Discover helpful indexes for books within Wayne County Libraries.

• Introduction to the name index to Strangers in the Land by Moses (PDF)
• Introduction to the name index to The History of Wayne County (PDF)
• Introduction to the name index to War Time Reminiscences by J.M. Hollowell (PDF)
• Name index to Strangers in the Land by Moses (PDF)
• Name index to The History of Wayne County (PDF)
• Name index to War Time Reminiscences by J.M. Hollowell (PDF)

• About Moses Rountree (PDF)
• Rountree Scrapbook Index (PDF)
• Scrapbook Table of Contents (PDF)

Learn about the collection of maps within the Wayne County Libraries.

• Index to Maps (PDF)
• Map Series and Subseries (PDF)
• Running Title List Maps (PDF)

Marion Hargrove was born in Mount Olive, North Carolina in 1919. At 10 years of age, he moved to Florence, South Carolina then to Wilson, Raleigh and finally to Charlotte, North Carolina. He attended high school at Central High School in Charlotte and briefly Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina. He was feature editor of the Charlotte News until he was drafted into the Army in July 1941. Sent to Fort Bragg, he immediately began sending 2 columns a week about army life back to the Charlotte News. This was at the suggestion of his managing editor, Brodie S. Griffith, who in World War I had been an 18 year old sergeant major in France. After reading the 1st few of these pieces, Griffith changed his mind and asked Hargrove for 3 columns per week instead. These original articles are in the Steele Memorial Library in the original clippings which formed the manuscript of See Here Private Hargrove.

Hargrove & Maxwell Anderson
Early in 1942 the playwright Maxwell Anderson about to begin writing a war play called "The Eve of Street Mark" came to Fort Bragg looking for background and color. The post commander, Brigadier General Edwin P. Parker, sent him to the Replacement Center to be guided around by Private Hargrove, who not only showed him around but also lent him his own Charlotte News scrapbook which turned out to be exactly what Anderson was looking for. To return the favor Anderson got in touch with a neighbor of his, William M. Sloane, III, who was editor of the publishing house Henry Holt and Company, and the ball had already started rolling.

Sloane put the book together, and entitled it See Here Private Hargrove and published it in July 1942. The book was sensationally successful. It was the top non-fiction seller on the New York Times Best Seller list for 3 months and continued on the list for 4 months more.

It was published in several foreign editions including a Danish translation entitled Hos Her Menig Hargrove. All told, the book sold 3 or 4 million copies and is said to be still selling in paper back. In 1992, in the book The number 1 New York Times Best Seller, Hargrove still held the distinction of being the youngest non-fiction author on the list and 2nd youngest in all fields.

Hargrove's Career
The book was the beginning of a prolific writing career for Hargrove. He wrote novels, screen plays (of which his adaption of Meredith Willson's the Music Man is probably the most memorable), teleplays (including scripts for The Waltons, Maverick, I Spy, and many others). He is equally at home with books, magazine reporting, television and the big screen.

Friends of Steele Memorial Library are most fortunate and most appreciative to have Hargrove's collection of writings and working papers here for reference by the general public and for those who wish to study his style.

Collection List
Below is an abbreviated list of what the Hargrove Collection contains:

1. Books written by Hargrove and relevant to his work such as:
   • See Here Private Hargrove
   • Something's Got to Give
   • The Girl He Left Behind
2. Scripts: more than 60 screen and teleplays
3. More than 500 letters including:
   • To and from Hargrove and VIPs such as Harry Truman, Gloria Swanson, Audie Murphy, Tony Curtis
   • Professional peers, friends and acquaintances
   • To and from family, associates and Army friends
4. Work files or correspondence with various agents, producers and directors
5. Photos depicting special events in Hargrove career
6. A collection of information of Hargrove and Jernigan family histories

View birth and death records holdings located at the Wayne County Libraries.

Birth Records

• Index to Births, 1913 - 1986

Death Records

• Death Certificate Index 1909 - 1967
• List of county numbers for death certificates

View archived land records.

NC SECRETARY OF STATE LAND GRANT OFFICE

• Warrants, Plates, Dobbs County File #'s
  • 1 - 335
  • 336 - 843A
  • 844 - 1188
  • 1189 - 1477
  • 1478 - 1781
  • 1782 - 2107
  • 2108 - 2156, 01-0178

Grantee Index to Deeds

• Lenoir County 1746 - 1880
• Johnston County 1746 - 1759
• Dobbs County 1759 - 1792

Deed Books

• 1779 - 1926

Index to Real Estate Conveyances, Grantors & Grantees

• 1780 - 1948

Maps / Plats 

• 1847 - 1988

Record of Grants

• 1826 - 1892

Access archived newspapers local to Wayne County.

The following newspapers are archived in the Wayne County microfilm holdings:

Republican

• January 9, 1850 - November 9, 1852
• February 28, 1854 - December 20, 1854

New Bern-Goldsboro Republican & Patriot

• May 17, 1853 - October 26, 1853

State Journal

• October 27, 1862 - February 18, 1865

Goldsboro Daily Messenger

• April 1, 1869 - October 25, 1869

Carolina Messenger

• October 22, 1869 - March 22, 1877

Goldsboro Messenger

• March 26, 1877 - June 3, 1887

Goldsboro Star

• 1881 - 1882

Goldsboro & Wilmington Weekly Transcript & Messenger

• January 25, 1878 - June 27, 1889

Goldsboro Headlight

• January 8, 1890 - December 25, 1889

Caucasian

• January 9, 1892 - January 26, 1893
• February 2, 1893 - December 27, 1894

Miscellaneous Newspapers
Danbury - Greenville 

• 1860 - 1900 (includes the Fremont paper the Free Will Baptist Advocate 1874, and the Fremont paper the Rural Visitor 1898, 1899)
• Goldsboro 1854 - 1888
• Goldsboro 1867 - 1890
• Mount Olive Miscellaneous - includes 1898, 1900 other dates unknown

Goldsboro Weekly Record

• 1942 - 1945

Goldsboro News Argus

• Miscellaneous Issues 1885 - 1923
• May 17, 1890 - Present (Sometimes print copies go missing until we receive the microfilm. There may be a few months delay for the microfilm.)

Learn about archived records held by the Wayne County Libraries.

Marriage Bonds

• 1814 - 1959

Marriage Records / Licenses

• 1851 - 1868
• 1877 - 1886
• 1892 - 1895
• 1899 - 1900

Marriage Register

• 1867 - 1988

Maiden Names of Divorced Women

• 1939 - 1968

Discover military records archived in the Wayne County Libraries.

Record of Armed Forces Discharges 

• 1895
• 1918-1919
• 1943-1953

Index to Armed Forces Discharges

• 1918-1988

World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards

• 1917-1918

Obtain other records held in the Wayne County Libraries suck as constable bonds, lunacy records, and more.

Apprentice/Indenture Bonds

• 1800-1917

Bastardy Bonds

• 1786-1879

Constable Bonds

• 1861-1870

Court Records
Including election, land and slave records

• 1783-1820

Lunacy Records

• 1899-1945

Minutes, Wardens of the Poor

• 1819-1838

Tax Lists

• 1882-1883
• 1891-1900
• 1905

Voter Registration Records & North Carolina Secretary of State

• 1902-1908

Find microfilm reels of United States Census'.

The 1910 rolls are part of a series of microfilm that "reproduces descriptions of geographic subdivisions (enumeration districts) that were used in the decennial US census from 1830 to 1950."

• Wills, accounts inventories and sales of estates: 1782-1868
• Wills (original): 1776-1923
• Record of wills: 1868-1905
• Record of wills: 1906-1957
• Index to wills, devisee: 1782-1988
• Index to wills, devisor: 1782-1965

• Record of estates: 1782-1937
• Index to estates: 1788-1988

• Record of guardians:
  • 1899-1914
  • 1916-1941
• Record of guardians and executors: 1914-1940
• Guardian bonds:
  • 1824-1857
  • 1864-1878
  • 1892-1900
• Index to guardians: 1903-1919
• Index to estates, administrators, executors and guardians: 1820-1965

Digital materials from WCPL's collections are also available online through partnership with the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center. In addition to materials related to Wayne County, you will find yearbooks and local history materials from around the state of North Carolina.

• Digital NC
• Materials donated by Wayne County Public Library
• North Carolina High School and College Yearbooks
• Old Dobbs Genealogical Society Newsletters

• Record of receivers: 1929-1964
• Record of settlements: 1878-1953