Post Civil War to Present: Windsor & Bertie County History

Community life in the early 1870's centered around surviving the aftermath of the Civil War. Politics was the issue, with the Windsor Township being highly disturbed over President Grant's management of the South. In 1874, the people of the state were still reeling from the shock of the war and the humiliation of reconstruction. They were ready to resume the reins of self-government which federal troops had denied thus far. Patrick Winston, Jr. of Windsor was a man who stood up for his ideals and played a major role in the call for a Constitutional Convention to re-write the state constitution. As a result of Winston's work, the North Carolina state constitution was re-written and North Carolina began to move ahead for the first time since the end of the Civil War.

The town's physical growth in the twentieth century has been gradual. The city limits established in 1768 were not expanded until 1883, and have since been changed several times to incorporate small subdivisions and other growth, mainly on the north and west sides of town. In 1959 the small town of Bertie on the south side of the Cashie River merged with Windsor. Since the 1890's, nearly 80 buildings, mainly residences, have been constructed in the area of the historic district, filling in the blocks of King, Queen and York streets. The business distrcit remains concentrated on King Street above the courthouse and west along both sides of Granville Street. The 1970 population of the town was 2,199, only slightly larger than the 1924 population of 1,800.

Perhaps because of slow development, Windsor has retained intact enough of its physical fabric from the turn of the nineteenth century through the early twentieth century to form an historic district representing the evolution of a small eastern North Carolina town. The town's main thoroughfare, King Street, remains tree-lined and residential, with houses exhibiting the Georgian, Greek Revival, Victorian, and Colonial Revival styles of architecture. The business district possesses a number of two-story commercial structures dating from the turn of the century which feature handsome brickwork.