Our Collections

The Wachovia Historical Society is a repository for many artifacts and collections that reflect the history of Forsyth County and the Wachovia Tract. Some of the artifacts have belonged to the society from the time of its formation, and others were donated by individuals over the years. Many are held by and used by Old Salem Museums & Gardens. We will feature many of these artifacts and collections, with their histories, on this website.

The Wachovia Historical Society (WHS) owes a debt of gratitude to the Single Brothers of the Moravian community of Salem, North Carolina, who began collecting objects which held special significance for them and storing them in a cupboard or schrank in the Single Brothers’ House in the eighteenth century.

The Young Men’s Missionary Society (YMMS), formed in 1840, continued this tradition with objects from the Moravian mission fields and started the first museum in Salem in 1844. By 1894, there was enough interest in the growing collection to form the Wachovia Historical Society, which was organized officially in 1895.

In 1952, shortly after Old Salem, Inc. was chartered, the Wachovia Historical Society agreed to place its collection on loan to Old Salem since Old Salem has greater capacity for preserving, administering, storing, and exhibiting the important objects collected by the Society. Since 1952 Old Salem has been the agency actively collecting and exhibiting decorative arts appropriate to the historic houses and shops that make up Old Salem Museums & Gardens. These two collections together form what is the most comprehensive collection of southern Moravian decorative arts in America.

The Wachovia Historical Society collection also includes notable examples of furniture, textiles, metals, ceramics, paintings, and ephemera, all of which document the lives of Moravians living in Wachovia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Some objects in the Wachovia Historical Society collections, such as the extraordinary earthenware shop sign made by master potter Gottfried Aust in 1773, are icons of American decorative art and are known to scholars and collectors internationally. Others, such as furniture made using traditional Germanic construction techniques, or paintings depicting Moravian communities and people, speak specifically to the Moravians’ heritage and their lives once they settled in North Carolina. When studied and exhibited in their original context — the communities settled by the Moravians in North Carolina in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — these objects tell a remarkable story of the faithfulness, ingenuity, industry, and adaptability of one important group of American settlers in the North Carolina backcountry.

In addition to the decorative arts and ephemeral collections owned by the WHS and administered by Old Salem Museums & Gardens, a significant number of cultural artifacts collected by Moravian missionaries working with Native Americans and other indigenous peoples in the mission fields were given to the WHS over the years. The WHS generously donated this collection to the Lam Museum of Anthropology at Wake Forest University.

Another significant sub-collection owned by the Society, the Frank Jones Photograph Collection, was placed on loan to the Forsyth County Public Library in 1983.

For additional information about any of the objects in the Wachovia Historical Society collections, please contact Johanna Brown, Curator of Moravian Decorative Arts, Old Salem Museums & Gardens, jbrown@nulloldsalem.org.

Scrapbooks

Scrapbooks — today the word calls to mind a collage of festive paper, ribbons, glitter, charms, photos, and other embellishments. Not the worn leather scrapbooks belonging to the Wachovia Historical Society, which are preserved in the research area of the Frank L. Horton Museum Center, Old Salem Museums & Gardens.

These scrapbooks, containing essential stories, are much more akin to those scrapbooks dating back to the thirteenth century. Those pre-printing-press books, often called commonplace books, were assemblages of “scraps” of information that the collector deemed necessary for reflection as seasons and years passed.

So, when Peggy Dodson, then president of our Society, saw the WHS scrapbooks that contain materials dating back to the 1800s, she knew we needed to find a way to have the vast information in these resources available to the public, especially researchers. All items in each scrapbook were documented prior to their removal for digitization. Under the direction of Johanna Brown, curator of Moravian Decorative Arts, and funded by the Wachovia Historical Society, interns photographed high-resolution images and described the items on each page of the scrapbooks. The scrapbooks were then scanned and published (without charge) as an online resource by the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center (DigitalNC.org) located in the Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill. Currently, handwritten documents are being transcribed. The link to our online scrapbooks is Digitalnc.org/institutions/wachovia-historical-society. This important preservation of gleanings, pre-photography engravings, and writing keeps Salem’s larger story through 1917 available. The digital option preserves a wealth of material and solves the vexing problems of reading and maintaining the delicate glued newspapers and ephemerals. Whether it is tracing Moravian communities’ development on the Wachovia Tract or the destructive flood of 1912, these scrapbooks showcase and preserve memories. Wachovia Historical Society members are proud to have sponsored this project and invite others to view a world that no longer exists.

Artifacts

Many of the most iconic objects in the Wachovia Historical Society’s collection are exhibited with other Moravian objects in the Dianne H. Furr Moravian Decorative Arts Gallery in the Frank L. Horton Museum Center at Old Salem Museums & Gardens. A selection of these artifacts is shown here.

(Photos herewith courtesy of Old Salem Museums & Gardens).

Earthenware Shop Sign (WHS Collection)

Earthenware shop sign made by master potter Gottfried Aust (1722-1788) in Salem, North Carolina, in 1773. Diameter is 21-1/2 inches.

(Collection of WHS Acc # B-180; Photo courtesy Old Salem Museums & Gardens).

Brass Compass (WHS Collection)

Brass compass was once owned by the Moravian Land Office and used by surveyor Philip Christian Gottlieb Reuter (1717-1777) in Wachovia.

(Collection of WHS Acc # C-160; Photo courtesy Old Salem Museums & Gardens).

Modified Conch Shell (WHS Collection)

Modified conch shell used as a horn by Salem’s night watchman in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

(Collection of WHS Acc # H-110; Photo courtesy Old Salem Museums & Gardens).

Salem from the Southeast,
Oil on Canvas (WHS Collection)

Salem from the Southeast; oil on canvas painted ca. 1840 in Salem, North Carolina, by Christian Daniel Welfare (1796-1841).

(Collection of WHS Acc # P-74; Photo courtesy Old Salem Museums & Gardens).

Frank Jones Photograph Collection

Franklin Buxton Jones, Jr. (1914-1975) was a Winston-Salem native who worked 38 years as a photographer for the Winston-Salem Journal. During his lifetime, Frank photographed people, places, and events in his hometown, and in doing so, chronicled the daily life of the city that he witnessed through his camera lens.

Some people claim that Frank was born with a camera in his hands. And in truth, it’s hard to imagine Frank without at least one camera strapped around his neck. In addition to the daily assignments from the newspaper, Frank also photographed the changes that took place in Winston-Salem, with the forethought that these changes should be documented to tell the Winston-Salem story. He also collected older photographs of the city, commenting that “unless someone collects these old photographs, there’ll be no visual record of what went on in the past.”

When Frank died in 1975, he willed his photographs to the Wachovia Historical Society. In 1983, the Wachovia Historical Society placed Frank’s photograph collection on permanent loan at the Forsyth County Public Library. In the ensuing years, the collection was organized, identified, and cataloged for use by the public. These photographs have been displayed in public and private buildings, and have been published in magazines, books, and newspapers.

Many of Frank’s photographs can be viewed at DigitalForsyth.org, as the result of a digital project by the Forsyth County Public Library and other local repositories. Inquiries concerning the collection can be made to the Photograph Collection Librarian at the Forsyth County Public Library at 336-703-3072 or to rawlsmg@nullforsythlibrary.org.

By Molly Grogan Rawls, author of Winston-Salem: From the collection of Frank B. Jones Jr. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2006.Courtesy of Forsyth County Public Library Photograph Collection. Selected images by Frank Jones, photographer.

Membership

Resources

Events

About

Our Collections