Rebuilding Winton: 1880 - 1930

The town was well connected to transportation networks at the time of its establishment. It was an important port on the Chowan River, and the main stagecoach route between Norfolk, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina, passed within a mile of the town. However, in 1884, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad began construction on its line from Norfolk, Virginia, to Rocky Mount, which traveled through Ahoskie, Cofield, and Tunis, then crossed the Chowan River to Eure, bypassing Winton.

Although bypassed by the railroads, by the 1890s, the town had started to recover in earnest from its destruction during the Civil War. In 1890, Dr. S.S. Daniels served as the physician, postmaster, and manager of the Western Union Office, J.T. Lowe served as the grocer, cabinetmaker, and undertaker, and the Albemarle Steam Navigation Company operated a shipping company with the steamer “Mary Roberts.” There was also an insurance agent, two saloons, a millinery, a sawmill, an African American shoemaker, and an African American barber. Growth continued steadily, and Winton’s population increased from 419 people in 1890 to 688 people in 1900. The Merchants & Farmers Bank was formed around 1911, followed by the Bank of Winton. They later merged, though did not survive the Great Depression. By 1918, there were department and dry goods stores, lumber companies, agricultural supply stores, realty and land investment companies, and construction companies operating in Winton. Automobiles became popular in Hertford County by the 1910s, leading to the establishment of two dealerships in Winton by 1918 and significant road improvements in the 1920s. In 1924, Winton was connected south to Ahoskie by the Winton-Ahoskie Highway, now US Highway 13, and a steel highway bridge was built across the Chowan River at Winton in 1925, the first in the county to cross the river.

Revival of Churches

The revival of the community’s religious institutions in the late nineteenth century was also an important part of rebuilding. The Episcopal congregation formed in 1885 and built a modest Gothic Revival church on East Brickell Street, which today is used as the Masonic Lodge. By the 1880s, there were also four Methodist congregations in the town, although the dominant religion was Baptist. The Winton Baptist Church was established in 1873. A group split from the congregation in 1895 to form a second church, the Chowan Baptist Church, which met on the campus of Chowan Academy until 1902 when a new church building was constructed. In 1918, the two congregations reunited and continued to use the newer building, which is located at 203 North Main Street.

Winton Baptist Church, formerly Chowan Baptist Church, at 203 North Main

Winton Academy

In 1893, the Winton Male and Female Academy later renamed Winton Academy, opened for white students on the 400 block of Murfree Street, east of the historic district. It was originally a private school, funded by local stockholders and overseen by a board of directors. It served high school children in Winton and the surrounding areas, with many children boarding in town to attend school. In 1907, the North Carolina General Assembly authorized the establishment of rural high schools, and between 1907 and 1911, more than two hundred rural high schools were established statewide. By 1910, Winton Academy had shifted from private to public operation and was renamed Winton High School. There was also an elementary school associated with Winton High School by 1911, and a separate elementary school was built in 1920.

Agriculture

Hertford County’s agricultural landscape began to change at the turn of the twentieth century. In the late nineteenth century, the county was one of North Carolina’s top peanut producers, and cotton was an important cash crop as well. However, in the early 1900s, tobacco cultivation had expanded into the area, replacing peanuts and cotton as the dominant cash crop. David Anderson Owen, who had learned the tobacco industry from Washington Duke of Durham, operated the Owen Tobacco Company, which produced Winton Smoking Tobacco, Owen Plug Tobacco, and other tobacco products. Farmers in the Winton area could take their tobacco crop to market in Rocky Mount or Wilson, and in 1907 Ahoskie’s tobacco market had opened as well. By 1918, 4-H was popular among both boys and girls, and the following year, the first joint 4-H camps were held in Winton.

Chowan Academy

The Freedmen’s Bureau provided funds to establish schools for African American children as early as the 1870s, and in 1885, Levi Brown donated five acres of land for a permanent school at 101-102 C.S. Brown School Drive at the south end of the Winton Historic District. Dr. Calvin Scott Brown, a minister, and teacher at the nearby Pleasant Plains School established the new school. In 1886, Chowan Academy opened with thirty-five boarding students and eighty-five local students, including students from outside Winton who boarded in the town or stayed with relatives during the school term. Reynolds Hall, a three-story girls’ dormitory, was built in 1893 with a kitchen, dining hall, and recitation rooms on the first floor and dormitories on the upper floors. It was destroyed by fire in 1941. The building was funded by northern benefactor Horace Waters, and the school was renamed Waters Normal Institute in his honor. In 1907, the original Chowan Academy building was destroyed by fire, and Morehouse Hall was built in 1909 to replace it. It had an auditorium on the first floor, with a boys’ dormitory on the second and third floors.

In the early 1920s, the Waters Normal Institute was taken over by the state because of ongoing financial difficulties, and it was renamed Waters Training School. The Rosenwald Fund, which offered matching grants for African American educational buildings throughout the South in the 1920s and 1930s, assisted with the construction of two buildings on the campus. The first was an eight-room classroom building, known as Brown Hall, with an auditorium, stage, dressing rooms, library, and principal’s office constructed in 1926. Today it serves as the C.S. Brown Regional Cultural Arts Center and Museum. The second building to be funded in part by a Rosenwald Grant was a one-room shop added to the campus during the 1927-1928 school year, which has since been replaced with a c.1954 vocational building that remains extant.