Town Common

Town Common

1760; bounded by Albemarle Ave., Wilson St.,

Park Ave., and Panola St.

Dividing the original town grid from subsequent development to the north is the town Common, one of the state’s finest urban spaces. When Tarboro was established in 1760, 50 acres were set aside as “Commons for the use of the said Town.” Although the eastern and western sections were whittled away as Tarboro grew, the northern portion survives as a revered park dotted with memorials: a Confederate monument (1904); an obelisk dedicated to Louis D. Wilson, local political leader; a stone bearing a metal marker cast from the Maine, honoring the Spanish-American War dead; and a cast-iron fountain memorializing Edgecombe County soldier Henry S. Wyatt, who was killed at Bethel Church in 1861—the first Confederate death in battle and inspiration for the state’s “First at Bethel” motto. The only known example of a colonial common left in the state, the shaded, '6-acre green serves as a public gathering place and is flanked by residences with deep porches, displaying a full range of eras and styles. In recent years’ parts of the riverside south common have been reopened as a park.