The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey

The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey PDF Author: Bland Simpson
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469620456
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
As compelling as fiction, The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey tells the dramatic story of the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Nell Cropsey from her riverside home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in November 1901. Bloodhounds, detectives, divers, and even a psychic were brought in to search for her, and the case immediately became a national sensation. Bland Simpson, who first heard the tale as an Elizabeth City schoolboy, weaves this true story into a colorful nonfiction account, told in three first-person voices: Nell's sister Ollie; famous newspaper editor W. O. Saunders, who covered the case as a young reporter; and Jim Wilcox, Nell's beau, who was implicated in the case. Nell and Jim's romance, her disappearance, the great search, the trials, and their aftermath are artfully reconstructed from interviews, court records, and newspaper accounts.

The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey

The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey PDF Author: Bland Simpson
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469620456
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book

Book Description
As compelling as fiction, The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey tells the dramatic story of the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Nell Cropsey from her riverside home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in November 1901. Bloodhounds, detectives, divers, and even a psychic were brought in to search for her, and the case immediately became a national sensation. Bland Simpson, who first heard the tale as an Elizabeth City schoolboy, weaves this true story into a colorful nonfiction account, told in three first-person voices: Nell's sister Ollie; famous newspaper editor W. O. Saunders, who covered the case as a young reporter; and Jim Wilcox, Nell's beau, who was implicated in the case. Nell and Jim's romance, her disappearance, the great search, the trials, and their aftermath are artfully reconstructed from interviews, court records, and newspaper accounts.

The Great Dismal

The Great Dismal PDF Author: Bland Simpson
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807867063
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Just below the Tidewater area of Virginia, straddling the North Carolina-Virginia line, lies the Great Dismal Swamp, one of America's most mysterious wilderness areas. The swamp has long drawn adventurers, runaways, and romantics, and while many have tried to conquer it, none has succeeded. In this engaging memoir, Bland Simpson, who grew up near the swamp in North Carolina, blends personal experience, travel narrative, oral history, and natural history to create an intriguing portrait of the Great Dismal Swamp and its people. For this edition, he has added an epilogue discussing developments in the region since 1990.

Into the Sound Country

Into the Sound Country PDF Author: Bland Simpson
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807868191
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Into the Sound Country is a story of rediscovery--of two North Carolinians returning to seek their roots in the state's eastern provinces. It is an affectionate, impressionistic, and personal portrait of the coastal plain by two natives of the region, writer Bland Simpson and photographer Ann Cary Simpson. Here Bland Simpson tours his old waterfront haunts in Elizabeth City, explores scuppernong vineyards from Hertford to Southport, tramps through Pasquotank swamps and Croatan pine savannas, and visits Roanoke River oyster bars and Core Banks fishing shanties. Ann Simpson's original photographs capture both the broad vistas of the sounds and rivers and the quieter corners of mossy creeks and country churchyards. Her selection of archival illustrations ranges from the informative to the humorous, from a turpentine scraper at work in the 1850s to a pair of little girls playing with a horseshoe crab on a Beaufort porch at the turn of the century. A memorable journey into eastern Carolina's richly varied natural world, Into the Sound Country is for anyone who would spend a while in one of America's most intriguing and underexplored areas.

Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals

Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals PDF Author: Bland Simpson
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 9780807856178
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
In the misty dawn of January 31, 1921, a Coast Guardsman on watch at the Cape Hatteras Life-Saving Station sighted a mighty five-masted schooner, all sails set, wrecked on the treacherous Diamond Shoals. Rescuers rushed to the ship, but when they arrived

The Devil's Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Mystery Stories

The Devil's Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Mystery Stories PDF Author: John W. Harden Sr.
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807866776
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
From the first colonization at Roanoke Island, the bizarre and inexplicable have shrouded the Tar Heel State. From history and legend, John Harden records ominous events that have shaped or colored state history.

Haunted

Haunted PDF Author: William E Dunstan
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781073487158
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
The year 1898 finds young Jim Wilcox enjoying a privileged life in beautiful coastal Elizabeth City, North Carolina, but his world blazes under a rising tide of Southern intrigue and violence. After Jim falls in love with Nell Cropsey, a newcomer from Brooklyn, he gradually drifts into ragged torment from her habitual rudeness and unspeakable secrets. Then twenty-year-old Nell, who claims to be nineteen, disappears from her riverside home on a cold moonlit night in November 1901. Within days, her mysterious disappearance becomes a national sensation. Local mobs point angry fingers at Jim, but has another person cleverly covered an unthinkable sin? William E. Dunstan brings old twisted wounds to stunning light in the pages of this nonfiction novel, accurately describing historical figures and events but told also by imagining Jim's thoughts and conversations. Braving the thorns of fate, Jim finds himself trapped in a searing tapestry framed by love and treachery, loyalty and betrayal, truth and dishonor. The rich narrative shows impeccable research and unfolds with masterful intensity and compassion, from its gripping beginning to haunting ending. A gifted educator and writer, William E. Dunstan writes and conducts research as a visiting scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Two Captains from Carolina

Two Captains from Carolina PDF Author: Bland Simpson
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807835854
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Two Captains from Carolina: Moses Grandy, John Newland Maffitt, and the Coming of the Civil War

Nell Cropsey and Jim Wilcox

Nell Cropsey and Jim Wilcox PDF Author: William E. Dunstan
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781530121670
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
An absorbing tapestry, this true story brims with romance, murder, and intrigue. The illustrated narrative pulls readers into the complex, dark secrets of Elizabeth City, North Carolina. This bustling town overlooks the breathtaking Pasquotank River but lurches dangerously from political and racial hatreds in the decades after the Civil War. Jim Wilcox, born 1876, reaches manhood in this fractured world. In 1898 he begins courting Nell Cropsey, after she arrives in Elizabeth City from Brooklyn, but the young lovers eventually drift into heavy-laden turmoil and strife. Then the autumn of 1901 brings ruin. Nell disappears from her riverside house one cold November night, and her strange, unnatural story becomes a national sensation. Hysterical accusers point angry fingers at Jim, but has another person covered an unthinkable sin? William E. Dunstan's painstaking sleuthing peels back the fa�ade of Southern gentility to reveal a secret-ridden town teetering on storm and frenzy at the turn of the twentieth century.

A Conspiratorial Life

A Conspiratorial Life PDF Author: Edward H. Miller
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226826503
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
The first full-scale biography of Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society and planted some of modern conservatism’s most insidious seeds. Though you may not know his name, Robert Welch (1899-1985)—founder of the John Birch Society—is easily one of the most significant architects of our current political moment. In A Conspiratorial Life, the first full-scale biography of Welch, Edward H. Miller delves deep into the life of an overlooked figure whose ideas nevertheless reshaped the American right. A child prodigy who entered college at age 12, Welch became an unlikely candy magnate, founding the company that created Sugar Daddies, Junior Mints, and other famed confections. In 1958, he funneled his wealth into establishing the organization that would define his legacy and change the face of American politics: the John Birch Society. Though the group’s paranoiac right-wing nativism was dismissed by conservative thinkers like William F. Buckley, its ideas gradually moved from the far-right fringe into the mainstream. By exploring the development of Welch’s political worldview, A Conspiratorial Life shows how the John Birch Society’s rabid libertarianism—and its highly effective grassroots networking—became a profound, yet often ignored or derided influence on the modern Republican Party. Miller convincingly connects the accusatory conservatism of the midcentury John Birch Society to the inflammatory rhetoric of the Tea Party, the Trump administration, Q, and more. As this book makes clear, whether or not you know his name or what he accomplished, it’s hard to deny that we’re living in Robert Welch’s America.

North Carolina

North Carolina PDF Author: Bland Simpson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781469665832
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Bland Simpson, the celebrated bard of North Carolina's sound country, has blended history, observation of nature, and personal narrative in many books to chronicle the people and places of eastern Carolina. Yet he has spent much of his life in the state's Piedmont, with regular travels into its western mountains. Here, for the first time, Simpson brings his distinctive voice and way of seeing to bear on the entirety of his home state, combining storytelling and travelogue to create a portrait of the Old North State with care and humor. Three of the state's finest photographers come along to guide the journey: Simpson's wife and creative partner Ann Cary Simpson, professional photographer Scott Taylor, and writer and naturalist Tom Earnhardt. Their photos, combined with Simpson's rich narrative, will inspire readers to consider not only what North Carolina has been and what it is but also what we hope it will be. This book belongs on the shelf of longtime residents, newcomers, and visitors alike.