2008 Meeting Programs

December 4th Program Details
Featured Speaker: Leonard Dean
Program Title: "Early Granville County Courts and Courthouses"

Leonard Dean, a Granville County native and Charter Member of the Granville County Genealogical Society, will be the featured speaker for the December 4, 2008 meeting of the Granville County Genealogical Society.  Leonard gives the following information regarding his presentation:   “In working with the historical information of Granville County, much conflicting information is found concerning the earliest Courthouses of the county.  many of the secondary books and articles in print today are vague and give hearsay information about the earliest of these institutions.  Those who have written these articles have not done a thorough job of researching and compiling the available information.  Too often they have taken the word of someone who was ill informed themselves.  Often the earlier historians have reached erroneous conclusions about the location of the Courthouse and the dates they were established.  They have misrepresented the truth to the person seeking factual information about early Granville County.

In an attempt to separate truth from fiction, several years ago I started compiling information on the earliest Granville County Courts.  Rather than taking the word of others, primarily documentation from multiple sources has been used and compiled.  The results of this project have shed new light on the early courts, its leaders in establishing the county, the location of the earliest Courts and their meeting places.  Much of this information comes from heretofore unused resources for this topic.  I have gleaned and correlated information from the State and Colonial Records, Deed Books of the County, Last Wills and Testaments of the early pioneers, the journals of earlier travelers passing through the county, little used Court documents from the NC State Archives, early maps and from a secondary source of information relating to the lost Court Minutes of Granville County.

By using basic research techniques and establishing a more precise timeline, new information is surfacing that questions many of the beliefs of those who have documented the history of the Courthouses.  At the December meeting of the Granville County Genealogical Society, I will share some of the research that has been done on the early Granville County Courts and the locations of the earliest Courthouses.  I have summarized much of this information into a draft manuscript that is a “work in progress”  I hope to publish these notes at a later time as a history of the earliest Granville County Courts and Courthouses.”

Please join us in the Conference Room of the Richard H. Thornton Library on Main Street, Oxford, NC at 6:30 P.M. December 4, 2008 to hear Leonard’s presentation. The meetings are open to the public and guests are welcome.

 

---

Questions or comments send to: GCGS.office@gmail.com