New Leaves
Editor’s Note: Michael Hill is supervisor oj the Research Branch, North Carolina Office of Archives and His¬
tory, and awards coordinator for the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. He is the editor of the
ninth edition of the Guide to North Carolina Highway Historical Markers (2001 ).
Mayflower Cup, R.I.P.
Michael Hill
On November 1 5, 2002, a long-standing Tar Heel tradition ended. On that evening, at
the meeting of the North Carolina Literary and 1 listorical Association in die Nordi
Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, die Mayflower Cup, awarded annually for sev¬
enty-two years, was presented for die last time. The award, created in 1931 by the Society
of Mayflower Descendants in the State of North Carolina and made a permanent posses¬
sion of the association, originally was awarded annually to the best published work, fiction
or nonfiction, by a North Carolinian. Since the creation of the Sir Walter Raleigh Award
for Fiction in 19S2, the Mayflower Cup competition has been limited to works of nonfic¬
tion. The history' of die venerable old cup provides a prism into Nordi Carolina arts and
letters over the last two- thirds of the twentieth century.
The Nordi Carolina Literary and 1 listorical Association traces its beginnings to 1900.
Most noteworthy among its early achievements was die central role it played in die cre¬
ation in 1903 of the North Carolina I listorical Commission, now known as the Office of
Archives and History. From 1905 to 1922 “Lit and Hist” at each fall meeting presented
die Patterson Cup to die most deserv ing book — prose or poetry' — by a Nordi Carolinian.
Lucy Bramlette Patterson of Winston-Salem, who in 1902 had served as die first president
of die Nordi Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs, established the prize — a gold, jew¬
eled loving cup — in memory' of her f ather, William Houston Patterson. President Theo¬
dore Roosevelt, speaker at the “Lit and Hist” dinner in 1905, made the inaugural
presentation to John Charles McNeill for his volume of poems, Songs, Merry and Sad.*
Judges for the competition were professors of history and English at Nordi Carolina col¬
leges and universities. No awards were presented in 1918, 19 19, or 1921. Each year the
winner kept possession of the cup until die following year’s dinner. The original plan had
been for a three-time winner to take permanent possession. Clarence Poe won die cup
twice but, absent anyone with a better record and with the space for engraving gone, the
cup was retired in 1922.
A proposal to recognize once again the year’s best book by a North Carolinian arose in
1930. The president of the Literary and Historical Association that year was Horace
Kephart of Biyson City', die recipient in 191 3 of the Patterson Cup for his book Our South¬
ern Highlanders, the now-classic interpretation of the culture of the North Carolina moun¬
tain region. Working joindy with Albert Ray Newsome, the association’s secretary-
treasurer and secretary of the Historical Commission, and Josephus Daniels, publisher of
die Raleigh News and Observer, Kephart advised Burnham S. Colburn of the Mayflower
Society on the creation of such a prize. The North Carolina chapter of the society, a
hereditary group with membership limited to those who could trace their ancestry' to a
passenger aboard the Mayflower, had been organized in 1924. The society’s objectives were
*In thirteen subsequent presentations only one other Patterson Cup award was for poetry (and
none for fiction), that being the prize given to Olive Tilford Dargan tor The Cycle’s Rim in 1917. The
other Patterson Cup winners were Edwin Minis, Kemp Plummer Battle, Samuel Ashe, Clarence
Poe, R. D. W. Connor, Archibald Henderson, Horace Kephart, J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, W. L.
Poteat, Winifred Kirkland, and Josephus Daniels.
VOLUME 50, NUMBER 6, NOVEMBER 2002
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