The unique Poor Town automobile tags have prompted inquiring looks and comments all over the eastern United States. The standard questions are: "Where is Poor Town, North Carolina? Is it really a place where people live?" ...... If you're asked those questions in, say, Maryland, Kentucky or Georgia, and you answer, "Near Ahoskie," people say "I never heard of Ahoskie. Where is Ahoskie?" ...... So you say, "Well, it's not too far from Norfolk" ...... Then they say, "But Norfolk's in Virginia" ...... So you say, "Well, anyway, Poor Town really is a place where people live. And it really is in North Carolina (not too far from Norfolk, Virginia)."

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This Week's Story

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I'M NOT FROM 'ROUND HERE,
I'M FROM MILLENNIUM

© 2000 James David Pearce

It's not so true today, but for many years, lines were important items in the lives of rural Eastern North Carolinians.

Hertford County, for instance, is 18 miles across, stretching from the town limits of Aulander (across the Bertie County line) to the broad Chowan River at Winton, which is the line that separates it from Gates County.

Along this 18-mile length was placed, in 1892, a railroad line that went almost as straight as an arrow to the trestle where it crossed the river on its way to Norfolk, across the state line in Virginia. This railroad ran southwest-northeast, just slightly north of the county line that separated big Bertie from not-so-big Hertford.

There were no roads to speak of in Hertford County then, and most people who traveled by mule-and-cart, horse-and-buggy or horseback just ambled back and forth to wherever they had to go by way of farm-property lines, being careful not to do too much damage along the way to the neighbor's crops.

When settlements started springing up along the new railroad line and automobiles and trucks were introduced after 1900, these makeshift angular paths weren't up to the task, so a graded road was built.

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In Hertford County, this new gravel line roughly paralleled the railroad line, about a mile further north. Here and there an occasional dirt path was graded to connect the new auto road to the train road.

At one of these road intersections, there evolved a small settlement of five or six farm residences called Poor Town.

That was about as big as it ever got, probably because it was slightly off-center, a couple of miles closer to the Bertie County railroad community of Aulander than it was to the river, and more than a comfortable walk from the railroad.

At a road intersection exactly halfway between the Bertie County line at Aulander and the Gates County line at the river (nine miles each way) there evolved a small settlement called Ahoskie, named after the swamp in which it was located.

Ahoskie, where the auto road and the train road were a little closer together, grew and grew and grew, and after about a hundred years, attained a population of around 4,000.

It grew so much that it just about touched Poor Town to the west, got within about seven miles of the river to the east, and went right down to the Bertie line on the south.

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Aulander, the Bertie County town west of Ahoskie, grew hardly at all.

Probably the main reason for this was that Aulander was right up against the Hertford County line, and provincial folks that they were, the Hertford folks didn't want a Bertie County town spilling across their line. So they started their own community right there up against the Bertie line in order to block feared future intrusion from outsiders.

At first, this new settlement, between Poor Town in Hertford and Aulander over the Bertie line, didn't have a name.

It was a pretty colorful place. One reason for this was Prohibition, or the lack of it.

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The Prohibition Era was that time in US history when a law was passed that said Americans would no longer buy, sell or drink alcohol.

Since the law only prohibited and did nothing to alleviate, the thirst prevailed and gave rise to a thriving cottage industry in rural neighborhoods. This in turn gave rise to busier days and more income for deputy sheriffs.

At small newspapers, such as where Boweaver worked, hand typesetting wasn't the easiest task, and "standing heads" were headlines that were set into type and never distributed back into the cases because they almost certainly were expected to be needed again for the next edition.

The most used "standing head" at The Hertford County Herald was "Liquor Stills Captured This Week," under which was dutifully recorded the location, proprietor, and the materials that were the objects of the deputies' ax-work that week.

This private enterprise system with respect to alcohol didn't really change much in Hertford County when Congress reconsidered in 1933 and repealed Prohibition, because under the states' rights doctrine of the times, each state was told to tend to its own business according to its own tastes.

And North Carolina decided to let its 100 counties go their 100 ways with regard to sale of bottled, sealed, taxpaid and "legal" whiskey. This was known as "Local Option."

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Hertford County, dominated by big Ahoskie with its Baptists and Methodists, voted "dry." Bertie, with smaller towns more widely separated, voted "wet."

Bertie put its first liquor store right up against its northern border, in a field just outside the "dry" town of Ahoskie, and it did a booming business.

Over west of Poor Town, around the new settlement near Aulander, there weren't enough people with enough money to justify an across-the-line taxpaid liquor store, so the neighborhood had to stay with the private enterprise system, which continued to supply it with generous amounts of corn squeezins and kept the deputies employed and the "Captured This Week" headline in constant use back at The Herald.

And the strait-laced folks around Poor Town, most of whom were regulars at the Southern Baptist and Methodist churches in Ahoskie, started referring to the new settlement to their west as "Hell's Half-Acre."

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But there were a couple of other factors at work here in the '30s. One was the advent of the air age.

Two fellows from the county ventured into other parts of the USA one day, and when they returned, they brought with them a two-seater low-wing monoplane, a racy-looking thing that really added some color to the countryside of western Hertford County.

On Saturdays and Sundays, a lot of people would turn out at the half-mile cleared landing strip between the road to Aulander and the railroad, and stand entranced while the young dare-devils did barrel rolls and loop-the-loops and offered front-seat rides to the natives at $1 per head.

When they were really feeling adventurous, they would bring hearts into throats when one of them would part company with the plane and float to the ground under a parachute.

The other thing that added some color here was the Church Tent.

The Church Tent was erected by folks from around Hell's Half-Acre who had hopes of better times and a better reputation for their community.

While the new airplane was getting some of them a little closer to Heaven physically, these people were thinking spiritually.

Also, a lot of them were still traveling around in mule-drawn wagons and tip-carts, which didn't have much eye appeal for the folks in the big brick churches over in Ahoskie.

The Church Tent allowed them to worship nearer home, in their overalls, with a little less labor on the part of the mules.

The Church Tent did its job so well that even some folks from Poor Town started tending in that direction on Sundays, rather than toward Ahoskie.

And the Church Tent gave birth to the community's new name ~ Millennium.

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Boweaver, frequently almost overcome by periods of nostalgia, traveled back to the neighborhoods around Poor Town quite a bit.

When he learned that Poor Town had formed itself a rural fire protection department and was regularly holding fund-raisers such as raffles, barbecue suppers, fish muddles and license-plate sales to help support it, he came around even more often ~ at least once a year, to purchase his new "Poor Town" auto license plate.

The gas station-convenience store where he bought his plates was just across the road from his old homeplace. Standing at the store window with his new license in his hand after paying the clerk, he looked thoughtfully across the road at the old house.

Speaking to the clerk, he said: "You see that house? It still looks pretty good, doesn't it? You know how long that house has been there? My daddy built that house. I was raised in that house."

Then, to no one in particular, he said, "I'd sure like to go inside that house."

To the clerk, he said, "Do you know who lives in that house now?"

"No," she replied. "I don't."

"You don't know your neighbors across the street?" asked Boweaver.

The clerk leaned on the counter, and said, "Well, no, you see, I'm not really from around here."

"Oh," said Boweaver. "I thought probably you were from Poor Town."

"No," she said, "I'm not from 'round here. I'm from Millennium."