Beaufort, NC-The Town and Why It's Unique

Beaufort is Finalist in "America's Coolest Small Towns 2012"

2012-01-30T11:42:00.001-05:00

January 30 7am

KEEP VOTING for BEAUFORT!

Voting ends January 31st

Enjoy the new Beaufort album below!!

Click the boardwalk image to view
NEW 127-photo "Beaufort Snapshots"Album (View as Banner)

Beaufort is running neck 'n neck with Hammondsport, NY in the Budget Travel contest. Please show your interest and support by clicking the above link and VOTE DAILY* until January 31. Please share this post with friends and relatives who love Beaufort; see Facebook and other share buttons at the bottom of this post.

Thanks to crystalcoastnc.org for the "voting image" with town clock.

Johnston Photos of Beaufort in 1936 and 1937

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Beaufort Photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston

Photographs courtesy: Library of Congress, Canegie Survey of the Architecture of the South

See Johnston bio in Fort Macon post below.

Noted by Johnston as "Old Beaufort House" in 1936, this is the Henry-Easton House circa 1800


Noted by Johnston as a "Tavern" in 1937, this is the Duncan House circa 1817. (The entire Duncan House was always a private home, except when the west side was used as a ship chandlery and store, patronized by visiting ships as well as local residents.) Note the fishing shack at the end of Front Street.


Also noted as a "Tavern" in 1937, this is the Davis (boarding) House


Noted by Johnston as "Old Beaufort House" in 1936, this is the William Borden House circa 1778. The next two details of the Borden House were snipped from a larger file.


Detail of Borden House - Note double doors; during WWI the house was turned into apartments for military officers at Camp Lejeune.


Detail of Borden House - Note the unusual structure in the tree; it appears to be a replica of the Borden House.

Noted by Johnston as "Old Beaufort House" in 1936, is the
John Sabiston House circa 1857 - Borden House next door.

Noted by Johnston as "Old Beaufort House" - ???

Johnston Photographs of Fort Macon

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Fort Macon, Beaufort, Carteret County, North Carolina
Photographs taken between 1935 and 1938 by Frances Benjamin Johnston
Photographs courtesy: Library of Congress,Canegie Survey of the Architecture of the South.

Once called America's "court photographer" by Life magazine, Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) became famous doing both portraiture and documentary photography. Fortunate to know many of the rich and famous of her time, Johnston produced a body of work that serves as an important historical document. A staunch feminist and independent thinker, she campaigned to promote greater recognition of women photographers in the United States. The stark documentary style she brought to her most famous photographs would greatly influence the emerging art of photography.

An only child, Francis Benjamin Johnston was born in Grafton, West Virginia, in 1864 to affluent parents. She was raised in Washington, D.C. where her parents moved soon after she was born. In the nation's capitol, her parents were active in the high-ranking political and social circles, and their connections, particularly her mother's, would greatly benefit Johnston's education and subsequent career as a photographer. (Encyclopedia of World Biography) More at Wikipedia: Frances Benjamin Johnston

Abandoned in 1903, in 1924 a congressional act enabledthe fort to be sold to the state for $1.00. It was restored from 1934–1935, andopened in 1936 as North Carolina’s first functioning state park.

Post Civil War Visitors to Beaufort 1865

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From Whitelaw Reid's
After the War: a Southern Tour: May 1, 1865 to May 1, 1866
Chapter III-IV, Page 22-36
Published 1866

James Whitelaw Reid (1837-1912), born in Xenia, Ohio, was an American journalist who later served as editor, president and chairman of the family-owned New York Herald Tribune. Reid also served as US Ambassador to France, the Court of St. James and to Britain. He was the Republican vice presidential nominee on the losing ticket headed by incumbent President Benjamin Harrison.

After the inauguration of President Andrew Johnson, Chief Justice Salmon Portland Chase (1808-1873), appointed by President Lincoln, was determined to visit the southern cities, to learn as much as possible, from actual observation, the true condition of the country. Aboard revenue cutter Wayanda, Chief Justice Chase, with orders issued by President Johnson, twenty-eight-year-old Whitelaw Reid, after an invitation and pass from the president, accompanied the party. Beaufort was the first stop on this southern journey. According to Reid, “the trip would have been begun some weeks earlier, but for the deed of horror in Ford's Theater.”

The journey began with rough seas and sea sickness… MORE...

North Carolina's Five Oldest Towns

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VIRGINIAE Item et FLORIDAE
Mercator and Hondius . 1630 [i1]

“While the Pamlico-Neuse region of North Carolina can boast of the state's oldest towns, it cannot claim the oldest permanent settlements. The cradle of North Carolina lies in the Albemarle Sound area where settlements, about Salmon Creek in present-day Bertie County and along the many south-flowing rivers which empty into the Sound, were begun sometime in the latter part of the 1650's.”1

South Part of Virginia
Detail notes Batts House [i2]

South Part of Virginia 1657
Nicholas Cumberford [i2]

“By 1655 Nathaniel Batts, the first known permanent settler in the region had a house along Salmon Creek at the western end of Albemarle Sound from which he engaged in trade with the Indians. Other settlers soon followed, and by 1663 more than five hundred people were probably living between Albemarle Sound and the limits of Virginia.”2

“On March 24, 1663, Charles II of England granted a charter for a part of the new world which ultimately included this new settlement on Albemarle Sound to eight prominent Englishmen who had supported his restoration. By October of the next year the Lords Proprietors, as these eight men became known, had incorporated this settlement as the County of Albemarle in the Province of Carolina.”3 ...CONTINUE...

Ward-Hancock House circa 1789

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The acreage on which this house was built was first owned by Farnifold Green, followed by Robert Turner and Richard Rustull.

1733 Moseley Map ."R Rustul" NE of Town

In 1720, Richard Rustull Sr. (1669-1761) purchased 780 acres between the North and Newport Rivers from Robert Turner, who had the patent transferred to him in 1713 by Farnifold Green.

An approximate 100-acre portion of Rustull's purchase had been laid out in 1713 and named Beaufort. As required by the 1723 act of incorporation, Rustull increased the size of the town to 200 acres. In December, 1725, Richard Rustull sold the 200 acres, which included both the old and new sections of the town, to Nathaniel Taylor of Carteret Precinct for £160 sterling. (Carteret Deed Books) Rustull retained the rest of the 780 acres which he had purchased from Robert Turner five years earlier and continued to live just outside of the town. (Charles Paul, Colonial Beaufort) The acreage retained by Rustull, at that time, amounted to about 580 acres. MORE . . .

The Cooke Brothers – Beaufort, NC and on to Texas

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Silas Cooke Jr. 1753-1798 - Father of Thomas and Henry Marchant Cooke

By the act of July 1776, Silas Cooke Jr. was one of eleven persons banished from Newport, Rhode Island during the Revolutionary War; he was sent to South Kingstown, Rhode Island. “Refusal of several prominent gentlemen of Newport to subscribe to the test of loyalty were removed to other towns where they were required to support themselves, pay all expenses, and to be put in jail if they left town.” (Bicknell)

Seven years later, in 1783, 30-year-old Silas Cooke Jr., his wife Ann Lechmere and daughter Elizabeth sailed from Rhode Island to join Silas' brother John Cooke in New Bern, Craven County, North Carolina. Four-year-old Elizabeth died the next year. Henry Marchant Cooke was born in 1784, followed by Thomas Cooke in 1787. Thomas and Henry moved from New Bern to Beaufort about the same time, 1809-1810, Henry as collector of customs.

What did the brothers find when they arrived at this little village by the sea? The Beaufort area in 1810 “contained five hundred and eighty five souls, seventy four dwelling houses, ten stores, eight shops of different artisans and a place of worship…” (Jacob Henry) By the 1820s, “there were no paved streets, only a wilderness of scrubby bushes and deep sand with marshy places here and there…pigs and cows and horses and geese roamed at large…in 1834, mail began to come to Beaufort by stage and three times a week.” (Muse)

Thomas Cooke 1787-1815

Thomas Cooke (1787-1815) came to Beaufort and married Esther Mihetable Wallace on April 8, 1810. He served as postmaster from July 1, 1813 until May 11, 1814 and was a town commissioner in 1814 (US Post Office records). Thomas' wife Esther was the daughter of Jane Gaskill (1767-1810) and James Wallace (1767-1799). After the death of James Wallace, Jane Gaskill Wallace, daughter of Valentine Gaskill, married Micajah Pigot (1772-1807) in 1803; he died four years later. Jane Pigot died in June 1810; in her will she left Thomas and Esther Cooke what was then the Pigot family home at 205 Front Street, corner of Front and Moore Streets—lot # 30 Olde Towne. Jane Pigot also gave them lot #29 next door at 207 Front Street. Houses on these lots were most likely constructed in the early 1800s by a prolific builder of that time—James Davis

Thomas and Esther Cooke had two children, James (1812-1869) and Harriet (1814-1854). Unfortunately, in the early fall of 1815, on a return voyage from New York, 28-year-old Thomas and all his crew struggled, September 3^rd and 4^th, and finally perished in a violent storm near Cape Lookout.

When 21-year-old Esther died the next year, she left both properties to her still-small children, James Wallace Cooke and Harriet Wallace Cooke; the children went to live with Uncle Henry Cooke at the Hammock House, just east of the village.

James Wallace Cooke

May 5, 1864

With help from Uncle Henry’s influence through President Andrew Jackson, James Wallace Cooke, fifteen in 1827, secured an appointment in the U.S. Naval Academy. Taking to the seas in 1834, James designated his portion of the inherited Beaufort property, lots 29 and 30, to his sister Harriet. James eventually rose to the rank of commodore; he oversaw the construction of and commanded Confederate Ironclad C.S.S. Albemarle. He played a successful role in the battles of Plymouth and Albemarle Sound. James settled in Norfolk after the war, dying in 1869 (US Post Office Records). Cooke was later listed in Who’s Who of the American Civil War.

Henry Marchant Cooke 1784-1835

Henry Marchant Cooke

Elijah Clarke House

On March 5, 1809, Thomas' older brother Henry Marchant Cooke (1784-1835) married Frances Barry Buxton in the Elijah Clarke House, lot #345, New Bern; their oldest child, Henry Lechmere Cooke, was born in the house. Shortly afterwards, the family moved to Beaufort where Henry served as Collector of Customs for Port Beaufort, having been appointed by President Andrew Jackson.

Oldest Image of the HAMMOCK HOUSE - Early 1900s

On March 11, 1811, Samuel Leffers conveyed to Henry Marchant Cooke his 42-acre property on Taylor’s Creek and the Hammock House for $1300. Thomas F., Julia Frances, Sarah Ann, Francis Jarvis, Frances and Jarvis Cooke were born in the Hammock House. In 1820 the family moved to lot #29 (207 Front Street) to the home left to his brother Thomas’ children, James and Harriet. Born in this Front Street house were William Gaston, Mary Elizabeth, Silas Lechmere and George Badger Cooke. In the late 1820s, the family moved back to the Hammock House; Alexander and Henrietta Cooke were most likely born there.

Cooke was also a merchant, shipbuilder and land speculator. In 1816, with his partner James McKinley of New Bern, Cooke purchased fifty-four acres from Bartholomew Chadwick—land where Taylor’s Creek ends at the mouth of North River. Part of the land had originally been known as Titus Point, but was renamed Chadwick’s Point when acquired by Major Isaiah Chadwick, of the 1771 Carteret Militia.

Plan of the town of LENNOXVILLE

That same year, Cooke and McKinley added to their holdings at a sheriff’s sale and laid out a town on the property; they called the town Lenoxville. Although the town was incorporated by an act of the state legislature with James McKinley, Henry M. Cooke and Jechonias Pigott named town commissioners—“such a town would be a great benefit to the inhabitants and to the commerce of said county”—the “town” did not live up to their expectations. James McKinley died by 1834, when the Lenoxville property was divided between his grandson James McKinley Davis and Henry Cooke.

"As early as 1831, the Cookes made plans to migrate to Texas. In that year Otway Burns, one-time privateer turned politician, wrote to U.S. Senator Mangum recommending the appointment of James E. Gibble as collector of customs to replace Henry M. Cooke, who had declared his intention to resign the post and move to the ‘Western Country.’” (Davis)

On August 29, 1831, Henry M. Cooke sold the Hammock property, consisting of 42 acres, for $1210, to Leggett, Fox and Company, merchants of New York City. The company presumably bought the property to provide a base for the purchase of furs; the trapping and shooting of wild animals for furs had become an important source of income for residents of Carteret and adjacent counties. (Davis)

Henry's wife Frances died November 22, 1833; Henry then married Naomi Noe, daughter of Peter Noe Sr and widow of Joseph Hackburn. While on their way west, Henry died March 4, 1835 in Randolph, Tipton County, Tennessee. His widow returned to Beaufort while the children continued on, settling in Montgomery County, Texas. Henry and Naomi’s son John was born sometime the next year. The 1850 Beaufort census noted Naomi Cooke with a 14-year-old son, John Cooke.

In his 1834 Will, Henry Marchant Cooke named his children as recipients of lands and marshes near Lenoxville and Chadwick’s Point—on the western end of a peninsula with the town of Beaufort on the south and eastern part.

Lots #29 and #30 Olde Towne Beaufort—after 1838

In 1838, Harriet Wallace Cooke, daughter of Esther and Thomas Cooke, sold lots #29 and #30 to Benjamin Leecraft Perry. At that time she was noted as living in Green County, Alabama.

PERRY HOUSE (lot 29) - 207 Front Street - Razed after WWI

Benjamin Leecraft Perry Sr. (1811-1869) married Elizabeth V. Manney in 1835. In 1839, Rev. John Edwards wrote, “From Salisbury to Prince Edward again; and then, taking my wife in my buggy, I travelled a distance of nearly three hundred miles to Beaufort. The last two days travel was from New Bern to Beaufort…Rev. William I. Langdon, who was on the lookout for our arrival. With cordial greetings he welcomed us at our journey's end, and conducted us to Brother Perry's where by arrangement, we were to board… I stand again upon the upper floor of the double piazza of Brother Perry's dwelling, and look out towards the open sea.”

Thomas Duncan’s 1878 will left lot #29 to his daughter, wife of Benjamin L. Perry Jr.: “To my dau. Marietta wife of Benjamin L. Perry, all my estate in and to lot #29 and part lot #31 and to water front lots south of Front Street and south of said lot and part lot, and I direct my execs. to assign or be paid to my daughter the judgement on record in Carteret Superior Court in my favor and against Mrs. Elizabeth V. Perry…” According to family, after WWI Fannie Dudley Duncan, wife of lawyer Julius Fletcher Duncan, was tired of the old house; he razed what had been known as the Perry House and built on the same foundation/footprint.

John Hancock Nelson purchased lot #30 from Thomas Duncan in 1875 for $2000. Nelson died in 1876. Widow Mehitable Mason Nelson inherited the house and lived there until her death in 1917. The house was then inherited by the Nelson’s daughter Laura who had married Thomas L. Duncan in 1881. Laura and Thomas Duncan sold the house to Joseph House in 1922. In the 1960s, the house was plaqued the Nelson House.

1906 Image - Lot 30 Nelson House (2) and Lot 29 Perry House (3) (Jack Dudley)

Children of Henry Marchant Cooke and Frances Barry Buxton

Henry Lechmere Cooke

Henry Lechmere Cooke (1809-1885) was born in New Bern shortly before the family came to Beaufort. He married Martha Burdeshaw in Tipton County, Tennessee on December 25, 1834. Henry Lechmere Cooke went to Ellis County, Texas from Mississippi in 1856 with his wife, Martha Burdeshaw Cooke, their children, slaves and other relatives—one being his brother William G. Cooke. Cooke bought land from Neel near Mustang Creek which flowed into Waxahachie Creek and the Neel and Cooke settlements were the beginning of what became the Bethel Community. Cooke was a teacher and taught a subscription school at Bethel, leaving Martha to manage the children, farm and slaves.

Sallie Ann Cook and Mattie Neel were the same age and good friends. One of Neel's servants was often seen riding across the prairie to the Cooke's home leading an extra horse for Sallie to ride back for a week's visit with Mattie. During these visits the girls went from cabin to cabin reading the Bible to the slaves. They especially made a point to visit the cook, "Grandmammy Nancy," in her kitchen which was built separately from the house. (Texas GenWeb)

San Jacinto Monument

Thomas F. Cooke (1812-1848) was born January 11, 1812 in the Hammock House. He and his siblings traveled on to what is now Montgomery County, Texas after their father died in Tennessee. In the Headright Certificate issued to Thomas Cooke, February 2, 1838 for one-third of a league of land by the Montgomery County Board it is stated that he arrived in Texas April 3, 1835. At the time the revolution began in Texas, Henry L. and William G. Cooke had returned to Tennessee to settle the estate of their father. Thomas and Francis Jarvis Cooke promptly joined the army and both participated in the battle of San Jacinto.

The following information concerning Thomas Cooke is contained in service record; he served from February 27 to March 27, 1836 in Captain Turner Barne's Company; from March 17 to April 5 in Captain Allen Larrison's Company, and from April 5 to May 26 in Captain Robert J. Calder's Company of Brazoria Volunteers. On July 18, 1838 he was issued a donation certificate for 640 acres of land for having participated in the battle of San Jacinto. The land was surveyed in Navarro County. (San Jacinto Museum)

Julia Frances Cooke

Julia Frances Cooke (1814-1893) was born January 1, 1814 in the Hammock House. In 1842 she married George W. James, a trader, who went to Texas from Tennessee with the Cooke family, first settling near Bastrop, then Washington County, and later moved to Burleson, where he died. (Texas GenWeb)

Sarah Ann “Sally” Cooke (1815-1866) was born September 23, 1815 in the Hammock House. She went to Texas with her siblings but never married. Sally died April 23, 1866 in Hempstead, Waller County, Texas.

Francis Jarvis Cooke

Francis Jarvis Cooke (1816-1903) was born July 13, 1816 in the Hammock House. He arrived in Texas April 3, 1835, as is shown in the Headright Certificate issued to him February 2, 1838, for one-third of a league of land by the Montgomery County Board. He was a member of Captain Robert J. Calder's Company of "Brazoria Volunteers" at San Jacinto and on January 12, 1846 was issued a donation certificate for 640 acres of land for having participated in the battle. On February 12, 1838 he received a bounty certificate for 320 acres for having served in the army from March 17 to June 20, 1836.

Cooke married Emily Bumpas Stockton in 1845. He died in Hempstead, Waller County, Texas November 11, 1903 and was buried with Masonic honors. Mrs. Cooke was born at Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, January 28, 1828, a daughter of Douglas Hayden and Emily Bumpas Stockton. She died September 4, 1908 and was buried beside her husband in the Salem Cemetery in Waller County. The State of Texas caused a Centennial monument to be erected at their graves in 1936. (San Jacinto Museum)

Frances Cooke (19 May 1819-10 Sept 1819) Frances was the twin of Jarvis; she lived only a few months. The twins were born in the Hammock House.

Jarvis Cooke (19 May 1819-12 Sept 1820) Jarvis was the twin of Frances; he lived about sixteen months.

William Gaston Cooke

William Gaston Cooke (1820-1892) was born in the family house on Front Street after Henry moved them all to town. (Houses on lots 29 & 30 were still owned by Harriet Wallace Cooke, daughter of Esther and Thomas Cooke.)

William went to Texas with his siblings. He left Montgomery County, Texas at age 20 to work in Houston as a carpenter. He later moved to Navarro County where he bought a farm. In 1858 he went to Ellis County and continued farming until 1890. He served in the State Militia during the war and also enlisted in the CSA, but participated in no battles. He first married Angeline Salmon in Harris County, who died nine months later. In 1850 he married Catherine Kendall of Navarro County, daughter of Fenwick R. and Nancy McKinney Kendall, of French and Scotch descent. (US GenWeb)

Mary Elizabeth Cooke (1823-1880) was born on Front Street. She went to Texas with her siblings. She married Michael Boren on September 6, 1860 in Ellis County, Texas. The Borens had two children, Willie and Anna Hancock Boren. Mary Elizabeth died in 1880 in Ellis, Texas.

“This item was sworn to the JP and Notary Public, Ellis County, Texas on 26 th January 1875. It was given by Mary Elizabeth Cooke Boren about the actions of her brother, William Gaston Cooke.

"Before me the undersigned legal authority this day personally came Mary E. Boren who to me is well known to be a lady of high standing in this community who being by me duly sworn says that:

I was encamped in the edge of the Brazos bottom in company with many families whither we had fled from the Colorado before the approaching Mexican Army. My brother, William G. Cooke, a stout boy of 15 or 16 years of age was with us and was called on with others, (some 25 in number) to enroll their names and do military duty which they did. A courier came to our camp and informed us that the Mexicans were attempting to cross the Brazos at or near Fort Bend. My brother and the company to which he belonged were ordered to the river to aid some other command in preventing the Mexican Army from crossing the Brazos River. They went and (can't read) them (can't read) with their guns. My brother, William G. Cooke went with them. I was near enough to accomplished they returned to our camp."

This statement is made from memory and is true to the best of my recollection. This was the year 1836. Mary E. Cooke Boren- 26th of January 1875” (Ancestry.com)

Silas Lechmere Cooke

George Badger Cooke

Silas Lechmere Cooke (1825-1877) was born in the Front Street house on February 6, 1825. He went to Texas with his siblings and married Eliza Jane Thomas on April 3, 1851. Silas died in Burleson County, Texas, on September 21, 1877.

George Badger Cooke (1827-1880) was born in the Front Street house on April 26, 1827. He married Harriet Agnes Murray. In 1850 he was a resident of Brenham, Washington County, Texas. George B. Cooke died March 17, 1880 in San Saba, Texas.

Alexander Cooke

Henrietta Cooke

Alexander Cooke (1829-1869) was born after the family moved back to the Hammock House. He went to Texas with his siblings and married Eleanor Ellen Shapard September 9, 1858 in Hempstead, Texas. The couple had five children. Alexander froze to death on February 8, 1869, when he fell in a ditch while walking home one night. (Family)

Henrietta Cooke (1831-1868) was the last child born to Henry M. and Frances Cooke. Henrietta’s mother died two years later. Henrietta went to Texas with her siblings and married twice, first to Maxmillian Buchanan Stockton in 1848, then to Josiah Young Rogers in 1850.

Sources:

·Thomas Williams Bicknell, The History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, New York, American Historical Society, Inc., 1920.

· Jacob Henry, Thomas Henderson Letterbook 1810-11

· Amy Muse, Story of the Methodist in Beaufort, New Bern, NC: Owen G. Dunn Co., 1941

· Maurice Davis, History of the Hammock House, Beaufort, NC, 1984.

· John E. Edwards, Reminiscences of Beaufort in 1839. As noted in The Story of the Methodist in Beaufort by Amy Muse.

· USGenWeb Project, Ellis County Texas GenWeb

· San Jacinto Museum of History, Herzstein Library, Veteran Biographies.

· Ancestry.com

· Family Bible and other records
. Jack Dudley, Beaufort - An Album of Memories
. US Post Office Records

First Woman Licensed as an Architect in North Carolina

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Georgina Pope Yeatman (1902-1982)

(Article from Pioneering Women Architects in North Carolina*)

Born in 1902 in New York, Georgina Yeatman came from an English family who immigrated to America. Her father Pope Yeatman, a successful geologist for the Guggenheims, was unusually supportive of her independence and professional goals. For example, Yeatman wanted to be an airplane pilot. She learned to fly in Philadelphia and by 1921, her parents built her a landing strip at their farm in Jaffrey NH.

Yeatman attended the University of Pennsylvania, obtaining an AB degree in 1922 at just 20 years old. There she played field hockey and basketball and founded the Women's Athletic Association. She continued on to pursue a BA degree and by 1924, she was the first woman to complete coursework in architecture. She did not graduate, however. The University of Pennsylvania refused to issue an architecture degree to a woman. Undaunted, Yeatman enrolled at MIT, which had no problem with gender. There she earned a BS in Architecture in 1925.

In 1928, she worked for Bissell and Sinkler and was the the first woman to practice architecture in Philadelphia. When that firm struggled financially, they asked her to take over as President. She joined the AIA in 1930. From 1936-1940 she was the City of Philadelphia's first woman Director of Architecture. In 1937, feeling guilty, the University of Pennsylvania finally awarded her the degree she richly deserved.

Nothing held her back. She travelled widely. According to her daughters Barbara and Mel, she also travelled to Panama, India, Egypt, and Africa. While flying over North Carolina, she admired the land north of Beaufort and starting in 1936 began accumulating property. She began with an old estate purchased from the University of Chicago. Yeatman made the former Metcalf hunting club house into her home and added two wings that she personally designed. It was originally located by the South River and Eastman's Creek. She built a dirt airstrip and hangar on two hay fields near the house. During WWII, to protect her planes from possible German takeover, she stored them inland at Mount Olive NC. She stopped flying in the 1940's.

By 1954, she sold the family farm in Jaffrey NH and moved their entire Guernsey dairy operations to Beaufort, eventually controlling over 45000 acres she called Open Grounds Farm.

To avoid hurricanes and flooding, she moved the house five miles inland in the early 1960s to Yeatman Lane near Merrimon Road. According to her daughter Mel, the house was still there in 2009 but was long ago abandoned. According to Ward King, who grew up in Open Grounds, it is in poor condition.

Because of the intense heat in eastern NC, Yeatman also owned a house in Asheville at 353 Midland Drive. She owned a house in Beaufort in Hancock Park on Live Oak Street as well, from which she had a phone. The farm had its own water and electricity but no phone or permanent utilities until the mid 1950's.
She was the very first woman to be registered as an architect in North Carolina. Beyond what was on her farm, she did not design any buildings in North Carolina.

By 1974, she was CEO of one of NC's largest farm operations. That year she sold Open Grounds, except for a few hundred acres including her house, to the Ferruzzi Group of Italy. The Italians grew the property to be the largest farm east of the Mississippi. The Italians built a second airstrip near the house in the late 1970's. This shows up on Google Maps just south of Yeatman Lane.

Yeatman was a major donor to NCSU and East Carolina University. According to her niece, Georgene Yeatman Taylor, she never married but in her 40's she adopted two girls, Grace (now known by her birth name as Barbara) and Mildred (who later changed her name to Mel). They called her Nini. Their nanny was Mary Brimmer.

Her business partner was Mildred Mulford (who died around 1980), whom she met in an architect's office in Philadelphia. Her close friend was Tom Wright, NC Episcopal Bishop. Grace Wilson, Mulford's sister, lived with them for a time. According to Ward King, Yeatman could do anything. "She was an excellent surgeon, cutting a fish hook out of my finger. It hurt but she fixed it. She hunted and fished and shot ducks with us all the time."

Sources include: Open Grounds Then and Now by Ruth P. Barbour, daughter Barbara Jean Yeatman, daughter Mel Yeatman, Ward King, nanny Mary Brimmer.

.............................................

*Above article quoted from: Pioneering Women Architects in North Carolina, Triangle Modernist Archive, Inc.
Google map added by Mary Warshaw

Historian Charles L. Paul and "Colonial Beaufort"- Beaufort, NC History

2011-09-16T12:07:00.021-04:00

"Sometime prior to the fall of 1713, permission had been obtained from the Lords Proprietors to lay out a town by the name of Beaufort at this site, and on October 2, 1713, Robert Turner had Richard Graves, Deputy Surveyor, lay out the town. A plat was made of the town by Graves and recorded in the office of the secretary of the colony. Streets were named; allotments were provided for a church, a town-house, and a market place; and lots were offered for sale. On that date, October 2, 1713, Beaufort came into existence." Charles L. Paul, Colonial Beaufort, page 20-21.
___________________________________________

In compiling Porchscapes, The Colors of Beaufort, North Carolina--Three Centuries of History Woven Through Art and Words, my main source in documenting Colonial Beaufort was the work of historian Charles L. Paul. His thesis, Colonial Beaufort: The History of a North Carolina Town, is now online on the Town of Beaufort, NC's website.

1996 Queen Anne's Revenge Discovery Leads to Raising 3000-pound Anchor May 27, 2011

2011-08-12T09:20:00.003-04:00

Artist's Drawing of Queen Anne's Revenge Run Aground
Courtesy NC Department of Cultural Resources

CLICK FOR LARGER RESOLUTIONS
Security at the QAR Site

November 1996 – A shipwreck is discovered in Beaufort Inlet by Intersal, Inc., with information provided to Operations Director Mike Daniel by company president Phil Masters. Many factors suggest it could be Queen Anne’s Revenge.

·     1997 - The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort becomes the official repository for the artifacts from this historic wreck and begins exhibiting them for the public.
·   Fall 1997 – The NC Underwater Archeology Branch, part of the NC Department of Cultural Resources, begins assessment of the site and recovery of additional artifacts. Each year since, state archeologists have conducted one to two field seasons at the site. Many seasons have been hampered by storms. All of them have been dependent on funding.
·   2003 – The state’s Queen Anne’s Revenge Conservation Lab is established on the campus of East Carolina University. A team of conservators work on cleaning, identifying and cataloging artifacts.
·   2010 – Work starts at the NC Maritime Museum on the planning for the first full scale exhibit of artifacts from the wreck The Friends of the Museum begin the fundraising efforts that will eventually fully fund the construction of the entire exhibit.
·   June 11, 2011 the first permanent and largest exhibit of the artifacts from Queen Anne’s Revenge, is scheduled to open. The museum staff and the Friends organization are working hard to put the finishing touches on the new nearly 1200 square feet dedicated to the exhibit and to the celebration of that event.

There has been interest around the nation and even international coverage about the artifacts. More than 50 news media have reported various aspects about Blackbeard, the artifacts, and the exhibit in the last six months. Over 130 individuals have become new members in anticipation of the June festivities and to support the exhibit. Including the participation and proceeds from the "Fish Towne Get Down 2010" and generous sponsors, more than $112 thousand has been donated and an additional $35 thousand of in-kind materials or advertising have made the “Life Aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge” exhibit and the celebration possible.

Archaeologists believe the site holds an estimated 750,000 artifacts, with approximately 50% recovered to date. Many of the artifacts are in the process of conservation, which often takes years. A small percentage of artifacts have been on exhibit at the Museum in Beaufort and in a temporary exhibit at the NC Museum of History in Raleigh.

Anchor Pulled to Surface May 27, 2011

(AP) MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. - Archaeologists recovered the first anchor from what's believed to be the wreck of the pirate Blackbeard's flagship off the North Carolina coast Friday, a move that might change plans about how to save the rest of the almost 300-year-old artifacts from the central part of the ship.

Divers had planned to recover the second-largest artifact on what's believed to be Queen Anne's Revenge but discovered it was too well-attached to other items in the ballast pile, said project Mark Wilde-Ramsing. Instead they pulled up another anchor that is the third-largest artifact and likely was the typical anchor for the ship.

Apparently, pirates had everyday anchors and special anchors just as the rest of us have everyday dishes and good china.

"That's a big ship to be putting that out to stop it," Wilde-Ramsing said admiringly as a pulley system of straps and men holding ropes moved the anchor from a boat to the back of truck. It's the first large anchor that divers have retrieved; they earlier brought up a small, grapnel anchor.

The anchor is 11 feet, 4 inches long with arms that are 7 feet, 7 inches across. It was covered with concretion — a mixture of shells, sand and other debris attracted by the leaching wrought iron — and a few sea squirts. Its weight was estimated at 2,500 to 3,000 pounds.

The anchor's size is typical for a ship the size of Queen Anne's Revenge, while the two other anchors probably were used in emergencies, such as storms, Wilde-Ramsing said.

Archaeologists had planned to remove the second-largest anchor, which is 13 feet long with arms that are 8 feet across, from the top of the ballast pile. But it was too well-attached, so instead the divers went in from the side to retrieve the everyday anchor. That means that future dives may involve going in from the side of the shipwreck rather than the top, he said.

Images courtesy North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources,
QAR and NCCoast.
SLIDESHOW images from N&O's Robert Willett

Quick Links:
QAR Anchor Hoisted to the Surface
Slideshow of Anchor Being Raised
QAR Discovery and Time Line
Queen Anne's Revenge Website
QAR Exhibit Video
QAR Anchor Recovery Video
LA Times June 19, 2011

Snapshot of Maritime History

2011-08-12T09:04:00.004-04:00

Silver Chalice - Reconstructed Ship's Boat

Michael B. Alford, then the curator of maritime research at the North Carolina Maritime Museum, designed Silver Chalice to represent and interpret the type of vessel used in 1685 during Richard Grenville's exploration of coastal North Carolina and in the establishment of the Ralph Lane colony. Geoffrey Scofield, as master builder, supervised construction of Silver Chalice at the Beaufort Museum for the Elizabeth II. Elizabeth II is now the centerpiece at Roanoke Island Festival Park. Roanoke Island is nestled between the North Carolina mainland and the Outer Banks. Images courtesy ncmaritimehistory.org

Elizabeth II in Beaufort, North Carolina

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USS Monitor-The Beaufort Link

Although Swedish inventor John Ericsson submitted plans, in 1854, to Napoleon III for an “impregnable battery” that included a revolving cupola, it wasn’t until 1861 that Ericsson’s plans for such an ironclad ship were accepted by the US Navy Department.

USS Monitor was launched from Continental Iron Works in Greenpoint, NY on January 30, 1862. In October Monitor spent several weeks at the Washington Navy Yard where it was repainted and modified. Battle damages were repaired with iron patches – each scar was labeled according to its origin: “Merrimac”- “Minnesota”- “Ft. Darling” and “Merrimac’s Prow”.

Shortly afterwards, on December 24, 1862, orders were issued for Monitor to proceed to Beaufort, North Carolina. On December 31 she encountered a severe storm several miles off the coast of North Carolina. Efforts by the crew were in vain and the ship slowly sank – four officers and 16 crewmen lost their lives. MORE...

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Periauger

Periauger, a long-lost Colonial boat, was constructed in Beaufort at the North Carolina Maritime Museum by The Periauger Project. The project was a unique partnership of the Perquimans County Restoration Association (the parent organization of the historic 1730 Newbold-White House in Hertford, NC), the North Carolina Maritime Museum, Perquimans County and East Carolina University’s Program in Maritime Studies. The project was made possible by a successful private fundraising campaign and through a grant from the NC Department of Transportation’s Enhancement Program. MORE...

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Swift Built in Beaufort

Bonnerton Boat

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Mail Boats

Prior to bridge and road construction in the eastern part of the Carteret County, mail boats were a lifeline for folks - used to deliver passengers, cargo as well as mail to points east of Beaufort - all the way to Ocracoke Island. The photo to your right is an example of a typical US Mail Boat.

The Beaufort mail boat was in service until the 1957. At one time Matt Marshal ran the mail boat from Beaufort. The town of Marshallberg was renamed for him. The Down East community of Marshallberg was originally named Deep Hole Point. It is said that clay dug from the area was used to fill ramparts and cover easements at Fort Macon on Bogue Banks - leaving a large hole. MORE...

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Shad Boat - Spirit of Roanoke

Photo circa 1900

Sometime about the mid-1870’s, Roanoke Island boat builder George Washington Creef began building a new style boat. Creef, who had earlier built log boats, combined those techniques with conventional planking methods and produced a craft that sailed very well, was able to carry heavy loads, and could navigate in shallow water. Creef shaped his boat hull from the root ball of Atlantic white cedar, also known as Juniper, trees that grew along the shoreline of the pocosin wetland region of southeast Virginia and northeast North Carolina. MORE...

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Crissie Wright

Model by Jim Goodwin - Click Image for More

On January 7, 1886, the Philadelphia schooner Crissie Wright, on her way from Baltimore to Savannah, was forced to beach herself three miles east of Beaufort during the bitter winter of 1886. Six of the crew drowned and froze to death. Two of the crew were lost at sea and three were buried in a common grave in Beaufort’s Old Burying Ground.

Amy Muse wrote, in the History of the Methodist Church, “…..that winter so cold that no one remembered its like before or has acknowledged its equal since. The winter when Crissie Wright foundered on Shackelford Banks, the crew lashed to the rigging and freezing while men who would rescue them could only signal helplessly from our shore unable to put out a boat in the storm.

The Nellie B. Dey, Mr. Dey's fish boat, finally brought the victims in to the wharf at the foot of Turner Street. But one man was revived; the others were laid out in the sample room of Mr. Billy Dill's hotel on the southwest corner of Front and Turner Streets and Mr. Jurney buried them in the graveyard back of the Church. MORE...

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Samuel Chadwick the Whaler

Whaling License issued to Samuel Chadwick 1726

Chadwick's license: "To Samuel Chadwick you are hereby permitted with three boats to fish for whale or Other Royall fish on ye Seay Coast of this Government and whatsoever you shall catch to convert to your own use paying to ye Hon, ye Governor one tenth parte of ye Oyls and bone Made by Vertue of this License. By ye Hon. y Govern. Ord."

Samuel Chadwick 1691/96-1749 came to the Core Sound area from the Cape Cod area in 1726. He was born in Falmouth, Barnstable County, Massachusetts to Samuel Chadwick 1645-1707 and Mary Stocker 1670- married January 22, 1685. His grandfather John Chadwick 1601-1680, the immigrant, was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, England. Samuel, the whaler, married Mary Bosworth 1695-1749 about the same time he ventured to the Straits area of Core Sound, North Carolina. It appears that Samuel’s brothers and/or cousins Ephraim Ephraim 1700-1762 and Ebenezer Chadwick 1685-1765 were part of the whaling group that traveled to North Carolina. MORE...

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THE STORY OF NORTH CAROLINA'S MARITIME MUSEUM
Written in 2000 for the the Museum's 25th Anniversary

Hampton Mariners Museum 1960 Turner Street - Drawing by Mamre Wilson

Though the museum has roots back to the 1898 International Fisheries Exposition

in Bergen, Norway, the year 2000 was chosen as the 25th Anniversary.

"My family and I came down from New Bern on an excursion train," recalls J.O Barbour, long time resident, and machinist and local businessman, describing an event he says happened about 1917. "We went over to a building on Piver's Island. It was open to the public on occasion, but it wasn't an everyday thing. I saw huge turtles there and they were alive and kept in a circular pen. That was quite a sight for a kid five or six years old. And we went in the building and saw the exhibits. I remember that very well." MORE...

Early Bogue Banks and the Borden Connection

2011-08-09T10:40:00.019-04:00

Bogue - the word and the name:

In old Norman-French and Spanish, “bogue” signified a mouth; used in Spanish topography to describe a narrow channel or passage of water.
A bayou, stream or waterway; Choctaw creek, stream or river.
William Bogue settled in Perquimans Precinct, in the Albemarle of Carolina by 1689. Descendants Josiah and Mark Bogue were noted in Jones County in 1790, near Bogue Banks; much too late for the inlet to carry the Bogue name.
John Lawson’s 1709 map noted “Bogue Inlet”—most likely a name used by Indians who fished and hunted on the sand banks.

JOHN LAWSON'S 1709 MAP NOTED "BOGUE INLET"

Bogue Inlet, Bogue Banks and Bogue Sound - The Early Years
During his 1524 voyage, it is believed that Verrazano sent a man ashore on what would become known centuries later as Bogue Banks—an east-west barrier island, a few miles southwest of Beaufort Inlet. The Indians encountered were Coranine or Coree.

In his 2009 book, Bogue Banks - A Look Back, Jack Dudley wrote "Edward Moseley conveyed two tracts of land totaling 35,000 acres on Bogue Banks to Christopher Gale in 1717. In 1720 Louis Mitchell conveyed 2,500 acres to Christopher Gale. The Lords Proprietors also granted Gale 9461 acres. Gale, like many investors, was an absentee owner; his patent lapsed and the island was claimed by William Borden" [between 1732 and 1733.]

Part of 1798 NORTH CAROLINA SURVEY

A shipbuilder from Rhode Island, “…in 1732 William Borden disposed of his business and removed to North Carolina." 1 William Borden, Sr. settled his family on the west side of Harlowe Creek which flows into the north side of Newport River—known as the Mill Creek area—where they built a shipyard and sawmill. The first Quaker meeting in Carteret County was organized on August 1, 1733, at the home of William Borden.2 Borden quickly amassed wealth and became one of the largest landowners in Carteret County.

The original 1733 Edward Moseley Map, “A New and Correct Map of the Province of North Carolina,” included an inset titled “Port Beaufort or Topsail Inlet.” That inset noted the eastern tip of Bogue Banks as “Part of Burden’s Island.” The eastern tip of Bogue Banks was only a few miles south of Borden’s shipyard and sawmill at the mouth of the Newport River. Governor George Burrington described the nearby town of Beaufort, at this time, as one of “little success and scarce any inhabitants.”

BRICKELL MAP circa 1729

John Brickell’s 1737 book, A Natural History of North Carolina, included his “Map of North Carolina.” This map, most likely created after 1729 (noting of New Hanover Precinct formed in 1729), noted Bogue Inlet, Bogue Banks and Bogue Sound.

William Borden Sr. built his Beaufort home about 1768. He was able to view the east end of Bogue/Borden Banks from either of his two porches overlooking Taylor’s Creek.

1798 SURVEY NOTED "BORDENS BANKS"

1798 Survey hand-colored print, mounted on linen, by Jonathan Price; To David Stone and Peter Brown Esqrs. This First Actual Survey of the State of North Carolina Taken by the Subscribers is respectfully dedicated By their humble Servants Jona. Price, John Strother.3 On the west end of the island near Swansborough, this map noted Borden Banks, Bogue Inlet and Bogue Sound, as well as “Bill Borden” as owner of the acreage across the sound.

In 1799, William Borden Jr. inherited the “dwelling house and manor plantation” with all the old patent land and 800 acres to be laid out at Harlowe Creek. Borden Sr. left many acres of land on Borden Banks to be divided among his children and grandchildren.

1863 drawing from H.E. Valentine’s sketchbook; caption notes “Borden Banks"

1Historical and Genealogical Record of the Descendants, as Far as is Known, of Richard and Joan Borden Who Settled in Portmouth, RI in 1638, published in 1899, Hattie Borden Weld
2NC Highway Historical Marker Program essay; ID: C-35, CORE SOUND MEETING, Location: NC 101 southeast of Harlowe, Carteret County
3 North Carolina State Archives

1960-61 Reenactments of 1747 Spanish Intrusions

2011-07-04T14:00:00.014-04:00

July 9, 1960

In the 1740s, Spanish privateers began roaming the coastal waters of North Carolina. Beaufort's normal maritime activity was interrupted or threatened on several occasions by the presence of these privateers, whose vessels rendezvoused in the large natural harbor provided by Cape Lookout Bight.

On at least three occasions between June and September of 1747, it was necessary to muster local troops to resist the intruders. On June 14, 1747, the Spanish entered Beaufort harbor and made off with several small vessels; at the time a militia of only thirteen men was posted in Beaufort.

Click above image to view other 1747 militia groups posted by Joel S. Russell

Led by Major Enoch Ward, the militia held them off until August 26 when the Spanish put a landing party ashore and took possession of the town.

In early September Colonel Thomas Lovick and Captain Charles Cogdell gathered more men to finally rid the town of these invaders. It has been said that without the help of close to 100 farmers and locals, the militia may not have prevailed. Local folklore suggests that several Spaniards died and were buried in the Old Burying Ground.

On July 9, 1960, town firemen participated in Beaufort's first reenactment of the Spanish invasion--implemented from an idea by Grayden Paul.

Above are pirates who participated in the 1960 reenactment.

Above...First row: L to R - Norwood Gaskin, Bud Taylor, Gerald Woolard, Freddy Snooks, Bobby Hudgins and Elmond Rhue. Second row: L to R - Bud Smith, Jackie Chaplain (Jesse's father), Neal Willis (Linda Sadler's father), Allen Willis, Bryan Loftin, Joe Long and Frank Langdale. Photos taken by Roy Eubanks; photo IDs from Jesse Chaplain. Photos courtesy Linda Willis Sadler. Click images to enlarge.

In his book, Beaufort by the Sea - Memories of a Lifetime, Neal Willis wrote,

In June 1960, there was a re-enactment of the 1700s invasion of Beaufort by Spanish sailors (who had run out of food and supplies). It was staged on Front Street near the Post Office. A fort was erected on the island across from Branch Bank.

The pirates were members of the Fire Department and were dressed as pirates were thought to have looked. We wore bandannas, nautical outfits and carried plastic cutlasses and guns. The town defenders were mostly merchants dressed in overalls and straw hats and carrying guns.

We pirates were brought in on a large boat and were transferred to a lifeboat used as the pirate boat. The pirates rowed the boat over to the island and attacked the fort. It was set on fire. Then we rowed across to the shore and charged over the breakwater with blood curdling screams, waving cutlasses and firing guns.

We (fireman) pirates had been practicing the landing for a week, mostly when the tide was high. When the real landing came, the tide was low. The boat ran aground about six feet from the shore. The bow was on land but the rest of the boat was over water about ten feet deep. We didn't know the water was that deep until we went over the side and went over our heads. Our pirate costumes were wet and coming apart. Our guns were wet and some didn't fire. Our cutlasses were floating away. But we still charged the defenders. We put up quite a fight. After the battle, the town defenders loaded us into horse drawn wooden carts and carried us to the jail..

Some of the same pirates participated again in 1961.

New Note Cards by Mary Warshaw

2011-06-17T09:15:00.007-04:00

Old Burying Ground - Graphite Drawing

Note Card

Old Burying Ground card excerpt: With its iron gates and ancient live oaks, the town’s most important landmark evokes an air of age, peace and mystery. Burials in the graveyard may have begun before 1724, but in that year town trustees deeded a lot to the wardens of St. John’s Parish. In 1731, an adjacent lot was added to the burying ground. Burials were probably confined to these two lots until 1820, when the Methodists acquired adjacent property and erected a new church. The lot acquired in 1731 was full by 1828, creating a need for additional space. The Baptists . . .

Other New Cards

Watercraft Center and Maritime Museum, Front Street Houses

1771 Morse House and 1764 Langdon House

Available at Scuttlebutt

Garbacon Plantation

2011-06-13T09:08:00.003-04:00

Capt. John Nelson 1675-1759 owned large tracts of land north and south of the Neuse River including Garbacon Creek plantation, then in Craven County which became Carteret County in 1885. Capt. John Nelson signed a petition in 1712 asking that the court be held in the area. He was on the first vestry of St. John’s Parish. Capt. Nelson’s grandson John Hancock Nelson inherited Garbacon and also owned the 1790 Nelson House on Front Street.

When Union troops took over Fort Macon and the town of Beaufort in 1862, the Thomas Duncan family, refusing to take an oath of allegiance, was provided transportation "beyond the lines." According to family legend, the Duncans stashed some valuables, perhaps in the cistern, and went to Garbacon Creek Plantation in South River.

The name “Garbacon” was derived from the fact that gar, a small variety of the bony fish, when hung out to dry, looked like strips of bacon.

This photograph of the original Nelson plantation was uploaded to ancientfaces.com in 2001 by Gail Swain.

Wreckage Found May Be That of "Crissie Wright"

2011-06-09T22:06:00.010-04:00

Carteret News-Times, Wednesday, June 8, 2011- Cheryl Burke

Mural Portraying Crissie Wright in Post Office by Simka Simkhovitch - 1939

BEAUFORT — A nonprofit marine archaeology company here thinks it may have found a legendary shipwreck off Shackleford Banks.

Rob Smith, president of Surface Interval Dive Co., based in Beaufort, said he believes his company has found the three-masted schooner Crissie Wright, which ran aground and partially sank in shallow water off Shackleford Banks on Jan. 8, 1886, near the now-vanished community of Wade’s Shore. All but one of its crew perished in the wreck.

“I’d been looking for the wreck on and off for the last 12 years,” he said Tuesday. “Then in April we found a debris field. And on our last trip on May 29 our magnetometer started singing like Ethel Merman. Our readings showed a large wreck and it’s in the right location. I’m 85 percent sure it’s the Crissie Wright.” MORE . . .

The Blackbeard Painting

2011-06-08T13:22:00.002-04:00

"UNDER THE BLACK FLAG"

oil on linen. 30"x 48"

This painting depicts actual artifacts recovered from the shipwreck

believed to be Blackbeard's flagship Queen Anne's Revenge

by Beaufort artist Jack Saylor

This is a post about one of the most unique still life paintings ever created and no I'm not too modest to say it. Not that one doesn't exist, but I have never heard of a still life painting of artifacts, much less shipwreck artifacts and pirates at that! But not just any pirate, we're talking Blackbeard. Not the Disney version, no yo ho ho or Hollywood fantasy....this is the real deal. In 1718 a ship grounded on a bar just off the inlet leading into the port town of Beaufort, NC where I live and work. It was the large French Slave Ship once known as La Concorde but renamed after her capture Queen Anne's Revenge by her captor, the pirate now known as Blackbeard. This was Blackbeard's flagship and the story goes that he had the ship grounded purposely (while he and his closest mates were in another sloop) in order to break up the large pirate company that he had assembled and thus making for larger shares of future prizes for the crew members that remained. In November of 1996, the wreckage of the ship "Queen Anne's Revenge" was found at the spot where she originally grounded in 1718. It soon became apparent that a treasure trove of artifacts went down with the ship and an all out recovery effort began which continues today.

A few years ago my wife and I owned a house here in Beaufort which was right around the corner from a house said to have been frequented by Blackbeard, and some claim that he even built it, not true. One day I was working at the easel and had an idea like a lightening bolt strike me right out of the blue. I wasn't even thinking anything close to this at the time...just WHAMMO! What if I could get access to the artifacts from the "Queen Anne's Revenge" and do a still life painting of them. I immediately saw the painting, flag and all. I could hardly contain myself.
READ Jack Saylor's complete post...
Friends of the NC Maritime Museum

Borden Skiff

2011-06-03T23:17:00.005-04:00

Borden Spritsail Skiff - Date Unknown - Courtesy ncmaritimehistory.org

This photograph was obviously taken in the front yard of the historic William Borden House on Front Street. Trees are blocking the view of the Belcher Fuller House next door. There appears to be a cistern in the front yard behind the skiff.

Samuel Chadwick the Whaler and Family

2011-04-17T11:27:00.016-04:00

The Straits - Core Sound, NC - Shows Chadwick's Creek - Detail from 1907 Map Below

"Ocracoke to Beaufort Including Core Sound" 1907 Map

Samuel Chadwick 1691/96-1749, the whaler, came to the Core Sound area from the Cape Cod area in 1726. He was born in Falmouth, Barnstable County, Massachusetts to Samuel Chadwick 1645-1707 and Mary Stocker 1670- married January 22, 1685. His grandfather John Chadwick 1601-1680, the immigrant, was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, England. Samuel, the whaler, married Mary Bosworth 1695-1749 about the same time he ventured to the Straits area of Core Sound, North Carolina. It appears that Samuel’s brothers and/or cousins Ephraim Ephraim 1700-1762 and Ebenezer Chadwick 1685-1765 were part of the whaling group that traveled to North Carolina.

A lease in 1723 allowed Governor Burrington, Christopher Gale and John Lovick to take whales along the coast between Cape Fear and Currituck Inlet for a term of seven years. A whaling license was issued in 1726 to Samuel Chadwick. Chadwick and three other residents of Carteret precinct, Bath County, were permitted to whale with three boats...When Chadwick bought 130 acres at Straits, NC, in 1725 he described himself as "late of New England but now an inhabitant of Carteret Precinct." Descendant Amy Muse speculated that he may have "fished" on the Carolina coast before 1726. According to Muse, "Masters of the early New England whaling sloops landed them with tackle and stores in Port Beaufort during the months from Christmas to April. Then they set up camps on the Sandy Banks off shore and the whalers went out from there in small whaling boats." Source: NOAA History of Whaling In or Near North Carolina.

Whaling License issued to Samuel Chadwick 1726

Only a few Sperm Whales were recorded to have been caught during the first few decades (1709-1730s) of offshore whaling, as sloops concentrated on Nantucket Shoals where they would have taken Right Whales or were sent to the Davis Strait region to catch Bowhead Whales.

By the early 1740s, with the advent of spermaceti candles (before 1743), American vessels appear to have begun to take Sperm Whales in earnest. The diary of Benjamin Bangs (1721-1769) shows that, along with the bumpkin sloop he was in, he found three other sloops with Sperm Whales being flensed alongside off the coast of North Carolina in late May 1743. On returning to Nantucket in the summer 1744 on a subsequent sperm whaling voyage he noted that "45 spermacetes are brought in here this day," another indication that American sperm whaling was in full swing. Image and text courtesy Whale Hunters.

1725 Land Transfer

This indenture made ye 31st day of May anno Dom 1725 between Solomon Smith of Craven Prect in ye county of Bath and in ye Province of North Carolyna of ye one parte and Samuel Chadwick late of New England but now an inhabitant of Carteret Prect in ye County and province aforesaid of ye other parts witnesseth that ye said Solloman Smith for an in Consideration of sum of fourty-five pounds good and lawful money of this Province in hand paide att and before ye ensealing and delivery of these presents by ye sd Sam Chadwick well and truly paide ye receipt whereof he ye sd So Smith do hereby acknowledge and himself therewith fully satisfied contented and paid and thereof and every part and parcell thereof doth clearly acquitt exonerate and discharge ye sd Sam'l Chadwick his heirs ex and adms forever by these presents hath given granted aliened bargained sold infeoffed and confirmed and by these presents doth fully clearly and absolutely give grant bargain sell alien infeoff and confirm unto ye sd Sam Chadwick his heirs and assigns forever all that tract and parcell of land containing by estimation one hundred and thirty acres situate lying and being in ye Prect of Carteret and County and Province aforesaid beginning on ye Straits side on ye land which Mr. Joseph Bell now lives on then along ye water side to ye mouth of a creek parting ye premises and Mr. Richard Whitehurst's land, then up ye Creek N 20 degrees et 234 pole to a marked pine then south 22 degrees east 29 pole to ye first station which sd tract of land was taken up by Wm. Williams and by him sold and transferred to Mr. Richard Smith late of this County deceased and by ye said Rich Smith in his last will and testament given and bequeathed unto ye sd Sollomon Smith....
Source: Carteret County Deeds, Court House, Beaufort, Book C, p. 121 Solloman Smith to Samuel Chadwick

"Whale on Beach at Beaufort" - NOAA

From North Carolina Will Abstracts:

The following children Samuel and Mary Chadwick were mentioned in this 1749 North Carolina Will Abstract: Sons: Thomas, Isaiah, Gayer ("my manner plantation"). Daughters: Tamar Chadwick, Sarah Chadwick, Mary Chadwick. Executors: Samuel Whitehurst, Thomas Chadwick, Isaiah Chadwick. Witnesses: Joseph Bray, Rebecca Chadwick, Rachel Young. Clerk of the Court: Geo. Read.

From ancestry.com family trees:

Sabra Sarah Chadwick 1728-1810 married Nathan Davis 1723-1808 in 1745

Thomas Martin Chadwick 1730-1802 married Rachael Young 1728-1805 in 1750

Isaiah Chadwick 1732-1781 married Abigail Davis 1732-1758

Tamar Chadwick 1734-

James Chadwick 1734-

Sarah Chadwick 1737-1810

Gayer Chadwick 1735-1815 married Elizabeth K. Logan 1739-1803

Mary Chadwick 1744-

From the history of the Gloucester-Straits Community

Gayer Chadwick, youngest of whaling master Samuel, sold groceries and whiskey at a store on his property on the east side of Whitehurst’s Creek, which he had inherited from his father Samuel. Gayer and his wife Elizabeth reared six children. After Elizabeth died about 1800, Gayer married Sarah Piner; she was soon known as “Sallie Gayer.” After Gayer’s death in 1815, Sallie kept the store until her death sometime after 1820.

Many wind-powered grist mills are known to have existed along the Straits. One of the earliest is believe to have been built by Samuel Chadwick, a New Englander, who acquired many acres in Straits beginning in 1725 just before closing of the whaling season that year, and twelve months before the date of his fishing license granted by a royal governor. Samuel’s grandson Barnabus had a grist mill near the east side of the mouth of Whitehurst’s Creek.

CARTERET WILLS AND INVENTORIES - State Archives, Raleigh
Inventory of Samuel Chadwick's Estate
An inventory of all and Singular the goods and chattles Rights and Credits of the Estate of Samuel Chadwick, Es1., Decs taken by us Sam Whitehurst, Thomas Chadwick and Isiah Chadwick executors of the estate.
Four hundred and seventy-eight acres of land, two hundred acres of land, one Island of Marsh, eleven negroes, sixty-one head of cattle, fifty-eight head of sheep, nine head of hogs, two horses, four feather beds and furniture, ten pistoles in gold, Book debts two hundred and ninety-eight pounds, eleven shillings, eight Pense, the wearing apparel to the value of ninety-seven pounds, eighteen shillings, fourteen barrels of oyl and four barrels of Myrtle wax, one hundred and fifty-one yards of oznage(?), three small anchors, one small cable, thirty wt. of cordage, fourteen an one half yards of damask, six pounds of iron, five pots and one kettle, iron 3 guns,four chests, one chest of drawers, three pair andirons, one pr. fire tongs, one frying pan, two cases with bottles five pewter dishes, one dozen pewter plates, nine pewter basons, eight cheers, two spinning wheels, one oval table, two pot tramels, two looking glasses, eight books, two pr. scales with weights, two pair stillards, three pewter measurers (two quarts, one quart,and a pint), two earthen bowls, three earthen muggs, one warming pan, two pair cotton cards, one hour glass, two ploughs, one hand mill, one loom, one pr. bellows, one old handsaw, one silver spoon, four Iron candle sticks, one pair mill stones, one cutlafs, one pr. silver buckles, one pewter bason, two pr pott hooks, two spades, one flesh fork, one iron ladle, two shovels, one hatchet, six club axes, six hoes, one hundred and fifty pounds (old tennar), two syths…

More Research on Samuel Leffers

2011-03-18T10:32:00.011-04:00

Samuel Leffers was born November 7, 1736 in Hempstead, Queens, New York. He came to Beaufort in 1764, at age 28, recruited to teach at the Beaufort school. Samuel Leffers spent 58 Years in Beaufort as schoolmaster, surveyor, Clerk of Court, merchant and planter. Leffers died in 1822 and was buried in Beaufort's Old Burying Ground. Samuel married Sarah Hampton (1739-1808) November 30, 1766 in Straits, Carteret County, NC. Sarah was born in Staten Island, Richmond, New York. Leffer's Lineage. Previous Post.

New Beaufort Site - Old Postcards

2010-12-24T14:03:00.012-05:00

Otway Burns' Grave with Cannon - Old Burying Ground
Durwood Barbour Collection . NC Collection . UNC Chapel Hill

M.B. Gowdy, Beaufort Studio, Beaufort, NC circa 1905

BEAUFORT, NC - OLD POSTCARDS

Postcards from the University of North Carolina Collection
and the East Carolina University Collection.

African-Americans in Beaufort - 1995 Study

2010-09-11T18:00:00.017-04:00

Excerpts from Beaufort's African-American History and Architecture by Peter B. Sandbeck, Historic Preservation Consultant. The project was done in 1995 for The Beaufort Historic Preservation Commission and was funded by the Town of Beaufort with a matching grant from the National Park Service, through the NC Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History.

Images included on this page were not part of the study; sources included with each image.

Woodcutter "Lorse" Anderson
Beaufort: Jack Dudley - Duke University Archives

INTRODUCTION: From 1800 to 1990, Beaufort’s black residents have numbered at least twenty-five percent of the total population, with that number rising to as much as fifty percent during and immediately after the Civil War. Despite such large numbers, the African-American society of this historic coastal port town has remained largely unknown and undocumented. Few of the thousands of tourists who visit the town’s historic waterfront every year are aware that blacks have been a vital part of Beaufort’s maritime culture since the eighteenth century. In its traditional location north of busy highway US 70 or Cedar Street, the black neighborhood remains separated from Beaufort’s older historic district and is very much a town within a town, a community with an important history. Much more...

Dredge-spoil Island - Town Marsh

2010-08-06T08:46:00.025-04:00

1850 - Beaufort Harbor- United States Coast Survey

Many still refer to both islands across Taylor's Creek on the Beaufort waterfront as Carrot Island. But, in fact, the island directly across from the Beaufort dock and shops is actually Town Marsh (Island). Carrot Island begins at "the cut" across from Carrot Island Lane.

In 1854 Town Marsh was three-eighths of a mile long. By 1885 Town Marsh had more than doubled in length and its northern shoreline moved even closer to the Beaufort waterfront. The growth of Town Marsh had made the Taylor's Creek channel almost unusable.

In 1893 the citizens of Beaufort asked the federal government to build a breakwater on Town Marsh to protect the channel along the town's waterfront. The request was denied, but in the early 1900s the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers began dredging the mouth of Taylor's Creek, using Carrot Island and Town Marsh as dredge material deposition areas. Before the dredging these islands were essentially all tidal marsh with some elevated hammock land. By the 1930s the islands had been built up by the dredge material deposition to the point that they provided protection for the town from high winds, flooding and storm waves. The Corps of Engineers continued to utilize the islands as deposition sites for local dredging projects and maintain rights for this purpose even today.

Along with the map above, the viewer can more easily see the progression of these dredge-spoil islands. Click images for better views.

1857

1888

1944

2010

Information gathered from various sources including Rachel Carson Reserve

and North Carolina Map Collection.
Click for more on these and other islands that make up Beaufort Harbor.

"Pecan Tree Inn"

2010-08-03T09:01:00.023-04:00

Franklin Masonic Lodge circa 1866

Hugh Jones House circa 1900
Pecan Tree Inn since 1992

Photo after 1926

Pecan Tree Inn 116 Queen Street
Beaufort, NC Historic Home for Sale

Below history from
Porchscapes, The Colors of Beaufort, NC
Three Centuries of History Woven Through Art and Words

Crop from Gray's 1877 map (click to enlarge)

This lot, in the first block of Queen Street and only steps from Taylor’s Creek, was deeded to the Franklin Masonic Lodge in 1866 by Rebecca Pigot. The laying of the cornerstone was celebrated by members of the lodge and other lodges in town, all decked out in full regalia. The parade proceeded down Front Street to the Queen Street site.

After his marriage to his cousin Annie Leecraft Jones in 1897, Hugh Cole Jones acquired the property in1900 and converted the lodge into a private residence.

Hugh Cole Jones (1870–1954) was the son of Benjamin Leecraft Jones and grandson of the Reverend John Jones. He grew up in the stately Jones house at the corner of Broad and Live Oak Streets. The 1900 Beaufort census shows Hugh Jones as a wholesale merchant with a general store. The 1930 census describes him as manager of a hardware store with real estate value of $6000.

Hugh Jones’s wife Annie Leecraft Jones (1876–1958) was the daughter of Howard Cole Jones and Esther Adams. Annie and Hugh shared the same grandfather—the Reverend John Jones. Annie and Hugh’s 1897 marriage marked the first marriage in the newly remodeled Ann Street Methodist Church.

According to Debra Hancock Wolfe, in The Heritage of Carteret County, Annie Jones was the first woman to serve on a school board. She also taught in the Masonic Lodge that became her home. Annie was also a Sunday-school teacher for thirty years and president of the Woman’s Club.

When he purchased this structure, Hugh Jones added five bedrooms and three beautiful Victorian porches. It is believed that the Jones house was the first in Beaufort to have gas lighting, indoor plumbing and a telephone. Some accounts say that Mrs. Jones insisted that the phone be installed on a pine tree in the yard in case it attracted lightning.

Jones children reared in the house were: Annie Neal, born in 1898; Howard Cole (1900–1997); Nellie Blair, born in 1903; Benjamin Leecraft (1904–1991); Bessie Lee, born in 1909 and twins—Helen Louise and Hugh Allen, born in 1917. Hugh Allen died in a plane crash during World War II.

In his book, Beaufort by the Sea, Memories of a Lifetime, Neal Willis remembered the lodge being called “The Yellow Lodge” due to its color at the time. Neal’s father, “Cap’n” Jack Willis, belonged to the Knights of Harmony who met at the lodge. Neal Willis also remembered going to school in the building in 1933 after a hurricane damaged the Beaufort school.

Being one of the larger buildings in Beaufort, it often doubled as a schoolhouse. Subsequent years saw it used for Sunday school, a tea house, a doctor's office and an apartment house that was popular with students at the Duke Marine Laboratory on Piver’s Island.

In 1992 the Hugh Cole Jones house was restored by Joe and Susan Johnson and converted into a lovely bed & breakfast—the Pecan Tree Inn.

The Franklin Lodge was described by the 1997 Ruth Little Survey: “Stylish Queen Anne two-story house has deck-on-hip roof with widow’s walk, pedimented front and side-gable wings. Plain siding, 1/1 replacement sash, two tall interior brick chimneys, two-story cutaway, bracketed bay windows in front, side-gable wings and first-story entrance with sidelights and transom. Elaborate wraparound porch has turned posts, railing, spindle frieze, sawnwork brackets and upper balustrade. On Gray’s 1882 map the Masonic Lodge stood on this lot. Enlarged and remodeled as a house circa 1900.”

Of note, by 1908 Franklin Masonic Lodge #109 was located at 204 Turner Street in the circa 1845 building that was used by 1882 as the Beaufort Academy, by 1885 as Stephen Decatur Poole's ladies seminary and by 1898 a public hall.

Pecan Tree Inn
Beaufort, NC Historic Home for Sale

Captain Ireland

2010-07-25T08:58:00.031-04:00

JOHN EARLS IRELAND HOUSE circa 1887

Born in 1837 on Portsmouth Island, North Carolina, John Earls Ireland came from a family of mariners and eventually became a seafaring man himself. His parents were Earls and Matilda Roberts Ireland. In October 1858, he married Nancy J. Simmons, also of Portsmouth Island. Her parents were James Simmons and Lucinda Goodwin Simmons. The fathers of both John and Nancy were sailors.

Records show John E. Ireland, age thirty-two, living on Portsmouth in 1870 with his wife and five children. In 1880 the whole family, including Nancy’s father, was living in Beaufort.

In 1887, Captain Ireland purchased a portion of land, including the lot on which the house now stands, from William B. and Emily Francis Duncan. It is believed he built the two story house in 1887 on a section of the lot on the corner of Broad Street and Orange Street and facing Broad Street.

Fortune did not always smile on the Ireland family while they occupied the house. Their daughter Matilda died in the house in February 1887 at age twenty-one. Newspaper accounts tell of Captain Ireland’s schooner, The Charles, running aground at Oregon Inlet in September of 1887.

In July of 1893, The New Bern Weekly Journal reported that Captain Ireland was feared lost with his ship, in a tremendous gale. He left Swansboro in June bound for Philadelphia, but had not been heard from since the departure. Two weeks after the report, another article declared Ireland to have been “an old time Coaster and fully understood his profession.” The Charles was said to have weathered many storms and been beached twice, but that it appeared “the gallant ship was sunk at last in a hungry sea.”

The New Bern Weekly Journal of August 10, 1893 reported that the top of The Charles’ cabin drifted ashore at Hatteras and the body of a man wrapped in a small standing jib drifted ashore at Kennekeet. The body could not be identified but was presumed to be that of Captain Ireland.

John Ireland left behind his wife, who was an invalid and blind. Also surviving him were five children, three of whom were married. One son, James, became a mariner and resided in Beaufort the rest of his life. He is buried in the Episcopal cemetery.

After the tragedy it appears that Ireland’s wife and children sold the house and lot to J.B. Jones and Jno Forlaw in 1893.

Sometime between 1893 and 1908, it appears the house was turned and moved a short distance south on the lot to its present location on Orange Street. It was also enlarged during this period.

The blue hydrangea was once treasured by Mary Murphy who occupied the home for thirty-five years.

The house was completed renovated in 1999 by Billy and Susan Martin; work was done by restoration specialist Gerry Sadler.

House history from Porchscapes - The Colors of Beaufort

Beaufort Woman's Club

2010-06-27T23:20:00.002-04:00

The Beaufort Woman’s Club, established 1921, was originally called the Beaufort Community Club.

In Beaufort Scrapbook, Russell wrote, “The Beaufort Woman’s Club has always had challenging plans to serve the community whether in education, preservation, public affairs, conservation, the arts or other areas. Little did I realize all that generations of Woman’s Club members had accomplished until I was given the opportunity to look through years of Woman’s Club scrapbooks.

FIRST SCHOOL CAFETERIA
“In 1932, Woman’s Club members began the first school cafeteria in Carteret County to serve students at Beaufort Graded School. This was beneficial in providing hot, nourishing, balanced meals for students during the Depression.”

LIBRARY AT DEPOT
When rail passenger service was terminated in 1938, owners of the passenger-train depot were persuaded to sell the vacant building to the Town of Beaufort to use as its library. The 2,570 square foot building required considerable refurbishing. Active in the library since 1921, the Beaufort Woman’s Club once again came to the rescue raising funds for the work. When the library was ready for a new building, the Woman’s Club also raised $4000.

FIRST OLD HOMES TOUR(S)
According to Nancy Russell, “Beaufort’s first Old Homes Tour, sponsored by the Woman’s Club, was on May 22, 1957. Newspaper articles stated that five early homes were opened to the public for an afternoon tour that lasted from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. for the cost of $1.00 ticket. Only 125 tickets were to be sold. During the afternoon, Mr. Van Potter gave tours of the Old Burying Ground, and art and relic exhibits were offered as part of the tour.

“According to newspaper clippings, it was 1969 that the Woman’s Club and Beaufort Historical Association jointly sponsored the Homes Tour, and in 1972, the proceeds of the tour went to the Historical Association.”

Ruth Barbour wrote in the History of the BHA, "The Woman’s Club sponsored the first Old Homes tour in May 1957. It was so successful, the club planned another for 1958. There was no tour in 1959, but the club sponsored it again for the town’s 251st anniversary in 1960, continuing it as an annual event until 1980, when the historical association assumed sponsorship as part of the Old Homes Weekend the last weekend in June.

"When the Woman’s Club first proposed an Old Homes Tour, a club scrapbook of 1958 says, 'People did not oppose our plans in the beginning – they just laughed at us.' 'Pay money to go inside my neighbor’s house? It’s nothing to see. Why it’s at least 150 years old. Who want to see that?'

"Mrs. Myrtle Duncan Sutton, Marion, N.C., recalls, in a letter dated March 27, 1989, how the Woman’s Club developed the idea: 'The club decided to have a special event to which all clubs of the New Bern District would be invited. The event was a tour of five historic Beaufort homes. It was an idea whose time had come! We had visitors galore. At the time of the tour, Ruth Davis (Mrs. Charles Davis) was president. Mabel (Mrs. W. M.) Gilchrist was project chairman. Every club member participated.'

"The five homes opened on that 1957 tour were Mrs. Julius (Sarah) Duncan’s home at the west end of Front Street, the home of Mrs. Joseph (Elizabeth) House, 201 Front St., the Buckman house, 114 Ann, Mrs. W. N. (Mabel) Gilchrist’s home (Piner house), at Howland Rock, and Mrs. Graham (Myrtle) Duncan’s home, 124 Queen Street. (The Buckman house was owned at that time by George and Eileen Taylor.)

"The 1958 tour on Wednesday, June 18, featured the Buckman house; Morse house, 215 Front St., Mace house, 619 Ann, Taylor house, 305 Ann, and the Hatsell house, 117 Orange St. The Beaufort Woman's Club won recognition from the State Federation of Woman’s Clubs for this tour. The club’s major project in 1959 was town beautification.

"Mrs. Sutton says: 'Everyone wanted to know when we would have another tour, so two years later (1960) we planned another as part of Beaufort’s birthday party. Mabel Gilchrist sold us on the idea of a bus trip. ‘Get Grayden Paul to run it,” said Ruth Ivey Davis (Mrs. M. Leslie Davis).'

"Mr. Paul agreed, but he said the club would have to write his script. He took the club on a trial trip, which approximated what the bus tours are today. 'Twenty women telling him what to say,” Mrs. Sutton writes. 'He survived and has developed his own story.'"

SEAL & FLAG
In the 1960s, the Beaufort Woman’s Club initiated the development of the Beaufort town seal. The club was also responsible for designing the town flag in 1972.

Russell also wrote, “A fact, perhaps unknown by many and forgotten by others, is that the Beaufort Woman’s Club raised funds to help furnish the physical therapy department at Carteret General Hospital.”

RESTORED DEPOT
In 1993 the Woman’s Club decided to restore the Beaufort Train Depot and proceeded to raise funds to do so. On October 27, 1996 the beautifully restored building was dedicated.

“The Beaufort Woman’s Club scrapbooks,” wrote Russell, “are reminders that members of this organization were not only strong in their determination to accomplish their goals, but they were also fine examples of grace and style.

“Photographs throughout the scrapbooks show club members dressed in their Sunday finest as they carry out activities and responsibilities of the club—Miss Emily Loftin presenting Mayor “Piggie” Potter with the town seal, club members with then Mayor Roger Hunt receiving the town flag, or Mrs. M.C. (Grayden) Paul, Sr. pouring tea at an afternoon party honoring faculty members of Beaufort High School.

“Woman’s Club members through the years—past and present—have had strong qualities of leadership and were a vital force in helping to make a better life for the citizens of Beaufort and Carteret County. Awarding scholarships to deserving students, assisting with restoration projects of the Beaufort Historical Association and the preservation of the Train Depot, are fine examples of accomplishments.”

1907 Train Depot - Yesterday and Today

2010-06-04T17:42:00.068-04:00

In 1858 the Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad was completed from Goldsboro, through New Bern to Morehead City. Forty-seven years later plans were finally made to extend the rails to Beaufort. Until that time, visitors were transported by boat.

In 1905 a meeting was of local citizens was held in Beaufort with Mayor William F. Dill presiding. A representative of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad estimated a cost of $150,000 to link Morehead and Beaufort by rail. In addition to tracks and trestles, a causeway had to be constructed over the marshland. Then, in July of 1906 the town agreed to construction of a depot at the corner of Broad and Pollock Streets at a cost of $15,000.

On November 18, 1906, the first train backed into Beaufort. This line, Beaufort and Western Railroad (1905-1906), was acquired by Norfolk and Southern Railway in 1906.

On June 8, 1907, Beaufort launched "Gala Week." Banners and bunting were draped while residents and guests dressed in Sunday best attended a grand parade and speeches that launched the festivities, all celebrating Beaufort's new depot and the first train—coming into town engine first.

The Spanish Colonial Revival six-bay long and two-bay wide train station was built of frame construction with a steep hipped roof; eaves flared outward to create an overhang of about ten feet on all sides. It was covered with red tile shingles and supported by massive sawn brackets. Walls were built with a weatherboard wainscot with rough-textured stucco above. The building had Craftsman-style paired sash windows and a bay window on the Broad Street side, flanked by two entrances. The interior contained two separate waiting rooms.

Neal Willis, born in 1917, wrote in Beaufort by the Sea, Memories of a Lifetime, "It was quite an event when the trains came in each day. We would go down to Railroad Street (Broad Street) and count the cars and wave at the passengers. The Depot had white and colored sections. In between was the ticket office. On the west side was the freight room. Mr. Seth Gibbs was the stationmaster. Mr. Webb was the ticket agent and telegrapher.”

The depot was full of activity for thirty years; the train not only provided easier transportation to and from Beaufort, it also brought a new economy, enabling local citizens to more easily ship seafood and other goods.

By 1938, passenger service ceased when the line between Morehead City and Beaufort was acquired by the Beaufort and Morehead Railroad.

Owners of the depot were persuaded to sell the vacant passenger-train depot to the Town of Beaufort to use as its library. The 2,570 square foot building required considerable refurbishing. The Beaufort Woman’s Club, under the leadership of Mrs. W. L. Woodard, came to the rescue raising funds for the work. In December 1940 the library moved into the depot and was located there into the 1960s when the leaking roof, termites and the old pot-belly stove provided an inadequate location for a proper library.

Though there was no passenger depot, the railroad line continued to operate as “The Route of the Jets” between Beaufort and Morehead City into the 1980s. The railroad drawbridge over the Beaufort Channel at the foot of Broad Street was demolished in the mid-1990s; the removal of the tracks down the middle of Broad Street began in 1994.

In 1996 the Beaufort Woman’s Club joined with the Town of Beaufort to thoroughly and beautifully restore the 1907 Train Depot. With its period displays of early-20th century railroad memorabilia and old photographs, the depot remains a symbol and a reminder of the train bringing the outside world to Beaufort. The historic building now functions as an annex to the Beaufort Town Hall, located at the rear on Pollock Street. It is used for town meetings and special events.

Sources for this article:

Ruth Little – Beaufort National Register Historic District Survey, Nov. 1997
Jack Dudley - Beaufort An Album of Memories
Susan W. Simpson – Carteret County Public Library, Beaufort - A Brief History
Neal Willis – Beaufort By the Sea, Memories of a Lifetime

Charles Biddle's Time in Beaufort 1778-1780

2010-05-13T07:52:00.020-04:00

This page is a transcription from the Autobiography of Charles Biddle.

SNIPPET:
Charles Biddle (1745-1821), the son of William Biddle and Mary Scull, was born in Philadelphia on December 24, 1745. Charles and his wife Hannah Shepard of Beaufort became parents of Nicholas Biddle of banking and political fame. Charles Biddle served as an ex officio trustee of the University of the State of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pennsylvania) during his term as Vice-President of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council (the equivalent of Lieutenant-Governor).

Biddle’s two years in Beaufort began when he married Hannah Shepard on November 25, 1778. It is believed that the couple either rented or purchased the Gibble House circa 1772 in the first block of Marsh. It is also believed that Hannah and her parents once lived in what is now known as the Sloo House circa 1768 on Front Street.

Click here for transcription.

1905 Laboratory Postcard

2010-04-27T17:07:00.007-04:00

Laboratory - Beaufort, N.C. circa 1905
Bayard Morgan Wootten (1875-1959)

Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards
North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, UNC-Chapel Hill

Lightened from Original

Close-up - Lightened from Original

New Inlet Inn

2010-04-17T08:58:00.007-04:00

New Inlet Inn, Beaufort, N.C. - 1917 Postcard

Durwood Barbour Collection - UNC Chapel Hill

Close-up

Message on back of card reads:

"St. Paul's School, Beaufort, N.C. Dear Estelle, we are enjoying the delightful weather here. I imagine it is some cooler up there, too, now. Are you still tatting, I haven't tatted any for a year? An old friend, Julia H." Addressed to Estelle Coffman Maurertown, Virginia. Postmarked 17 September 1917.

1854 Map of Beaufort Harbor

2010-04-14T07:45:00.104-04:00

This very interesting 15" x 12" map (left) is included in North
Carolina Maps Collection. Click map to your left to view on NC Maps and zoom to various segments or click below segments for enlarged views of this map.

North Carolina Map Collection

Farnifold Green's Ancestors and Descendants

2010-04-07T12:05:00.008-04:00

Leonard Green Jr. (1819-1925) and wife Cynthia Ellen Carriker

Leonard Green Jr. was the 4^th great grandson of Farnifold Green, owner of the first land patent for land that would become Beaufort.

______________________

100 years after his 4^th great grandfather was massacred by Indians at Greens Creek in Craven County, Leonard Green Jr. was born in Cabarrus County, NC.

Lineage: Roger 1620-1671, Timothy 1650-1712, Farnifold 1674-1714, James 1706-1788, James 1739-1784, Gideon 1755-1799, Leonard Sr. 1790-1881, Leonard Jr. 1819-1925.

Farnifold Green’s grandfather Roger Green was born about 1611 in Norfolk, England. In 1635, at the age of 24, he sailed to the new world aboard Abraham. Roger Green died about 1671 in Charles City, VA.

According to the Green Page and Chowan County History on Rootsweb, Roger Green enrolled at St. Catherine's, Cambridge, Easter of 1631. He received his B.A. 1634--35 and his M.A. 1638 and was ordained a priest 9 March 1638-39. He is next noted in Nansemond County, VA ministering to the inhabitants there. He is credited with founding North Carolina's first settlement in July 1653 on the bank of the Roanoke River and on the south side of the Chowan and tributary streams. The grant reads as follows: "Upon the petition of Roger Green, Clerk, on behalf of himself and the Inhabitants of Nansemond River, it is ordered by the present Grand Assembly, that 10,000 acres of land be granted unto 100 such persons who shall first seat on the Moratuck or Roanoke Rivers and the branches thereof—provided that such seaters settle advantageously for security... that there be granted the said Roger Green the rights of 1,000 acres of land. (Hening I, p.380) Reverend Roger Green returned to England where on 2 September 1661, he presented a pamphlet to the Lord and Bishop of London, entitled "Virginia's Cure", in order to show the unhappy state of the church in Virginia and the remedy of it. He was also one who examined into the competency of all ministers of the colony. He officiated at Jamestown, and was still living in 1671 (Colonial Church in Virginia, p.246).

Roger’s son Timothy was born 1650 in St. Stephens Parish, Northumberland, VA and died 16 February 1711/12 in the same location. He married Anne Farnifold 1672 in Fairfield, Northumberland, VA. Anne, the daughter of John Farneffold and Mary Brooks, was born 1656 in Sussex, England and died about 1680 in Northumberland.

Timothy and Anne Farnifold Green had four sons; Farnifold, the oldest, was born 30 May 1674 in St. Stephens Parish, Northumberland, VA. Farnifold Green married Hannah Kent 1697 in Perquimans, NC. Hannah, daughter of Thomas Kent and Ann Cornell, was born 10 May 1673 in Perquimans and died about 1742 in Craven County, NC. Farnifold and Hannah Kent Green had three daughters and six sons. Their son Thomas Edward Green, only thirteen at the time, did not survive the 1714 Indian massacre in Greens Creek, Bath County, NC, where his father was killed.

Their son Farnifold Jr., born about 1697, went on to marry Mary Graves, daughter of Richard Graves, deputy surveyor general who laid out the town of Beaufort in 1713. (Richard Graves married Farnifold Green Sr.’s widow Hannah Kent Smithwick Green.) Farnifold Jr. and Mary Graves Green had four sons and a daughter. Farnifold Jr. died 15 July 1759 in Greens Creek.

James Green, son of Farnifold Sr. and Hannah, was born in 1710 and died 04 October, 1788 in Johnson County, NC. He married Mary Gray, born in 1710 NC NC and died in New Bern, NC 15 January 1780. James Sr. was selected for duty on the Grand Jury.

James Green Jr. was born in 1739 in Bath, NC and died 17 March 1784 in New Bern. He married Margaret Cogdell in 1777. Margaret was the daughter of Richard Cogdell and Lydia Duncan. James Jr. and Margaret had two sons, Gideon and John. Gideon married Martha Anderson. They had ten children. Of them, Leonard Green, born 08 January 1790 in Anson County, NC, married Mary Tucker about 1811, and died 20 June 1881 in Goose Creek, Union County, NC.

Leonard’s son Leonard Jr. was born 1819 in Cabarrus County, NC and died in 1925 in Lauderdale County, Alabama. He married Cynthia Ellen Carriker about 1838 in Union County, NC. Cynthia was born in 1819 in NC and died after 1880 in Lauderdale County, Alabama. Their five children were born in Monroe, Union County, NC.

Leonard and Cynthia’s son Levi Green, born in 1848 in Monroe and died 1892 in Gordon, Palo Pinto County, Texas, married Rebecca Susanna Tucker in 1871 in Lawrence County, Tennessee. According to family lore, Rebecca was shot in the foot with an arrow and had only minimal usage of that foot. While in Palo Pinto County, Texas, local Indians stole milk and chickens while Rebecca was milking the cows.

One of Farnifold Green's 7th great grandsons Alfred Grieshaber lives in Eagle Point, Oregon.

Richard Rustull Jr. House circa 1732- Mattie King Davis Gallery

2010-03-18T10:54:00.010-04:00

1980 Jean Kell photo

Richard Rustull Jr., son of the third owner of Beaufort, was born about 1700. After his death, his widow Sarah Cogdell married William Dennis in 1748.

According to Mamre Wilson, "When Dennis married Richard Jr.'s widow, she had inherited a small house with outbuildings located on lot 13 in Old Town, at the corner of Craven Street and the waterfront. The house, originally a story and a jump, was designed and built by shipwrights using the available space most effectively and making it capable of withstanding storms. It was enlarged over time and eventually the townhouse of the Dennis family. It was also used as an ordinary.

"In the twentieth century the house was moved twice. First around the corner on Craven Street to make room for modern commercial buildings, and finally to the grounds of the Beaufort Historical Association, where it resides today as the Mattie King Davis Art Gallery." The 1997 Ruth Little Survey described the house as a "two-story, three-bay house with unusual pyramidal-hipped roof, beaded siding, 9/6 sash, and shed porch with chamfered posts and traditional railing. Moved to this location from Craven Street about 1975."

Laura Duncan Davis Piner, 1931-2002, valued artist and teacher and granddaughter of Sterling Price Hancock and Sallie Gertrude Davis, was instrumental in converting the 1732 Richard Rustull, Jr. House into a gallery named after her mother Mattie King Hancock Davis.

Mattie King Hancock Davis was born August 1, 1905 and died from rheumatic heart disease on January 24, 1975 in Onslow County at the Naval Regional Medical Center at Camp Lejeune. She was survived by her husband Ernest J. Davis; the couple was married December 31, 1928. Her death certificate recorded their home address as 915 Front Street, Beaufort. Mattie King Davis was buried in St. Paul's Cemetery in Beaufort.

Above is a family photo taken August 11, 1910...Duncans, Davises and Mansons. Five-year old Mattie King Hancock is on the front row; her mother behind her.

B.L. Perry Residence

2010-02-17T10:03:00.009-05:00

Old Beaufort Postcard - Date Unknown

Benjamin Leecraft Perry Residence - 207 Front Street
The postcard was published by Clawson's Emporium - 429 Front Street
and was found in the Duncan House at 105 Front Street.

BENJAMIN LEECRAFT PERRY (1811–1869), son of David Perry and Nancy Leecraft, married Elizabeth Manney in 1835 and Etta Duncan in 1868. He was involved in coastal trading and was one of the wealthiest men in Beaufort before the Civil War. Many visitors boarded in “Cap’n” Perry’s wharf-front home, replaced in the 1920s by the Jule Duncan House. (Porchscapes--The Colors of Beaufort, NC)

The Perry House, originally the home of Thomas and Esther Wallace Cooke, was the birthplace of James Wallace Cooke [born 1812], commander of the Confederate ram Albemarle. (Carteret County--Postcard History Series)

Sauthier's 1770 Map of Beaufort

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"Plan of the Town and Port of Beaufort in Carteret County"
1770 - drawn by C.J. Sauthier

Note "Road New Bern" and "Fort Dobbs in Ruin."

1947 Etching

2009-12-29T08:05:00.003-05:00

Davis House

Small Etching by Louis Orr (1879-1961)
circa 1947

Gift from Mariam Cannon Hayes
Permanent Exhibition of the
Blowing Rock Art and History Museum
Blowing Rock, North Carolina

St. Paul's Cemetery

2009-12-20T11:11:00.015-05:00

St. Paul's Episcopal Church was built on Ann Street in 1857. The cemetery is behind the church at the corner of Moore and Broad Streets. This photo was taken by resident Barbara Myers.

17th Century Seal of Albemarle

2009-12-11T13:19:00.009-05:00

Seal of the County of Albemarle 1669-1689, continued as the Seal of the Province of North Carolina until the purchase by the Crown in1729. This reproduction is slightly larger than the original; reverse is blank.

Click image to enlarge.

Gray's New Map of Beaufort -1877

2009-12-08T16:10:00.013-05:00

CLICK TO ENLARGE

In 1877 Duncan's Steam Saw Mill was on Gallants Channel between Broad and Ann. The Custom House was on west Front Street near Wm. Duncan's property. In that same block of Front Street, Sarah Davis was noted as owning three houses that would be joined and become known as the Davis House. On the corner of Turner and Ann was the house of Mrs. Cramer, wife of then deceased Dr. Cramer who converted the 1796 courthouse into his home. Cap'n Thomas' house was on the corner of Front and Orange while his wharf was on the waterfront. On west Front Street, note the Seaside House that would later be expanded and become the old Inlet Inn.

DAVIS HOUSE Survival - Update

2009-11-27T10:39:00.037-05:00

Old Postcard--The Davis Hotel, Beaufort, NC

In an email written a few months ago, shortly after he finished his introduction to Porchscapes - The Colors of Beaufort, North Carolina, architectural historian Tony P. Wrenn wrote his recollections of how The Davis House was saved from destruction,

“In 1970 the Duke University Marine Lab planned to tear down the three houses behind the Davis House thirteen-bay porch, Beaufort's longest and one of the state's most notable, and construct something to better house students and others who came to work in Dr. John Costlow's facility.

“Jean Kell felt, and she may well be right, that there are certain forces which control such things, and the force, one presumes the good one, had planned for me to be in Beaufort at just the time when the bulldozers were pulled into position to the rear of The Davis House to begin its destruction. This is the same force I assume that brought you to Beaufort to do what you are now doing.

“What Jean wrote is essentially true except that I don't think I was actually the savior of the houses and their porch, but rather the facilitator that led to their saving.

“I remember it in this way. Jean saw the dozers being moved into position, rushed to find out why they were there, then as speedily moved to find me and tell me I had to do something about it, that that porch should not be allowed to go. I went to find Costlow and found that he had already done whatever he could t

o stave off demolition but had come up short, since the property forces that control Duke, the University, were in control and not the Marine Laboratory, but he welcomed my getting involved if I could.

“I sought H.G.Jones [NC Dept. of Archives and History], told him of the situation and my feeling about the importance of those porches and told him Costlow felt he might be able to reach people at Duke, including Terry Sanford, then President of the University, and possibly get the demolition stopped. H.G. agreed that I could act as his agent and sell the value of the houses and their porch, so Costlow began his calls, ultimately reaching the final person he needed to reach, pitching the importance of the porches to Beaufort, and their historic and architectural value. I don't actually remember whether I talked or not, but believe that I did have a chance

to talk about the porches, Waterman's feeling about them and my own, which H.G. supported. I also don't know whether or not Sanford called H.G., but we shortly got the word that the bulldozers would still do some work to the rear of the Davis House, but that the Front Street façade was saved.

1940 Photo - Thomas Waterman

“Waterman wrote of the Duncan House 107 Front: ‘Here a two-tiered porch covers the front of the house and is protected by a shed extension of the main roof. The posts are in the form of crudely-turned Doric columns, not unlike those seen in some of the Spanish Islands. In the Davis House [121-123-125] also on Front Street facing Beaufort Inlet, the great length of the house makes a rather similar two-story porch even more effective.....’

“In writing about the porch in my report, I note: "The Davis House porch, mentioned above by Waterman, actually covers three houses, one of them eighteenth century (125), one early (123) and the other (121) late nineteenth century. Before the porches were joined in their present manner, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, all three houses already had two-story porches. The entire composition, thirteen bays long, is, as Waterman says, 'effective.' Its length does not confuse the viewer, however. The builder has used two types of turned Doric posts, alternating top and bottom and has raised the second floor balustrade slightly in the center, thereby visually preserving the identity of the three structures while giving them a common porch.

"As you so beautifully show in your Porchscapes book, the porch is an integral part of the architectural, social and cultural lifestyle of the South and of North Carolina. Among all the memorable porches in the state, the Davis House porch is one of the great ones. That the powers at Duke University did not allow it to be destroyed 40 years ago indicates an awareness of the obligations that public institutions have to our past, and the lasting results of acting on that awareness." - Tony P. Wrenn

Ann Street Methodist Church - Mid-19th Century Memorabilia

2009-10-29T13:58:00.066-04:00

Certificate of Admission to Sunday School--1851

Images and text from an 18-page brochure, History of Ann Street Methodist Church, published in 1966, on the occasion of the 188th anniversary of the organization of the Methodist Church in Beaufort. The brochure was edited by Miss Emily Loftin (1898-1985). Posted here are a few images and excerpts from that publication.

The Sunday school ticket to the left was issued to Irvin Fulford, born March 31, 1839, son of Absalom Fulford and Naomi Rumley. Fulford later served as a Lt. in the CSA, was captured and held as a POW. He was the officer in charge of the artillary defense of Fort Fisher in 1864; his accounts of those battles have been preserved. Fulford was buried in the Old Burying Ground in Beaufort. (Fulford data from Mark Green.) The ticket was signed by Sup't. J.C. Manson* and Sec'y. A.C. Davis, father of Nannie Fletcher Davis Thomas. Click to enlarge images.

"Still in existence is a Deacon's License of 1840 to John Jones and a Sacrament Ticket given to 'Miss Mary' Thomas. Interesting, indeed, are the requirements made upon the early members.

"Tickets were given quarterly to such members of the Church as were recommended by a class leader with whom they had met at least 6 months on trial. Those without tickets were regarded as 'strangers.' At every other meeting the Society in every place let no strangers be admitted. At other times they may, but the same person not above twice.

"Let no person who is not a member of our Society be admitted to the communion without a sacrament ticket which ticket must be changed every quarter.

"As to marrying, whoever marries an 'unawaken' person, defined as one we could not in conscience admit into the Society, will be expelled from the Society.

"Give no tickets to any that wear high heads, enormous bonnets, ruffles or rings."

*John C. Manson (Sup't. who signed the above certificate of admission) was a naval captain during the War of 1812 and, after being honorably discharged in 1815, became a prominent merchant. Manson operated a store at what is now the corner of Front and Turner streets.

Ann Street Methodist Church by E.O.Nielsen
(front of the 1966 brochure)

Model of Crissie Wright

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Model of Crissie Wright by Jim Goodwin was on display at the Beaufort North Carolina Maritime Museum in January 2010.
Model scale: 1" = 6.3'

Model Length Overall = 32", H = 19 3/4 ", Beam = 3 3/4 "

Click Images to Enlarge

Cast Iron and Stones

2009-09-08T17:38:00.017-04:00

Norcom Plot - Old Burying Ground

This iron, from Patch Company, Boston, is dated 1865

Stones in the Old Burying Ground date from 1756, burials from before 1724. More than seventeen varieties of undated cypress wooden markers survive, along with scores of graves topped with brick. Tony P. Wrenn -1970. The above image is included in Porchscapes, The Colors of Beaufort, North Carolina.

Duncans, Davises and Mansons

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MANSON HOUSE Porch - August 11, 1910
~

Front Row: 5-year-old Mattie King Hancock Davis
(Laura Davis Piner's mother - Mattie King Davis Gallery named for her)

Row 2: Sallie Gertrude Davis Hancock (Mattie King Davis' mother),
Annie Duncan Gregory, Emma Manson, Della Bryan Duncan Smith

Row 3 : Etta Perry Davis Potter, Laura Gertrude Duncan Davis, John Averett
Duncan, Etta Manson, Ella Duncan Davis,
Minnie Rieger Davis Huntley and Lillian Duncan

Back Row: Nancy Fletcher Davis Thomas, William Benjamin Duncan

and Esther Purvis Duncan Manson

______________________________

Image and Photo ID Courtesy Lou Register and Tibbie Roberts

Only One Survivor

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Six of the Crew of Crissie Wright Drowned and Frozen to Death

January 11, 1886 Newspaper Clippings

Click Images to Enlarge

These clippings, found in the Rickards family Bible, were sent by C.G. Rickards, whose g-g-grandfather perished on the Crissie Wright and was buried in the mass grave in Beaufort's old Burying Ground.

Benjamin Leecraft & Descendants

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Mary "Polly" Fuller Leecraft with her son Benjamin Leecraft III

According to Ian Lucraft, who has been researching his ancestors for twenty-five years, "The Luckraft name appears first in the records in the small villages of the South Hams area of Devon, between Kingsbridge and Dartmouth. The variants of the name arise from the differant phonetic spellings as the name was used and recorded. Most of the Luckrafts originate in families resident in the South Hams in the 1500s and 1600's The Lucraft variant originates from Nicholas Luccroft who was married at Farringdon, East of Exeter, in 1691 to Margaret Westcott. Where Nicholas came from is unknown to me, but he commenced a group of families in the villages near Farringdon of Woodbury, and Broadclyst."

Leecrafts are listed as members of the Virginia Company that helped colonize Virginia and Bermuda, as well as settlements north of Virginia on the Atlantic coast.

A Leecraft was Governor of Bermuda under George III when many became discouraged by their lack of independence. Some of the Leecrafts moved south to the Caribbean—Barbados, Antigua and Martinique, to continue commercial shipping using their fleet of ships to cargo to ports along mainland America.

Around 1780 several Leecraft brothers came to the colonies. It is believed that two settled in New York and one in Beaufort, South Carolina. The fourth brother, Captain Benjamin Leecraft I, born in 1753, arrived in the Beaufort, North Carolina area on his own ship and became one of the largest land owners in the province. He married Susannah Elizabeth Bell, daughter of Colonel Malachi Bell. During the Revolutionary War, Leecraft joined with a Captain Biddle of Philadelphia as mate in shipping on the brigantine Active. In 1784 Captain Leecraft was master of the schooner Sea Flower, trading out of Turk's Island for importer William Fisher. He was killed in 1799 in a sea battle off the coast of Bermuda and was buried at sea. Susannah Bell Leecraft died in 1818.

Benjamin Leecraft II, born circa 1793, was the only male heir. In 1816 he married Mary “Polly” Fuller, descendant of the Mayflower Fullers, and daughter of Belcher Fuller and Zilphia Guthrie. They had four sons—Benjamin III, William, Lafayette and Nathan Franklin—and four daughters, Susan Benjamin, Zilphia Ann, Mary and Julia Frances. In 1845 Benjamin Leecraft III married his first cousin Mary Elizabeth Arendell, daughter of Sarah Fisher and Bridges Arendell. Mary and Benjamin III had seven children; all died as infants or young children except for Benjamin Bridges and Carolus Arendell. Their mother, Mary Elizabeth, died in 1858. The 1860 census shows a widowed Benjamin Leecraft III with three small children; his real estate value was $50,500 and personal estate was $23,000.

By 1862 the Union provost marshal granted a Boston merchant “permission to occupy the store formerly occupied by Benjamin Leecraft, the owner having joined the CSA.” Leecraft served in the Confederate Army, 2nd Regiment, North Carolina Artillery.

Since Leecraft was not occupying his home at the corner of Ann and Orange Streets, it was taken by the Federals and used as officers’ quarters. Soldiers left axe marks in the floor of the room (now the dining room) where fire wood was stored.
Benjamin Leecraft III left Beaufort shortly after the war. It appears that Leecraft’s wealth and holdings diminished—or else he was discouraged by the results of the war and the Federal occupation. Leecraft married his second wife, Susan Elizabeth Stowe in 1866. Susan, who was half his age, was the daughter of Colonel Samuel Neel Stowe, M.D., who had served on the staff of General Robert E. Lee. Confederate swords carried by Captain Leecraft and Colonel Stowe became treasured possessions to Brigadier General Walter Alexander Dumas, son of Bessie Holland Leecraft and DeBerry Glenn Dumas and grandson of Benjamin Leecraft III. Leecraft’s sword was originally the property of a Masonic lodge and put into military service at a time when weapons were scarce.

Susan and Benjamin Leecraft III moved to Sherman, Texas in 1870. They had four children—Albert Stowe, Charles Fuller, Daisy Dean and Arthur Neel. Benjamin Leecraft III died in 1880 in Denison, Texas, when his oldest son Arthur was only about fourteen years old.

Arthur Neel Leecraft

Arthur Neel Leecraft owned the first all-purpose store in Indian Territory--Leecraft Mercantile-- just north of Denison across the Red River by ferry. He married Lelah Maupin who was part Chickasaw. Arthur later became “Colonel” Leecraft and was very active in governmental and civic affairs in the state of Oklahoma.

Emails from Pat Fleury, Benjamin Leecraft's great-great granddaughter, gives us more insight into the family's life in Texas. Pat is the daughter of Marjorie Leecraft McMahon, daughter of Bertram Maupin Leecraft, son of Arthur Neel Leecraft.

Pat wrote, After Benjamin III left North Carolina, I couldn't find him in Texas. Finally, on a wild hunch, I found him in a California Gold Rush camp, living in a barracks with other men on the same quest. After he got that 'out of his system,' he came back to Texas. Even though genealogical records show the location as Sherman and Denison, back in those days they lived in the countryside. Even today, a person can easily get gored by a wild hog in the woods just outside of Denison,Texas.

When Arthur Neel Leecraft left to go into politics, he left my grandfather, Bertram Maupin Leecraft (b. 1894) behind to attend to Leecraft Mercantile. Back then, the only way across the Red River was by ferry boat. At first, the town was called Colbert's Ferry.

John Rice Maupin

Lelah Maupin Leecraft's father, John Rice Maupin, rode with Quantrill's Raiders during the Civil War. Maupin married Helen Eastman. Through Helen Eastman, we are also cousins to the Eastman Kodak people. My grandfather Bertram Maupin Leecraft could tell stories about Jesse James and other outlaws because of the Quantrill's Raiders connection. Oklahoma in those post Civil War days was really a wild wild west.

Strangely enough, the Maupins were French Huguenots in 1700's Williamsburg, Virginia. Their 'ordinary' or inn in Williamsburg was first given a liquor license in 1711. Eventually they operated three inns. The last one is now called the Taliferro-Cole House, on Lot #352 in Williamsburg.

So, the Maupins started in Virginia and the Leecrafts in North Carolina and they all wound up in Oklahoma during and after the Civil War.

I am sending old photographs from the Bessie Holland Leecraft album that I inherited from my Mom. The photo of John Rice Maupin came from an issue of Chronicles of Oklahoma.

The Leecraft Houses on Ann Street

Leecraft House in March 1862. - 307 Ann Street - mounted orderly Lt. C.M. Duser. Benjamin Leecraft II (and/or Ben III) built this 1850 house and other Leecraft houses next door on Ann Street.

The three Greek revival-style homes have features taken from books on architecture by Asher Benjamin. His influence is seen in its wide hall, broad staircase, large rooms with high ceilings, and distinctive woodwork. Even though plaqued 1850, 1856 and 1857, the 1857 house, on the corner of Ann and Orange, due to its construction details, may have been the first built.

Contemporary photos of the Leecraft houses:

FRENCH HUGUENOTS

2009-01-18T12:19:00.054-05:00

...how some made their way to Beaufort.

This etching shows how French Huguenots fled from Brittany and Normandy
in small boats across the English Channel to England.
Image from www.betheafamily.org

When Louis XIV began a policy of une foi, un loi, un roi - one faith, one law, one king - and revoked the Edict of Nantes on 22 October 1685, the large scale persecution of the Huguenots resumed. At least 250,000 French Huguenots fled to countries such as Switzerland, Germany, England, America, the Netherlands, Poland and South Africa, where they could enjoy religious freedom. Between 1618 and 1725, some 5000 to 7000 Huguenots reached the shores of America.

Besides those who settled in Florida in 1564 and South Carolina in 1679, about 1705 small colonies settled on the Pamlico River and on the Trent where Baron DeGraffenried’s colony found them in 1710 when he founded New Bern.

In 1708, the region, known today as Carteret County, began to attract settlers. A few families moved into the area about North River, known then as the “the Core Sound” settlement.

It is believed that Pivers and Shackelfords were among those first settlers. In later years these frontiersmen were followed by families with names of Paquinet, Noe, Manney, Delamar, Midyette and Geoffroy—all descendants of French Huguenots:

Shackelford: Roger Shackelford the immigrant (1629-1704) fled England about 1658, on a boat with Edward Palmer and his siblings, who had received a land grant in Virginia. The Palmers were French Huguenots. Roger married Mary Palmer about 1660.

Roger's sons John (1688–1734) and Francis patented a "plantation" on the west side of North River in 1708. John Shackelford served in the local militia from 1712 to 1743. In 1713 he and Enoch Ward purchased 7000 acres referred to as the “Sea Banks.” Shackelford’s western part later became known as Shackelford Banks. It is believed the Shackelford ancestors lived in a small town near London, England, known until 1620 as “Shackelford Village.”

Piver: Peter Piver circa 1690-1758 arrived in the area about 1708, perhaps on the west side of North River. Over the generations, he, son Peter and grandson Peter acquired various plots of land including acreage west of what is now Moore Street. Peter Piver, Jr. , born in 1717, served under the command of Colonel Thomas Lovick during the 1747 Spanish attacks. Peter III was born about 1740. In 1795, Carteret County court minutes note that Peter Piver and wife Lydia sold half of Piver’s Island (seven acres) to Elijah Bell. Peter Piver and his descendants built many houses in Beaufort.

Paquinet: The 1790 US Census shows Ann, James, Isaiah and John Paquinet in Carteret County. The 1772 Will of Michael Paquinet left his sons James, John and Isaiah his plantation, 100 acres on Cane Creek and 200 acres on Broad Creek. Third generation names were Belcher Fuller and Mary Severn—both Huguenot descendants through Michael Paquinet, born in Paris in 1690. The Paquinet House circa 1769 is on Front Street.

Rebecca Paquinet married John Mades, 16 Jun 1803.
Betsey Paquinet married Francis Dennis, 18 Jan 1804.
Elizabeth Paquinet married Jesse Piver, 19 June 1817.

Noe: In early 1800s there were two Noe families - James Noes and Peter Noes. James Noe, Jr. married Mary Polly Paquinet in 1829. In 1862 Thomas Noe married Frances Ann Mades, daughter of Rebecca and John Mades. The James Noe House circa 1828 is on Moore Street.

Manney: Jean Magny left France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. He first settled in Rhode Island in 1686. About 1691 most of the Huguenots were forced to leave. Jean Magny settled briefly in Oxford, Mass, but soon moved to New York City.

Magny, Manee, and Maney evolved to Manney. James Manney came to Beaufort from Poughkeepsie, NY. The Dr. James Manney House circa 1812 is at the corner of Craven and Ann Streets. In 1848, Dr. Manney's son, Dr. James Lente Manney, married William Fulford's daughter, Julia Ann.

Delamar: 1668 Francis De Lamar, or De la Mar, born in Boucre, Calais, France, died in 1713 in Pacquotank County, NC. Some of his descendants came to Beaufort from New Bern before 1850. The Gibble-Delamar House circa 1866 is on the corner of Turner and Broad Streets.

Midyett: Midyett families, originally from Normandy, France, were early inhabitants of Bodie Island and the Outer Banks in the late 1600s. "Many Midyett girls married sailors off Black Beard's three ships. The name was spelled different ways: Midyett, Midyette, Midgett, Midgette, but no matter how you spell it, they all came from Matthew Midyett who landed at Bodie Island, NC around 1600. He was a ship captain and was shipwrecked off the coast of the outer banks."--Donald Midyett. Midyetts helped start the US Coast Guard by establishing life-saving stations on the Outer Banks. Some of the family found their way to Beaufort by 1850.

Geffroy: Malachi R. Geffroy, husband of Nannie Pasteur Davis, had roots back to France then Canada. The M.R. Geffroy House circa 1885 is in the third block of Ann Street.

There are descendants of French Huguenots living in Beaufort today.

David DuBuisson is an indirect descendant of brothers Henry Martyn Baird and Charles Washington Baird - both Huguenot historians. In 1885 Charles W. Baird, D.D. (1828-1887), Presbyterian minister and historian, wrote the History of the Huguenot Emigration to America. The Baird brothers contributed perhaps two-thirds of the Huguenot scholarship in English that exist today. Their mother was Fermine Amaryllis Opheia DuBuisson Baird. Fermine was David DuBuisson's great-great aunt, the older sister of his great-great grandfather, George Washington DuBuisson.

David DuBuisson wrote: The Huguenots in the U.S. quickly dispersed and assimilated. Many of them had already assimilated in English or Dutch or German societies before crossing the Atlantic. As a religious denomination, the Huguenot church essentially disappeared under the relentless persecution of Rome. So, with a few exceptions, by the time they reached America Huguenots were generally affiliated with the Dutch Reformed (NY), Presbyterian or Anglican (VA, SC) churches. As they spread out through the colonies, they did not do so as a coherent group, but rather as individual families colonizing mainly with the English. This would explain why there would be no recognizable “Huguenot colonies” in, say, North Carolina, though there would be individual families.

Jimmy Piver and his children are descendants of Peter Piver through his son Peter Piver, Jr.

To add other Huguenot descendants in Beaufort, please email Mary Warshaw.
To email the link to this post, click envelope icon below.

Piver Family

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Piver's Island - Late 1800s
Earliest photograph in existence showing the point at Duncan's Green looking westward
Image scanned from Beaufort, An Album of Memories by Jack Dudley

The Pivers are descendants of 16th and 17th centuries French Huguenots. Their civil rights in France were guaranteed to them by the Edict of Nantes. This official decree of religious tolerance was signed by King Henry IV of France on April 13, 1598.

In 1685, the intolerant King Louis XIV revoked this edict and issued a new one which withdrew all their civil and religious liberties. The Huguenots were faced with danger to both person and property, and thousands of them fled to new homes in England, Brandenburg and the Low Countries. From these European countries they then migrated to America and settled in the Carolinas, Virginia and New York. The Huguenots that did remain in France did not receive their religious and political freedom until the time of the French Revolution.

However, the ones that remained suffered, survived and become very prosperous tradesmen in Europe and exported their manufactured products to America. The L.T. Piver Cosmetic Company, Paris, France, is an example of a prosperous Piver firm. The cosmetic products were shipped to America in the early 1900s. Local persons remember the newspaper ads and used the cosmetics. I have living relatives who remember their mothers using L.T. Piver’s talcum powder and perfumes.

Peter Piver, Sr.* came from England to Carteret County, North Carolina in 1708/1709 and first settled on the North River. Later, it is said he was given a land grant by Lords Proprietors which gave him title to many acres of land in Beaufort Township.

Edward Warren Piver – Clams, Loblollies, Jelly Rolls and a Model-T

Edward Warren Piver, born October 30, 1869, married Martha Duncan Longest. Edward Warren Piver’s jobs of life varied with the seasons of the year. During the spring and summer months he farmed and bought clams from clammers for 30 cents per bushel to re-bed in North River’s sandy reef opposite where he lived. Later, in the fall and winter months, the clams were removed, packaged 250 per grass bag and shipped by railroad freight and then in the late twenties by over-the-road highway truck to sell on the Fulton Fish Market in New York City. From 1910 and until the late 1920s, the clams were transported from North River by motor boat to freight depot in Beaufort for shipment.

On some of the boat trips Edward W. took his son, Edward Lee, with him. When a load of clams was placed in the freight car and he started back home, he would stop at the business section of Beaufort, go to Clawson’s Bakery, buy several dozen of different kinds of warm mid-afternoon baked goods to eat on the way home and also take some to the rest of the family. The warm jelly rolls were delicious.

He also enjoyed an after-supper smoke outside the house. His corncob pipe was so strong with nicotine; he agreed to leave it at a given place on the back porch. It and the can of Prince Albert Smoking Tobacco were always there for is use and enjoyment. Another luxury he enjoyed was a short nap after the midday meal. For this rest period a couch was place in the dining room for his use.

The farming operation was performed with a pair of mules. It provided food for family and for livestock. In addition to using the two mules for the farm operation, they were often hitched to the wagon or buggy and driven on a 5 to 8 mile journey rather than walk the muddy or sandy road.

After a devastating hurricane in the 1930s, Edward W. experimented with the fast-growing loblolly pine trees to re-forest his wood lots. The project was successful and he was invited to North Carolina State College to share his know-how with students in the Forestry Department. He was unable to accept the invitation.

After 1910, to provide a better education for his children than the one-room-one-teacher school, a 1914 Motel-T Ford was purchased in 1916 for his two daughters and one son to drive eight miles per day to attend St. Paul’s School in Beaufort—and later [to attend] the public school. The car was capable of traveling the hub-deep mud road which is currently Highway 70 East.

Throughout his life Edward W. Piver manifested his love and concern for his family.

Transcribed from an article written by:

Edward Lee Piver, Heritage of Carteret County 1982

*HISTORY NOTE: Peter Piver served under the command of Colonel Thomas Lovick during the 1747 Spanish attacks. Peter and Lydia Piver’s son, Jesse, married Elizabeth Pasquonette June 19, 1817. It is believed that Jesse was the Piver who purchased, from the state of NC, what was then known as Still Island just opposite the western “Town’s End.” After dredging improvements to deepen the channel, the island became known as Piver’s Island. Peter Piver and his descendants built many houses in Beaufort. Several Piver families and descendants still call Beaufort home.

A Spanish Visitor - 1783

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Francisco de Miranda

Self Portrait

On 13 July 1783 Beaufort was host to a most unusual visitor from Spain. Francisco de Miranda, then thirty-three years old and a fugitive from Spanish justice, had set sail from Havana, Cuba on the first day of June bound for Charleston, South Carolina. Throughout the year Miranda was to record his travels and observations of this new country.

Instead of putting in at Charleston the Captain of his vessel sailed to North Carolina waters and passed through Ocracoke Inlet on the eighth of June. Proceeding through the sound and up the Neuse River, Miranda arrived in New Bern. His description of that city is a contrast to what he has to say later about Beaufort. “The population of this city is composed of five hundred families of all classes. The houses are middling and small as a rule, but comfortable and clean; almost all are made of wood. The church and the assembly house are of brick and are suitable to the town. The finest building of all and one which really deserves the attention of an educated traveler is the so-called ‘Palace.'"

Remaining in New Bern until the twelfth, Miranda then departs, crossing the Trent River on a ferry and takes the road to Beaufort. He arrives at the Allways Inn at two o'clock in the afternoon. The diary states that this inn was twenty-five miles from New Bern. He describes his stay at the Allways as being refreshing in the following manner,". . . a moderate and clean meal and the company of Comfort and Constance, daughters of the innkeeper, fifteen and eighteen years old and very good looking, soon made me forget the excursion. That evening there was a good supper and better conversation with the girls; after all had retired for the night, one had no embarrassment in coming at my request to continue the conversation in my bed."

The next morning Miranda continued his journey and . . . “having gone twenty-one miles on roads similar to the one of the day before and crossed a swamp which must be more than a mile wide and had millions of mosquitoes. I arrived four hours later at Beaufort. I took lodging at the home of Mrs. Cheney, who treated me and took care of me grandly. Her gracious company mitigated to some extent the aridity and unsociableness of the town.”

In this section of the diary, Miranda describes his meeting with some French businessmen who had been shipwrecked on the shores of Cape Lookout, and goes on to tell of natives having, “. . .picked up whatever objects were floating about. (They even salvaged the copper sheathing and brought it to Beaufort.)”

As to Beaufort, the diary reports: “Beaufort is located on a sandy beach that, except for some sandbanks, which act as a barrier against the sea and form the sound, is quite unsheltered. It has about eighty inhabitants, and the houses are very miserable. Despite the fact that its location is much more advantageous than that of New Bern (even frigates can enter the sound), there is no commerce and, as a result, the inhabitants are poor. Mr. Parret and Mr. Dennis are the educated persons of the town and favored me with their company while I was here, waiting for a ship to take me to Charleston. The first is a surveyor general and gave me a good map of the state.”

The Miranda diary ends its tale of the Beaufort visit with this bit about the author’s excursion into the country-side: “ I made an excursion for a distance of twelve miles into the region, going up the little Newport River to the homes of two Quakers: one was rich and ignorant and the other, Mr. Williams, poor, educated and generous . . . Never before have I suffered similar discomfort from heat, bedbugs and mosquitoes to that which I went through in these two days of Quaker study. The agriculture one sees around here amounts to very little (mostly corn and potatoes), the earth being sandy and very poor. On the shores there are many windmills of very good construction and design. They are of wood and nevertheless last between twelve and twenty years. There are others on the creek which fall into the rivers; by means of a causeway and locks they collect water and generally form two mills; one to say wood and the other to grind grain. Of this type there are an infinity in this region, as lumber is one of the principal branches of commerce.”

On the twenty-second of June, Miranda took a ship for Charleston. So ends the tale of the Spanish visitor to Carteret County and Beaufort! -Charles O. Pitts, Jr., as transcribed from Heritage of Carteret of Carteret County, 1984

HISTORY NOTE: Sebastián Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez (1750 - 1816) commonly known as Francisco de Miranda, was a Venezuelan revolutionary. Although his own plans for the independence of the Spanish American colonies failed, he is regarded as a forerunner of Simón Bolívar, who during the Hispanic American wars of independence successfully liberated a vast portion of South America. Miranda led a romantic and adventurous life. An idealist, he developed a visionary plan to liberate and unify all of Spanish America but his own military initiatives on behalf of an independent Spanish America failed in 1812. He was handed over to his enemies and four years later, in 1816, died in a Spanish prison. (Above image is a painting showing Miranda in prison.) Within fourteen years of his death most of Spanish America was independent.

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 1 - Farnifold Green's 1707 Grant

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Part of 1676 Map - A New Description of Carolina
Map Courtesy George Howard

In 1653, over fifty years before Farnifold Green’s land grant, it appears that his grandfather, Reverend Roger Green, had been granted his 1000-acre choice of 10,000 acres on the south side of the Chowan River. The 1676 “Description of Carolina” map notes land between the Pamlico and the Neuse Rivers as “Green’s Land.”

During the reign of Queen Anne, Farnifold Green, who came from Virginia in 1697, had a 1700-acre plantation on the north side of the Neuse River. In 1707/1708 Green obtained a land patent from the eight Lords Proprietors—780 acres. This choice land was described as "beginning at the mouth of Core River, running up the river and creek 245 poles to a pine, then east 345 poles to a gum, then north eighty degrees east 45 poles to a pine at North River, then down the river to the mouth 420 poles, then along the sound to the first station."

Part of Green's land grant, in the vicinity of Cape Lookout and present-day Beaufort, was home to the Coree (Coranine or Cwarewiock) Indians.

It is believed Green may have established an outpost on his land grant about 1709. The few scattered pioneers in the Core Sound area probably built small make-shift houses and began to fish and farm...but there was no town.

It is also believed by many that Farnifold Green was the person who built the “White House” seen on early maps. After all, he owned the land and may have built it as a place to stay while in the area and provide an inn for travelers. The location of the "White House" was on or near the same location as the current Hammock House, however, the Hammock House may have been built much later.

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 2- The Coree and Tuscarora Wars

2009-01-13T07:46:00.071-05:00

The first few brave settlers, in what would become Carteret County, may have encountered a few Coranine or Coree Indians, a small tribe that had occupied the coastline south of the Neuse River. According to Al Pate in The Coree Are Not Extinct, the Coree, about five years earlier, had already begun to roam the coast “from the New River of Onslow…to Core Point and into their old homeland on the Pamlico south shore of Coree Tuck .”

Although Shackelford, Piver, Nelson and others were relatively safe in their isolation in the Core Sound area near Cape Lookout, the circumstances of the time were not conducive to more settlement. For several years those south of the Albemarle and north of the Neuse River faced a period of not only political strife but conflict with the lower Tuscarora and Coree Indians.

Al Pate described his Coree ancestors as a proud people who refused to return friendship “with every beating they took.” Pate wrote, “The Coree War is the Indian war that’s in the records, that history ignored and historians forgot.” The Coree War described by Pate as “a canoe warfare and pitiful delaying action,” started about eight years before the Tuscarora War and lasted another two years after the Tuscarora headed north.

The Tuscarora, outraged over enslavement , land encroachment and the deceitful practices of the white intruders, were angered at being pushed off their land--the area of present-day New Bern. King Hancock and his braves, full of resentment and hatred, murdered Deputy Surveyor John Lawson and decided to declare war. In September of 1711, according to historian William Powell, King Hancock's warriors, joined by other tribes, including the Coree, "launched an all-out attack along the Neuse and Pamlico, including the town of Bath." The unsuspecting and untrained colonists, also weak from a poor drought-caused harvest, were stunned and frightened. Farnifold Green and others made out their wills.

In 1712 Governor Thomas Pollock appointed Farnifold Green to help supply the army in Bath County and to garrison a small militia in the Core Sound area. Two years later Green’s 1700-acre Neuse River plantation at Greens Creek was the site of a brutal massacre that ended in the death of forty-year-old Farnifold Green. According to a family historian, also killed were “his son Thomas, a white servant and two Negroes. Another son was shot through the shoulder but managed to escape.”

With help from Colonel John “Tuscarora Jack” Barnwell, Colonel James Moore and their South Carolina troops, including Indians from other tribes, the Tuscarora were finally defeated at Nooherooka in early 1713. The majority of the Tuscarora survivors migrated north and became the sixth nation of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Coree, as noted by Pate, “grunted at the signing…and hunkered down in their hideaways, deep in the swamps…while their menfolk harried the Albemarle, the women and children of the Corees made their way to rich dry hammocks between the pocosins."

The continuation of the Coree War went on until February 11, 1715, when the colonial government finally returned “a piece of old Pamtico” to the few remaining Coree. However, with names like Core Banks and Core Sound, the Coree left their mark on land south of the Neuse.

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 3 - Beaufort Named and Laid Out by Graves

2009-01-13T07:25:00.031-05:00

Plat of Beaufort 1713 - by Richard Graves
The above image may have been an early draft; note the calligraphy doodles or scribbles including "Hungry Town."

In 1713, about a year before his untimely death, Farnifold Green, frightened and discouraged, assigned his land patent to Robert Turner, a merchant from Craven Precinct. Even though the Tuscarora War had delayed the establishment of the town, within months after the peace treaty was in force, a town was laid out on the southwest corner of the peninsula between the North River on the west and the Newport River on the east.

Robert Turner named the town Beaufort after his friend, Henry Somerset, the 2nd Duke of Beaufort, one of the Lords Proprietors, who in 1713 was Palatine of Carolina—the chief position among the Proprietors. Turner hired Deputy Surveyor Richard Graves to design the layout of the town.

Except for a few minor changes, the plan and the streets have never changed.

Two streets were named for the then reigning Queen Anne—Queen and Ann Streets. Orange Street was named for William III of Orange, who had occupied the throne before Queen Anne. Moore Street was named for Colonel James Moore, a hero in the Tuscarora War. Pollock Street was named for the Colonial Governor then in office. Craven Street was named for one of the Lords Proprietors, William Lord Craven. The only road into town was named Turner Street, after Robert Turner, the father of the town.

It wasn’t until after 1782 that Front Street got its name—before that, the irregular oyster-shell thoroughfare was known as Water Street.

Deputy Surveyor Richard Graves, draftsman for the plat, had been born about 1673 in Old Rappahannock County, Virginia, to Francis Graves and Jane Davenport Maguffey. Somewhere between 1708 and 1714, Richard left Virginia and slogged south to Carolina. He and Francis Shackelford, also from Essex County, Virginia, bought a sloop—probably speculating on engaging in coastal trade.

In 1715 Richard Graves married Hannah Kent Smithwick Green, widow of Farnifold Green. Graves family, and Essex County, Virginia records show Richard Graves as a person of recognized ability, taking a prominent part in the affairs of Craven Precinct. In the Colonial Records of North Carolina, Richard Graves is noted in 1726 as representing Craven Precinct in the Lower House of the Assembly of North Carolina.

Richard Graves made out his will on April 30, 1730 and died that same year. After his death, his wife Hannah, who outlived three other husbands besides Graves, ran the ferry across a tributary of the Neuse River not far from Turkey Quarter on the Old Washington Post Road in what is now Craven County. Hannah’s fifth and last husband was George Linnington; they had no children. Hannah is thought to have died about 1742.

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 4 - Queen's Anne's Revenge

2009-01-13T06:32:00.020-05:00

This was the age of piracy - 1716-1720, when pirates like Blackbeard sailed the seas, often tucked into Cape Lookout bight and Beaufort Town - leaving their legacies and even artifacts for us to discover almost 300 years later.

The bronze bell reveals the letters IHS MARIA and the date 1709.

QAR mages below courtesy Jim Goodwin and Queen Anne's Revenge.

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 5 - Turner Sells to Rustull

2009-01-12T20:59:00.021-05:00

Portion of 1737 Moseley Map

In his October 1970 account in The North Carolina Historical Review, Charles Paul documented Robert Turner’s encouraging but false start in lot sales. In the first three months of 1713, after the town was laid out by Richard Graves, 28 lots were sold to 14 different investors. Nineteen of these were waterfront lots—about half of those then available with water view and access.

Realizing that few, if any, of these investors lived in the immediate area, in 1714, Turner added a provision in his sales contracts—a house of not less than 20 feet by 15 feet had to be constructed within one year of the sale. Only five lots were sold that year—all lapsed due to unfulfilled building stipulations.

In 1720, during the reign of King George I, a discouraged Turner sold his 780 acres to Richard Rustull for 150 pounds sterling and moved to the Pamlico River area.

Charles Johnson, in his History of the Pirates, described a 1718 visit by Edward Teach and Stede Bonnet where they spoke of a “poor little village at the upper end of the harbor…”

Though Richard Rustull owned the town of Beaufort for only five years, he played an important role in the development of the early town. He increased the size of the town from its original 100 acres to 200 acres. The lots were sold for 30 shillings each—20 shillings paid to Rustull, and the other 10 shillings went to purchasing guns to help protect the town. He helped established a church to be known as St. John’s Parish, gave land to be used for the courthouse, served as Justice of the Peace and was one of the first town commissioners.

In 1722, when Carteret Precinct was carved out of Craven Precinct, Beaufort was chosen to be the site of the area courthouse. That same year the Governor confirmed an order from the Lords Proprietors that appointed Beaufort as an official port.

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 6 - Incorporated in 1723

2009-01-12T20:54:00.015-05:00

Whaling License issued to Samuel Chadwick 1726

The license reads, "To Samuel Chadwick you are hereby permitted with three boats to fish for whale or Other Royall fish on ye Seay Coast of this Government and whatsoever you shall catch to convert to your own use paying to ye Hon, ye Governor one tenth parte of ye Oyls and bone Made by Vertue of this License. By ye Hon. y Govern. Ord."

Transcription and image from Seasoned by Salt by Rodney Barfield.

On November 23, 1723 Beaufort was incorporated by an act of the General Assembly. Contracts for lots sold were to keep the building provision established by Robert Turner in 1714, but increased the time limit to two years. Money received from the resale of lots was to be used for the building of a church and other uses decided upon by the church wardens and the vestry.

Guidelines also stipulated that all lots were to be cleared and all streets measure at least 66 feet wide. There would be no make-shift fences. Those fences built were required to be “paled in”—constructed with post and rails. Disturbing the peace would warrant a fine of ten shillings, 24 hours in jail, or two hours in a stockade. At the same time, liquor made in the precinct could be sold by anyone without a license.

In 1725, according to Charles Paul, two roads connected Beaufort with the surrounding area. One extended northeast to the west side of North River. The other ran north to Core Creek. The two roads merged in town at the courthouse. At that time a ferry became available across Core Creek and a bridge road was planned from the west side of the Newport River to the White Oak River area.

The growth of the town of Beaufort proceeded at a snail’s pace. In 1723, only five lot sales were recorded—all lapsed because the owners did not build on them. In December, 1725, Richard Rustull saved his investment by selling the Beaufort land to Nathaniel Taylor, a resident of Carteret Precinct, for 160 pounds sterling.

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 7 - Nathaniel Taylor

2009-01-12T20:32:00.013-05:00

Old Burying Grounds 1898 - 165 years after Nathaniel Taylor deeded land for a cemetery.
Image scanned from Rodney Barfield's Seasoned by Salt

Nathaniel Taylor, just as Robert Turner and Richard Rustull, once lived in Beaufort’s oldest house—the Hammock House. Since Taylor was justice of the peace, court was held at his house until a courthouse was built.

According to Charles Paul, 1728 marked a high point in lot sales, perhaps due to more awareness and better promotion of the town. Between 1728 and 1732, 21 new lots were sold, plus 16 were resold by the town due to a lapse in building requirement.

During his ownership, Taylor extended the town limits to include the Hammock House, and deeded land to the town for a cemetery—The Old Burying Ground. In 1731, Governor Burrington described the town as one of “...little success and scarce any inhabitants.” In 1733, even though there had been a marked increase in settlers and sales, Nathaniel Taylor sold his interest in the town to Thomas Martin. The Beaufort waterfront “creek” was named for Taylor.

As years passed, lots in Beaufort were transferred back and forth from one owner to another, but the town had little overall growth.

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 8 - Pre-Revolutionary Times

2009-01-12T13:17:00.015-05:00

1730 Owins-Bedford House
Warshaw Painting

In Colonial Beaufort, Charles Paul wrote of John Brickell, in his Natural History of North Carolina, describing Beaufort as a town with a pleasant prospect, but that it was “small and thinly inhabited.” Charles Paul also cited the list of taxables in 1748 as only 320 for the whole county, perhaps with only about 32 in Beaufort.

In 1741 and 1744 Spanish Privateers harassed the coastline, especially off of Ocracoke Inlet. In 1747 they entered Beaufort Harbor threatening the town. Militia troops were hurriedly gathered under the command of Major Enoch Ward and held the Spanish until August 26, when they captured the town. However, Colonel Thomas Lovick and Captain Charles Cogdell gathered enough troops to force the Spanish from the town by early September.

According to Charles Paul, at least 37 lots changed hands during the 12 years before the Revolutionary War. At least 9 of these lots showed some sort of structure.

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 9 - Revolutionary War Times

2009-01-12T12:39:00.021-05:00

During the Revolutionary War, ships were in and out of the harbor transporting needed supplies. Patriots built salt works to supply themselves, and others, with the salt that had previously been imported. Some helped form an artillery battery to help defend the town.

Below are brief biographies of a few Beaufort citizens who were part of that time period.

ROBERT WILLIAMS circa 1723-1790 purchased 75 acres along Taylor’s Creek from James Winwright including the Hammock House. Williams built a salt works facility on the east end of town. He had a grist mill and built the first brick house in Carteret County using bricks and ballast stone from England. In 1776, Williams was appointed by the Provincial Congress to produce salt – he purchased Galland's Point for that purpose. (Galland's Point and Galland's Channel were named for John Galland, clerk of court in Carteret County in the 1720s. The named evolved to Gallants.)

RICHARD COGDELL circa 1724-1787, grandson of John the immigrant, was born in Beaufort to George and Margaret Bell Cogdell. Richard married Lydia Duncan. Cogdell was an ensign during the 1747 Spanish invasion, Aide de Camp to Governor William Tryon, justice of the court, sheriff of Craven County in 1762, representative from Carteret County in the legislature of 1766, member of the Provincial Congress of 1774 and 1775, and Chairman of the Committee of Safety. During the Revolutionary War, he was Judge of the Admiralty Court for Port Beaufort in 1776. He was a colonel in the Revolutionary Army and led troops that drove the last British Governor out of New Bern. It is said that he entertained George Washington when he visited New Bern.

WILLIAM BORDEN, JR. circa 1731-1799 was a landowner, shipwright, and delegate to the Fifth Provincial Congress in 1776 when the Bill of Rights was adopted. His father, William Borden, Sr., was a ship builder from Portsmouth, Rhode Island, who arrived in North Carolina in 1732 aboard his schooner. William Borden, Sr., son of John Borden, was one of two progenitors of the Borden family in America.

WILLIAM THOMPSON circa 1732-1803 was a naval deputy for the port of Beaufort and delegate to the Provincial Congress. As a colonel during the Revolution, he was the highest ranking officer from Beaufort. In 1776 he was commissioned to establish a salt works, and was justice as well as county treasurer – serving the town and county for thirty years. His Last Will and Testament provided land to an orphan and money for the schooling of four of the town’s poorest boys.

JOHN MARSHALL circa 1744-1807, born in London, served in the Revolutionary War, moved to Beaufort and purchased 100 acres. He was appointed by the General Assembly of North Carolina as commissioner of the town of Beaufort.

CAPTAIN CHARLES BIDDLE circa 1745-1821 designed and helped build the town's artillery battery after realizing the vulnerability of Beaufort to British attack. Biddle was not in Beaufort for long, but was elected to the General Assembly of North Carolina. For a short time, he owned the Gibble House on Marsh Street. until returning to Philadelphia in 1780. He and wife Hannah Shepard of Beaufort, had many children including Nicolas Biddle--child prodigy and famous American financier.

NATHAN FULLER circa 1750-1800, father of Belcher Fuller, was a Revolutionary War ensign in the Carteret County Militia. He was a navigator and ship owner who sailed from Beaufort to England and the West Indies, bringing supplies into Beaufort harbor prior to the Revolution.

COLONEL JOHN EASTON circa 1750-1850 was a man of great influence in Carteret County. He settled in Beaufort about 1770 and reared four daughters, who married local men. He served during the Revolutionary War, was a member of the Provincial Congress in 1775, Congress of 1776—which framed the state constitution, and was on the Committee of Safety in the New Bern district. He lived in what became known as the Easton House - actually built for Jacob Henry in 1800.

After the Revolution, Beaufort experienced a real period of growth. Most of the citizens made their living as carpenters, tailors, blacksmiths, mariners, coopers, shipwrights and fishermen. They also manufactured salt, processed forest by-products and shipped these products to other areas. There were also ministers, attorneys and a school master. More investors actually lived in, and took an active part in the building of the town. Ordinary citizens also became town leaders, some going on to represent the town in the North Carolina Legislature. Mail delivery was improving. Though still by horseback from New Bern, it was being delivered every two weeks.

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 10 -18th Century

2009-01-12T10:23:00.014-05:00

Image scanned from Seasoned by Salt by Rodney Barfield

It was a poor little village from the beginning, with only a handful of makeshift houses. The first streets were merely sandy clearings, probably with hand-marked wooden stakes. There was a wharf on the natural shoreline that witnessed a few small boats and tall ships arriving from the northern colonies, the West Indies or from England.

Early inhabitants were fishermen, tailors, carpenters, shipwrights, coopers, blacksmiths, and shoemakers. The inhabitants did what they had to do to survive.

One of the most vivid accounts of Colonial Beaufort was given by a French traveler who visited the town in 1765. It has been written that the Frenchman arrived at Cape Lookout and walked down the beach to a whalers’ camp. There he persuaded some of the whalers to take him over to Beaufort. A short visit left him with a very unfavorable impression of the town. He described it as “a Small vilage not above 12 houses, the inhabitants seem miserable, they are very lazy and Indolent, they live mostly on fish and oisters, which they have in great plenty.”

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 11 -19th Century

2009-01-10T20:54:00.026-05:00

Scene in Beaufort during the bombardment of Fort Macon

April 25, 1862 Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper

The beginning of the nineteenth century found a 100-year-old town—still very isolated and struggling. Records from 1812 show there were 600 residents and some 75 houses.

The Civil War had a huge impact on mid-19th century Beaufort. However, Amy Muse, in The History of the Methodist Church, gives an interesting account of day-to-day life in Beaufort in the 1800s.

“There were no paved streets, no shell roads, only a wilderness of scrubby bushes and deep sand with marshy places here and there where at high tide or during storms the water came in and stood. The most frequent outlays of town funds were for 'causewaying' or laying 'trunks' over the low places, repairing the foot bridges on Ann Street, deepening the ditches, or 'grubbing' Ann Street and making it 'passable.' Sandy paths radiated out from the church, through trees and undergrowth and back lots, to the homes—all without benefit of street lights.

Pigs and cows and horses and geese roamed at large and when encountered on the way from church on a dark night were a common source of fright. An ordinance said, ‘All hogs running at large shall be liable to be destroyed by any person or persons feeling themselves aggrieved,' but those who unexpectedly stumbled on one and heard the movement of other life in the darkness just hurried home. In spite of all this, by early candlelight whole families finished their chores and ploughed through drifted sand to meeting. Mothers brought babies in their arms who learned to sleep through hours of preaching and singing and shouting. Others went home at intervals to nurse theirs returning again to slip into service. The colored listened from the gallery and, under the influence of the same terror-arousing pleas, cried out in conviction of sin or rejoiced aloud over forgiveness. The more emotional ran in an out among the graves of the old cemetery shouting aloud.

Mail began [1855] to come to Beaufort by stage and three times a week! One of the old folks in writing of it said: ‘The coming of the mail was the chief event of the day, and notice was given of its arrival by a horn blown by the stage driver as he came through town.’ By the time he arrived at the old Post Office on the southwest corner of Ann and Turner Streets, the town was assembled to meet him.

Beaufort was then a struggling town, stretching along for the space of a mile upon the edge of the water. The Methodist was the only denomination that had a house of worship in the town.

Half dozen schooners—more or less—were laying at anchor at irregular distances from the shore—wharves there were none, or next to none. The fact is, Beaufort in those days, was as nearly out of the world as a town could well be. Communication with New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore was more direct and frequent than with New Bern.

But, no better people lived than the good people of Beaufort. It was a seaport town without any of the vices that generally prevail in seaports.

The coasting vessels that came into port were generally owned by residents of the town, and the sailors were young men, for the most part, whose parents lived in Beaufort. It was an exceedingly rare thing for a foreign vessel ever to anchor in Beaufort harbor.

It was a quiet, moral, and religious community. Everybody went to church on Sunday. Church members were orderly and pious. Hospitality prevailed under every roof. Nobody was rich, none so poor as to be dependent upon charity. The means of subsistence was in the reach of all that could get to the water.

…The year of 1854…A railroad was being talked. In fact, there was a possibility of its coming to Beaufort. There were those who wanted it, but some were uninterested. Things were pretty good as they were. A railroad would smoke up the town, kill the cows and chickens, run over the children, fill the town with tramps. Nevertheless, it was built to Sheppard’s Point which in 1858 was incorporated as Morehead City. When it was completed, Steve Turner and Palmer Davis sailed over early week-day mornings with mail and passengers, and at night met the train and brought the incoming mail and passengers to the expectant group gathered at the dock, around dark, to meet them.

…the barque Louisa Bliss [ventured out in search of gold] in 1850. With A. M. Fales as master and Brian Rumley, S. S. Duffy, William Penn Hellen, LeRoy M. Piver, James Gillikin, David William Noe, William F. Hatsel, J. L. Manney, Charles Whitehurst, and James Busk as crew, she sailed around Cape Horn for San Francisco with a cargo of lumber from William C. Bell and Company.

...The Atlantic House and The Ocean House carried advertisements in The Journal: Rooms at '$2.00 per diem' with 'bathing in ocean or surf, in the sound, or in bathing houses immediately contiguous to the hotel…Probably no hotel short of our large cities can make such a display of splendid silverware for dinner service…splendid magic wine stands, magic casters, cups lined with gold, egg spoons, pickle stands, fruit baskets...’ T. Duncan and Sons advertised stores 'one in the extreme west end of town the other on the corner of Front and Craven Streets'…'Dr. J. L. Manney respectfully tenders his professional services to the citizens of Beaufort'… Beaufort Female Seminary with Stephen D. Pool as Principal and Beaufort Male Academy with R. W. Chadwick as Principal were soliciting pupils…Windmills stood on Front Street.

…A notice of A. C. Davis, City Clerk, reflects some of the municipal problems of the day: Warning irrelative to horses and dogs running at large; running or draying horses at such a rate as to endanger the safety of pedestrians; removing sand from the streets; obstructing the streets and sidewalks, washing clothes near the pump, remain in full force and will be strictly enforced.

…the 1880s were peaceful happy days of autograph albums, dominoes, croquet, cisterns, feather beds, mosquito nets and ice cream festivals. They were the days when courting couples gathered down on Whitford’s wharf and when at dusk everyone went to meet the mailboat…when funeral notices were neatly written on letter paper, a piece of dull black ribbon inserted between the sheets and sent from door to door; and, without the ribbon, party notices were sent in the same manner with the names of all invited guests on the sheet.”

19th Century Ships
Otway Burns' Snap Dragon (1812), Confederate Steamer Nashville (1860)
and the Schooner Crissie Wright (1888)
Models by Jim Goodwin

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 12 - 20th Century

2009-01-10T20:27:00.045-05:00

Celebrating New Depot and One of First Trains to Beaufort - June 8, 1907

Again, Amy Muse, in her History of the Methodist in Beaufort, gives us a good snapshot of life around town . . .

“At some elusive period early in this century, Beaufort changed considerably. Banker ponies were prohibited on the Town Marsh and Bird Shoal, so they were no longer able to swim across the channel at low tide to graze along the sidewalks or run up and down the streets at night. Artesian wells took the place of the town pumps. A factory was built to manufacture our own ice. Sheds overhanging the sidewalks were removed, the picket fence around the cemetery was replaced with a wall, Dr. Maxwell came out with his Maxwell automobile in 1911, and from then on the familiar two-wheeled carts drawn by banker ponies began to disappear from the streets.

"The old ordinance prohibiting travel at more than ten miles an hour on straight roads or six around corners soon seemed foolish and later was repealed. The old fence around the town and the town gates were kept in condition until after 1910 then gradually people stopped closing the gates and no longer kept in repair, they disappeared.

"The picturesque net reels that stood on Bird Shoal fell into disuse and one by one disappeared the last going just about the time the board walk went. Somewhere along these years, too, women dropped their widows' bonnets with the narrow white rushing about the face and the heavy black veils falling sometimes all around the head; sometimes from the back only. Days of the bonnets were days when a woman mourned for life. A dress for a second wedding was supposed to be at least 'light mourning.'

"The railroad had something to do with the change, the light and water plants in 1909, the Inland Waterway in 1911, the World War, the radios that began to come around 1918—everything that tended to put us in closer touch with a larger world.”

_____________

Although Beaufort was affected directly by and took part in our country’s major events over the centuries, it remained very isolated for the most of its history. Today, residents and visitors remain thankful that Beaufort, this little village by-the-sea, has not only maintained its historic appearance, but also remains small, quaint, and unspoiled.

During the 20th century, these boats were used for fishing,
hauling, as mailboats and general transportation.

Carolina Sharpie, Shad Boat and Shrimper
Models by Jim Goodwin

Beaufort, NC-The Town and Why It's Unique

Beaufort is Finalist in "America's Coolest Small Towns 2012"

Johnston Photos of Beaufort in 1936 and 1937

Johnston Photographs of Fort Macon

Post Civil War Visitors to Beaufort 1865

North Carolina's Five Oldest Towns

Ward-Hancock House circa 1789

The Cooke Brothers – Beaufort, NC and on to Texas

First Woman Licensed as an Architect in North Carolina

Historian Charles L. Paul and "Colonial Beaufort"- Beaufort, NC History

1996 Queen Anne's Revenge Discovery Leads to Raising 3000-pound Anchor May 27, 2011

Artist's Drawing of Queen Anne's Revenge Run AgroundCourtesy NC Department of Cultural Resources CLICK FOR LARGER RESOLUTIONSSecurity at the QAR Site

Snapshot of Maritime History

Silver Chalice - Reconstructed Ship's Boat

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Swift Built in Beaufort

Bonnerton Boat

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Mail Boats

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Shad Boat - Spirit of Roanoke

Crissie Wright

Early Bogue Banks and the Borden Connection

1960-61 Reenactments of 1747 Spanish Intrusions

In the 1740s, Spanish privateers began roaming the coastal waters of North Carolina. Beaufort's normal maritime activity was interrupted or threatened on several occasions by the presence of these privateers, whose vessels rendezvoused in the large natural harbor provided by Cape Lookout Bight.

New Note Cards by Mary Warshaw

Garbacon Plantation

Wreckage Found May Be That of "Crissie Wright"

The Blackbeard Painting

Borden Skiff

Samuel Chadwick the Whaler and Family

More Research on Samuel Leffers

New Beaufort Site - Old Postcards

African-Americans in Beaufort - 1995 Study

Dredge-spoil Island - Town Marsh

"Pecan Tree Inn"

Captain Ireland

Beaufort Woman's Club

1907 Train Depot - Yesterday and Today

Charles Biddle's Time in Beaufort 1778-1780

1905 Laboratory Postcard

New Inlet Inn

1854 Map of Beaufort Harbor

Farnifold Green's Ancestors and Descendants

Richard Rustull Jr. House circa 1732- Mattie King Davis Gallery

B.L. Perry Residence

Sauthier's 1770 Map of Beaufort

1947 Etching

St. Paul's Cemetery

17th Century Seal of Albemarle

Gray's New Map of Beaufort -1877

DAVIS HOUSE Survival - Update

Ann Street Methodist Church - Mid-19th Century Memorabilia

Model of Crissie Wright

Cast Iron and Stones

Duncans, Davises and Mansons

Only One Survivor

Benjamin Leecraft & Descendants

FRENCH HUGUENOTS

Piver Family

A Spanish Visitor - 1783

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 1 - Farnifold Green's 1707 Grant

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 2- The Coree and Tuscarora Wars

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 3 - Beaufort Named and Laid Out by Graves

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 4 - Queen's Anne's Revenge

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 5 - Turner Sells to Rustull

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 6 - Incorporated in 1723

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 7 - Nathaniel Taylor

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 8 - Pre-Revolutionary Times

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 9 - Revolutionary War Times

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 10 -18th Century

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 11 -19th Century

HISTORY OVERVIEW - Part 12 - 20th Century

Artist's Drawing of Queen Anne's Revenge Run Aground
Courtesy NC Department of Cultural Resources

CLICK FOR LARGER RESOLUTIONS
Security at the QAR Site