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<br /> NPS Form 10-900-a OMB Approval No.1024-0018
<br /> (8-86)
<br /> United States Department of the Interior
<br /> National Park Service
<br /> National Register of Historic Places
<br /> Continuation Sheet
<br /> Section number 8 Page 16 North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls
<br /> Orange County,NC
<br /> surrounding acres to an African American couple, James Nills Graham,known as Nello, and Myrtle
<br /> McAdoo Graham, in December 1959. James and Myrtle had both grown up on Efland farms. James, a
<br /> United States Army veteran, died on July 15, 1974. Myrtle passed away on March 9, 1987. The
<br /> Grahams attended White Cross A.M. E. Church, where they are interred.34
<br /> The Grahams' son James Barnard Graham, a Vietnam War veteran, obtained title to the house and 2.4
<br /> acres on December 14, 1984. He died on July 15, 2010. Mary E. Grant purchased the tract on
<br /> November 13, 2013, following an auction held in conjunction with Graham's estate settlement.35
<br /> Social History Context: North Carolina Juvenile Welfare Institutions
<br /> During the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, colonial and North Carolina courts often
<br /> placed children whose parents were deceased or unable to serve as guardians in apprenticeships
<br /> intended to result in mastery of a marketable trade and basic literacy. Early settlers, many of whom
<br /> immigrated from England, Germany, Scotland, and Ireland, supported this approach as it had been a
<br /> common practice in their countries of origin. Group residences for penurious youth were rare. In the
<br /> nineteenth century's second decade the North Carolina General Assembly incorporated a few short-
<br /> lived organizations such as the Newbem Female Charitable Society(1812) and the Female Orphan
<br /> Asylum of Fayetteville (1813). However, it was not until 1868 that legislators created a government
<br /> entity to provide statewide social welfare assistance. The five-member Board of Public Charities' first
<br /> act was to inventory jails and poorhouses, but its purview soon grew to include oversight of hospitals,
<br /> convict camps, and homes for veterans, elderly, and infirm citizens. Although ameliorating the
<br /> hardship of destitute youth was part of the board's mandate, it did not subsidize orphanages. Private
<br /> organizations thus solicited donations to facilitate indigent child care.36
<br /> In February 1873,the Grand Lodge of the Order of Free Masons established Oxford Orphan Asylum,
<br /> North Carolina's first permanent institution created to house and educate white orphans. Admittance
<br /> was based upon need rather than familial ties to Masons. Although the endeavor was privately funded,
<br /> the institution later received small state appropriations to aid its operation. The orphanage's first
<br /> superintendent, John Haymes Mills, left Oxford in 1884 to found the state's second orphanage in
<br /> Thomasville.37
<br /> 34 Orange County Deed Book 163,p.39;Deed Book 169,p.85;Plat Book 8,p.3;Deed Book 173,p. 140.
<br /> 35 Orange County Deed Book 494,p.453;Deed Book 4985,p. 161;Deed Book 5720,p.388.
<br /> 36 Arthur E.Fink,"Changing Philosophies and Practices in North Carolina Orphanages,"North Carolina
<br /> Historical Review, Volume 48,Number 4,October 1971,333-336;"First Annual Report of the Board of Public Charities,"
<br /> Document No.26,Executive and Legislative Documents Laid Before the General Assembly of North Carolina,Session
<br /> 1869-1870(Raleigh:John W.Holden,printer, 1870),2-4.
<br /> 37 Fink,"Changing Philosophies and Practices in North Carolina Orphanages,"337.
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