Attachment19_EthnographicalDescription.pdf

Cultural Resources Southeast Region Cultural Resources Southeast Region

Final Technical Report - Volume Two:

Ethnohistorical Description of the Eight Villages Adjoining Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Interpretive Themes of History and Heritage

Final Technical Report - Volume Two:

Ethnohistorical Description of the Eight Villages Adjoining Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Interpretive Themes of History and Heritage

National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Cape Hatteras National Seashore Manteo, North Carolina

Attachment 19

Final Technical Report – Volume Two:

Ethnohistorical Description of the Eight Villages adjoining Cape Hatteras National Seashore and

Interpretive Themes of History and Heritage

November 2005 prepared for Cape Hatteras National Seashore 1401 National Park Drive Manteo, NC 27954 prepared by Impact Assessment, Inc.

2166 Avenida de la Playa, Suite F La Jolla, California 92037 in fulfillment of NPS Contract C-5038010616

About the cover: New Year’s Eve 2003 was exceptionally warm and sunny over the Mid-Atlantic states. This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on the Aqua satellite shows the Atlantic coast stretching from the Chesapeake Bay of Virginia to Winyah Bay of South Carolina. Albemarle and Pamlico sounds separate the long, thin islands of the Outer Banks from mainland North Carolina. Image courtesy of NASA’s Visible Earth, a catalog of NASA images and animations of our home planet found on the internet at http://visiblearth.nasa.gov.

1. Acknowledgements We thank the staff at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore headquarters in Manteo for their helpful suggestions and support of this project, most notably Doug Stover, Steve Harrison, Toni Dufficy, Steve Ryan, and Mary Doll. The following staff of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries shared maps, statistics, and illustrations: Scott Chappell, Rodney Guajardo, Trish Murphy, Don Hesselman, Dee Lupton, Alan Bianchi, and Richard Davis. Assistants in the field provided quality interviews and valuable insights into village life – Susan West, Jennifer Miller, and Julie Burke. Special thanks also go to Susan West for providing meals and lodging in support of this project. Stephanie Bodine, Carol Filby, Sandra Kellum, and LaVern Reels transcribed our interviews. The staff at the History Center in Manteo, the Hatteras village library, and the Ocracoke Preservation Society offered enthusiastic help. Outer Banks historian David Stick was kind enough to proof-read the historical section of this work despite his struggles with glaucoma. Danny Couch of Buxton was willing to make time in his busy schedule to share his wealth of knowledge about village history. Karen Duggan with the Cape Lookout National Seashore headquarters, Pam Morris with the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center, and Sally Anger all helped scan photographs and maps. Conversations with the Cedar Island – Ocracoke ferry staff were insightful and fun, as the ferry workers tend to be former fishermen and island residents.

Most importantly, we thank the many Hatteras and Ocracoke Island villagers who took the time to share their stories, thoughts, and suggestions; without their unflagging spirit of hospitality and helpfulness this project would not have been possible.

This report, however, owes a special debt to the efforts of the National Park Service Applied Ethnography Program, particularly Dr. J. Anthony Paredes, Regional Ethnographer and Chief of the Ethnography and Indian Affairs Branch, Southeast Regional Office, for its design, structure, and content - the value and utility of the report to future staff, residents, and visitors to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore is due in large part to his support and initiative.

Thanks must also be given to Dee Smith-Wilson, our Contracting Officer, to Dan Scheidt, the Division Chief of Cultural Resources, and Kirk Cordell, his predecessor, to Paul Hartwig, the Associated Regional Director for Cultural Resources, to Regional Director Patricia Hooks, and to the Southeast Regional Cultural Resources Council for recommending the project for funding and for their persistent support of the program.

Finally, the principal investigator, John S. Petterson, must acknowledge the efforts of Barbara Garrity-Blake, the lead ethnographer and lead author of the report, for devoting years of her time to making this project such a success. The quality of the study is primarily a result of her work, and the devotion of Laura Stanley to the numerous editorial revisions.

i

2. Executive Summary

This document results from a three-year long research project funded by the National

Park Service beginning in 2002 to conduct an ethnohistorical and ethnographic study of eight communities adjacent to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CAHA). This study grew out of the National Park Service’s recognition of the importance of understanding the social, cultural, and economic histories of communities affected by its policies and actions; its purpose was to

“support the Park in the interpretation of its cultural resources, stewardship of ethnographic sources within the Park, and in community relations with these Park neighbors.”

Research methods included participant-observation in Hatteras and Ocracoke villages, social mapping, genealogical interviews, and extended, tape-recorded interviews of community elders and leaders. We also built upon interviews of residents who born before or near the turn of the century that were recorded in the 1970s and 1980s by National Park Service staff as part of the University of North Carolina’s Southern Oral History Project. In some cases we were able to interview the children of those interviewed in earlier decades, now deceased. These interviews helped us formulate a diachronic description of social and cultural change in Outer Bank villages, particularly relating to the interpretive themes of Cape Hatteras National Seashore:

seashore living and fishing economy.

The final document is divided into three main components:

• A description of contemporary life on the Outer Banks, including demographic changes, challenges and issues faced by traditional banker communities, and a discussion of the role of the National Park Service in villager life (Chapter 6). This section includes a discussion of management issues and recommendations.

• An ethnohistorical description of the eight villages adjoining Cape Hatteras National

Seashore: Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco, Hatteras, and Ocracoke.

This is the main body of the text, and includes an overall history of Hatteras and ii

Ocracoke Islands (Chapter 5), as well as specific ethnohistories of the six other villages (Chapter 7), and is based primarily on recorded interviews.

• Interpretive themes of history and heritage. This section offers information pertaining to ten interpretive themes identified by National Park Service staff. The purpose of this section is to provide a reference guide for Park interpreters who are developing programs about the cultural meanings of artifacts, places, or events in Banker history.

We have included as much primary source information for each of these themes as possible, and included secondary source references as well.

In addition to the main document described above, we have compiled the oral histories recorded and transcribed for this project in a separate document. These interviews will be made available to National Park personnel as well as the public. They should be studied in conjunction with the interviews from the 1970s and 1980s conducted by National Park staff and Southern

Oral History Project researchers. These interviews are file at the History Center in Manteo, and at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore headquarters in Manteo. Also useful to any research of

Outer Banks culture and history is an annotated bibliography of coastal research compiled by

Betty Duggan (2001), which was undertaken as a precursor to this project.

iii iv

3.0 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Acknowledgements……….......................................................................... i

2. Executive Summary ................................................................................... ii

3. Table of Contents....................................................................................... iv

List of Appendices ................................................................................... xii List of Tables ........................................................................................... xii List of Figures .......................................................................................... xiii List of Maps ...............................................................................................xv

4. Introduction

4.1. Background

4.2. Goals and Objectives

4.3. Methods

4.4. Organization of Ethnohistories and Interpretive Themes

5. History of Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands

5.1. The Colonial Period: Stockmen Beginnings

5.2. The Federal Period (1780s to 1865): Shipwrecks and War

5.3. Modernization: Post Civil War to Post World War II

6. The Outer Banks Today

6.1. Regional Overview

6.1.1. Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands: Ecology and Geology

6.1.2. Villages

6.1.3. Demographic History of Hatteras and Ocracoke Villages

6.2. Chicamacomico (Rodanthe, Wales, and Salvo)

6.2.1. Population

6.2.2. Land Use

6.2.3. Goverment

6.2.4. Employment

6.2.5. Churches

6.2.6. Civic Organizations

6.3. Avon

6.3.1. Population

v

6.3.2. Land Use

6.3.3. Goverment

6.3.4. Employment

6.3.5. Churches

6.3.6. Civic Organizations

6.4. Cape Hatteras (Buxton and Frisco)

6.4.1. Population

6.4.2. Education

6.4.3. Land Use

6.4.4. Utilities

6.4.5. Goverment

6.4.6. Employment

6.4.7. Churches

6.4.8. Civic Organizations

6.5. Hatteras Village

6.5.1. Population

6.5.2. Land Use

6.5.3. Goverment

6.5.4. Employment

6.5.5. Churches

6.5.6. Civic Organizations

6.6. Ocracoke Village

6.6.1. Population

6.6.2. Land Use

6.6.3. Goverment

6.6.4. Employment

6.6.5. Churches

6.6.6. Civic Organizations

6.6.7. Education

6.7. Modern Issues

6.7.1. Beach Erosion and Dune Stabilization

6.7.2. Transportation

6.7.3. Impact of Development on Environment and Quality of Life ..61

6.7.4. Impact of Development on Real Estate Values and

Community Integrity

6.7.5. Shortage of Labor and Affordable Housing

vi

6.7.6. Erosion of Traditional Livelihoods and Lifeways

6.7.7. Relationship between Residents and Cape Hatteras

National Seashore Residents

6.8. Management Observations and Recommendations

7. The Eight Study Communities

7.1. Rodanthe

7.1.1. Relation to Other Villages and Beyond

7.1.2. Name, Place, and Features

7.1.3. School

7.1.4. Church

7.1.5. Stores

7.1.6. Pastimes and Childhood Activities

7.1.7. Medical Care

7.1.8. Early Transportation

7.1.9. Postal Service

7.1.10. Commercial Fishing

7.1.11. Livestock and Gardening

7.1.12. Significant Places

7.1.13. Rituals and Community Events

7.1.14. Coast Guard and the Military

7.1.15. Political Life

7.1.16. Modernity and Perceptions of Change

7.2. Waves

7.2.1. Name, Place, and Features

7.2.2. Relation to Other Villages and Beyond

7.2.3. School

7.2.4. Stores

7.2.5. Pastimes and Childhood Activities

7.2.6. Medical Care

7.2.7. Postal Service

7.2.8. Commercial Fishing

7.2.9. Hunting

7.2.10. Livestock and Gardening

7.2.11. Perceptions of Environment and Storms

7.2.12. Significant Places

vii

7.2.13. Rituals and Community Events

7.2.14. National Park Service

7.2.15. Coast Guard and the Military

7.2.16. Modernity and Perceptions of Change

7.3. Salvo

7.3.1. Name, Place, and Features

7.3.2. Relation to Other Villages and Beyond

7.3.3. School

7.3.4. Church

7.3.5. Stores

7.3.6. Pastimes and Childhood Activities

7.3.7. Medical Care

7.3.8. Early Transportation

7.3.9. Postal Service

7.3.10. Commercial Fishing

7.3.11. Hunting

7.3.12. Livestock and Gardening

7.3.13. Perceptions of Environment and Storms

7.3.14. Significant Places

7.3.15. Rituals and Community Events

7.3.16. National Park Service

7.3.17. Coast Guard and the Military

7.3.18. Political Life

7.3.19. Modernity and Perceptions of Change

7.4. Avon

7.4.1. Name, Place, and Features

7.4.2. Relation to Other Villages and Beyond

7.4.3. School

7.4.4. Church

7.4.5. Stores

7.4.6. Pastimes and Childhood Activities

7.4.7. Medical Care

7.4.8. Early Transportation

7.4.9. Postal Service

7.4.10. Early Trade

7.4.11. Commercial Fishing

viii

7.4.12. Hunting

7.4.13. Livestock and Gardening

7.4.14. Perceptions of Environment and Storms

7.4.15. Significant Places

7.4.16. Rituals and Community Events

7.4.17. National Park Service

7.4.18. Coast Guard and the Military

7.4.19. Political Life

7.4.20. Law Enforcement

7.4.21. Modernity and Perceptions of Change

7.5. Buxton

7.5.1. Name, Place, and Features

7.5.2. Relation to Other Villages and Beyond

7.5.3. School

7.5.4. Church

7.5.5. Stores

7.5.6. Pastimes and Childhood Activities

7.5.7. Medical Care

7.5.8. Early Transportation

7.5.9. Early Communication

7.5.10. Postal Service

7.5.11. Early Trade

7.5.12. Commercial Fishing

7.5.13. Hunting

7.5.14. Livestock and Gardening

7.5.15. Perceptions of Environment and Storms

7.5.16. Significant Places

7.5.17. Rituals and Community Events

7.5.18. National Park Service

7.5.19. Coast Guard and the Military

7.5.20. Political Life

7.5.21. Modernity and Perceptions of Change

7.6. Frisco

7.6.1. Name, Place, and Features

7.6.2. Relation to Other Villages and Beyond

7.6.3. School

ix

7.6.4. Church

7.6.5. Stores

7.6.6. Pastimes and Childhood Activities

7.6.7. Medical Care

7.6.8. Early Communication

7.6.9. Postal Service

7.6.10. Early Trade

7.6.11. Commercial Fishing

7.6.12. Hunting

7.6.13. Livestock and Gardening

7.6.14. Perceptions of Environment and Storms

7.6.15. Rituals and Community Events

7.6.16. Coast Guard and the Military

7.6.17. Law Enforcement

7.6.18. Modernity and Perceptions of Change

7.7. Hatteras

7.7.1. Name, Place, and Features

7.7.2. Relation to Other Villages and Beyond

7.7.3. School

7.7.4. Church

7.7.5. Stores

7.7.6. Pastimes and Childhood Activities

7.7.7. Medical Care

7.7.8. Early Transportation

7.7.9. Early Communication

7.7.10. Postal Service

7.7.11. Early Trade

7.7.12. Commercial Fishing

7.7.12.1. Porpoise Fishery

7.7.12.2. The Jackie Fay

7.7.12.3. The Albatross Fleet & Charter Boat Industry ...325

7.7.13. Hunting

7.7.14. Livestock and Gardening

7.7.15. Perceptions of Environment and Storms

7.7.16. Significant Places

7.7.17. Rituals and Community Events

x

7.7.18. National Park Service

7.7.19. Coast Guard and the Military

7.7.20. Political Life

7.7.21. Law Enforcement

7.7.22. Modernity and Perceptions of Change

7.8. Ocracoke

7.8.1. Name, Place, and Features

7.8.2. Relation to Other Villages and Beyond

7.8.3. School

7.8.4. Church

7.8.5. Stores

7.8.6. Pastimes and Childhood Activities

7.8.7. Medical Care

7.8.8. Early Transportation

7.8.9. Early Communication

7.8.10. Postal Service

7.8.11. Early Trade

7.8.12. Commercial Fishing

7.8.13. Hunting

7.8.14. Livestock and Gardening

7.8.15. Perceptions of Environment and Storms

7.8.16. Significant Places

7.8.17. Rituals and Community Events

7.8.18. National Park Service

7.8.19. Coast Guard and the Military

7.8.20. Political Life

7.8.21. Modernity and Perceptions of Change

8.0. Interpretive Themes of History and Heritage

8.1. Shipwrecks

8.2. Structures and Artifacts

8.2.1. Light Stations

8.2.2. Life Saving Stations

8.2.3. Navy and Coast Guard Stations

8.2.4. Weather Stations

8.3. Geographic Features

xi

8.3.1. Natural Changes

8.3.2. Inlets

8.3.3. Fisheries and Habitat Cycles

8.3.4. Manmade Changes

8.4. Villages and Maritime Forests

8.5. Gravesites

8.6. Civil War Fort Sites

8.7. WPA/CCC

8.8. Ocracoke Island

8.9. Names of Banks

8.10. Unique Customs

8.10.1. Customs

8.10.2. Myths, Legends, Lore

8.10.3. Dialect

8.10.4. The Seafood Industry

9. Conclusion

10. References Cited xii

List of Appendices

11. Appendix 1: Fishing Practices of Hatteras and Ocracoke

11.1. Early Fisheries, Boats, and Gear

11.2. The Modern Fishing Industry of Hatteras and Ocracoke

11.2.1. Beach Haul Seine Fishery

11.2.2. Ocean Sink Net Fishery

11.2.3. Inshore Long Haul Seining

11.2.4. Inshore Gill Net Fishery

11.2.5. Pound Net Fishery

11.2.6. Crab Pot Fishery Oyster and Clam Fishery

11.2.7. Shrimp Trawl Fishery

11.2.8. Oyster and Clam Fishery

11.2.9. Fishermen and Grants

11.2.10. Sport Fishery

11.2.11. Fisheries Management, Legislation, and Trends

11.2.12. Timeline of Fishing Trends and Practices

11.2.13. Common and Scientific Names for Fishery Species

12. Appendix 2: Letter from Conrad Wirth

List of Tables

Table 11.1.1. Economic Value of Commercial Landings, Dare County Table 11.1.2. Economic Value of Commercial Landings, Hyde County Table 11.1.3. NC Beach Seine Fishery Table 11.1.4. NC Anchored Gill Net Fishery Table 11.1.5. Sink Net Fishery, 0-3 miles South & North of Cape Hatteras .552 Table 11.1.6. Sink Net Fishery, >3 miles South & North of Cape Hatteras ..552 Table 11.1.7. NC Haul Seine Fishery Table 11.1.8. NC Pound Net Fishery Table 11.1.9. NC Crab Pot Fishery Table 11.1.10. NC Shrimp Trawl Fishery Table 11.1.11. Oyster Production in North Carolina Table 11.1.12. Clam Production in North Carolina Table 11.1.13. Planting/Harvesting of Hard Clams in 1999 by County Table 11.1.14. Estimated Annual Sport Fishing Trips in North Carolina xiii

List of Figures

Figure 7.1.1. Old Oregon Inlet Coast Guard Station Figure 7.1.2. Satellite Image of Rodanthe Figure 7.1.3. Abandoned House in Rodanthe Figure 7.1.4. Old Christmas Oyster Shoot Figure 7.1.5. Roasting Oysters at Old Christmas Figure 7.1.6. Gulf Coast Oysters at Old Christmas Figure 7.1.7. Mac Midgett and Friends, Old Christmas Figure 7.1.8. Maggie Smith Cutting Pastry, Old Christmas Figure 7.1.9. John Herbert Leading Old Buck, Old Christmas Figure 7.1.10. Rasmus and Mary Midgett Grave Figure 7.2.1. Satellite Image of Waves Figure 7.2.2. Old Inhabited House in Waves Figure 7.2.3. Old Post Office in Waves Figure 7.2.4. Wind over Waves Development Figure 7.2.5. I.D. Midgett and Outer Banks Dory Figure 7.2.6. D. Lance Midgett of Waves at Father’s Grave Figure 7.2.7. Jackie Weinberg and Mother Nellie Farrow of Waves Figure 7.3.1. Satellite Image of Salvo Figure 7.3.2. New Beachfront “Rental Machine” in Salvo Figure 7.3.3. Development on the South Edge of Salvo Figure 7.3.4. William and Edward Hooper, Old Salvo Post Office Figure 7.3.5. Net Hook and Gauge Figure 7.3.6. Salvo Day Use Area Grave Figure 7.3.7. Surfman’s Grave, Salvo Day Use Area Figure 7.4.1. Satellite Image of Avon Figure 7.4.2. Meekins Homeplace, Avon Figure 7.4.3. The North’ard, circa 1940, Manson Meekins Illustration Figure 7.4.4. Fields Meekins’ Old Store Figure 7.4.5. Old Avon Hotel next to Modern Water Tower Figure 7.4.6. L.P. O’Neal Working on Model of Father’s Freight Boat Figure 7.4.7. L.P. O’Neal and Garden, Avon Figure 7.4.8. Traditional Sail Skiff, Manson Meekins Illustration Figure 7.4.9. C.C. “Clemmie” Gray’s Fish and Ice House, Manson Meekins Illustration xiv

Figure 7.4.10. Unloading Fish at Avon Seafood Figure 7.4.11. Sorting Fish at Avon Seafood Figure 7.4.12. South’ard Hunting Grounds, Manson Meekins Illustration Figure 7.4.13. South of South’ard Hunting Grounds, Manson Meekins Illustration Figure 7.4.14. “One Time Be Kind” Sports Activity Bus Figure 7.5.1. Satellite Image of Buxton Figure 7.5.2. Fishing Vessel Lucy B. with Drop Net Rig Figure 7.5.3. Graves on Edge of Cleared Lot, Buxton Figure 7.5.4. Sportsmen’s Off-Road Vehicles Lined up at Cape Point Figure 7.6.1. Satellite Image of Frisco Figure 7.6.2. Fulcher Family Graveyard in Frisco Subdivision Figure 7.6.3. Frisco Volunteer Fire Department’s “Beast” Figure 7.6.4. Frisco Dories Figure 7.6.5. Dory Net Sign Figure 7.7.1. Satellite Image of Hatteras Figure 7.7.2. Creek in Hatteras Figure 7.7.3. “We Have Lost the Plot” Assembly of God Sign Figure 7.7.4. Model of the Hamlet in the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum Figure 7.7.5. Albatross Fleet, Hatteras Village Figure 7.7.6. Slash Creek Development, Hatteras Village Figure 7.7.7. Tourists and Shipwreck, Hatteras Figure 7.7.8. Hatteras Ferry Terminal Figure 7.7.9. Isabel’s Inlet & NC 12 Remants in Foreground of Hatteras ..350 Figure 7.8.1. Satellite Image of Ocracoke Figure 7.8.2. Ocracoke Yard with Nets Figure 7.8.3. Former Assembly of God Church in New Location Figure 7.8.4. Model of Mailboat Aleta, Graveyard of Atlantic Museum Figure 7.8.5. Ocracoke Beach Seine Dory Figure 7.8.6. “Have Mercy” and Ocracoke Fishermen Figure 7.8.7. Picking Striped Bass from Net, Ocracoke Figure 7.8.8. Eugene Ballance Preparing to Dock Skiff Figure 7.8.9. Grave of Reverend Wyche (center) b. 1852, d. 190?

Figure 7.8.10. Old Ocracoke Cemetery Figure 11.1.1. Ocracoke Dory Rig xv

Figure 11.1.2. Seiners Loading Stripers for Market Figure 11.1.3. Seiners Loading Dory Figure 11.1.4. Marine Patrol Officer and Ocracoke Fisherman Figure 11.1.5. Striped Bass at Fish House, Ocracoke Figure 11.1.6. Sink Net and Sink Net Reel Figure 11.1.7. Long Haul Seine Figure 11.1.8. Pound Net Figure 11.1.9. Crab Pot Figure 11.1.10. Trawl Net Figure 11.1.11. Oyster Dredge Figure 11.1.12. Gene Ballance Baiting Crab Pot Figure 11.1.13. Fisherman Entering Data Figure 11.1.14. “Handcuffing” Crabs to Attach Data Logger Figure 11.1.15. Crab with Data Log Backpack Figure 11.1.16. Sport Fishermen with Striped Bass Figure 11.1.17. Sport Fishermen Show their Catch

List of Maps

Map 7.1. Rodanthe Village with Historical Sites Map 7.2. Waves Village with Historical Sites Map 7.3. Salvo Village with Historical Sites Map 7.4. Avon Village with Historical Sites Map 7.5. Buxton Village with Historical Sites Map 7.6. Frisco Village with Historical Sites Map 7.7. Hatteras Village with Historical Sites Map 7.8. Ocracoke Village with Historical Sites Map 8.9.1. Outer Banks in the Colonial Period Map 8.9.2. Local Place Names Pea Island to Salvo Map 8.9.3. Local Place Names Salvo to Little Kinnakeet Map 8.9.4. Local Place Names Little Kinnakeet to Cape Hatteras Map 11.1.1. Northern Coastal Shoals

7.7. Hatteras Village

7.7.1. Name, Place, and Features

Hatteras Village is the southernmost community on the 33 mile long Hatteras Island

(Figure 7.7.1). At ten feet above sea level, Hatteras (at its highest point) enjoys the highest elevation of any Cape Hatteras village except Buxton. The word “Hatteras” is likely an English corruption of an Algonkian word that means "area of sparse vegetation" (Payne 1985, 92).

"Hatorask" was originally used to refer to the northerly section of the island by Colonists, after what was probably a semi-permanent native population, but was later applied to the southern end which was first settled by whites in the early 1780s (Stick 1958).

Figure 7.7.1. Satellite Image of Hatteras.

Source: NC Division of Marine Fisheries.

According to early maps and reports, Hatteras was intermittently connected to Ocracoke

Island, and one of the early Ocracoke pilots is reported to have lived in Hatteras Village and walked to work on Ocracoke. Hatteras Inlet was reopened by a hurricane in the fall of 1846, as was Oregon Inlet, and the village was sometimes called “Port of Hatteras” (Stick 1958, 296).

The boat pilot recalled the sight of Hatteras Inlet:

The day the inlet was cut out, there were several families living where the inlet is now…but to their great surprise, in the morning they saw the sea and sound connected together, and the live oaks washing up by the roots and tumbling into the ocean (Van Dolsen 1999, 5).

He recalled that the people who lost their homesteads to the inlet had chopped yaupon and grown figs, peaches, potatoes, and other vegetables (Van Dolsen 1999, 6).

The “old timers always had some kind of name for everything and everybody,” a Hatteras villager explained, including a section of the community known as “Sticky Bottom.” Sticky

Bottom, also called “down the road,” was on the southern portion of the village beyond the old post office. It was a low-lying, marshy area that held a few houses and walkways of boards and planks. “There’d be one little clump of trees, then there’d be a path and a normal tide, and it might be damp and you’d have little wooden footbridges connecting these clumps.”

It was low land down there, still is, really, and it got the nickname Sticky Bottom ‘cause the ruts in the road were always covered with water. That’s mainly where I was raised. It was all swamp and a few of the older houses, but there wasn’t much down there.

During the Depression the WPA crews were enlisted to dig “mosquito ditches” to drain away standing water as part of the government’s efforts to eradicate the insects. This ditching partly drained marshy sections of Hatteras, particularly Sticky Bottom. “Threw up a pile of dirt, dug from each side of the road, and built a dry path – ‘ditch banks’ we call them,” recalled a villager.

He said that the ditching and draining made many of the old plank walkways and bridges unnecessary. “They replaced the bridges is what they did.” More dredging and filling occurred when the ferry terminal was moved from the southern end of the island to the southern border of the village on a cove called Austin or Clubhouse Creek.

Sticky Bottom was the south end of the village, and the northern end past the Red and

White grocery store was called “up the road.” This section of “old Hatteras” is a meandering neighborhood of old homes where many of the local people live today. “This area is most special to me,” said a resident, “because it’s the least changed.”

In the northeast section was an area called “Bread and Coffee Ridge” and an area with some old houses still standing today was called “the Point” (Map 7.7). Villagers also referred to someone going “up the beach” or “down the beach.”

Up the beach could mean anywhere from Hatteras Village east and north to Norfolk.

Down the beach would mean to Ocracoke. Or if you’re in Buxton, down the beach could mean Frisco, Hatteras, Ocracoke, Morehead, Harkers Island. Out of the village, that was a commitment. You could get stuck between the villages in a dirt road. For an hour, till another car came by. Or the next car may not have the capability of pulling you out.

You could be stuck all day.

An architectural survey was undertaken in the late 1990s to determine the possibility of establishing a historical district in the village. Although the surveyor concluded that a historical district is compromised by post-1950 structures that dominate the streets, and that only 10 houses pre-date 1900 due to storms and hurricanes, she provided a detailed and useful report describing the features of the old Hatteras homes. They were built low to the ground near the sound. The wood framed houses had wood or coal stoves but no fireplace. They featured cisterns, small outbuildings such as sheds, separate kitchens, outhouses, canning/smokehouses and boathouses.

The report offers a description of the W.H. Gaskins house ca. 1860:

The timber frame of the one-and-a-half story dwelling is mortised, tenoned, and pegged and has down corner bracing. The house has a two-room center-passage plan. The stairs to the upper floor feature a chamfered newel with lambs tongue stop, and straight balusters. An original closet, with a beaded board door, is located under the stairs. The interior walls and ceilings are sheathed with tongue-and-groove horizontal boards (Van Dolsen 1999, 19).

Map 7.7. Hatteras Village with Historical Sites (not to scale). Sketch by B. Garrity-Blake.

Missing from the Gaskins house is the original kitchen building, which was separate from the house in pre-1920s fashion and often included a dining room (Van Dolsen 1999, 20).

Kitchens were small (five or six feet deep and 12 or 15 feet wide) “just deep enough for the stove and for someone to stand in front of it preparing food” (ibid, 22). Many homes also had a “cook house” for “heavy” cooking, such as canning (Van Dolsen 1999, 23).

Houses built between 1890 and 1920 were “I”-styled houses: two story buildings with a central passage, side gables, and a bottom floor porch. Unlike other “I” styles of the period, Hatteras homes had a side room doorway behind the stairs, not in front of the stairs, “most likely because the room functioned as a bedroom, not as a public space” (Van Dolsen 1999, 21). In the

1920s and 1930s “four square” homes – two story homes with a hip roof, a side passage and an attached kitchen–were popular. By the 1940s single-story “Cape Cod” bungalow homes were in vogue. The report described a strong tradition of house relocation on the island, as homes were transported with horses, rollers and ropes. This was either because houses displaced by storms were moved to higher ground, or people were simply moving and wanted to take their homestead with them. The oldest houses were located near the sound, as “most travel was by water and was oriented across the sound” (Van Dolsen 1999, 21).

Houses in Hatteras village had several outbuildings in the yard, as well as grape arbors and small pre-refrigeration cooling boxes called “milk boxes.” Milk boxes were “a little place you built, screened in so the air would blow through. Roof on it with screens around it so the flies, bugs couldn’t get in.” Pies, butter, clabber, and other such foods were kept in these small houses until iceboxes were introduced:

We had an icebox. Put ice in the top of it, and used to, you had a pan. You forgot to change it and then you’d have water all over the floor. So I always put a hole right through the floor, and you don’t even have to worry about it. Everything went on, people lived. What you don’t have, you don’t miss.

Before indoor plumbing islanders had outhouses. Hatteras drew well water, and each yard had a pump. A resident recalled bathing in a tub on the back porch:

The worst part is taking a bath. You had to get some water, go around the pump, and lug the water, and take it on the back porch, and get in the tub. Then mosquitoes would eat you up while you’re trying to take a bath. They used to make their own soap. But, we had regular soap. Everybody used to think Lux was the best.

The historical survey described modern houses currently going up in Hatteras:

Presently houses are being constructed within the village that do not resemble in size, scale, proportion, height, or materials the dwellings built within the community since the late nineteenth century. The new houses sit high-up on posts, with no front porch, and no obvious front entry. The houses are much larger than the earlier buildings, and visually dominate the village’s streetscapes (Van Dolsen 1999, 25).

Two main creeks feed into the village. One is “called the ‘Slash’ because it slashed the island” and the other was simply called “the creek.” Villagers called marshy areas high enough to support a few trees “hamlets” – a large hamlet called Durant’s Island supported the porpoise factory, and a vessel used to transport live dolphins for the New York Aquarium was named the

“Hamlet.” From the air, the community of Hatteras looks like a shark fin jutting into Pamlico

Sound; the tip of the fin is Durant’s Point, a smaller point along the eastern edge of Durant’s

Island is called Meter Point, and east of that Sandy Point. More than any other village on the banks, the “shark fin” that is Hatteras is shot-through with creeks, ponds, and inlets (Figure

7.7.2). Before “the mid-20th century, the natural inlets and waterways did not have well-defined edges,” stated a historical surveyor. “The waterways are increasingly codified, through the use of concrete and timber walls” (Van Dolsen 1999, 18).

Some areas of the village were decidedly male domains, such as fish houses and certain taverns:

Girls and the women weren’t allowed [at fish houses], unless it was a dying emergency.

There was no plumbing, period; no bathroom facilities. And, the men, a lot of times they would be drinking or whatever. And, when their bladder broke loose... Right where the

Channel Bass is today used to be another beer place, the men would gather there and drink. My sister and my aunt they weren’t allowed past that Slash bridge.

Figure 7.7.2. Creek in Hatteras. Photo by B. Garrity-Blake.

Another male domain were the fish camps where village men stored their nets, built so

“you didn’t have to lug your gear all over the place - you had some place to put your nets out of the weather.” They served as hideouts for boys:

I love the smell of them. They have tarred nets in there, the old smell like a piece of cotton net that’s dried out, and some of the dried seaweed smell and fish smell. I don’t know why I liked it, we were kids, several of us around, and we’d go there and tell jokes or whatever. Hang out, little hide out.

The net camps were “no bigger than a four by eight shed” with a pitched roof:

They had low open rafters in the top, and they would put a plank or two up there and lay things up there. These guys' whole lives were in there - different net leads, sewing needles, palm saddles for leather work. And, cotton nets. I’ve had many naps on cotton nets, rainy afternoon, Saturday…It’d be chilly; we’d get in there on those cotton nets and learn how to smoke cigars and cigarettes, or corn cob pipes. We’d read their old magazines –science fiction, westerns. The doors were open so you could go on in. There was nothing to steal. Who wants a cotton net, unless you’re going fishing? Who wants a sail needle? That’s work.

Some net camps were located out over the water, and could only be reached by boat. Men sometimes gathered at someone’s camp to drink or play poker:

Now you couldn’t plug the iron in on Sunday, but Grandfather could play poker every Sunday evening. He always had that poker game at his fish camp. He had to take a shove skiff go across the creek. They drank their whiskey, drank their beer, and there was no plumbing so they went out the back door to do their thing. With young’uns, especially girls, you didn’t go around there.

Hatteras villagers pulled together in times of crisis and need, as illustrated by a woman’s description of her younger brother who was born with spina bifida in the 1940s. Delivered by a midwife, the baby was born “kicking just like any other little baby.” But the family noticed a

“little place on his back about the size of a marble.” Within a month the baby stopped kicking, and was paralyzed from the waist down. They took him to Duke University hospital after crossing the sound on a freight boat, and the doctors informed the family there was nothing they could do. “They wanted her to put him in a home. They said he wouldn’t live more than two or three years.” The family refused and took him back to Hatteras, where the community – particularly the church – took him under their care:

Mother took care of him. His spine was pulled apart. He had part of it grow on the outside. The Methodist church used to buy alcohol and gauze pads to go on his back.

They made all of his gowns that he wore when he was little. He wore diapers until he died.

His siblings taught him everything they learned in school, and he was “happy and smart,” living to the age of ten. “He was just our life then,” his sister said. “We spent all our time playing with him. I would sit and rock him until my arms ached, just so he could sit up.

Villagers still stick together in times of need, a villager stressed, at least the “home people” native to the island.

A resident and his mother used to do an informal census of Hatteras Village in the 1940s and found the population to be around 500. The remarkable feature of their practice was that they knew the names of everyone in the community:

Once a year my mother and I would do a census, and we would set aside a couple of nights and start up the road and we’d just check off in our mind each house and who lived there, and we’d write it down. We didn’t necessarily write their names down but we’d do a count. You knew who lived in every house. And, there was just under 500 people.

Old Hatteras family names include Wade, Peele, Ballance, Burrus, Stowe, Austin, Styron, Williams, Scarborough, O’Neal, Gaskins, Gaskill, Farrow, Jennett, Quidley, Scarborough, Rollinson, Gray, Basnett, Whidbee, Midgett, and Oden (Wechter 1975, Stick 1958).

Hatteras began growing after the opening of Hatteras Inlet in 1846, and the village saw more shipping activity than Ocracoke until the 1890s when Ocracoke Inlet was dredged (Van

Dolsen 1999). Hatteras had had a population of 500 in 1896, and was a growing mercantile center with four stores (Uriah O’Neal, R.M.S. Rollinson, A.J. Stowe, and Homer Styron), five boat builders (J.J. Barnett, J.M. Stowe, J.F. Stowe, B.F. Stowe, and W.K. Gaskill), and a hotel run by Mrs. Inez Angell (ibid, 10). In addition to Hatteras Village proper, there was a 19th century cluster community just west of the village called Stowe, comprised of a few dwellings, a windmill, and a general store (Payne 1985). An interesting shift occurred between 1870 and

1920: the 1870 census listed half the population as living in rental buildings. By 1920 “only nine families rented their home” (Van Dolsen 1999, 10). Hatteras Village became the largest village on the Outer Banks until 1940 when it was outstripped by Wanchese and Manteo

(Dunbar 1956).

7.7.2. Relation to Other Villages and Beyond

Even though Hatteras village is the furthest distance from the island’s jumping-off point to Manteo, it was a bustling community of locals, Coast Guardsmen, and ferry workers, and a popular destination for other islanders. Its proximity to the inlet made Hatteras a busy port of commerce and, compared to other villages, Hatteras was on the forefront of new innovations.

A resident explained that he felt Hatteras has had more community activity and cohesiveness than many of the other island villages. This point is also stressed by other residents proud of the village’s ability to pull together and stand at the forefront in terms of getting ice, electricity, and, later, a library and medical clinic.

This village has functioned as a “village” more so than the other villages on the island.

Hatteras had the first power plant, electric power. A guy came here and built a combination ice plant and power plant that provided refrigeration as well as electricity, which radically altered life.

The village has long “attracted a greater number of outsiders,” as far back as “the Civil

War – Hatteras was the first place in North Carolina reclaimed by Federal forces, and you had carpetbaggers, administrators.” Once the charter boat business was established and booming in the 1950s, the village “had all these outside sportsmen coming in on a regular basis, and you had a window to the outside world.” A villager reflected, “Hatteras was more apt to change. Those other villages were more isolated – prior to the bridge the island shut down at night, you couldn’t get on and off. And if you came to the doctor you came this way.”

A feature distinguishing Hatteras and other villages is the particular kinsmen and family names associated with specific communities.

If you look at the rosters of the lifesaving stations, you can tell where the station is by the names. Midgetts, Midgetts, Midgetts is Chicamacomico, a mixture of Grays, Meekins, and Scarboroughs are in Avon, then a few Davis’s thrown in you know you’re in Buxton.

You get to Hatteras you’re going to see some Ballances, Styrons, Burrus, you go to Ocracoke you’re going to see Gaskills and O’Neals and Styrons.

As stressed by many islanders, each village has its own accent that is lost to the untrained and non-local ear. Especially with the old-timers who retain many of the old phrases and dialect, an individual can reveal their home village by their dialect. With the influx of outsiders, however, and popularity of mass media such as radio and television, these subtle differences are disappearing, as is the “Banker brogue” itself. “If I’m around someone, and I hear some islander accent, I gravitate toward that,” said a Hatteras native. “To tap into something.” Hearing the unique dialect and brogue carried on by old-timers evokes times past and pride-of-place for many villagers, yet saddens them that the old tongue is heard less and less with each passing year.

Some of the old fishermen were very inarticulate. But they were experiencing the same things as a very articulate poet when they would see a sunset or a sunrise or a rainbow or storm. They were moved by that. And they didn’t start gushing out with a bunch of words. But they’d say, “Boy that was some pretty.”

Like other islanders, Hatteras villagers have a history of leaving the island for school, work, or military service. Captain Ernal Foster, founder of the Albatross charter fishing fleet, attended grade school in Beaufort and then Southport, North Carolina because his father, Charlie

Foster, was captain of a menhaden vessel that was based in that town once the fish factory in

Portsmouth was dismantled and moved there. His father had first left Hatteras at age 14, working on sailing vessels out of Philadelphia. Ernal Foster still has his father’s sailing bag, sturgeon hook, and caviar sieve.

7.7.3. School

Census information for all of Hatteras Island in 1870 lists 60 percent of islanders as fishermen, and 50 percent of the population as illiterate. This level of illiteracy was on par with the rest of the state at the time (Van Dolsen 1999). By 1920 the rate of illiteracy shrank to 16 percent in Hatteras Village, thanks to the school that was founded at the turn of the 20th century.

Located where the Hatteras Community Center is now (2004), the school operated three months of the year and served grades one to seven (Van Dolsen 1999).

Before a public school was established, families pooled their resources and hired teachers to come teach children in private homes. After the schoolhouse was built, the number of grades seems to have waxed and waned depending on the number of students. In the 1920s the two-room Hatteras school, located in the heart of the village, expanded to three rooms and added grades. A woman recalled that in the 1930s it ran through four years of high school, and students from Buxton and Frisco would ride a bus to attend. The quality of education must have been good, considering a villager’s experience once moving, just before her senior year, to Maryland:

The principal told my sister, “Well, coming from such a small school, we might have to put her back a grade.” I think there were 43 in the senior class. I was the valedictorian that year. I didn’t have to study at all.

In the 1940s the school went through the seventh grade, whereupon students received a certificate and could “attend summer school for approximately two months to earn a teacher’s certificate” (Van Dolsen 1999, 11-12). Students wishing to graduate from high school traveled to Buxton. In the 1950s “a great majority no later than 16 just quit school.” “Drop-outs” could have successful careers, such as a villager who was captain of a tugboat with a seventh grade education. Grades first, second, and third met in one room, fourth, fifth, and sixth in another, and seventh and eighth in a third. Early teachers included Inez Austin and Hilda Brown.

Discipline was strict in school:

If you got a whipping in school you got another one when you got home. The teacher didn’t have to notify your parents or grandparents or whatever. Grandmamma give me a whipping. Granddaddy had a few choice words that hurt more than the whipping. And if you sassed a teacher she popped you. They didn’t mommick [overly punish] you, they let you know who the boss was.

A woman laughed that few children played hooky, as school was a preferable alternative to staying home feigning illness, only to be dosed with caster oil.

Getting to school was not necessarily easy for students who lived a distance from the center of town, as recalled by a villager:

I remember in the wintertime when it was real cold and windy and we’d get the nor’western, my granddaddy would take his boat and he would shove us up the road to school. Then he would come back and get us in the evening if the tide was still up, shove us back down the road to home.

Once schools were consolidated in 1955, Hatteras students traveled to Buxton, and age-old village rivalries began to soften.

All of that clannish thing started to change when all the schools come together at Buxton, and all the kids learned to live with each other. [The first day] everybody just stood and looked at each other. But, it weren’t long before everybody knew everybody on the island. It was the greatest thing that ever happened. They made a community out of the island. Instead of seven communities [on Hatteras Island] you had one.

A Hatteras resident recalled his father helping the newly consolidated school prepare for the first baseball game:

The first baseball game that the school from Cape Hatteras ever played took place when I was in high school. We had to have lines for [the ball diamond]. My father had this 55-gallon barrel drum of lye and we took that and poured that stuff out for our foul lines.

It’s lime, not really lye. It’s fairly caustic, kills off [fishing net] slime. That probably would not fly too well today, having a bunch of kids out with Dixie cups running that stuff out.

7.7.4. Church

Hatteras village had just two churches until the early 1940s, one of which was “down the road” toward the inlet in Sticky Bottom, called the Northern Methodist church. The second church was “up the road” at the north end of the village known as the Southern Methodist. “The

Northern Methodist is south and the Southern Methodist is north – that confused my mind!”

laughed an old-timer. “Mom would tell us you go to one or you go to the other, that’s your choice,” said a villager, emphasizing the people attended each other’s church. “But if you don’t go to Sunday school, you don’t leave home all day.” Islanders trace the two sects to the Civil

War when “this small island was split. Some favored the North and some the South.”

My great-grandfather fought with the Yankees, and he was a leader of the Southern Methodist church. I always thought that was odd. Another great-grandfather that was captain of his own pilot boat, he sided with the South. He helped the blockade-runners through and everything.

The churches merged with the United Methodist congregation in 1937. “Problem was, there was a group of people thought they were better than the other group, as usual, like in all churches,” said a member. The Sticky Bottom group had the most members, but the political power seemed to tilt toward the “up the road” residents, so many “down the road” decided to join the newly established Holiness church rather than become part of the United Methodist congregation. “That’s what split Hatteras up,” speculated an old-timer. The Hatteras Holiness

Church began with “circuit rider” preachers and tent revivals at Fred’s Landing. A church built in the 1940s (under Reverend Edwards) became known as the Hatteras Assembly of God church

(Figure 7.7.3). A villager raised in the Methodist church agreed that church politics and dissent on the eve of a northern/southern Methodist merger were advantageous to the incoming

Assembly of God church. “I would assume that about the time the churches were being forced to merge, if a new religion showed up you would find people more receptive to the other message.

And the Assembly of God is more energized, and that appealed to some folks.”

Figure 5.7.3. “We Have Lost the Plot” Assembly of God Sign.

Photo by B. Garrity-Blake.

After the disparate Methodist congregations united, Ernal Foster bought the old Sticky

Bottom church, a 50 by 75 foot building, for $50 dollars. “When they built the new [United

Methodist] church,” said his son, “they got ready to put the bell in, and the question is: do you just use the old bell or the new bell?” Ernal Foster encouraged them to use the old Sticky

Bottom bell, as it “had the best tone of any bell I had ever heard. Down on the point of the beach, it’s just as plain when they ring it in the afternoon.” Ernal Foster added, “And, this woman says, ‘If they put that bell on that church, I’ll never go inside of it another time.’ I told the [new] preacher, “Well, this is the time to see how good she is!’” In the end the new church decided against the old bell. “My father said gee, the bell from the old church has such a nice tone,” reflected Ernal’s son, “But the powers that be said no way – a little window of the politics of it.”

Sometimes a pastor from the Salvo Assembly of God came all the way to Hatteras to preach. “Mr. Ed Hooper – he was a short little man. He’d get to preaching and jump clean over the top of the altar rail.” Other preachers included Alice Austin and Arvella Barnett. Early

Methodist preachers included Mr. and Mrs. Meadows.

A local preacher gave an assessment of islander “religion” that cuts across denomination boundaries:

They’re fatalists. They believe that their life here is a gift from God. If you were to say to them, “There’s a 90 percent chance that a tidal wave is coming in the next ten years and it’s going to demolish this island,” they’d go, “I don’t want to live anywhere else.” If they were Pentecostals they’d say, “I’ll just stay prayed up, honey!” Methodists will say, “I hope everything will be all right!” They’re going to live here until the end.

7.7.5. Stores

Hatteras Village is home to the oldest grocery store still operating on the island; the

Burrus Store, later to become the Burrus Red and White. The store was founded in 1866 by

W.Z. Burrus’ grandfather, a blockade runner and Union sympathizer who spent the Civil War in prison. After the war, he returned to Hatteras Island where his father operated a grist mill, and established the store. “Instead of just staples like molasses, sugar, salt, flour, lard and so forth we started getting some canned goods in and bottled drinks from Washington, New Bern, and

Elizabeth City by freight boat,” W.Z. Burrus recalled (Anderson 1974, 18). The Burrus family rode the wave of economic activity that followed the Civil War in Hatteras Village, as did

Homer Styron store and A.J. Stowe, the three of whom were in business by 1872 (Van Dolsen

1999). By 1884, R.W. Midgett and Uriah O’Neal had stores as well.

Customers from Ocracoke to Avon bought items on credit, and the pages from the ledger were apparently cut by razor and given to the debtor as a receipt when the…