Baxter's Jewelry store selling out after more than a century

An ornate, four-sided clock posted outside Baxter’s Jewelry Store greets customers of New Bern’s oldest continuing retail business.

To many in the area, Baxter’s sold the diamond that professed their love, the band that sealed their commitment, the china, crystal, and silver that nourished the family, and the watches that marked a lifetime.

But time is running out on the jewelry business owned by four generations of Baxters since it was established in 1892.

A sale begins today to liquidate inventory before the 323 Pollock Street business either finds a new owner or closes its doors.

Baxter’s was established by T.J. Baxter on Middle Street but was moved to its present location in September 1918 by his son J.O. Baxter.

The city’s only jewelry store at the time, it held an open house which the Sun Journal reported drew hundreds to admire “the elaborate display of jewelry and silverware.”

That was before the time of the founder’s great-grandson, David Baxter, a local optometrist like his grandfather. David Baxter now owns the store with his sister-in-law, Sally Baxter, wife of the late Hunt Baxter, a local lawyer who was killed in an auto accident.

David was around when Baxter’s was still the only place in town to buy nice gifts and remembers holiday shoppers wall-to-wall.

Among the jewelry of those early days were items like gold and silver thimbles, elaborate hat and scarf pins and a wide assortment of link buttons, watch fobs and lapel chains.

While the store’s inventory remains diverse, those items are no longer carried, though the store operates much as it always has. It sells more diamonds and gems than anything else and still does bridal listings.

“But we do occasionally find a piece that has been tucked away that was in stock in those days,” said Peggie T. Wooten, a certified gemologist, like David Baxter’s father, third-generation owner Ben H. Baxter.

Wooten said she came to assist Ben Baxter “temporarily” in October 1981 and found a home. She has operated the business since.

“I grew up down here and even did some jewelry repair,” David Baxter said.
The stately store has two-story ceilings and a huge skylight in the showroom. Its sun-bleached antique showcases are filled with fine jewelry in the daytime, but the gems are locked in a vault at night.

“The optometry business started in jewelry businesses,” he said.

He remembers his father, a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, studying at home for certification in the middle of the night and in 1961 becoming the area’s first member of the American Gem Society of the U.S. and Canada.

“They have very exacting standards of inventory and education,” he said. His father and his uncle, Theodore Baxter, operated the store until Ben Baxter and his wife, Della Hood Baxter, bought Theodore out.

“Mom and Dad were really big on quality,” he said. “Back then, it was all about diamonds and he was all about ideal proportions.”

“When young people would come in, his selling technique was to show them the diamonds, then educate them. Then he would say, ‘I want you to go out and look around.’ They would always come right back here and buy it,” he said.

People still come and buy.

But Wooten is retiring and Baxter said consultants advise the owners to liquidate the inventory before selling the business or building.

In separate interviews, both Baxter and Wooten said, “It’s time.”
Source: newbernsj