Donation to NC thrift store hid 1875 document. It will soon be back where it belongs

Oddities often turn up at thrift stores, but staff at the Hope Chest Thrift Store in eastern North Carolina found a real mystery when they peeled the back off a donated picture.

Behind the paper was a faded 146-year-old marriage certificate.

The discovery raised countless questions for the store, in Brunswick County’s Bolivia community, but Executive Director Karmen Smith couldn’t shake the idea that it wasn’t where it belonged.

So she decided to track down the couple’s descendants, starting with a July 27 Facebook post:

“Yesterday .... we began to look at an old picture that had been donated. The image was a little girl putting flowers in a black dog’s collar. The words on the top read, ‘Christmas Number Illustrated London News 1889’,” Smith wrote.

“Upon looking at the back, it was discovered that beneath the paper was a hidden file folder. This file, contained the marriage certificate of a New Jersey couple. The date of the vows was April 11th, 1875! This is a true treasure and was obviously, at one point in time, protected. As a society we have lost the value of story telling so its safe to assume that the story of the stowaway marriage certificate got lost in the generations that followed it.

“But HOW COOL would it be if we could find the family of this couple?!?! Let’s see what we can do! Please SHARE SHARE SHARE!” she said.

It was two weeks later that Irene Brogan Cornish of upstate New York wrote a response to the post, saying she was a relative of the couple. Cornish even included a photos of them.

“I just learned of this post. William Tindall DeWorth and Katherine Havey were my great-grandparents,” Cornish wrote this week. “I would love to obtain this certificate. What an amazing treasure.”

A plan is now in the works to get the document to Cornish, Smith told McClatchy News.

“I spoke with her yesterday,” Smith said. “Her plan is to drive from New York to here late August or early September to get it.”

Cornish told station WWAY her great-grandmother Katherine Havey worked as a servant in New Jersey after arriving from Europe “toward (the) end of the Irish Potato Famine.” And her great-grandfather was a carnival performer with “ventriloquist and fire eating acts,” the station said.

The certificate is among countless family items that were scattered when descendants lost “the old homestead,” she told the station.

Smith is now crediting the community for joining forces to solve the mystery. It’s the kind support she has seen a lot as executive director of the nonprofit Hope Harbor Home, which aids domestic violence survivors in Brunswick County. It is funded with profits from three thrift stores in the area, she said.

“So many people reached out in reaction to the Facebook post and offered help and expertise,” Smith said. “I’m proud to say that I live in a community that shows so much kindness.”

As for the picture the certificate was hidden in, it’s now hung in Smith’s home. “Every time I look at it I’m reminded of the stowaway marriage certificate,” she said.

This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 10:54 AM with the headline "Donation to NC thrift store hid 1875 document. It will soon be back where it belongs."