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Millie Ringold 1845-1906, also known as 'Aunt Milly', born enslaved, moved west to Yogo Creek, Montana, where she became a gold prospector during the strike of '79 and owned a boarding house.

Photograph ca. 1904 or 1905

"While we honor the living soldiers who have done so much we must not forget to whisper for fear of desturbeing the Glorious sleep of the ma[ny] who have fallen."

Following right along from his contemporary Abraham Galloway (previous lesson), today we examine the life and (perhaps more importantly) the recorded history of William B. Gould. Born enslaved in 1837 North Carolina and raised with particular skills as a plasterer, Gould took advantage of the onset of the Civil War --at a time when plantation owners weren't in a position to oversee their slaves as closely-- and escaped along with seven other slaves aboard a steamship headed up Cape Fear in 1862. This ship was in turn intercepted by a patrolling Union gunboat, the USS Cambridge, part of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and in very short order Gould enlisted in the U.S. Navy and signed on as a member of her crew, eventually attaining the rank of Petty Officer. Significantly while aboard the Cambridge, Gould began the practice of keeping a journal.

During the next three years, Gould would record his Civil War service in the U.S. Navy, first aboard the Cambridge, and later aboard the Ohio and then Niagara; the latter during her epic hunt through European waters for the Confederate cruisers Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. His journal entries weren't particularly organized and frankly meandered --but at the very least he did clearly designate the respective dates of each entry: a blessing to future archivists and historians! At the time of Grant's capture of Richmond, Gould was serving aboard the Niagra, cruising off Southampton, England. While there he took note of a proposal that "intimates Colinization for the colard people of the United States... This move... must and shall be resisted. We were born under the Flag of the Union and we never will know no other. My sentement is the sentement of the people of the States."

In 1865 after discharge, Gould moved to Nantucket, Mass., where he married Cornelia Williams Read and took on a career as a plasterer; he later settled in Dedham, where he raised eight children, including five sons who would later in the Spanish-American War, and one son in World War I. His diaries were packed away in an attic, scarcely to be thought of again, until 1958 when they would be rediscovered by his grandson William B. Gould, III. Gould himself died in 1923.

His diaries remain a treasure trove of firsthand information; not only did chronicle the relentless monotony of shipboard life, but also the occasional excitement of chasing down Confederate blockade runners. He also singled out the unusual (relative) racial equality such as was unique to the Navy, but he also didn't leave out the slights, microaggressions, and the outright discrimination that were a daily fact of life for him and for all Black sailors. His writings offer some truly unique vantage points, not only on the events of the Civil War itself, but the aftermath and the way the nation --and indeed the world-- were addressing such seismic changes.

Black inventor Alfred L. Cralle became a hero for dessert lovers on February 2, 1897, when he patented an “ice cream mold and disher,” the precursor to the scoop used to serve ice cream today.

Born in Virginia just after the end of the Civil War, Cralle developed his technical skills at an early age, often working alongside his carpenter father. He attended Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C. and eventually settled in Pittsburgh. There, his work as a porter at a drugstore and a hotel sparked inspiration.

Cralle saw that servers at these businesses struggled. Holding ice cream cones in one hand, they were accustomed to using a serving spoon or ladle in the other hand to dish out the treats. But ice cream often stuck to the spoon, forcing servers to juggle a cone and multiple utensils simultaneously.

Cralle saw a better way. He optimized his invention for one-handed use by adding a thumb grip and a scraping tool that kept food from sticking to the scooper. When he filed for a patent in 1896, he wrote that the tool would “be extremely simple in its construction, strong, durable, effectual in its operation and comparatively inexpensive to manufacture.” A year later, in 1897, the United States Patent Office granted Cralle Patent No. 576395. 

The device was a near-instant hit. As the Pittsburgh Press wrote at the time, the invention, a product of Cralle’s “ingenious mind,” could scoop “40 to 50 dishes of ice cream in a minute” while successfully doing “away with the soiling of [servers’] hands.” The Press also reported that several firms in major cities, including Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Chicago, were interested in purchasing the patent from Cralle outright or establishing royalty deals. The patented mold and disher was useful beyond ice cream, helping to serve other sticky foods like rice.

Despite the invention’s popularity, Cralle never received big bucks for his patent. Nor did he win measurable fame during his lifetime. Cralle did receive recognition in the local business community, leaving porter roles at the St. Charles Hotel and the Markell Brothers drugstore to serve as the assistant manager of the Afro-American Financial, Accumulating, Merchandise and Business Association. He was later promoted to general manager of the organization. Cralle died in 1919.

Chowan Beach, Hertford County, North Carolina (1926-2004)

March 09, 2014 

/ Contributed By: Ronald J. Stephens

Chowan Beach was an African American playground founded in 1926 when Eli Reid of Winton, in Hertford County, North Carolina, converted an abandoned fishing beach along the Chowan River into a family-oriented resort for African Americans. The area was originally settled in the Colonial era but the ravages of the American Revolution and later the U.S. Civil War eventually broke the linkage to the original settlers.  By the mid-1920s when Reid acquired the land from Hertford County, the old fishing village, the last known settlement, had long been abandoned.

Under Reid’s ownership Chowan Beach became a place of quiet dignity where middle class African Americans could vacation for a day or a week.  Reid, a World War I veteran and trustee of First Baptist Church of Winton, used his veterans and church connections to attract the first visitors. Many of those visitors would continue to return to Chowan Beach for the next four decades.  In the 1920s and 1930s the area’s sandy beaches were the main attraction.  By the 1940s, Reid built guest cottages, bathhouses, and a dance hall to accommodate a growing number of regular visitors.  By the end of World War II Chowan Beach had taken on the trappings of a small community with a restaurant, public picnic area, and photo studio.

Located on the Chowan River near Albemarle Sound, Chowan Beach was a four hundred-acre gathering place and destination for middle class African Americans during the segregation era when vacation opportunities were limited. Over the years Reid welcomed a long list of vacationers from throughout North Carolina and Virginia including bankers, insurance company executives, dentists, medical doctors, surgeons, optometrists, attorneys, business managers, engineers, secondary school educators, and college professors from many of the historic black colleges in North Carolina and Virginia.

During the late 1940s and 1950s, Chowan Beach became a major stop on the Chitlin Circuit, attracting leading black musicians including headliners such as B.B. King, James Brown, Ruth Brown, The Coasters, Joe Turner, Little Willie John, Louis Jordan, and Sam Cooke. However, like other black resort communities that faded after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, the number of vacationers and entertainers rapidly declined.

In 1967, Reid sold Chowan Beach to Sam Pullman, a respected businessman from Ahoskie, North Carolina, who made a number of improvements to the resort.  Pullman managed to keep the resort alive during the 1970s and 1980s although it never saw the number of visitors so common in the 1950s and early 1960s.  By the 1990s, however, competition from newly opened amusement parks in nearby Virginia Beach, Virginia severely crippled attendance.

Pullman sold the property in 2004.  Now only a handful of permanent residents live in Chowan Beach behind a private gated road.

In Memory of Harriet Tubman

Portrait of Harriet Tubman by Benjamin Powelson, Auburn, New York, 1868-69, public domain via the Library of Congress

On this anniversary of her death on March 10, 1913, let us remember and salute Harriet Tubman, that brave, intrepid, and most ingenious of women.

Born on the eastern shore of Maryland as Araminta Ross around 1820, she was put to work very young, from field labor to housework to…