About the Photographs Used on Our Website

These photographs come from the Sarah Lee Brock Collection at the Onslow County Museum. The photographer was Charles Anderson Farrell. Miss Brock contracted with him to take a list of photos she needed for her senior thesis on Onslow County in 1938.

 

Description of the Sarah Lee Brock Collection: Two boxes of research material including a typed manuscript on the history of Onslow County, penciled bibliography, highway commission letters, research material, newspaper page from 2/23/41 issue of the Winston Salem Journal and Sentinel and a series of approximately 100 black and white photographs taken by Greensboro photographer Charles Anderson Farrell (1893-1977) in 1938 for Sarah Lee Brock's illustration of the history of Onslow County, a project at UNC Summer School. (A few of the photos are not credited to Farrell). The daughter of Ignatius and Mary Brock, Sarah Lee was born 1 Jan 1892 in Onslow County, NC. Note: Ms. Brock died on 31 Jan 1990.

 

Biographical Sketch of Charles Anderson Farell: Charles Anderson Farrell was born in Yadkin County, North Carolina about 1894 and died at Greensboro in March 1977. After attending Wake Forest College, he moved to Greensboro in 1923. Farrell worked as a photographer for the Greensboro Daily News and opened a photographic studio and camera and art supply store in the city called "The Art Shop."

Related Material: Charles Anderson Farrell Papers (#4452), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

A significant body of Farrell's photography is held by the North Carolina State Archives in its Charles A. and Anne M. Farrell Collection. The collection "contains the photographic negatives and prints created by Charles Farrell while he was engaged as a commercial photographer in Greensboro during the 1920s and 1930s. There are also some copy negatives and prints that pre-date this time. During the late 1930s, Farrell took numerous photographs of the North Carolina coastal region, particularly of a fishing club in Onslow County. The collection contains a number of these images. Portions of the photograph collection were taken by Anne Farrell while she was a partner with her husband in operation of the Art Shop in Greensboro."

(The foregoing information is courtesy of the Onslow County Museum.)

1st row, left to right: Hauling Fish; Salting Spot

2nd row, left to right: Mattox House; Bridge with view of Swansboro around present day location of Phillips Seafood

3rd row, left to right: Marker and Light Inland, Bouge Inlet Coast Guard Station; Waterfront with Charter boats