{"id":270,"date":"2008-12-28T18:19:48","date_gmt":"2008-12-28T23:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=270"},"modified":"2009-01-02T12:07:05","modified_gmt":"2009-01-02T17:07:05","slug":"introducing-the-historical-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/editorial-notes\/2008\/12\/28\/introducing-the-historical-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During my five short years as a Raleigh resident, I feel that I have witnessed this city undergo massive change.\u00a0 High-rise condos are springing up like weeds downtown.\u00a0 It has become a perpetual annoyance to have to cross to another sidewalk to avoid a construction zone, not to mention the sting of losing a favorite haunt like Kings to make way for a parking deck.<\/p>\n<p>But to talk with someone who has grown up in Raleigh is a totally different picture.\u00a0 The downtown has gone from bustling capital, to industrialized no-man&#8217;s land, and only now is reemerging as a destination for food, entertainment and shopping.<\/p>\n<p>I am curious, though, about the people who lived in Raleigh before me.\u00a0 Before all of us really.\u00a0 People who are long dead.\u00a0 Which brings me to my point: I aim to find out about those people, and discuss them here in this column.<br \/>\nInitially, my plan is to discuss events that happened this week in history, however many years ago, right here in Raleigh.\u00a0 This could be a challenging format to follow, but I would enjoy feedback from anyone with questions about Raleigh history.<\/p>\n<p>To bid farewell to 2008, and as an apropos beginning to the Historical Record, a brief tale about the City of Oaks:<\/p>\n<p>North Carolina spent sixteen years without a capital city after the Revolutionary War.\u00a0 The General Assembly met in places like Fayetteville, Hillsborough, New Bern, and at the Wake County courthouse near Joel Lane&#8217;s home at the corner of Hargett St. and Boylan Ave.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_281\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 264px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-281\" style=\"border: 2px solid black; margin-top: 2px; margin-bottom: 2px;\" title=\"wakeco-courthouse-marker-s\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/wakeco-courthouse-marker-s.jpg\" alt=\"A marker at the corner of Hargett and Boylan reminds passersby of the original Wake County courthouse site.\" width=\"264\" height=\"176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/wakeco-courthouse-marker-s.jpg 550w, https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/wakeco-courthouse-marker-s-336x224.jpg 336w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 264px) 100vw, 264px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A marker at Boylan and Hargett remings passersby of the original location for the Wake County courthouse.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In 1779, the General Assembly appointed a commission to review possible locations for the new capital in what we now call &#8220;the Triangle.&#8221;\u00a0 Bills to establish a new location for the capital were introduced and defeated in 1779, 1783, and 1784.\u00a0 The General Assembly could only agree that they would have to decide on the new capital&#8217;s location on a &#8220;later day&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Much later, in 1788, the General Assembly put the responsibility to the Constitutional Convention, but even they could only agree upon a general location.\u00a0 James Iredell of Edenton nominated a spot within ten miles of Isaac Hunter&#8217;s plantation and well-known tavern to be that general location.<\/p>\n<p>Three bills defeated and four years later, the General Assembly finally ratified the Constitutional Convention&#8217;s bill to establish the new capital, and named it Raleigh on December 31, 1792.\u00a0 Happy 216th Birthday, Raleigh!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introducing a new Raleigh Public Record column and saying happy birthday to Raleigh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}