Mike Parker: Christmas cheer brightened hearts when we were Kingston
“I’ve got an article you might be interested in seeing,” Ernest Jones told me over the phone several years ago. “It’s about how folks celebrated Christmas in Kinston in 1762.” My interest peaked. Christmas 1762?
I did a quick mental calculation. More than 260 years ago – a time before the Revolutionary War and our struggle for independence – when this area was called Dobbs County and the city was Kingston. The article, written by Charles R. Holloman, appeared in The Kinston Free Press in January 1963.
The people of this area had reason to celebrate even before Christmas that year. On December 9, 1762, the General Assembly of the Province of North Carolina authorized Kingston as a town on the lands of William Herritage. If you want to get a sense of the initial land grant Herritage gave to found the city, look at South Street, North Street, East Street, and the Neuse River to understand his generosity.
However, the town existed well before its official provincial recognition. Ten years earlier, according to Holloman, St. Matthew’s Chapel, an Anglican church, opened its doors. For many of those 10 years, the chapel celebrated Christmas mass.
Unlike their New England counterparts, people who lived in the Southern colonies brought strong Christmas traditions to the New World. Under the Puritans’ religious rule, New England considered Christmas a pagan holiday and banned its celebration.
Even though the Church of St. Patrick was the official headquarters of the Church of England in Dobbs County, St. Patrick was a “church” in name only, without a building of any kind. The only real church in Dobbs County (the area now Greene, Wayne, and Lenoir counties) was St. Matthew’s. The genuine Christmas celebration in these parts occurred in Kingston.
Christmas festivities began on Christmas Eve. During the early evening, the people feasted. The homes of the people of Kingston were filled with friends and family members, many coming from outlying areas of Dobbs County. Some would stay the entire Christmas season – the 12 days from Christmas Eve through Epiphany, a holiday celebrating the Wise Men’s visit. Epiphany came on January 6, 1763. Most visitors left for home on Epiphany since that day was for fasting.
However, these visitors did not leave with empty tummies because January 5, 1763, the “old Christmas,” occurred 11 days after December 25. You see, 10 years before, in 1752, the British government imposed a new calendar on its empire – the Gregorian calendar, developed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to realign the calendar with the solar year.
For a while, people in the New World celebrated two Christmases since both dates fell within the traditional 12 days of Christmas. However, the debate between old and new Christmas continued for years. Tradition says that those who get up early on “old Christmas” will see farm animals kneeling in reverence for Christ.
As midnight approached on Christmas Eve, the people in Kingston gathered at St. Matthew’s, lighted with candles within and lightwood-knot torches without. By midnight, all adults in the community packed the chapel.
The next day, the celebrations began, with music and dancing, visiting and feasting, and giving and receiving gifts – although not on the scale we have today. I am sure they sang many of the traditional carols we sing today – “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and “Away in a Manger,” to name but two. Perhaps musicians then, as now, filled the air with strains of Handel’s “Messiah,” first performed in Dublin, Ireland, in 1742.
One thing is certain: Christmas was a thoroughly religious holiday for the citizens of Kingston and Dobbs County. Their faith in the birth of Christ brightened their lives, especially at Christmas time.
May we celebrate Christmas with enthusiasm and faith like theirs.
Merry Christmas to all.
Mike Parker is a columnist for the Neuse News. You can reach him at mparker16@gmail.com.
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