05/26/2026
📜🏡 History from Home: Many Years Before the Museum There was the NC Exposition of 1884.
The Museum of the Albemarle has been preserving and interpreting the history of northeastern North Carolina for 58 years. Since its doors opened in 1967, visitors have engaged with a diverse collection of artifacts that now covers thirteen counties: Bertie, Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hertford, Hyde, Northampton, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell, and Washington.
Generations earlier, the region banded together to promote itself at the North Carolina Exposition of 1884. The event was designed to publicize the state’s agricultural and industrial development since the Civil War, primarily through exhibits. Most counties east of the mountains had their own exhibits that showcased their natural resources to entice northern capital investment. Thirteen northeastern counties – all that the Museum of the Albemarle serves today except Martin instead of Northampton – combined to form one large exhibit known as the “Albemarle Section.”
Frank Vaughan of Elizabeth City collected and organized the 4,000 sq. ft. display in under two months, which was largely funded by Norfolk Southern Railroad Company. In the center of the exhibit was an enormous, hollow tree section from Washington County, measuring 10 feet tall, 14 feet in diameter, and 42 feet in circumference. Topped by a conical roof of moss and ornately decorated, the tree was home to the exhibit office and headquarters.
The exhibit featured a complete agricultural display of the Albemarle’s fruits, vegetables, and crops. Some were arranged in a large pyramid topped by a model of the North River screw-pile lighthouse. Another pyramid was built of native wines. Nearby was an imitation log house constructed of corn stalks and topped by a grain roof. A display of fish and other aquatic life from the region adorned one wall, and below it stood a scale model of a seine net used in the Albemarle Sound. There were – by one count 600 – mounted birds native to the region, a collection unprecedented in the state’s history, along with waterfowl hunting equipment. The exhibit also featured mounted terrestrial animals and over a dozen frames of mounted insects. Wood and timber products took up a significant portion of the display, which came from dozens of native trees. These included manufactured products and equipment, including a shingle machine. There were soil specimens, boat models, baskets, paintings, photographs, crayons, needlework, and carvings. Relics and curiosities were showcased, along with the skeleton of a baby whale. To top it off, Vaughan wrote and distributed a promotional pamphlet about the Albemarle section.
The exhibit was well received and highly acclaimed, with the News & Observer writing that it should “convince every one that the Albemarle section of North Carolina is a region of vast resources and the most splendid possibilities.” The Lenoir Topic reported that it was “the grandest exhibit made, and where people lingered longer and more delighted every way in the senses.” Those Victorian visitors would surely be in awe of the Museum of the Albemarle, which features 10 exhibits inside a modern 50,000 sq. ft. facility.
We invite you to come see for yourself!
By Noah Janis, Chief Education Curator at Museum of the Albemarle.
📸Graphic: Enormous tree used as the headquarters for the Albemarle Section exhibit at the North Carolina Exposition of 1884, courtesy Department of Agriculture Agency Records, State Archives of North Carolina.
