On the Camt3us
Stephenson authors book on ferries; eighth publication
Contains
many
photographs
which have
never been
exhibited
Rich in local lore, Parkefs Ferry, a new book
by E. Frank Stephenson, Jr., offers insight into
the history of river ferries in the Roanoke-
Chowan area as well as the Meherrin and
Chowan rivers.
Stephenson, director of Chowan’s Upward
Bound program, has written and published eight
books, including his most recent publication,
Gatling - A Photographic Remembrance that has
been distributed worldwide. The noted author
has also written numerous newspaper and
magazine articles focusing on the history of the
Roanoke-Chowan region.
Stephenson’s new book, published by
Meherrin River Press, includes 215 photo
graphs, many of which have never been pub
lished or exhibited before. The book traces the
history of Parker’s Ferry, located on the
Meherrin River near Murfreesboro, and also
gives the history of other ferries that operated
many years ago in the northeastern section of
the state.
Stephenson included information about
Maney’s Ferry, which General Lafayette used to
cross the Chowan River on his way to Murfrees
boro in 1825.
The popular author completed extensive
research on the herring fishing industry that
flourished in the early spring on area rivers. One
chapter is devoted to the official customs
station, once located near Parker’s Ferry and
used for imports and exports during colonial
days. Also the history of the Meherrin Indian
tribe is covered in one chapter of the publica
tion.
Stephenson was born and raised on a farm in
the northeastern part of Hertford County near
Parker’s Ferry and spent much of his childhood
days along the Meherrin River.
The author has been associated with Chowan
College for the past 27 years as an administra
tive officer. A graduate of Chowan, he also
holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from
North Carolina State University and has
completed additional graduate study at the
University of Virginia.
JJ
Continuing support
for college progress
Raymond Benthall, right, senior vice
president of Centura Bank in Murfrees
boro, presents a ctieck to Laurie Bass,
director of annual giving, to support the
“Day for Chowan” drive held last
November. fVlore than $160,000 in gifts
and pledges has been received for the
college's annual event which was
chaired by Charles Hughes of Ahoskie
and Diane Dixon of l\4urfreesboro.
Benthall and Jane Taylor were co
chairs for the 1994 "Day for Chowan.”
E. Frank
Stephenson
. . new book
traces
history of
river ferries
A self-taught photographer, many of his
photographs have been exhibited in restaurants,
museums and art galleries. One of his forthcom
ing books. North Carolina’s Herring Fishermen,
is a photographic documentary of the herring
fishermen on the Chowan and Meherrin rivers.
Stephenson is also co-authoring a book with
Raymond Whitehead of Murfreesboro on three
black baseball teams in Hertford County during
the 1940s and 1950s.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s,
Stephenson led the effort to save the historic
homes in Murfreesboro from desuiiction. He
was also involved in saving the Meherrin River
canal and later in the 1990s he was instrumental
in preserving the research papers and forty years
of newspapers of the late writer and publisher F,
Roy Johnson of Murfreesboro.
In recognition of his community work and
service, he has been honored with numerous
awards including The Book of Golden Deeds by
the Murfreesboro Exchange Club, Community
Service Award by the Murfreesboro Industrial
Development Corporation, and the Mayor’s
Award, given by the Town of Murfreesboro.
Parker's Ferry, which sells for $20 as well as
other books by Stephenson, is available through
the Chowan bookstore. The Trading Post, or
from Meherrin River Press, 301 E. Broad Street,
Murfreesboro, NC 27855.
Dr. Davis delivers cMress at Spring Honors Convocation
“Stand on
the firm
ground
of reality,
but aim
high”
Continued from Page Five
vocation/ As my two eyes make one in sight.”
Thoreau left the woods, after he learned
something of what they could teach him, to
learn more from the world beyond. Gray,
Erasmus, Lewis, Thoreau, and Frost know it is
not wise to be foolish. A foolish person sees life
in bits, as if looking down the wrong end of a
telescope, unable to view the fuller picture; true,
as Thoreau warns, often, “Our life is frittered
away by detail”(457), but a foolish person’s life
may be little more than unauached details,
obscuring or lacking meaning because uncon
nected to a life that may give them meaning and
a meaning that may give them life. Many, not
just fools, have lost or never found the whole
ness of life these writers seek, one to which
knowledge opens insights and can offer more
than glimpses.
College is an opportunity to gain such
knowledge. Sagan suggests one means and one
reason to go to college as he says that, to learn
the joy of learning, “Teens should be surrounded
by people who know deep things,” not by fools
or by idolators at the altar of stupidity. Seeking
knowledge in college, the seeker should seize
that opportunity from faculty, fellow students,
and wherever it is to be found, for the seeker
does not scorn learning or shun differing
sources of knowledge.
An old test to determine whether a person is
an intellectual is to ask, “Who are the James
boys?” The joke is that, if you say Frank and
Jesse instead of William and Henry, you flunk.
But to understand the joke, you must know both
sets of Jameses. Popular culture is still culture.
The more one knows, the more one can laugh at,
the more jokes one can “get.” Imagine God’s
laughter. When T. S, Eliot died, the sad response
of his equally intellectual friend and fellow
poet, Ezra Pound, was “Who is there now for
me to share a joke with?”
We sometimes set up our own barriers to
sharing. Like the warden in Cool Hand Luke,
we can say, “What we have here is a failure to
communicate.” Faulty communication ruins
both a good joke and learning. The person who
knows everything can’t learn anything. Smug
ness in education, as in ignorance, is dumb.
Learn to learn. Don’t deceive yourself
Remember, as Twain reminds us, “Noise proves
nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg
cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.” You
might cackle that your history essay is an “A,”
as in “asteroid,” but objective examination
might prove it to be a black hole, a place where
splendid as well as dimly developed ideas
disappear because they do not adhere to a core.
College can provide a core and a foundation for
further learning, for college is not the end of
study but preparation for and one step toward a
lifelong pursuit.
“Training is everything,” Twain says. “The
peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is
nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
You might rather be a peach than a bitter
almond; at least connotatively, being called or
thought a peach is better. Prepare yourself to
meet the world on your best terms. A college
education may or may not be the best means for
you to do so; you may wish to be a cabbage
rather than a cauliflower, but don’t let it be said
of you as in another axiom from Mark Twain:
“He is useless on top of the grown; he ought to
be under it, inspiring the cabbages.” Stand on
the firm ground of reality, but aim high. Do so
after assessing yourself candidly, sometimes, as
the situation dictates, brutally. Smart is as smart
does.
Forrest Gump u-uthfully and humbly says, “I
am not a smart man.” Do you stand with
Forrest? Or do you wish to say with those
honored here today and with Clay Boy, as he
leaves home for college in Spencer’s Mountain,
novel and movie precursor to television’s The
Waltons-. “1 expect to go right far”?
Like people before you, in the past and here
today, in seeking your true self, you CAN “go
right far.”
PAGE 6 — CHOWAN TODAY, March 1996