Near Main Street (U.S. 258) at South Street, on the right when traveling west.
Paul and James Camp started P.D. Camp and Company, a lumber business, in 1877. The brothers bought R.J. Neely's sawmill in 1886 and established Camp Manufacturing Company in 1887. The original Franklin mill was steam powered and lay on a . . . — — Map (db m51001) HM
On South Main Street at South Street, on the left when traveling south on South Main Street.
The war seemed far from Franklin when Union forces captured Roanoke Island and the North Carolina Sounds in February 1862. In May, however, when they occupied Norfolk and Suffolk to control both coastal Virginia and North Carolina, suddenly the . . . — — Map (db m18135) HM
On Homestead Road near Wynnwood Drive, on the right when traveling north.
George Camp, Jr. (1793-1879) acquired this land in 1826. Several of his children incorporated the Camp
Manufacturing Company in 1887 to operate sawmills. The company expanded into a wood product
manufacturing company and later a paper mill. . . . — — Map (db m69463) HM
On South Main Street at South Street, on the left when traveling south on South Main Street.
Before the Civil War erupted, Franklin became a regional transportation and commercial center for the Blackwater-Chowan River basin because the seaboard and Roanoke Railroad connected with steamship lines here. When the war began, the town . . . — — Map (db m18133) HM
On Oak Street, 0.1 miles north of Morton Street, on the left when traveling south.
Della I. Hayden, educator, was born into slavery in North Carolina and moved to Virginia with her mother after the Civil War. She attended a Freedmen's Bureau school and graduated from the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton . . . — — Map (db m224321) HM
On South Main Street at South Street, on the left when traveling south on South Main Street.
Incorporated as a town in 1876, Franklin began as a Southampton County village in the 1830s. In October, 1862, during the Civil War, Union gunboats on the Blackwater River shelled the town and the railroad station. Several skirmishes occurred nearby . . . — — Map (db m18144) HM
Near Clay Street (Business U.S. 58) at Meadow Lane, on the left when traveling west.
Dedicated to those who gave their lives
in defense of our state and our nation
Originally a part of the James L. Camp homeplace,
the park was given to the town of Franklin in 1946
by the children of Mr. and Mrs. James L. Camp.
Rena . . . — — Map (db m125377) WM
On South Main Street (U.S. 258) at Elm Street, on the right when traveling south on South Main Street.
This property has been
placed on the
National Register
of Historic Places
by the United States
Department of the Interior
circa 1937 — — Map (db m166008) HM
On North College Drive (Virginia Route 641), on the right when traveling north.
Pauline C. Morton, civic leader, graduated from what is now Virginia State University in 1933. She began working for the Virginia Department of Education in 1947, during the segregation era. Before retiring in 1974, she supervised home economics . . . — — Map (db m118319) HM
On Main Street (U.S. 258) near South Street, on the right when traveling west.
Franklin's location at the junction of a railroad and important water route offered opportunities that attracted new people, so the town rapidly recovered from the War. In 1866 the Albemarle steam Navigation Company was reorganized and the . . . — — Map (db m52133) HM
On Main Street (U.S. 258) near South Street, on the right when traveling west.
Between 1907 and 1930 Franklin witnessed a
revolution in transportation as gasoline-powered
vehicles replaced the horse and buggy and steam-
powered transportation. Even as Franklin
benefited from a boom in buggy making during
the first . . . — — Map (db m51062) HM
On S Main Street (U.S. 258) near South Street, on the right when traveling north.
The conjunction of the Portsmouth &
Roanoke Railroad and the Blackwater River
in 1835 made this site, then a swampy
wilderness, a natural link between the
towns of the Chowan and Albemarle Sound
and points to the northeast. The . . . — — Map (db m51216) HM
On Main Street at South Street, on the right when traveling west on Main Street.
In 1847 one of Franklin's most influential
couples, Richard and Mary Rebecca Murfee
Barrett, married and received a 260 acre farm
from Mary's father, Simon. The couple built a
house near the center of the new settlement
and began . . . — — Map (db m50456) HM
On South Main Street at South Street, on the left when traveling south on South Main Street.
To protect Richmond from a Union attack from Suffolk, Confederate authorities fortified the Blackwater River in 1862. You are standing on the Blackwater Line. The intermittent earthworks stretched fifty miles from north of Zuni to the North . . . — — Map (db m18134) HM
On South Main Street (U.S. 258) at East Barrett Street, on the right when traveling north on South Main Street.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
In honor of the many individuals and organizations giving freely of their time, talents, and resources to assist in the response and recovery from . . . — — Map (db m166007) HM
On South Main Street at South Main Street, on the right when traveling north on South Main Street.
During the first three years of the War Between the States, the Franklin railhead was the terminus of the Blackwater - Chowan corridor. The Confederate commissary used this route to deliver the millions of pounds of goods from eastern North Carolina . . . — — Map (db m18146) HM
