Sunday, July 15, 2018

New Holland, North Carolina

New Holland (see its present day condition here) was a major private drainage 'reclamation' project on the shores of Lake Mattamuskeet, North Carolina. The project, described in 1917 as being laid out as 'a scientifically planned town with modern provisions for social, educational, and recreational life - which schoolhouses, playgrounds, churches, public buildings, parks, community centres, and public and semi-public groups attractively groups' petered out and (according to Wikipedia) was finally discontinued, officially, in 1934.  
As presented in Ford and Warner's 1917 book (the source of the previous and next posts - see attribution below) the plan contains many numbered spaces with either road or laneway access, but no key for what the spaces actually represent. However, there is one labelled space in block 103 on what I assume is the east of the plan, between Haarlem, Carrituck, Kawana and what I assume is Albermarle Road East, labelled 'Private Park'. It has three pedestrian lanes for access.



The original sale of lots was advertised in the Raleigh News and Observer for 11 December 1916 (p. 8) and the town's first religious service was held in December 1921 (according to the Kinston, NC Daily Free Press for 22 December 1921, p. 6). The front page of the Elizabeth City, NC Independent for 13 October 1922 showed photographs of the area's pumping station and its hotel. However, ten years later the Independent proclaimed the 'New Holland Farm' to have been 'Doomed by Nature'; nature could feel slightly miffed by this headline given that the article itself, after severely pummelling 'nature' for its underhand ways, went on to blame the 'business depression' for the ultimate failure of the scheme (4 April 1931, p. 1). What is perhaps more interesting about this particular article is that it reveals one August Heckscher, 'New York financier and philanthropist' to be the initiator of New Holland.


Without wishing to go holus bolus into an examination of August Heckscher... though I so much would like to do that detective work, just on spec... I note that one August Heckscher was New York city parks commissioner in the late 1960s and early 70s (he died aged 83 in 1997); presumably (should one ever presume?!) the son of the man above. 

This site names the author of the plan as Harlan P. Kelsey, 'one of the most renowned landscape architects in America'. I found it in George B. Ford and Ralph F. Warner (eds) for the Committee on Town Planning of the American Institute of Architects City Planning Progress in the United States 1917 Journal of AIA Washington, DC 1917 p. 116

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