Cooperative Living November/December 2019 - 33

Thomas Highway, secured because the
area is low and had drainage issues.
Most people in Newsoms commute for
work. There's plenty of land [around
here] but the commute does wear
on you. "
Newsoms' only major employer is
Koppers, formerly Atlantic Wood
Industries and Cox Industries, which
manufactures power poles, and
provides foundation pilings and marine
use pilings. Plant manager Robert
" Chet " Poland has been with the
company since its 1987 opening and
oversees 45 employees, who recently
loaded ships with power poles en route
to the Bahamas in the wake of
Hurricane Dorian.
The newest business in town is
Butcher Block, a butcher shop and
grocery store that opened in nearby
Boykins in 2016. Owner Chris Jernigan
leased space in Boykins and moved his
business when he was able to buy a
building on Main Street in Newsoms.
The new business also offers cooked
food items.
Skeeters, who lives in General
Thomas' old house and works in the
Newsoms
Ruritan Club
Newsoms
Methodist
Church
banking industry, came with his wife to
Newsoms in 1992. His wife inherited
Thomaston in 1982, when Alma Davis
died; a former dancer with the
Rockettes, Davis had restored the house
after tuberculosis ended her stage
career. " My wife had no idea she was in
her will, " Skeeters says. " We have spent
a lot of money [continuing to] restore
the house. "
Skeeters also is vice president of
Newsoms Ruritan Club, which has
about 30 members.
" Coming here from the suburbs of
The first heliport in Southampton
County, allowing emergency
helicopter transport, is located
behind the fire station.
North Carolina was a culture shock, "
he admits. " I remember saying there are
only two games in town, the Ruritans
and the volunteer fire department. "
Skeeters describes an active Ruritans
Club, noting, " We win a lot of awards
for service. We sponsor a July 4th
parade and picnic, we do college
scholarships and have a ballfield that
we sponsor. We have fundraisers and
monthly bingo [games] and the money
goes back into the community. "
In 2020, the Newsoms Ruritan Club
will celebrate its 75th anniversary. The
meeting house, built about 1840 and
restored in 1955 by the Newsoms
Women's Club, was moved to its
current location on South Main Street
in 1985. The one-and-a-half story,
central-passage building with front
dormers was one of Newsoms' first
buildings.
Next door, the post office is a
community hub. Clerk Nancy Shope
has worked for the postal service since
2000 and in Newsoms since 2016.
" Everyone is so friendly ... the people
here are absolutely wonderful. "
Newsoms' origins date from a
plantation called Cedar View, given in a
land grant by the King of England and
co-opliving.com
later sold to Thomas Newsom. In 1835,
the Portsmouth & Roanoke Railroad
laid track here, and the settlement
became known as Newsoms Depot.
Many years later the name was
shortened to Newsoms. Freight trains
continue to traverse Newsoms but
passenger service ceased in the 1970s.
Lynda Updike, president of the
Southampton County Historical
Society, says by the 1930s Newsoms
had eight grocery stores; four churches;
three schools; two garages; a drugstore;
a bank; a sawmill; a cotton gin; and a
hotel. Carol Drake Majors, a Newsoms
native who moved away but returned
home in 2000 after her parents died,
also remembers a lively Newsoms.
Her grandfather Lewis Drake owned
Newsoms Mercantile, a two-story
building - since torn down - where
he sold dry goods and a variety of
things. " We had a train station and a
full-time agent. My mother and I used
the passenger station a lot, and would
take the train to Franklin, Suffolk,
Portsmouth and Norfolk. Now life is
quiet here. "
Shelton " Shirttail " Story recalls
growing up with unlocked houses and
party-line telephones, adding, " We
played ball in a vacant lot every
afternoon and rode bikes to school. "
Chris Jernigan
Nancy Shope
Sheldon
Lynda Updike
" Shirttail " Story
November-December 2019 | Cooperative Living | 31
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Cooperative Living November/December 2019

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