4 collections related to Forests and forestry -- North Carolina -- History

The records of the Council Tool Company document the history and operation of the North Carolina-based company from its founding by John Pickett Council in 1886 to the end of the twentieth century. The collection contains the company’s correspondence, financial records, and materials relating to personnel, plant operations, and merchandise. This collection also contains papers of the Council family spanning several generations, beginning in the early 1800s and with a few items from the 18th century. Correspondence, invoices, order letters, bills of lading, and related materials relate to the company’s operations including manufacturing, sales, transportation, information requests, and clientele. Financial records include accounting records, tax records, correspondence with accountants, records from the fire of October 20, 1970, and records relating to stocks. Accounting records include account books (ledgers), day books, trial balances, annual reviews of the company, and payroll ledgers. Office Files contain various information about the Council Tool Company and its operations, including correspondence, personnel files, catalogs and product information, machinery and equipment, inventories, notes and memoranda, and information about labor unions, insurance, and board meetings. Also included with the business records are files on the pulpwood industry, test hacks with accompanying reports, and maps and drawings. The family papers contain correspondence, financial records, and legal documents belonging to family members, including K. K. Council, John Pickett Council, K. Clyde Council, Edward L. Council, and Louise Council and a poem by Kinchin B. Council. Deeds and land grants, as well as correspondence about estates and property, constitute a substantial portion of the family papers. Council Tool Company is a family owned and operated business based in Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina. The company was founded in 1886 by John Pickett Council, a turpentine producer and farmer in Bladen County, North Carolina. The company’s earliest product line featured tools used in the naval stores industry. When the naval stores industry began to wane, the company reacted by diversifying its product line. The company grew during the early decades of the twentieth century, surviving the Great Depression, two World Wars, and a devastating fire that destroyed much of the manufacturing plant. As of 2015, the company's full line of professional products included axes, picks, mauls, mattocks, striking tools, shrubbing tools, digging tools, wood-splitting tools, forged bars, C-clamps and a variety of specialty tools. The company has always been headed by a Council, and as of 2015, the president is John M. Council III. Less

Collection includes correspondence, administrative files, reports, legal files, logging records, maps, photographs, and negatives, dating from 1869 to 2016. This collection documents the successful efforts of the North Carolina Forestry Foundation to acquire forest lands for North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering (later North Carolina State University) for demonstration, teaching, and research while at the same time operating the forest on a profitable basis. Materials range in date from 1869 to 2016. Julius V. Hofmann to set up the forestry program at North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering in 1929. One of his immediate goals was to acquire some forestland for laboratory, research, and demonstration purposes. Unable to secure funding from the university or the state of North Carolina, Hofmann determined the only recourse was to purchase the land on a self-liquidating basis. He and some of the college trustees incorporated the North Carolina Forestry Foundation on April 15, 1929, to manage and develop the Poole Woods, a 74.94 acre tract in Wake County, North Carolina, and the first forest obtained by the Foundation. Other properties the foundation has overseen include Hill Forest, Maclean Forest, and Hofmann Forest. Less

News clippings, radio talks, articles, correspondence, field reports, and photographs relating to Robert Walter Graeber's thirty-two years spent in service of the North Carolina Agricultural Extension program. As head of the Forestry Extension, he influenced the founding of the North Carolina State College (later North Carolina State University) Forestry Department in 1929. Of major interest in this collection are Graeber's weekly field reports on several counties in North Carolina. These reports reflect Graeber's daily activities from 1926 to 1939. Other reports meticulously document plots of timber within several counties over the same period. Age, growth, volume, number, and price of standing trees represent the data gathered. R. W. (Robert Walter) Graeber was a pioneer of North Carolina’s forestry extension service and a leader of the North Carolina Forestry Association for several decades. A graduate of North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (which later became North Carolina State University), Graeber was appointed farm forestry specialist (or state extension forester) in 1925, specializing in the thinning and management of timberlands. He served in this role until his retirement in 1950. As the state extension forester he led hundreds of forestry demonstrations across North Carolina for farmers and sawmill operators. Graeber instructed them in the harvesting, timber scaling, planting and marketing of trees and lumber products. For those that Graber could not teach in person, he wrote extension circulars and numerous newspaper articles that were circulated nationwide. Graeber also was instrumental in establishing the Department of Forestry at North Carolina State College of Agriculture and Engineering (later North Carolina State University) in 1929. Less