Rich sources for the study of the history of Pitt and forty other counties in the Coastal Plain are now available online through the Eastern North Carolina Digital Library (
http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/historyfiction/). Developed by the J. Y. Joyner Library at East Carolina University, this robust Web site includes digital versions of important books, pamphlets, broadsides, and maps held by the library’s Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection. Users can view images of each page or search the text of an entire book by key word or phrase. This powerful search feature thus makes available much information that would otherwise be difficult to locate.
Students, genealogists, and local historians interested in the history of Greenville and Pitt County will enjoy browsing through twenty-three items dating from 1891 to 1963. Henry T. King’s
Sketches of Pitt County ( 1911), long out of print, emphasizes the early history of the county but also features biographical sketches of prominent individuals living at the time the book was published. Also included are important illustrations— “One of the first tobacco barns in Pitt County” and Judge William B. Rodman’s sketch of the first African American juror to serve in North Carolina among them. Three broadsides or handbills from 1891 offer rewards for information leading to the arrest of arsonists who had burned farm buildings in the Grimesland area. A colored soil survey map published in 1909 shows roads, swamps, rail lines, the location of individual buildings, and many additional features.
The most recent item among the Pitt County resources dates from 1963, during the height of the Cold War. Published by the United States Information Agency, the pamphlet describes recent improvements to the Voice of America complex that beamed radio signals behind the Iron Curtain and elsewhere in the world. Using thirty-five languages, the thirty-minute broadcasts provided news, commentaries, and features designed to give “deeper insight into the American Way of Life.”
Also available in the Eastern North Carolina Digital Library are still views and videos of museum artifacts from the collections of Historic Hope Plantation in Bertie County, the Country Doctor Museum in Bailey, and the Tobacco Farm Life Museum in Kenly.
Virtual visitors are encouraged to come to the North Carolina Collection, where many additional sources useful in studying state and local history are located. For more information, call 328-6601 or visit
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-lib/ncc/index.cfm 
