PAGE 2—THE HERALD. Ahoskie. N. C.—MILESTONE YEAR 1959
The Herald: Four-Page Beginning for Institution Since 1909'
HERALD
(Continued from Page 1)
the ante-bellum and Civil War
days.
Ahoskie’s birth sprang out of
a new mode of transportation—
the railroad. The infant town was
fertilized by industry—the big
sawmill that was established on
the railroad. The growing town of
1910 was nourished by increasing
commerce created by the trans
portation and industry. Com
merce was stimulated by men-
on-the-make who came and were
willing to work to make a stake
for themselves in the raw little
town of Ahoskie. |
These newcomers to Ahoski;
and to Hertford County also
wanted schools for their children.
They wanted churches of their
faith and preference. They want
ed improvements of streets and
living conditions in the town they
were building. They wanted polit
ical recognition from the polit
ical powers that ruled Hertford
County, represented by the older
communities whose history ran
back to pre-Revolutionary days
They wanted liberation from thi
traditional ways of a dying social
and economic order. They wanted
progress and growth.
It was these things that W. G
Smith saw and understood when
he moved to Ahoskie in 1910. A
newspaper, a newspaper with edi
torial purpose, he knew was
needful to encourage, foster and
promote these things. As a for
mer newspaper man, as well as
a tobacco buyer, he set out to
give the burgeoning town of
Ahoskie the newspaper he felt it
needed for the promotion of its
economic, civic, cultural, educa
tional, religious and political
progress.
So, Smith revived'the suspend
ed Ahoskie Patriot. But he re
named it The Hertford County
Herald, a name justified by th.
fact that the new town of Ahos
kie was exerting a steadily
stronger influence in all of the
county’s affairs an4 also by the
fact that there was at the time no
other newspaper published in the
county.
The Hertford County Herald
became a newspaper and a news
paper with a purpose. Smith
backed his faith in the communi
ty by investing money in a print
ing plant to print his newspaper
In Ahoskie and furnish the busi
ness men with the commercial
printing service they needed in
the conduct of their enterprises.
He solicited and maintained a
paid subscription list.
The Herald thus became a
newspaper in fact in 1910, It be
came a newspaper with a pur
pose. The Herald has been “An
Institution of Community Serv
ice” since that time.
It was at this time that I first
knew of The Herald. I knew Mr.
Smith, the editor and publisher.
I knew his wife and his growing
family of daughters. With the na
tural curios.ty of youth, I visited
the printing office and it was
there that I had my first contact
with printing. “The An Preserva
tive of All the Arts—the Insepar
able Companion of Achievement.”
I was at that time nine years
old. My father was a subscriber
to The Hertford County Herald.
In the fall of 1910 I was in the
fourth grade in school. It so hap
pened that my name was printed
in The Hertford County Herald in
the honor roll. My mother showed
me my name in print in that
place, proudly. Her pride in that
piece of publicity encouraged me
to strive to get my name in print
in the honor roll each month.
And, in that small instance is an
example of how The Herald be
gan to serve its subscribers as a
newspaper of purpose and as “Ar.
Institution of Community Serv
ice."
The Herald has continued
through the fifty years since its
beginning as a newspaper, devot
ed to the pui’pose with which it
was founded by Editor Smith,
The town and the newspaper
have grown together, the news
paper a strong lever in the mech
anism of progress.
Following Smith, the founding
editor and publisher, there enter
ed into the life of The Herald in
October, 1915, an energetic and
earnest young man. He was J.
Roy Parker, just turned twenty-
one and graduated from Wake
Forest College. Smith, the found
er, had sold one-half interest in
his printing and publishing busi
ness to James S. Vinson, a young
printer trained in Smith’s shop.
Now Smith was ready to dispose
of his remaining interest to young
Parker, who had got some in-
elination and taste for the news
paper business through vacation-
LATE PUBLISHER — J. Roy
Parker, an Ahoskie native, pur
chased the six-year-old Hert
ford County Herald in 1915
and was its publisher until the
time of his death in 1957.
time ■'^ork in the print shop dur
ing his college years. A deal for
Smith’s remaining half-interest
in The Herald was consummated
and Parker, whose college train
ing was for the teaching profes-
iion, abandoned a career in edu
cation for the more precarious
business of small-town news-
papering.
'So, a publishing and printing
partnership called Vinson and
Parker, was formed. Parker was
editor-bookkeeper; Vinson was
printer and general manager.
The two, Vinson and Parker,
also were the complete editorial
and printing staff. Roy Parker
was my brother. He was one of a
band of adventurous and hardy
youngsters who constituted the
first juvenile and teen-age group
.n- young Ahoskie’s existence as
a town, all of whom were imbued
with considerable loyalty to, and
pride in, the young town that
strove for recognition among the
older and larger towns of the
area.
Parker threw his enthusiasm
for progress and his loyalty to
.he community of which he was
a part into his job as editor of
the community paper, The Hert
ford County Herald. Editorially
-ind in personal activity in local
affairs, he became a forthright
battler for progress and against
bigotry, traditionalism and nar
row prejudice. The Herald grew
n influence, in circulation and
in community service.
(Incidental to the above, it
might be interesting to point ou;
hat James S. Vinson, the senior
partner of the Vinson and Parker
partnership is a present day resi
dent of Ahoskie, he having retir
ed from the printing and business
in 1928 when the writer of this
bought his interest in The Herald
publishing firm. Another interest
ing sidelight of this era is tha:
the purchase price of Roy Park
er’s one-half interest in the firm
was $800 and the deal nearly
fell through because the older oi
Lhe town’s two banks in town ii;
those days did not think the
newspaper business a good finan
cial risk and refused to loan
young Parker the money to make
i-he purchase, notwithstanding the
security of my father’s endorse
ment. Which goes to show tha'-
attitudes are slow to change, foi
negotiating a loan today is still
a difficult business for this news
paper. Nevertheless, Parker se
cured the loan from another bank
and so was able to get launched
on his publishing career.)
The printing equipment of the
printing plant set up by the first
editor and publisher, Smith, was
meager and antiquated, consist
ing of second hand machinery
and a small quantity of type. All
printing operations were done by
hand without the benefit of me
chanical power. The newspaper
press was one of the G. Wash
ington handpress design, similar
in construction to the modified
wine presses that Gutenburg, and
his successors after the invention
of printing from moveable type-
was invented some five centuries
ago, used for their work. Bui
despite limited physical facilities
for printing, the function of The
Herald as a newspaper was per
formed, and it served to spreao
information and enlightenment
and encourage participation in
CIVIC affairs in the town aiii.
county.
When young Vinson and Park
er took over the publishing and
printing firm in growing' young
Ahoskie, they soon embarked on
a program of improvement in
their printing facilities to match
me increasing editorial influence
of the newspaper unaer PaiKer
forthright and stimulating edi
torship. This policy of physical
improvement of plant and equip
ment has been continued througii-
out the years until today, when
the present publishing firm 0i
Parker Brothers, Inc., is recog
nized to have at Ahoskie one oi,
the most modern and efficients
equipped printing plants m the
nation to be found in a communi
ty of equal size.%
Roy Parker, whose death oc
curred in April, 1957, while ht
was serving as representative oi
Hertford County in the General
Assembly, served The Herald a>
editor from 1911 until ill health
forced him to suspend active par
ticipation in 1934, His service to
the paper, and to the community
the paper serves, was continuous
except for two short interrup
tions. First there was service in
World War I. The second was a
sabbatical of about eighteen
months following the death of hi^
first wife, when he left the opera
tion of the paper to his paitner,
Vinson, and himself took employ
ment on newspapers in Hornill,
N. Y., and Logan, W. Va., and' a
summer coyrse in journalism a
the University of Missouri ii.
order to broaden his knowledj
of and experience in the fi
journalism.
Under '.his leadership
Herald agkressively cham
many cauJfes for the com;'
betterment! an^
not hesitaw to
tionalism and sta,
came a liberal ai
supporting the
Ahoskie as a town
Hertford County
transition from the doldrums that
followed reconstruction days into
the modern age.
Many of these causes today
may have a trifling sound and
seem comic in character. But they
were serious issues iruthose early
days and caused ma^^ a heated
argument, with differing opinion-'
sometimes creating schisms that
estranged life - long \friends.
Among them were chanmloninj
the no-fence laws that s&w tht
end of the free range of cattle
over woodlands; special taxes foi
better schools; street ligljts and
electric power; paved streets anci
a water and sewer systeki foi
Ahoskie to take the town out oi
See HERALD, Page 7
through the
BETSY DARDEN
HERALD OFFICE—1320 s—Sunawichud between a palmistry shop and a general store, the of
fices of The Hertford County Hcra’d in 1928 were located in the Railroad-Mitchell block of Main
Street in Ahoskie, at a spot now (1959) occupied by the Colonial Food Store. The office of the
newspaper included upstairs quarters, where seme editorial offices and makeup areas were lo
cated. 'The big p’-''ss which printed the once-a-weok publication was located in the back area i
the s‘OUnd floor.
ROBERT S. GERRY
FRED HILL
STANLEY PEARCE
MARY T. BOND
CHARLES BOND
ALECIA CONNEli
PEGGY HUGHES
MARY ELLEN ALBARES A. BOONE CHANDLER
nUGELE WARD