Just a little history: Thilbert was a good historian

Back when I took my first turn at The Wake Weekly, T.H. (Thilbert) Pearce was one of the columnists. A Louisburg resident, he was a writer who loved flying, an unreconstructed Confederate, a good historian even though his books are filled with his own version of some spellings and punctuation, and a dedicated archivist of Franklin County’s past and her beautiful 18^th and 19^th century homes. He and his wife had also dedicated their lives to the care of their only son who was totally bedridden.

His opinions angered many of the newspaper’s readers. I know of one person who lived far away, subscribed to the paper because of the local news and for years cancelled the subscription about once a year because she could not stand his views. She always renewed the subscription within a month.

So I read his book, “Franklin County: 1779-1979” for the facts and overlook the spelling, punctuation and even occasionally the sentence structure.

In the 1900-1915 chapter, T.H. chronicled a number of events of local interest. For example, in 1904 the Seaboard Airline announced that the local train called the Shoo Fly would begin making a round trip from Weldon to Raleigh every day, meaning that men could commute to their work in the capital city. I do believe there was another train that made a shorter journey every day that allowed women to shop in the big-city stores.

About that same time, Youngsville was the site of a large permanent mule auction and had at least one or maybe two hotels.

Louisburg had a water and sewer system and a town-wide electric system well before Wake Forest. In January of 1905 the Louisburg town commissioners announced the water and sewer bonds had all been sold and engaged George E. Tenny from South Carolina to build the system. Once that was well underway, in September they hired the engineer to purchase materials and oversee the construction of the electric plant. T.H. wrote: “The standpipe was full and water had been thrown over the steeple on the court house (sic). The sewers were discharging into the river.”

Wake Forest did get electricity in 1909 along with a new town charter, but a water and sewer system was not a reality until 1925, two years after U.S. 1 was built through town. The sewer systems in both towns discharged raw sewage directly into the Tar River in Louisburg and the Richland and Smith creek systems in Wake Forest.

Thilbert tells us about the advent of Coca-Cola and how there were testimonials and editorials condemning the drink because it was thought it contained cocaine. And you know what? They were right.

The following is from Wikipedia: “When launched, Coca-Cola’s two key ingredients were cocaine and caffeine. The cocaine was derived from the coca leaf and the caffeine from the kola nut. The first formula called for five ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup, a significant dose. In 1891, Candler claimed his formula contained only a tenth of this amount. Coca-Cola did once contain an estimated nine milligrams of cocaine per glass, but in 1903 it was removed. Coca-Cola still contains coca flavoring from “spent” leaves, the leftovers of the cocaine extraction process with cocaine trace levels at a molecular level.”

Although Franklin County was dry, you could get a doctor’s letter saying your condition required the application of liquor, which was the reason the dispensary could advertise Gordons Baltimore Rye for sale and have gross sales of $36,860.87 with $11,230.42 in profit. In that same year, 1905, doctors charged $1 for a house call, $10 for delivering a baby and $25 for amputating an arm or leg.

Louisburg in those years had a local railroad owned by Seaboard Airline, and it had a Home Telephone Company while Wake Forest had Home Telephone & Telegraph located in the basement of the T.E. Holding drugstore. Like Wake Forest and much of North Carolina, the money crop was cotton even though prices dropped year after year, and there were mills producing cotton cloth.

The dust cover for the book has current town or area names on the front and names now forgotten on the back. Some of those are Views, Pungo, Letha, Pughs, Alert, Schloss, Pacific, Daddysville, Dickens, Punkin Center, Pousville, Needmore and Margaret.

Thilbert’s other books include “They Fought” about the Franklin County men in the Confederate army, “How to Sell a Dead Mule,” a collection of humorous stories and “Early Architecture of Franklin County,” which won an award from the state Historic Preservation Society.

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