So the Pageant is a fresh instance of co-operative authorship in the making of genuinely communal drama. Fifteen people contributed to the gathering of historical incidents the text is the joint product of five different writers. The first Governor of North Carolina elected by the people, and boasting a theatre of its own as early as the year 1800, when the town could claim scarcely more than fifteen hundred souls.Ī Pageant of the Lower Cape Fear was written in collaboration by a group of citizens of Wilmington, members of the North Carolina Sorosis. Here flourished for many years a noteworthy group of amateur players, The Thalian Association, including in its active membership such distinguished citizens as Edward B. Here, in Wilmington, Thomas Godfrey wrote The Prince of Parthia, the first tragedy written in America by an American. Here was the first armed resistance to the tyrannous Stamp Act here, at Moore's Creek, was the first victory of our American arms in the War of the Revolution.Īlso in her contribution to the beginnings of American dramatic literature Wilmington has played a notable part. Here is an untouched store of brave tradition-legends of the “Lost Colony” of Sir Walter Raleigh, of the intrepid pirate Blackbeard, of the Croatan outlaw, Henry Berry Lowrie here are brave tales of the Revolution, of hair-breadth escapes of blockade runners in the War Between the States here the deeds of the indomitable pioneers, of Daniel Boone, of bonny Flora Macdonald, of the patient Town Builders of Old Salem here, too, the lore and balladry of our sturdy mountain-folk-a wonder-field for the making of pageants and plays of the people.īecause of her unique position in the making of American history, it is especially fitting that the City of Wilmington in North Carolina should embody her heroic heritage in an historical Pageant of the Lower Cape Fear. OUR CAROLINA country from Cherokee to Currituck-from the Great Smoky Mountains to the shifting dunes of Hatteras-affords a remarkable ground-soil for pageantry.