The marker above denoting the birthplace of President Andrew Johnson hasn’t recently returned, but I don’t think it has been here for that long either. According to Raleigh Boy, it was originally located in front of the Ambadassor Theater at the north end of the 100 block of Fayetteville Street and was removed in the mid-1970s during the conversion of that street into a pedestrian mall.

When meeting up to have drinks at the Raleigh Times, he mentioned that he noticed it for the first time since it was removed from its original location. Until he pointed it out, I had never noticed it. I do know it has been in this location since at least late 2007, as it is visible to the right of the light post in Google Street View.

The inscription reads:

125 feet east of this point Andrew Johnson seventeenth president was born Dec 29, 1808.

Now that the marker is no longer in its original spot, the inscription is now somewhat inaccurate.

Have you noticed this particular marker? Was it put here in 2005 when the trees and greenery were uprooted in the process of reopening the street to vehicular traffic?

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Within the past couple of weeks, the giant stone housing a memorial marker denoting the location of the first Court House of Wake County has returned to its original location at the front of Bloomsbury Estates condos. It has been absent throughout the construction procress likely to avoid any possible unintended damage that could have occurred during that time. This is the second such marker to note the historical significance of this area. The first, located on the corner of Boylan Avenue and Morgan Street, marks the area known as Bloomsbury–the namesake of the condos nearing completion near the Boylan Wye.

The inscription reads:

First Court House for Wake County. Built – 1771. The first Court House, Prison, and Stocks for Wake County stood in this area. Erected by The Wake County Historical Society – 1983 -

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This past Thursday while waiting for (a very delicious) Thanksgiving dinner at the home of some friends of mine, I decided to walk down to Big John’s Community Grocery, which is on the corner of Edenton Street and Idlewild Avenue. It’s within eyesight of their front porch, and I’ve witnessed some interesting activity there for some time. Curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to walk down to the store and talk to some of the people hanging around outside. While on my way there, I noticed the historic ground marker above.

The inscription reads:

Idlewild Neighborhood, 1891. Idlewild Avenue is the center of Idlewild, an early area of African-American home ownership named after the Battle Family Estate on Cotton Place south of New Bern Avenue. The Raleigh Land and Improvement Company subdivided Idlewild, and the neighborhood grew in the early twentieth century. Bounded by Swain St. on west, Oakwood Avenue on north, Tarboro Road on east, and Edenton Street on south.

Until I saw this marker, I had assumed that Idlewild was simply a road, perhaps named after a long deceased resident. As I mentioned in the previous post about Idlewild Avenue, it is an area frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers, especially at night. If you drive your car on this road, there is a good chance someone will approach you if you come to a stop. I’m guessing it’s an offer of drugs, but I can’t say for sure. Having said that, I should note that I frequently ride my bicycle down this road, and have never been harrassed or felt unsafe in any way. I’ve even walked down it a couple of times, and everyone I came in to contact with was very friendly, if not naturally curious as to what I was doing there.

Idlewild Avenue at night

Sadly, I can find no historical information on the community of Idlewild. Unlike African-American communities such as Oberlin or Method, there are no online records of any kind that document this neighborhood. As noted in the marker, it is bounded by the Oakwood community on the north. The specific part of Oakwood on the north is the revival district, where new homes are taking the place of the former decrepit ones. Swain Street to the west has already transformed in to a beautiful residential area. With both Edenton Street and Jones Street going through such a revitalization, it will be very interesting to see if Idlewild is included in this process.

I’m guessing that most, if not all, of the residents of Idlewild would gladly welcome the elimination of drugs and prostitution that currently exist there. However, it seems that when this takes place, the long time residents move elsewhere. It would be a shame to have yet another historically African-American community eroded in the name of progress.

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The inscription on the marker reads:

First NC State Fair sponsored by the state agricultural society the fair was held here, October 18-21, 1853. New Bern Avenue and corner of Tarboro Road on site of Dept. of Motor Vehicles. The state fair, with its large racetrack, was two blocks south, between Hargett, Tarboro, and Davie Streets. It operated from 1853 to 1872, with exception of Civil War years, when it served as a millitary training camp. The “Fairgrounds Hospital”, the first millitary hospital in North Carolina, was established here in 1861.

This is the second sidewalk marker covered on this blog. The first was Raleigh At Four Hundred Acres. The second location of the North Carolina state fair was located on the present day location of Fairmont Methodist Church and Horse Track Alley.

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A plate near the sidewalk at the corner of East St and New Bern Avenue reads:

Eastern boundary of the original city of Raleigh. The original city plan, drawn by surveyor and legislator William Christmas in 1792 contained four hundred acres with North, South, East, and West Streets as the boundaries. Christmas’s plan called for New Bern Ave and the other streets leading towards Union Square to be 99 ft. wide, the rest of the streets to be 66 ft. wide. Raleigh grew slowly, and by 1891 the eastern boundary was one and one-half blocks east of here.

Raleigh Boy noted these original boundaries when commenting on the history of the Hillsboro(ugh) St. name.

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