Brothers Kelly and David Holden are legendary in the Southeastern area of North Carolina known as NC’s Brunswick Islands. You can find them just down “the Four Mile Road” from Ocean Isle Beach on nearby Highway 17 at Holden Brothers Farm Market – a Family Farm passed down from generation to generation since 1756!

The brothers farm originated from a land grant to their ancestors, the Brooks Family, from King George the 2nd in 1756.

The Holden’s, and their ancestors, have been farming this land for over two hundred years, earning it the distinction of being a Bicentennial Farm.

It is the 9th oldest farm in North Carolina that has remained in the same family.

Prior to 1984 the land was predominately used to grow tobacco. Sensing that times were changing, the Holden Brothers decided to begin to growing produce.

The first Farm Market was a open market at the corner of Ocean Isle Beach Road (4 Mile Road) and Highway 17.

In 1991 the brothers constructed an enclosed market, which has become a landmark of the area, at their current location near mile marker 10 of Highway 17.

The Holden Brothers Farm Market specializes in locally grown produce. A majority of their fruits and vegetables are grown on 250 acres of the Holdens’ land off of Highway 17.

In order to offer their customers variety, the Holden Brothers supplement their stock with out-of-season fruits and vegetables from other farms in North and South Carolina.

Purchasing locally grown produce is a boost to local economy and an environmentally friendly choice as there is less gasoline consumption and packaging involved. Since it doesn’t have to travel hundreds of miles before it gets to its consumers, the locally grown produce is significantly fresher and better tasting than that purchased at your neighborhood grocery store.

It is a sizable enterprise with all of the farming to do and then and there’s the running of the store so the brothers, Kelly and David Holden, divide up duties:

 

The Farm:

Kelly Holden is responsible for managing the crop production on the farm. Successful crop production involves numerous complex skills as well as ample knowledge of biology and agronomy.

The process begins with the preparation of the soil; the land has to be tilled and weeded prior to planting.  Once planted, the crops must receive adequate nutrition and protection from pests throughout their life cycle.

A complex system of irrigation and drainage is essential to producing a successful harvest. Keeping the crops healthy is a delicate balance, too much, or too little, of any of the components can cause the crops to fail quickly.

The brothers are currently farming 250 acres of land, all of which is overseen by Kelly.

The Market:

Kelly’s brother David is responsible for managing the market operation and customer service side of the business, which is no small task.

He runs both their wholesale and retail operations with an emphasis on southern hospitality and small town charm. While most of their produce is grown on their own farm, David supplements his stock with fresh produce from other farms in both North Carolina and South Carolina.

This ensures that customers are offered a wide variety of fruits and vegetables without having to make any extra stops.

A piece of the earth is good for the soul and when it comes straight from the heart, you know that it’s good for the spirit!

At Holden Brothers Farm Market, patrons get delicious, fresh and never frozen produce right from local farms!

Holden Brothers Farm store beats out your typical grocery chain as they offer a great selection of vegetables and fruits throughout the season.

In the spring time, come to Holden Brothers Farm Market for a broad selection of leafy greens, English peas and pick-your-own strawberries.

During the summer months, enjoy country favorites such as squash, corn, watermelons, cantaloupes, peppers and cucumbers.

The fall brings colorful selections with pumpkins, Scuppernong and Muscadine grapes, gourds, Indian corn and pick-your-own tomatoes. The harvest list is extensive, even carrying fresh flowers and decorative produce to accentuate your home and dishes around the holidays.

At Holden Brothers Farm Market you can be a part of a traditional past-time where families have taken their children to pick ripe, juicy strawberries!

Holden Brothers Farm Market also sells local honey, jams, jellies, preserves and apple butter as well as southern favorites such as chow-chow, stone ground grits, hoop cheese, boiled peanuts and more!

With so many things available that are exclusive to Holden Brothers Farm Market, you’ll find yourself picking up items for more than just a special occasion.

First time visitors to the town of New Bern should be aware that there is only one cola drink to ask for in this town!

The community has a proud history as the Birthplace of Pepsi Cola, and this claim to fame is celebrated at a number of locales around downtown, including the newly built Pepsi Family Center at the North Carolina History Center, (an interactive museum that takes patrons back in time to the year 1835), the innumerable antique stores which showcase pristine old Pepsi bottles, and the signature Pepsi Store.

Any of these attractions are worth taking the time to check out, and visitors should not find it surprising that Pepsi is the star of most local memorabilia, local menus, and drug store soda shops all around the town.

The drink we know as Pepsi-Cola® was first created as “Brad’s Drink” in New Bern, North Carolina, in 1893 by Caleb Bradham. Mr. Bradham made it at his drugstore where he sold the drink.

In 1898 it was renamed Pepsi-Cola® after the root of the word “dyspepsia” and the kola nuts that were used in the recipe. Caleb Bradham’s original recipe also included sugar and vanilla.

Bradham set out to create a fountain drink that was both appealing and to help with digestion and give an energy boost.

Bradham moved the bottling of Pepsi-Cola® from his drugstore to a rented warehouse in 1903. That same year, he sold 7,968 gallons of syrup.

By 1904, Pepsi was sold in six-ounce bottles, with sales increasing to 19,848 gallons.

The first celebrity endorsement was from automobile racing pioneer Barney Oldfield in 1909. Oldfield called it “A bully drink…refreshing, invigorating, a fine bracer before a race.”

“Delicious and Healthful” became Pepsi’s advertising theme and was used continuously for the next twenty years.

Pepsi had its logo redesigned in 1926, the first time it changed since its original design in 1905. It was changed again 1929.

During the worst year of the Great Depression, the Pepsi-Cola® Company entered into bankruptcy,largely the due to financial losses brought on by speculation on the wildly fluctuating sugar prices that came as a result of World War I.

The assets of Pepsi were sold with the trademark purchased by a gentleman by the name of Roy C. Megargel.

Mr. Megargel was not successful, and Pepsi-Cola®’s assets were soon purchased by Charles Guth, the President of Loft, Inc.

Loft was a candy manufacturer with retail stores that contained soda fountains. Loft set out to replace Coca-Cola at the fountains in his stores after Coke refused to give him a discount on syrup. Mr. Guth then had the chemists at Loft’s reformulate the Pepsi-Cola syrup formula.

Between 1922 and 1933, The Coca-Cola® Company was offered the opportunity to purchase the Pepsi-Cola company on three separate occasions. Each time it declined on each occasion.

During the Great Depression, Pepsi gained popularity following the introduction in 1936 of a 12-ounce bottle employing a radio advertising campaign which featured the jingle:

“Pepsi-Cola® hits the spot – Twelve full ounces, that’s a lot -Twice as much for a nickel, too – Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you”.  The jingle was arranged so that it never ends.

Price-conscious consumers were encouraged to switch to Pepsi®, as the Pepsi 12 once bottle was nearly “twice as much” as the standard 6.5 ounce Coca-Cola bottle for the same price of five cents (a nickel). With this campaign during a time of economic crisis, Pepsi was successful in boosting sales. From 1936 to 1938, Pepsi-Cola’s profits doubled!

Up until the 1940s, the full revenue potential of what was called “the Negro market” was largely ignored by white-owned manufacturers in the U.S.

Realizing that blacks were an untapped niche market and that Pepsi stood to gain market share by targeting its advertising directly towards them Pepsi hired Hennan Smith, an advertising executive “from the Negro newspaper field” to lead an all-black sales team, which had to be cut due to the onset of World War II.

In 1947 these efforts resumed with the hiring of Edward F. Boyd to lead a twelve-man team. They came up with advertising portraying black Americans in a positive light, such as one with a smiling mother holding a six pack of Pepsi while her son (a young Ron Brown, who grew up to be Secretary of Commerce) reaches up for one.

Another ad campaign, titled “Leaders in Their Fields”, profiled twenty prominent African Americans such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche and photographer Gordon Parks.

Boyd also led a sales team composed entirely of blacks around the country to promote Pepsi.

Pepsi advertisements avoided the stereotypical images common in the major media that depicted one-dimensional Aunt Jemimas and Uncle Bens. Instead, it portrayed black customers as self-confident middle-class citizens who showed very good taste in their soft drinks. They were economical too, as Pepsi bottles were twice the size.

Today Pepsi or Pepsi-Cola® is a household name recognized throughout the world! One has to wonder what Caleb Bradham would think of the success of the simple tonic conceived in his humble drugstore?

The Birthplace of Pepsi:

Visitors are welcome at The Birthplace of Pepsi-Cola Store where they can learn more about the history of its inventor and the early days of one of the world’s favorite soft drinks.

Visit the Birthplace where you can step back in time enjoying a fountain Pepsi or browse through their gifts and souvenirs.

The Birthplace is open Monday through Saturday 10am until 6pm and Sundays 12 noon until 4pm.

Birthplace Of Pepsi 256 Middle Street New Bern, NC 28560 Phone: 252-636-5898 Visit the Website.

In the final years of the war between the States, Wilmington, North Carolina was the second most important city to the Confederate States of America. Only Richmond, the Confederate capital, was more crucial to the South’s fortunes.

Wilmington, connected to Richmond by railroad, was the closest seaport that could supply Lee’s Army. By late 1864, in fact, virtually every other Southern port on the Atlantic seaboard had been closed by the Federal blockade.

But south of Wilmington the Confederate army had constructed some of the world’s most sophisticated fortifications for the time, and blockade runners could still get into the port city. Mighty Fort Fisher and the other defenses successfully frustrated Union efforts to close the two entrances to the Cape Fear River and this to Wilmington.

After the Union’s disastrous attempt to take Fort Fisher in December 1864, a second massive attempt was undertaken in January 1865. The second assault was all out. The Union navy unleashed the largest bombardment in history up to that time, and the federal army landed an overwhelming number of soldiers to assault Fort Fisher from the land.

Col. Lamb and his men made a truly heroic defense but to no avail. The young colonel was badly wounded and the fort fell.

The garrisons of forts Holmes, Campbell, Pender, and Caswell were withdrawn to reinforce Fort Anderson, whose turn would be next.

By January 19, 1865, Federals controlled everything up to Battery Lamb, only four miles from Fort Anderson but they waited to amass overwhelming force before attacking.

By February 1865 the Confederates had managed to assemble about 2,300 men to defend Fort Anderson. This would be a pitiful force, however, compared to the
numbers against them.

When word reached the commander of the Cape Fear District, Gen. Hoke, that Fort Anderson was about to be invaded from the rear and cut off from Wilmington, he ordered the fort evacuated to save its garrison. The defenders of the fort quietly slipped out on the night of February 18 and marched up the road to Town Creek, where they took up new positions to further delay the fall of Wilmington.

With the dawn, the Union tide broke over the empty fort and was greeted by shells from their own ships in the river. The last shots fired at Fort Anderson were blue on blue! The Union navy was fighting against the Union army.

The excerpt you are reading is from the book “Tales of the Silver Coast” by author and illustrator Miller Pope and author Jacqueline DeGroot.

Buy it in the Island Living Store here!

 

 

An Unearthed Historical Battle Plan:

Unearthed while cleaning out a storage garage owned by the Watters family for three generations before selling an old family property, the battle plans detailing the defense strategy for Fort Fisher’s military base could have easily been lost for good.

The Watters family have been in Wilmington since the early 1900s and have an even longer family tradition of serving in the Marine Corps., some even participating in the Civil War. The map shows the locations of the blockades and shipwrecks stationed off the North Carolina Coast between 1863 to 1865.

High-Quality Prints of this map are available in several sizes for sale at Islands Art & Bookstore

Buy It Here

On February 17th, the town of Brunswick returns to the winter of 1766, as living history interpreters demonstrate trades and how the dreaded Stamp Act affected their livelihood.

The first successful armed rebellion against the British Empire occurred not in New England but right here on the coast of North Carolina 252 years ago!

Learn how the events that occurred in the Colonial Cape Fear helped sow the seeds of discontent and pave the way for the American Revolution.

Talk with sailors, learn the blacksmith’s trade, and listen to lectures on how the events of the 1760s paved the way to revolution.

Hands on activities for kids and interactives for the entire family. This special event is free, and open to the public.

Road to Revolution:
Stamp Act Resistance
Saturday, 10 am – 4 pm

 

Early Revolutionaries

Brunswick Town holds the distinction in American history of being the site of one of the first armed resistances to British colonial policies, including taxation and other legislation that the American colonists felt infringed upon their freedoms as British citizens. One such hated legislation was the Stamp Act in 1765, which required that stamps be purchased from the Crown and attached “to all legal documents, newspapers, gambling papers, ships’ clearance papers, and books or pamphlets.”

The act was so offensive to the people of Brunswick Town that when the ship Diligence carrying these stamps for sale docked at their port, a number of citizens met the ship carrying muskets, frightening the captain so that he did not unload the stamps. This put royal governor Tryon in a bind. He felt bound to uphold the new law, but was sympathetic toward the feelings of the citizens. He even offered to personally pay for stamps on a number of documents and for wine licenses for certain towns. However, his generous offer was turned down.

By refusing to unload his stamps in such a hostile environment, the captain of the Diligence assured that trade in Brunswick Town and the whole Cape Fear region essentially ground to a halt. “Barrels of naval stores were soon overflowing the warehouses and were being stacked along the streets. . . . Court could not be held, newspapers were unavailable, and staple items were needed. Wills could not be proven and there were no marriage licenses issued.”

It seemed as if life itself, at least all of the legal aspects thereof, had stopped completely.

In the summer of 1765, Judge Maurice Moore, son of the founder of Brunswick Town, and by this time an associate justice of the superior court of Salisbury wrote The Justice and Policy of Taxing the American Colonies in Great Britain Considered to protest the Stamp Act. In the pamphlet, Moore denounced the Stamp Act and argued that Parliament had no right to impose the tax on the colonies. He also rejected the idea of American virtual representation in Parliament and noted that direct representation of the colonies in Parliament was impractical and they could not “with the least degree of justice be taxed by the British Parliament.” Moore labeled all British taxation in his colony as unjust, and demanded that it cease. He also suggested that only the North Carolina government possessed sovereign authority to tax North Carolinians.

Wherein is shewed, That the Colonists are not a conquered People:—That they are constitutionally intituled to be taxed only by their own Consent:—And that the Imposing a Stamp Duty on the Colonists is as impolitic as it is inconsistent with their Rights.

Things really came to a head when, in February 1766, two merchant ships, the Dobbs and the Patience, docked at Brunswick’s port. Because their ships’ clearances were not stamped, they were not allowed to unload. Then the North Carolina attorney general announced that the unstamped ships would need to travel all the way to Nova Scotia for their trial. Angry colonists formed an organization called the Sons of Liberty. Several hundred men, at least 500 armed, marched to Governor Tryon’s residence at Russellborough and demanded the release of the ships. Tryon refused. Thinking the citizens would continue their protests elsewhere, he ordered nearby Fort Johnston to spike their cannons so they could not be used to fire upon British ships in the area. The Sons of Liberty returned to Tryon’s residence the following night and demanded the resignation of Brunswick stamp master Pennington, who was rumored to be hiding in Tryon’s house. Pennington, William Dry III (port collector), and a number of other officials were forced to resign their posts and sign documents stating that stamps would no longer be sold or required in the Lower Cape Fear region.

Afterward, the Patience and Dobbs were allowed to leave and trade began once more. Only a few months later, the English Parliament recognized the negative effect that the Stamp Act had on trade throughout the empire, and so the act was repealed. However, this would not be the last atrocities inflicted on the American colonists by the British government leading up to the Revolutionary War.

Contemporary newspapers recognized the feat of the Brunswick citizens. In 1766 the North Carolina Gazette said

In no other colony was the resistance by force so well organized and executed. Governor Tyron knew each of his opponents in this struggle; not one made any attempt to disguise himself or to conceal his identity in any way. Acting in a forthright manner, without fear, these men succeeded in preventing the operation of the Stamp Act in North Carolina. In so doing, they gave clear evidence of their support of the belief that Parliament had no right to levy such a tax in America.

In the same year, the Virginia Gazette noted that

It is well worthy of observation that few instances can be produced of such a number of men being together so long, and behaving so well; not the least noise or disturbance, nor any person seen disguised with liquor, during the whole time of their stay in Brunswick; neither was there any injury to any person, but the whole affair conducted with decency and spirit, worthy the imitation of all the Sons of Liberty throughout the Continent.

Clearly, Brunswick Town was an example of the early patriotic fervor that signaled the inevitable break with Britain and American independence.

The excerpt you are reading is from the book “Tales of the Silver Coast” by author and illustrator Miller Pope and author Jacqueline DeGroot.

Buy it in the Island Life Store here!

 

Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site 8884 St. Philip’s Road SE Winnabow, NC 28479Phone: (910)371-6613 Email: brunswick@ncdcr.govVisit the Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site website.