59-550: Johnston County is the name of two counties in the United States: Johnston County, North Carolina Johnston County, Oklahoma See also [ edit ] Johnson County (disambiguation) [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about distinct geographical locations with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
118-544: A cash crop or reared pigs and cattle, which were sold in Virginia . Smithfield was the westernmost freight port on the Neuse River, and in 1770 the colonial government erected a tobacco warehouse there to store the crop before it was shipped out. Eli Whitney 's cotton gin was introduced in the county in about 1804, leading cotton to become the area's leading cash crop. Production for sale at markets remained low before
177-405: A patent of his cotton gin on October 28, 1793; the patent was granted on March 14, 1794, but was not validated until 1807. Whitney's patent was assigned patent number 72X. There is slight controversy over whether the idea of the modern cotton gin and its constituent elements are correctly attributed to Eli Whitney. The popular image of Whitney inventing the cotton gin is attributed to an article on
236-478: A female householder with no husband present, and 27.70% were non-families. 23.10% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.60% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.58 and the average family size was 3.02. In the county, the population was spread out, with 26.10% under the age of 18, 8.10% from 18 to 24, 34.20% from 25 to 44, 21.70% from 45 to 64, and 9.80% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age
295-492: A modified Forbes version, one man and a boy could produce 250 pounds per day. If oxen were used to power 16 of these machines, and a few people's labor was used to feed them, they could produce as much work as 750 people did formerly. The Indian roller cotton gin, known as the churka or charkha , was introduced to the United States in the mid-18th century, when it was adopted in the southern United States . The device
354-418: A result, the region became even more dependent on plantations that used black slave labor, with plantation agriculture becoming the largest sector of its economy. While it took a single laborer about ten hours to separate a single pound of fiber from the seeds, a team of two or three slaves using a cotton gin could produce around fifty pounds of cotton in just one day. The number of slaves rose in concert with
413-475: A single roller made of iron or wood and a flat piece of stone or wood. The earliest evidence of the cotton gin is found in the fifth century, in the form of Buddhist paintings depicting a single-roller gin in the Ajanta Caves in western India . These early gins were difficult to use and required a great deal of skill. A narrow single roller was necessary to expel the seeds from the cotton without crushing
472-404: A small scale. Whitney's gin is made with two rotating cylinders. The first cylinder has lines of teeth around the circumference, and angled against this cylinder is a metal plate with small holes, "ginning ribs", through which the teeth can fit with minimal gaps. The teeth grip the cotton fibers as the mechanism rotates, dragging them through these small holes. The seeds are too big to fit through
531-421: A system gin, and obtained related patents. The Munger System Ginning Outfit (or system gin) integrated all the ginning operation machinery, thus assuring the cotton would flow through the machines smoothly. Such system gins use air to move cotton from machine to machine. Munger's motivation for his inventions included improving employee working conditions in the gin. However, the selling point for most gin owners
590-617: A third died. Lingering political tensions and the emancipation of slaves created social and economic turmoil. The new state constitution of 1868 created the county's first townships, which were altered up until 1913. In 1886 the "Short-Cut" line of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad was laid through Johnston, eventually giving rise to the towns of Kenly, Micro, Four Oaks, and Benson. The Panic of 1893 caused cotton prices to sharply decline, leading area farmers to switch to bright leaf tobacco as their primary cash crop. A new tobacco market
649-467: A transmitter in Clayton in 1988 before moving to Raleigh studios in 1995. Cotton gin A cotton gin —meaning "cotton engine " —is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The separated seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil . Handheld roller gins had been used in
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#1732772533176708-582: Is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina . As of the 2020 census , the population was 215,999. Its county seat is Smithfield . Johnston County is included in the Raleigh-Cary, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area , which is also included in the Raleigh - Durham - Cary , NC Combined Statistical Area , which had an estimated population of 2,368,947 in 2023. Johnston County and St. Patrick 's Parish were established on June 28, 1746, from
767-834: Is also home to WPYB , 1130 AM in Benson, WHPY , 1590 AM in Clayton, WTSB , 1090 AM in Selma, and WKJO , 102.3 FM in Smithfield. The county is also part of the larger, 23-county Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville Designated Market Area —the nation's 24th-largest . WNGT-CD , (virtual channel 34.1) a Class A low-powered TV station licensed to both Smithfield and Selma. The station began frequency sharing with Raleigh's WRAL-TV in November 2020, greatly expanding its coverage. Goldsboro -licensed CBS affiliate WNCN , virtual channel 17/RF channel 8, originally known as WYED-TV, signed on from studios and
826-627: Is managed by the Johnston County School District , which has 46 schools and has more than 35,400 students. In addition, three charter schools and five private schools are located in the county. The Johnston County Public Affiliated Library system operates six branches throughout the county. The library system keeps books, periodicals and audio books and has recently expanded the selection to include downloadable e-books. The Hocutt-Ellington Memorial Library in Clayton left
885-425: The 2020 census , there were 215,999 people, 73,567 households, and 53,743 families residing in the county. At the 2000 census , there were 121,965 people, 46,595 households, and 33,688 families residing in the county. The population density was 154 people per square mile (59 people/km ). There were 50,196 housing units at an average density of 63 units per square mile (24 units/km ). The racial makeup of
944-483: The Indian subcontinent since at earliest AD 500 and then in other regions. The Indian worm-gear roller gin was invented sometime around the 16th century and has, according to Lakwete, remained virtually unchanged up to the present time. A modern mechanical cotton gin was created by American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 and patented in 1794. Whitney's gin used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull
1003-555: The National Academies of Emergency Dispatch in fire, police, and EMD protocols (giving them a Tri-ACE status). The dispatch has been re-accredited three times with the most recent being in 2017. For most of the time after the Civil War, Johnston County was a classic Solid South county, going Democratic in all but three elections from 1880 to 1964. However, from 1968 onward it has turned increasingly Republican , with
1062-491: The crank handle in the cotton gin, first appeared sometime during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire. The incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production during the Mughal era. It was reported that, with an Indian cotton gin, which is half machine and half tool, one man and one woman could clean 28 pounds of cotton per day. With
1121-483: The poverty line , including 16.00% of those under age 18 and 19.40% of those age 65 or over. The county is governed by the Johnston County Board of Commissioners, a seven-member board of County Commissioners, elected to serve four-year terms. The commissioners enact policies such as establishment of the property tax rate, regulation of land use and zoning outside municipal jurisdictions, and adoption of
1180-533: The 16th century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by waterpower. The worm gear roller gin, which was invented in the Indian subcontinent during the early Delhi Sultanate era of the 13th to 14th centuries, came into use in the Mughal Empire sometime around the 16th century, and is still used in the Indian subcontinent through to the present day. Another innovation, the incorporation of
1239-565: The 1850s due to poor transportation links with other parts of the state. In 1856 the North Carolina Railroad was completed, connecting Johnston County with major urban areas. As result, farming for sale increased, lumber and turpentine industries developed, and the towns of Princeton, Pine Level, Selma, and Clayton were eventually created. About 1,500 Johnstonian men fought in the American Civil War , of whom about
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#17327725331761298-435: The 1920s the state built the county's first two paved highways, and shortly thereafter many towns began paving their main streets. While local commerce enjoyed significant success during the decade, area farmers struggled due to drops in tobacco and cotton prices. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and ensuing Great Depression caused all banks in the county close. Following the passage of a state bond issue in 1949, most roads in
1357-482: The American Civil War. In modern cotton production, cotton arrives at industrial cotton gins either in trailers, in compressed rectangular " modules " weighing up to 10 metric tons each or in polyethylene wrapped round modules similar to a bale of hay produced during the picking process by the most recent generation of cotton pickers. Trailer cotton (i.e. cotton not compressed into modules) arriving at
1416-634: The Johnston County affiliated library system in 2015. The Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site is the largest Civil War battlefield in North Carolina. The Battle of Bentonville was fought in 1865, and was the only Confederate offensive targeted to stop General Sherman 's march through the South . The Tobacco Farm Life Museum in Kenly has been collecting artifacts and showcasing
1475-481: The South. Additionally, the greatly expanded supply of cotton created strong demand for textile machinery and improved machine designs that replaced wooden parts with metal. This led to the invention of many machine tools in the early 19th century. The invention of the cotton gin caused massive growth in the production of cotton in the United States, concentrated mostly in the South. Cotton production expanded from 750,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850. As
1534-415: The annual budget. Commissioners generally meet each month. Current (2024) members of the Johnston County Board of Commissioners are: Rick Hester is the county manager. Johnston County is a member of the regional Triangle J Council of Governments . In 2011, the Johnston County 911 Communications Center became one of four 911 agencies in the world to hold an Accredited Center of Excellence status from
1593-527: The cleaning of seeds from short-staple cotton, it damaged the fibers of extra-long staple cotton ( Gossypium barbadense ). In 1840 Fones McCarthy received a patent for a "Smooth Cylinder Cotton-gin", a roller gin. McCarthy's gin was marketed for use with both short-staple and extra-long staple cotton but was particularly useful for processing long-staple cotton. After McCarthy's patent expired in 1861, McCarthy type gins were manufactured in Britain and sold around
1652-444: The cotton gin by 1796. However, the evidence indicates Whitney did invent the saw gin, for which he is famous. Although he spent many years in court attempting to enforce his patent against planters who made unauthorized copies, a change in patent law ultimately made his claim legally enforceable – too late for him to make much money from the device in the single year remaining before the patent expired. While Whitney's gin facilitated
1711-458: The cotton gin led to an increase in the use of slaves on Southern plantations. Because of that inadvertent effect on American slavery, which ensured that the South's economy developed in the direction of plantation-based agriculture (while encouraging the growth of the textile industry elsewhere, such as in the North), the invention of the cotton gin is frequently cited as one of the indirect causes of
1770-569: The cotton is held by rapidly rotating saw cylinders. The gin stand uses the teeth of rotating saws to pull the cotton through a series of "ginning ribs", which pull the fibers from the seeds which are too large to pass through the ribs. The cleaned seed is then removed from the gin via an auger conveyor system. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal . The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from
1829-479: The cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. It revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States, but also inadvertently led to the growth of slavery in the American South . Whitney's gin made cotton farming more profitable and efficient so plantation owners expanded their plantations and used more of their slaves to pick cotton. Whitney never invented
Johnston County - Misplaced Pages Continue
1888-529: The county and its schools. Smithfield is the location of an annual Ava Gardner Festival, which celebrates the life of the actress. The Meadow community is the location of Meadow Lights , an annual display of Christmas lights . Johnston County is located in the Raleigh-Durham radio market, ranked by Nielsen as the 37th largest in the United States. Johnston County's first radio station, WMPM , 1270 AM, in Smithfield, signed on in 1950. The county
1947-481: The county and town streets were paved. Johnston County was named after Governor Gabriel Johnston by an act of the General Assembly during the creation of the county in 1746. According to the U.S. Census Bureau , the county has a total area of 795.65 square miles (2,060.7 km ), of which 792.02 square miles (2,051.3 km ) is land and 3.63 square miles (9.4 km ) (0.46%) is water. As of
2006-420: The county was 78.09% White , 15.65% Black or African American , 0.41% Native American , 0.30% Asian , 0.04% Pacific Islander , 4.53% from other races , and 0.99% from two or more races. 7.74% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 46,595 households, out of which 35.40% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.80% were married couples living together, 10.60% had
2065-478: The culmination of what geographer Charles S. Aiken has termed the second ginning revolution, in which the privately owned plantation gins were replaced by large-scale public ginneries. This revolution, in turn, led to a major restructuring of the cotton gin industry, as the small, scattered gin factories and shops of the nineteenth century gave way to a dwindling number of large twentieth-century corporations designing and constructing entire ginning operations." One of
2124-726: The few (and perhaps only) examples of a Munger gin left in existence is on display at Frogmore Plantation in Louisiana. Prior to the introduction of the mechanical cotton gin, cotton had required considerable labor to clean and separate the fibers from the seeds. With Eli Whitney's gin, cotton became a tremendously profitable business, creating many fortunes in the Antebellum South . Cities such as New Orleans, Louisiana ; Mobile, Alabama ; Charleston, South Carolina ; and Galveston, Texas became major shipping ports, deriving substantial economic benefit from cotton raised throughout
2183-425: The fibers ("lint") in the bolls are tightly interwoven with seeds. To make the fibers usable, the seeds and fibers must first be separated, a task which had been previously performed manually, with production of cotton requiring hours of labor for the separation. Many simple seed-removing devices had been invented, but until the innovation of the cotton gin, most required significant operator attention and worked only on
2242-464: The fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) of cotton per hour. A single-roller cotton gin came into use in India by the 5th century. An improvement invented in India was the two-roller gin, known as the "churka", "charki", or "wooden-worm-worked roller". The earliest versions of the cotton gin consisted of
2301-429: The fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) of cotton per hour. Modern cotton gins create a substantial amount of cotton gin residue (CGR) consisting of sticks, leaves, dirt, immature bolls, and cottonseed. Research is currently under way to investigate the use of this waste in producing ethanol . Due to fluctuations in
2360-438: The gin is sucked in via a pipe, approximately 16 inches (41 cm) in diameter, that is swung over the cotton. This pipe is usually manually operated but is increasingly automated in modern cotton plants. The need for trailers to haul the product to the gin has been drastically reduced since the introduction of modules. If the cotton is shipped in modules, the module feeder breaks the modules apart using spiked rollers and extracts
2419-475: The gin stand ran smoothly, a condenser to make the clean cotton coming out of the gin easier to handle, and indoor presses so that cotton no longer had to be carried across the gin yard to be baled. Then, in 1879, while he was running his father's gin in Rutersville, Texas , Robert S. Munger invented additional system ginning techniques. Robert and his wife, Mary Collett, later moved to Mexia, Texas , built
Johnston County - Misplaced Pages Continue
2478-655: The heritage of the Eastern North Carolina farmer for over 35 years. The site includes a museum and restored farmstead, blacksmith shop, and one-room school house. The Ava Gardner Museum , located in Smithfield, contains a collection of artifacts such as scripts, movie posters, costumes and personal belongings of actress Ava Gardner , who was born and raised in Johnston County. The museum holds an annual festival. The Johnston County Heritage Centers in Smithfield contains county artifacts and genealogical records. The Johnston County Arts Council promotes arts in
2537-575: The holes, and are thus removed from the rotating cotton by the metal plate, before they fall into a collecting pot. On the other side of the first cylinder, there is a second cylinder, also rotating, with brushes attached. This second cylinder wipes the cotton from the first, and deposits it into the collecting bucket. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal . The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from
2596-503: The increase in cotton production, increasing from around 700,000 in 1790 to around 3.2 million in 1850. The invention of the cotton gin led to increased demands for slave labor in the American South , reversing the economic decline that had occurred in the region during the late 18th century. The cotton gin thus "transformed cotton as a crop and the American South into the globe's first agricultural powerhouse". The invention of
2655-525: The largest pieces of foreign material from the cotton. The module feeder's loose cotton is then sucked into the same starting point as the trailer cotton. The cotton then enters a dryer, which removes excess moisture. The cylinder cleaner uses six or seven rotating, spiked cylinders to break up large clumps of cotton. Finer foreign material, such as soil and leaves, passes through rods or screens for removal. The stick machine uses centrifugal force to remove larger foreign matter, such as sticks and burrs, while
2714-430: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Johnston_County&oldid=932917899 " Category : United States county name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Johnston County, North Carolina Johnston County
2773-422: The machine to harvest cotton: it still had to be picked by hand. The invention has thus been identified as an inadvertent contributing factor to the outbreak of the American Civil War . Modern automated cotton gins use multiple powered cleaning cylinders and saws, and offer far higher productivity than their hand-powered precursors. Cotton fibers are produced in the seed pods ("bolls") of the cotton plant where
2832-580: The only breaks in this tradition being its support for third-party candidate George Wallace in 1968 and for Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1976. Carter's unsuccessful bid for reelection in 1980 is the last time that a Democrat has managed even 40 percent of the county's vote. Johnston County is home to Johnston Community College (JCC), a public, two-year, post-secondary college located in Smithfield . The college has off-campus centers throughout Johnston County. Public K-12 education in all of Johnston County
2891-469: The original cotton flower, or sticks and other debris attached to the fibers from passing through. A series of brushes on a second rotating cylinder then brushed the now-cleaned fibers loose from the wires, preventing the mechanism from jamming. Many contemporary inventors attempted to develop a design that would process short staple cotton , and Hodgen Holmes, Robert Watkins, William Longstreet , and John Murray had all been issued patents for improvements to
2950-471: The seeds. The design was similar to that of a mealing stone , which was used to grind grain. The early history of the cotton gin is ambiguous, because archeologists likely mistook the cotton gin's parts for other tools. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the dual-roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by
3009-556: The speed at which the gin could operate. In the middle of the 20th Century gins using a rotating blade replaced ones using a reciprocating blade. These descendants of the McCarthy gin are the only gins now used for extra-long staple cotton in the United States. For a decade and a half after the end of the Civil War in 1865, a number of innovative features became widely used for ginning in the United States. They included steam power instead of animal power, an automatic feeder to assure that
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#17327725331763068-458: The subject written in the early 1870s and later reprinted in 1910 in The Library of Southern Literature . In this article, the author claimed Catharine Littlefield Greene suggested to Whitney the use of a brush-like component instrumental in separating out the seeds and cotton. Greene's alleged role in the invention of the gin has not been verified independently. Whitney's cotton gin model
3127-752: The upper part of Craven County . On March 1, 1752, part of Granville , Johnston, and Bladen counties were combined to form Orange County and St. Matthew 's Parish. On November 23, 1758, Johnston County was divided between the Parish of St. Patrick and the Parish of St. Stephen , St. Patrick's Parish becoming Dobbs County . On December 5, 1770, parts of Johnston, Cumberland , and Orange counties were combined to form Wake County and St. Margaret 's Parish. Finally, on February 13, 1855, parts of Edgecombe , Nash , Johnston, and Wayne counties were combined to form Wilson County . Most early growers in Johnston County were subsistence farmers . A few grew tobacco as
3186-524: The world. McCarthy's gin was adopted for cleaning the Sea Island variety of extra-long staple cotton grown in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. It cleaned cotton several times faster than the older gins, and, when powered by one horse, produced 150 to 200 pounds of lint a day. The McCarthy gin used a reciprocating knife to detach seed from the lint. Vibration caused by the reciprocating motion limited
3245-414: Was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 98.70 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.30 males. The median income for a household in the county was $ 40,872, and the median income for a family was $ 48,599. Males had a median income of $ 33,008 versus $ 25,582 for females. The per capita income for the county was $ 18,788. About 8.90% of families and 12.80% of the population were below
3304-430: Was adopted for cleaning long-staple cotton but was not suitable for the short-staple cotton that was more common in certain states such as Georgia . Several modifications were made to the Indian roller gin by Mr. Krebs in 1772 and Joseph Eve in 1788, but their uses remained limited to the long-staple variety, up until Eli Whitney's development of a short-staple cotton gin in 1793. Eli Whitney (1765–1825) applied for
3363-420: Was capable of cleaning 50 pounds (23 kg) of lint per day. The model consisted of a wooden cylinder covered by rows of slender wires which caught the fibers of the cotton bolls. Each row of wires then passed through the bars of a comb-like grid, pulling the cotton fibers through the grid as they did. The comb-like teeth of the grids were closely spaced, preventing the seeds, fragments of the hard dried calyx of
3422-401: Was established in Smithfield in 1898, and the county's first bank was created. Within several years, cotton mills were erected in Smithfield, Clayton, and Selma. During World War I , a brief surge in tobacco and cotton prices brought a boom to the local economy. As a result, the county embarked on a school-construction campaign and consolidated all public schools under a single county system. In
3481-499: Was the accompanying cost savings while producing cotton both more speedily and of higher quality. By the 1960s, many other advances had been made in ginning machinery, but the manner in which cotton flowed through the gin machinery continued to be the Munger system. Economic Historian William H. Phillips referred to the development of system ginning as "The Munger Revolution" in cotton ginning. He wrote, "The Munger innovations were
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