced hundreds of gallons of liquor each day?

"Marijuana has taken over," Thompson said.

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