559 markers in the database — showing 541–559.
Raleigh, NC
William N. H. Smith served in the U.S. Congress, then the Confederate Congress, before becoming Chief Justice of North Carolina from 1878 to 1889. His career carried him through secession, war, and the rebuilding that followed. His home stood a block west, and his grave lies to the east.
Raleigh, NC
William Polk served as an officer in the Revolutionary War, then helped steer the new nation's economy as first president of the State Bank from 1811 to 1819. In 1825, at a house that once stood here, he hosted the Marquis de Lafayette during the aging general's celebrated farewell tour of the United States. Polk's life bridged the fight for independence and the institution-building of the Early Republic.
Person County, NC
Born near here in 1842, William R. 'Sawney' Webb served as a Confederate soldier before founding a school in 1870 that, relocated to Bell Buckle, Tennessee, became the celebrated Webb School. Late in life he served briefly as a United States Senator in 1913.
Edgecombe County, NC
William R. Cox rose to become a Confederate general whose brigade is remembered for taking part in one of the last infantry actions at Appomattox in April 1865, in the final hours before Lee's surrender. After the war he returned to public life as a congressman and later served as Secretary of the U.S. Senate. His home stood here in the Edgecombe County countryside.
Iredell County, NC
William Sharpe (1742–1818) served in both the provincial and Continental Congresses during the American Revolution, helping guide North Carolina through the founding era. In 1784 he became the first legislator to propose what would become the University of North Carolina, the first public university in the United States. His grave lies two miles east.
Raleigh, NC
William W. Holden, a powerful newspaper editor, was appointed provisional governor of North Carolina in 1865 and elected to the office in 1868 during Reconstruction. His campaign against the Ku Klux Klan led to his impeachment and removal in 1871, the first of a U.S. governor. His home once stood on this site.
Halifax, NC
A wealthy Halifax planter and one of Revolutionary North Carolina's most powerful politicians, Willie Jones led the state's Antifederalists and championed states' rights. He guided the movement that initially refused to ratify the U.S. Constitution until a Bill of Rights was secured. His estate, "The Grove," stood just west of this marker.
Littleton, NC
Willis Alston Jr. represented North Carolina in the U.S. House for more than two decades — from 1799 to 1815 and again from 1825 to 1831 — as a Jeffersonian Republican, and also served in the state House and Senate. A member of a prominent Roanoke Valley planter family, he was a fixture of early national politics. His grave lies several miles southeast of Littleton.
Raleigh, NC
Willis Smith rose to the top of North Carolina and national law and politics in the mid-20th century, serving as speaker of the state House, president of the American Bar Association, and a United States Senator from 1950 to 1953. His home stood just west of here. His 1950 Senate campaign was one of the most bitterly contested of its era.
Windsor, NC
Built in 1858 by Patrick H. Winston, Jr., this Bertie County home became the birthplace of three notable sons: George T. Winston, an educator and university president; Francis D. Winston, who served as North Carolina's lieutenant governor from 1905 to 1909; and Robert W. Winston, a writer. The household reflected the outsized role a single family could play in the state's public life across a generation. The house stands about a hundred yards east.
Goldsboro, NC
William T. Dortch of Goldsboro was one of North Carolina's representatives in the Confederate Senate during the Civil War, and after the conflict he remained a fixture of the state's public life. In 1883 he headed the commission charged with codifying North Carolina's laws, a major undertaking that brought order to decades of accumulated statutes. This marker points visitors toward his former home and grave nearby.
Corolla, NC
On January 31, 1878, the steamer Metropolis ran aground off this stretch of the Outer Banks in heavy surf, and 85 people lost their lives despite rescuers' efforts from shore. The scale of the tragedy shocked the nation and spurred major reforms and expansion of the U.S. Life-Saving Service. The wreck's remains lie about three-fifths of a mile to the southeast.
Nags Head, NC
On the stormy night of November 24, 1877, the naval steamer USS Huron drove aground off this shore, and 98 sailors perished in the surf within sight of land. The disaster, coming so close to help that never arrived, shocked the nation. Public outrage over the deaths spurred Congress to expand and strengthen the U.S. Life-Saving Service along the treacherous Outer Banks.
Kitty Hawk, NC
On the windswept dunes of Kitty Hawk, Orville and Wilbur Wright lived and labored over the flying machine that would make history. It was near here, in December 1903, that they achieved the first sustained, controlled, powered flight, and an obelisk-style monument now marks the ground where the age of aviation began.
Kill Devil Hills, NC · est. 1932
On the windy dunes of Kill Devil Hills, the Wright Flyer lifted off for 12 seconds and 120 feet — the first of four flights that day. The brothers had solved the problem of controlled flight.
Burnsville, NC
Yancey Collegiate Institute opened in 1901 as a Baptist preparatory school serving the mountain community of Burnsville, part of a wave of denominational academies that brought secondary education to rural western North Carolina. It operated for a quarter century before closing in 1926, after which two of its buildings passed into use by the public schools.
Currituck County, NC
In 1704 colonial authorities set aside a reservation for the Yeopim people, an Algonquian community of the Albemarle region, only for the land to be sold off after 1739. The marker locates the reservation's northern boundary and notes the Yeopim village once stood two miles to the southeast. Their story traces the swift dispossession of coastal Native nations as English settlement expanded.
Asheville, NC
Established in 1892, the Young Men's Institute was built as a center of social, moral, and religious life for the Black workers who helped construct George Vanderbilt's Biltmore Estate. Black-owned businesses thrived in the building that stood just south of this marker. The YMI became an enduring anchor of Asheville's African American community.
Asheville, NC
Zelda Fitzgerald was a writer, painter, and celebrated icon of the Jazz Age, as well as the wife of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. In her later years she was treated at Highland Hospital in Asheville, where in 1948 she and eight other patients died in a fire a quarter mile south of this marker. Her tragic end closed one of the most dazzling and troubled lives of the 1920s.