A History of Mount Airy, N. C. Commissioners' Meetings 1896 to 1903: Commissioners' Meetings 1896 to 1903

One can read these ancient minutes, some quite informal and sprinkled with legal terms of that day. All of the original notes were written in long hand and each writer put his personality into the shapes of letters, spelling, and use of English grammar. Names of citizens were often spelled by sound, or the way the person himself chose to spell his name, not necessarily correct. When transcribing these documents, I used the original spellings from the handwritten transcripts. Some of the additions of financial reports are not correct; I cannot explain that, unless some items were omitted.

In addition to the age of the hundred year old papers, some were damaged by a hundred year flood in 1979 that left the pages ragged and crumbly. I have tried to indicate with an author's note those damages. In all but a few cases, no facts or stories have been lost.