the North Carolina Hall of
History, which occupies a floor in the fine new State Administration
Building, opposite the Capitol. At the head of the first stair landing
in the Administration Building is a memorial tablet to William Sidney
Porter ("O Henry"), who was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, with a
bust of the author, in relief, by Lorado Taft. Porter, it may be
mentioned, was a connection of Worth Bagley, the young ensign who was
the only American naval officer killed in the Spanish-American War.
Bagley was a brother of Mrs. Josephus Daniels. A monument to him stands
in the park before the Capitol. Aside from Porter, the only author well
known in our time whom I heard mentioned in connection with North
Carolina, was the Rev. Thomas Dixon, whose name is most familiar,
perhaps, in connection with the moving-picture called "The Birth of a
Nation," taken from one of his novels. Mr. Dixon was born in the town of
Shelby, North Carolina, and was for some years pastor of the Tabernacle
Baptist Church, Raleigh.

The Hall of History, containing a great variety of State relics, is one
of the most fascinating museums I ever visited. Too much praise cannot
be given Colonel Fred A. Olds and Mr. Marshall De Lancey Haywood, of the
North Carolina Historical Society, for making it what it is. As with the
Confederate Museum in Richmond, so, here, it is impossible to give more
than a faint idea of the interest of the museum's contents. Among the
exhibits of which I made note, I shall, however, mention a few. There
was a letter written from Paris in the handwriting of John Paul Jones,
requesting a copy of the Constitution of North Carolina; there was the
Ku Klux warning issued to one Ben Turner of Northampton County; and
there was an old newspaper advertisement signed by James J. Selby, a
tailor, dated at Raleigh, June 24, 1824, offering a reward of ten
dollars for the capture and return of two runaways: "apprentice boys,
legally bound, named William and Andrew Johnson." The last named boy was
the same Andrew Johnson who later became a distinctly second-rate
President of the United States. Also there was a peculiarly tragic Civil
War memento, consisting of a note which was found clasped in the dead
hand of Colonel Isaac Avery, of the 6th North Carolina Regiment, who was
killed while commanding a brigade on the second day at Gettysburg.

_Tell my father I died with my face to the enemy._

These words were written by the falle