Bruce in Pitt County, North Carolina — The American South (South Atlantic)
Sallie S. Cotten
1846-1929
Photographed By Mike Stroud, April 19, 2013
1. Sallie S. Cotten Marker
Erected 1987 by Division of Archives and History. (Marker Number F-57.)
Topics and series. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Arts, Letters, Music • Civil Rights • Fraternal or Sororal Organizations • Women. In addition, it is included in the North Carolina Division of Archives and History series list. A significant historical year for this entry is 1902.
Location. 35° 40.384′ N, 77° 29.125′ W. Marker is in Bruce, North Carolina, in Pitt County. Marker is at the intersection of State Highway 43 and State Highway 121, on the right when traveling south on State Highway 43. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Greenville NC 27834, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within 8 miles of this marker, measured as the crow flies. Otter Creek Bridge Skirmish (approx. 2.1 miles away); Voice Of America (approx. 2.1 miles away); Plank Road (approx. 7.3 miles away); Thomas J. Jarvis (approx. 7.3 miles away); In Memory of (approx. 7.4 miles away); Sycamore Hill Missionary Baptist Church (approx.
this page online
Regarding Sallie S. Cotten. Sallie Swepson Sims Southall Cotten (1846-1929) moved from her native Virginia to Murfreesboro, North Carolina, as a child. She was educated at Wesleyan Female College and Greensboro Female College, from which she was graduated in 1863. Three years later she married Robert Randolph Cotten, Confederate veteran and Edgecombe County native. Cotten operated a dry goods and grocery store in Tarboro for a short time but, by 1872, was in a similar business in Wilson. His true desire was to be a planter and he acquired two plantations, to be known as "Cottendale" and "Southwood," seven miles outside Greenville in the 1870s. Although the couple and their children remained in Wilson for ten years, it was in Pitt County that they spent the rest of their years.
Mrs. Cotten’s first twenty-seven years of married life were domestic, devoted to her home and her seven children. As she wrote in a letter to a friend, “No time for anything but stitch, stitch, stitch.” In 1893 their neighbor (and later governor) Elias Carr engineered her appointment as a “lady manager” for North Carolina at the Chicago World’s Fair.
Photographed By Mike Stroud, April 19, 2013
2. Sallie S. Cotten Marker at the intersection of North Carolina Route 43 and North Carolina Route 121
In 1902 Mrs. Cotten helped organize the North Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs, and, for the rest of her life, was devoted primarily to that organization. In her history of the group published in 1925, she opened with these words: “What has been known as the Woman’s Movement was a revolution—bloodless but not purposeless.” Mrs. Cotten also belonged to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the King’s Daughters, and the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. She long maintained an interest in the Roanoke colonies and attempted to establish the Virginia Dare School of domestic sciences and occupational training for women. That effort failed, but her interest led to the publication of a long narrative poem about Virginia Dare called The White Doe (1901).
In 1928, at age eighty-two, Mrs. Cotten was introduced to a meeting of women in Boston as the “Julia Ward Howe of the South.” Anne Firor Scott in 1971 wrote that she “exemplified the evolution from the Southern lady of the old school to the new women’s leader who performed a vital role in Southern social and political history.” Dormitories at the University
Photographed By Mike Stroud, April 19, 2013
3. Sallie S. Cotten Marker along North Carolina Route 121 looking west
Credits. This page was last revised on September 13, 2023. It was originally submitted on June 3, 2013, by Mike Stroud of Bluffton, South Carolina. This page has been viewed 465 times since then and 20 times this year. Photos: 1, 2, 3. submitted on June 3, 2013, by Mike Stroud of Bluffton, South Carolina.
