File:Coast watch (1979) (20659901465).jpg

Title: Coast watch
Identifier: coastwatch00uncs_9 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: UNC Sea Grant College Program
Subjects: Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology
Publisher: (Raleigh, N. C. : UNC Sea Grant College Program)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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Front door decorations for the palace kitchen office people assume everyone in that era made their own food," Hicks says. "We don't know what his prices would have been like, but middle-class or upper middle-class people in town probably could have shopped with him." The house also includes handicrafts of the 1830s. Imitation china is crafted from an activity book of the era, A Girl's Own Book, using a plain glass tumbler pasted with a picture and trimmed in gold. ♦ Union Winter Quarters (ca. 1862-64) Wander the grounds behind the Daves House and enter a circle of Civil War tents where Union soldiers brew their coffee over the campfire. New Bern celebrated Christmas as a Union- occupied city from 1862 to 1864 — a time when photographs and troops' letters home give insight into how the holidays were observed. "There were soldiers here, and local families were dealing with shortages of supplies," Hicks says. "Soldiers were finding ways to make merriment in what would have been a bleak time." During the Christmas tours, an actor plays the part of Henry Clapp, a private from Massachusetts who wrote home thanking his family for a Christ- mas package that included gloves, stockings, paper and pens, pies, canned milk, figs, nuts, pickles and even lobster. He spent Christmas Day writing letters and dining with other soldiers and noted that "Hopkinson read Dickens' charming 'Christmas Carol' in the barracks to a delighted audience of the company." At that time, the now-venerated story was only about 20 years old. ♦ New Bern Academy (ca. 1809) A classroom Christmas tree like the one displayed in the New Bern Academy was a special treat for schoolchildren in the mid-19th century. The decorated tree was a German custom popularized in England in the early 1840s by Queen Victoria's husband. It arrived in the United States about a decade later when an American magazine carried a picture of the royal family and its Christmas trees. The early trees in the United States, like their European counterparts, were trimmed mostly with good things to eat. To the traditional nuts, apples and cookies of Germany were added strings of popcorn, cranberries, candied fruits and hard candies. Though they gained popularity over the years, Christmas trees were found most often in schools and churches. Even as late as 1900, only one family in five had a tree in the home, Hicks says. The tree and other New Bern Academy decorations were based on an 1892 description by Frances Louisa Goodrich, who taught school in the western part of North Carolina. "I have been all day doing up presents," she wrote. "When Miss Marston got home from school, she helped me and by nine o'clock had all the tree presents assigned — 105 twists of paper with candy in them. On top of each, we put a motto paper.... Mr. B. brought some sticks of candy and says he heard of a ladder with a doll climbing up and an orange on top as an effective ornament for a tree. We strove to carry out his idea and did well we thought." Also during this time, the empha- sis on gift-giving was growing as Christmas presents were advertised throughout December. ♦ Commission House (ca. 1886) Visitors can tour two eras of Christmas in the Commission House. The dining room is decorated with the candle-tipped Christmas tree of the Victorian era, while the drawing room takes on the swing of Christmas in the 1940s. Down the street, a '40s-style big band entertains visitors for one 6 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1996

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