Our Story Introduction
Welcome to the Museum of the Albemarle and the Our Story gallery Audio Tour. This tour provides an in-depth overview of the region and its progression through the various eras of transportation. You will begin by learning about our early reliance on the rivers and sounds, then introduced to the effects of the railroads, and end with the significant changes brought about by the automobile. Use this app as a guide to learn more about the history of North Carolina’s oldest region that is half land and half water.
1. Maritime Era
The Maritime Era represents a time when the region’s economy and residents were entirely dependent on transportation by water. Throughout this portion of the exhibit you will see items and hear stories of the original native groups who inhabited the area; the stories of settlement by English, Africans, and others; the development of maritime and boat-building traditions; and end by highlighting the economic and political issues that led to the American Revolution.
2. First Communities
Scholars believe that the first people to live in the Albemarle descended from ancestors who crossed into North America from Asia by 18,000 B.C. Other theories suggest that colonization was by sea. Americans from the Early and Middle Holocene geologic periods (8,500 B. C. to 1,000 B.C.) are known as Archaic people. They developed the atlatl, a spear thrower that increased speed and range enabling them to hunt smaller and faster game. This and other advancements helped them to settle in larger communities and make increasing use of the region’s plentiful water resources for food.With these changes, Archaic people developed into people now known as Woodland. The Woodland people brought new ideas and skills---making earthen pots, hunting with bows and arrows, and eventually cultivating crops to enhance their diet. It was the Late Woodland Algonkian speaking people who encountered the English explorers on the first Roanoke Voyage in 1584
3. Exploration and Contact
English exploration and settlement of North America were slow. Despite a few early voyages, it wasn’t until the 1580s that English financiers truly pursued profit here. Several times between 1584 and 1587, ships were sent by Sir Walter Raleigh across the Atlantic. The purpose of these early Roanoke Voyages was to learn about and settle the region now known as North Carolina. Raleigh’s first colony consisted of 108 soldiers, scientists, and metallurgists. In 1585 these men constructed a fort and town on modern day Roanoke Island, North Carolina. In addition to exploring the land, observations, and experiments to identify profitable natural resources were conducted by scientist Thomas Hariot. One of the most significant legacies of Raleigh’s expeditions was a collection of paintings by artist John White documenting the people, plants, and animals of the region. A few of these images showing the daily lives of these people can be seen here. When Indian relations deteriorated and resupply seemed unlikely, leaders of the first colony abandoned the settlement.In 1587 Raleigh dispatched a small band of men, women and children to lay the roots of English settlement at Roanoke Island. When they arrived they found the fort and town in ruin. Facing dwindling supplies and hostile Indians, Governor John White left his family and returned to England. Unable to get back until 1590, he found the settlement abandoned with no sign of the colonists. Despite several attempts to locate them, they were never found and became the legendary Lost Colony. Although England’s attempt to establish a colony failed, the Roanoke Voyages and the lessons learned there established the foundation for the success of Jamestown and later settlement in the region.
32. 2020 Marks 500 Years of Spanish Exploration
2020 marks the 500th anniversary of the first Spanish exploration of coastal and inland North Carolina.Many countries were vying for the southeastern part of this “New World.” In 1520, Pedro de Quexoia led an expedition from Santo Domingo which landed him onto the coast of what is now Currituck County. Very little information remains of his venture, however, one can only speculate that on their voyage from Europe to South America, coastal Carolina would leave an impression on them. Other European explorations soon followed. Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, on behalf of a charter issued by King Charles I of Spain, backed explorations including those off the coasts of the Carolinas in 1521. In 1524 Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine navigator in the service of France, explored the coastline from the Cape Fear area upward toward present day Kitty Hawk. Many historians believe that his published account in 1582 may have influenced other countries including England to continue exploration into this “New World.” Hernado de Soto explored North Carolina’s Appalachian region during his 1539-1542 expeditions. Juan Pardo led explorations around the Catawba Valley and the North Carolina and Tennessee Mountains in the late 1560s. These explorations resulted in the building of forts in those areas. Archaeological excavations at the 18th century port of Brunswick Town on the Cape Fear River have recovered Iberian olive jars, a type of vessel used for shipping by the Spanish. Archival documents dating from 1753 held in Governor’s Council records at the State Archives of North Carolina relate to Spanish privateers in Brunswick Town. These explorations left lasting effects on future explorations. Today, the Corolla Wildlife Horse Fund relays that, “Although the Ocracoke strain of Spanish mustang cannot be directly traced to a single breeder, importer, or sire, certain physiological features of present day horses, and historical data lead strongly to the conclusion that the ancestors of these horses were escapees from Spanish stock brought to the Outer Banks of North Carolina in the first part of the 16th century.”
4. Earliest Settlements
The first permanent English settlers in the Albemarle came south in the 1650s from the Virginia Colony centered at Jamestown. Many early settlers came as trappers or traders seeking marketable furs from the natives. Among the first known settlers was Nathaniel Batts, who was employed by a planter in what is now Virginia Beach to establish a fur trade with the Indians in 1653.In 1663 King Charles II rewarded eight loyal supporters in the recent English Civil War by granting the Carolina Charter and giving them title to all the land between Virginia and Spanish Florida westward to the “South Seas” or the Pacific Ocean. These men, called the Lords Proprietors, were given broad powers to organize their territory into a private province. The province was divided into three large counties, the most northerly being the County of Albemarle, named for George Monck the Duke of Albemarle. Albemarle County was divided into four precincts: Chowan, Currituck, Pasquotank, and Perquimans; each originally extended south of the Albemarle Sound with Chowan, theoretically, also extending westward to the Pacific Ocean.Life on the Albemarle frontier was hindered by antagonism of the Virginia authorities, who considered the Albemarle region as part of Virginia. There were also numerous attacks by Native Americans intent on protecting their lands, and the continuing transportation limitations due to the inhospitable nature of the colony’s coastline and the Great Dismal Swamp between it and Virginia.Most early residents lived in widely scattered settlements, almost always near navigable water. One of the most important was the Eden House site on the west side of the Chowan River in Bertie County. The earliest dwelling at Edenhouse was a post-hole structure erected in the late 1660s or 1670s. Though impermanent in construction, the house had an interior accentuated by Biblical-themed Delft tiles on the chimney hood.The Proprietary period came to an end in 1729 when the Crown purchased seven of the eight proprietary shares prior to North Carolina becoming a Royal colony. Prior to the actual transfer, a survey was undertaken in 1728 to resolve the disputed North Carolina-Virginia boundary
5. Pirates
The first permanent English settlers in the Albemarle came south in the 1650s from the Virginia Colony centered at Jamestown. Many early settlers came as trappers or traders seeking marketable furs from the natives. Among the first known settlers was Nathaniel Batts, who was employed by a planter in what is now Virginia Beach to establish a fur trade with the Indians in 1653.In 1663 King Charles II rewarded eight loyal supporters in the recent English Civil War by granting the Carolina Charter and giving them title to all the land between Virginia and Spanish Florida westward to the “South Seas” or the Pacific Ocean. These men, called the Lords Proprietors, were given broad powers to organize their territory into a private province. The province was divided into three large counties, the most northerly being the County of Albemarle, named for George Monck the Duke of Albemarle. Albemarle County was divided into four precincts: Chowan, Currituck, Pasquotank, and Perquimans; each originally extended south of the Albemarle Sound with Chowan, theoretically, also extending westward to the Pacific Ocean.Life on the Albemarle frontier was hindered by antagonism of the Virginia authorities, who considered the Albemarle region as part of Virginia. There were also numerous attacks by Native Americans intent on protecting their lands, and the continuing transportation limitations due to the inhospitable nature of the colony’s coastline and the Great Dismal Swamp between it and Virginia.Most early residents lived in widely scattered settlements, almost always near navigable water. One of the most important was the Eden House site on the west side of the Chowan River in Bertie County. The earliest dwelling at Edenhouse was a post-hole structure erected in the late 1660s or 1670s. Though impermanent in construction, the house had an interior accentuated by Biblical-themed Delft tiles on the chimney hood. The Proprietary period came to an end in 1729 when the Crown purchased seven of the eight proprietary shares prior to North Carolina becoming a Royal colony. Prior to the actual transfer, a survey was undertaken in 1728 to resolve the disputed North Carolina-Virginia boundary.
6. Farming/Shipping/Timber
The Colonial industry was related to the region’s agricultural production, forest resources, and maritime needs. Practically everything that was shipped needed a barrel, box, or basket as a container, coopers, and other craftsmen were prevalent throughout the Albemarle. Blacksmiths were critical for the making of wagons, wheels, construction hardware including nails, and shoeing horses. Saw and grist mills were required for sawing lumber, and turning grain into meal---although most farms had small hand-turned quirns for cracking corn as feed for animals. Most of the region’s eastern and southern counties did not have sufficient change in elevation to allow dam construction that would provide enough power to operate mills efficiently. In these counties, windmills were constructed to power milling facilities.
7. Jackson House
Built in 1755 along Knobbs Creek, the Jackson House interprets the lives of the many ambitious Albemarle farmers during the late colonial and early republic years. Though modest by later standards, the house was quite nice for its period, allowing a family to live in a measure of comfort afforded to a very small minority of the region’s population.It was constructed as a two-room hall-and-parlor-plan. The frame structure has exterior dimensions of approximately 26 feet long, 16 feet wide, and eleven feet tall. Its original half-story sleeping loft was replaced in the late nineteenth century with a full second story that was removed when the building was dismantled in 1992 for storage. The house was erected for Daniel Jackson, Jr. (ca. 1700-1761) and his wife Elizabeth. An estate inventory dated December 23, 1761, provides insight into Daniel’s household and suggests that he may have engaged in a trade, perhaps cobbling or carpentry, in addition to farming. One of their four sons, Bailey Jackson (ca. 1735-1814), a cooper in early records, inherited the property and raised a family of six children here with wife Miriam.
8. Polly Jackson
Hello, I’m Mary Jackson Scott, granddaughter of Daniel Jackson. I was born in 1778. My nickname is Polly. I married a widower, Marmaduke Scott, a prosperous planter on Knobs Creek, around 1795, and we had eight children.When Marmaduke died in 1813, we moved back here, to my grandfather’s home place.This room to the left is the hall, where we cook and eat our meals. The other downstairs room is the parlor. I sleep there with my younger children. I slept there with my younger children. The older ones sleep upstairs in the sleeping loft. Our beds are goose down mattresses. Tallow candles and reed lamps light the rooms and the two fireplaces heat the house.As a planter’s wife, I was accustomed to the finer things in life. I retained some luxury items from my marriage, such as silver teaspoons, brass candlesticks, and a side saddle, which are a symbol of a lady’s status.Soon, I started a fabric manufacturing business. I acquired four linen wheels and began to manufacture linen, wool, and cotton out of my house. The Dismal Swamp Canal had recently opened, which increased commerce to this area, and contributed to the success of my business.Everyone in the family has chores to do. The older boys tend livestock and work the fields of flax used to make linen and corn to feed us and the animals. The older girls look after the younger children, as well as cooking, house cleaning, and carding, spinning, and dying the flax fibers. Younger children pick berries, feed the chickens, and gather eggs.In their free time, the children play games, such as horseshoes, jacks, hoops and sticks, and shooting marbles. In the evening, the family tells stories or reads the Bible by firelight.This house is a good shelter for me and my eight children. I’m proud to have you as my guest and invite you to stay awhile and visit.
9. The American Revolution
North Carolina saw very little fighting during the Revolutionary War. The inlets along the coast, particularly Ocracoke Inlet, provided small ships an opportune location to sail by the British warships in the Atlantic and make their way to the inner harbors of Edenton and New Bern.For the most part, the Albemarle Region escaped the ravages of war. However, what the region did see was citizens of Pasquotank County openly resist the Stamp Act by refusing to hold court until it was repealed. During the years of 1765-1766, there was no court held in the county.On October 25, 1774, fifty-two ladies from several counties in North Carolina met in Edenton, North Carolina and declared they would no longer drink tea or partake of any British products. This was one of the first political acts taken by women in American history and an act ridiculed by the British press.In 1776, Albemarle residents began to show their spirit of independence by raising liberty poles in many locales; the Currituck Liberty Pole is the only one known to survive. Which flag or banner flew from its top is unknown.
10. The Canal Era
The Canal Era begins in 1793 with the digging the Dismal Swamp Canal. Like the Maritime Era, most transportation was still by water, but emerging steam power technology challenged the tradition of sailing vessels. Throughout this portion of the exhibit, you will see items and hear stories that relate to the expanding and changing farm and forest markets that increased the area’s dependence on enslaved labor. By 1860, several Albemarle counties had more black residents---enslaved and free---than white. Towns flourished, cotton became important for the first time, and educational and social opportunities increased. This period ends with the upheaval of the Civil War followed by Reconstruction.
11. Farming and Slavery
Agricultural products like corn, wheat, and sweet potatoes; forest products like lumber, shingles, staves, and tar; fishing, livestock raising, and, to a lesser degree, market hunting expanded as the basis of the region’s economy during the first half of the nineteenth century.Farm size and economics generally dictated whether farmer owned slaves or not, and many slaves were used in non-farming enterprises such as timbering, shingle making, and other manufacturing pursuits. A majority of farmers owned no slaves, and a sizeable majority of those who did owned fewer than five slaves. However, large plantations of fifty or more slaves became increasingly common in Bertie, Chowan, Hertford, and Northampton counties, with individual holdings of more than one hundred slaves not uncommon. At the largest plantations there were often more than fifteen slave houses, with some, such as Somerset Place in Washington County, having separate buildings for a kitchen and hospital.
12. Proctor Smoke House
This remarkable full-dovetailed log plank smokehouse exemplifies the importance of outbuildings in the successful operation of farms. Smokehouses were the focus of all meat curing and storing activities, supplemented by barns and cribs for keeping other food items safely. Built in the Bear Swamp area of Perquimans County during the early 19th century, the Proctor Smokehouse was moved to the Newbold-White House in the 1970s and to the museum in 2003.
13. Civil War
The American Civil War tore the United States apart unlike any other event in American history. Fought on battlefields from Pennsylvania to Georgia and as far west as Texas, it literally pitted brother against brother and friend against friend. That was especially true in the Albemarle, a region very divided throughout the entire war. Almost 50% of the total population was slave, and sizeable numbers of the white populations remained Unionists or were reluctant Confederates at best. Militarily, the war in the region was largely a naval one, fought on the sounds and rivers. Imperative to the Union goal of gaining control of eastern North Carolina was controlling the sounds and rivers of northeastern North Carolina. This meant controlling Oregon, Hatteras, Ocracoke, and Beaufort inlets that afforded passage from the treacherous Atlantic to the calmer sounds. The first military action in the region came in August 1861. With the Confederate government taking a lax approach to protecting these inlets and waterways, the Union navy was able to capture forts Hatteras and Clark at Hatteras Inlet, followed shortly by the abandonment of forts Ocracoke and Oregon. Roanoke Island quickly fell to Union forces on February 8. Two days later, on February 10, the Confederate mosquito fleet, that included the CSS Blackwarrior, was destroyed at Elizabeth City as the Union navy sought to seal the southern end of the Dismal Swamp Canal. By the end of the month, the Albemarle region had fallen under Union control, many towns surrendering without resistance.
14. CSS Blackwarrior
The M.C. Etheridge was a large wooden hulled schooner built in Plymouth in 1859 that belonged to brothers William D. and Joseph H. Etheridge of Colerain and used for trade along the North Carolina coast. It was put into Confederate service to assist in the defense of Roanoke Island in February 1862 and was renamed the CSS Black Warrior with Acting Master F. M. Harris commanding. At the Battle of Elizabeth City, the Black Warrior, stationed at Fort Cobb, received the first enemy fire. At the end of the battle, the Confederate Navy was forced to set the vessel ablaze in order to prevent its capture by Union forces. The crew escaped into the marshes of the Pasquotank River.
15. CSS Albemarle
In 1862, Confederate authorities initiated a plan to challenge Union naval superiority on the sounds and rivers of eastern North Carolina. They commissioned construction on three large ironclads on each of the state’s major East-West rivers. Due to funding and supply problems, only the projects on the Roanoke and Neuse Rivers actually reached the construction phase. For the Roanoke River ironclad, the Confederate Navy selected nineteen-year old Gilbert Elliott as principal contractor. An officer in the 17th North Carolina Infantry and a native of Elizabeth City, Elliott came from a shipbuilding family. He selected a cornfield near Edwards Ferry in Halifax County as the shipyard. Elliott fought shortages of skilled labor, timber and iron bars. Despite the difficulties, by early 1864 the ironclad, commissioned as the Albemarle, was ready to be launched. With workmen still onboard, the ram embarked on April 18, 1864, for her rendezvous with the Union fleet at Plymouth. Early the next morning, the Albemarle sank one Union gunboat, severely damaged another, and forced the Union navy to retreat down the Roanoke River. With support from her guns, Confederate General Robert F. Hoke forced the Union garrison in Plymouth to surrender. Fresh with success, the Confederate commanders decided to use the Albemarle against the main Union defenses at New Bern. Although they suffered major damage, the Union gunboats Sassacus, Wyalusing, Mattabesett, Commodore Hull, and Ceres, at the Battle of Batchlor’s Bay on May 5, 1864, managed to keep the ram from breaking out into the Albemarle Sound. Confederate forces failed to retake New Bern, but the Union navy worried about the potential threat of the Albemarle. On the night of October 27, 1864, naval lieutenant William B. Cushing mounted a daring raid on the Albemarle. Using a steam-powered launch armed with an explosive torpedo, Cushing managed to sink the ironclad at her moorings in Plymouth. With the ram now neutralized, Union forces retook the town. Refloated by the Union navy, the Ceres towed the Albemarle to Norfolk Navy Yard in April 1865. They sold her for scrap in October 1867.
16. Railroad Era
During the 1880s, railroads were built connecting most Albemarle counties with traditional market cities in North Carolina and Virginia. Fast and reliable, these railroads brought unprecedented growth to older towns, the establishment of new towns and communities, and allowed a major expansion of timbering, agriculture, and manufacturing endeavors. Such growth resulted in significant improvements in education, a broadening of commercial activity, and dramatic increases in domestic comfort and leisure activities. Throughout this portion of the exhibit, you will see items and hear stories that relate to these changes
17. Agriculture/Forestry
Farming remained the backbone of the regional economy, with many families—white and black alike—toiling as tenants or sharecroppers. Corn remained the most important crop in acreage planted, with cotton becoming the primary cash crop. Wheat, oats, and hay were also planted throughout the region. Certain sections of the Albemarle focused on specialized crops, primarily because of varying soil types. Tobacco and peanuts thrived in Bertie, Chowan, Gates, Hertford, and Northampton counties, while vegetable or “truck” farming—primarily white Irish potatoes and later cabbages---enjoyed the rich black soil to the east in Pasquotank, Camden, and Currituck counties. Hogs were the most important meat animal, with the quality of both pork and beef being gradually improved by hybrid breeding stock and the county fence laws after the 1860s. Blacksmiths and wagon makers in the region manufactured and repaired a large variety of farm equipment and vehicles, with several inventive men patenting improvements of farm machinery. Some counties celebrated the agricultural success with annual agricultural fairs, the most successful being the Edenton Agricultural and Fish Fair, begun in 1889 and succeeded in 1915 by the still-operating Chowan Fair.Lumber resources propelled the region’s industrial engine after the Civil War. Successful sawmills were established in the 1870s, many by experienced lumbermen from Northern states. While Elizabeth City had the most mills, the largest individual mills were the immense Pembroke and Albania mills erected in 1888 and 1893, respectively, in Edenton. Other large and important mills were located in Plymouth, Hertford, Buffalo City, Roper, and Ahoskie. While small operations, many of them were part-time or seasonal, operated in nearly every community. Some lumber companies were so large or their forest resources so extensive and remote that they operated privately.
18. Fisheries
The first permanent English settlers in the mid-seventeenth century combined their knowledge of fishing back in England with lessons learned by their Virginia neighbors and by observing surviving natives. By the 1730s, fishing had become so important that the General Assembly was increasingly petitioned to prohibit mill dams from obstructing the springtime run of herring, the most numerous and locally important species. Fish, especially herring, were salted or smoked for use throughout the year and were an important source of protein for the poor. Free blacks supplied the bulk of the labor used during the immense seine-hauls of seasonal fishing for shad and herring in the region’s waters, most notably the Albemarle Sound and Chowan River. The introduction of “pound nets” in 1869 gradually changed the regional commercial fishing industry entirely, enabling fishermen to start with capital investments of just several hundred dollars and a boat worked by one or two people.With the development of refrigeration and better transportation during the late 19th century, herring and shad and especially their roe, became major exports from Chowan and Bertie counties, with large fish houses and canneries established in each county. Tokens were used by all the large packing houses to measure a unit of work accomplished. A token was given for each bucket of fish cut and cleaned or roe accumulated and cleaned, and then turned in for cash at the end of the pay period.Other products of the sea added to the wealth of the Albemarle. Around 1850, diamondback terrapins were caught along the marshes of the Outer Banks and shipped to northern markets where the meat was a delicacy. For a brief period in the 1900s, a factory operated on Hatteras Island to extract oil from porpoises. Albemarle oysters were highly prized at home and at market. Between 1891 and about 1905 commercial oyster packing houses were operated in Elizabeth City, primarily by Baltimore interests, sparking the so-called “oyster wars” over control and exploitation of the region’s extensive oyster beds. State legislation finally limited the influence of northern capitalists and by 1908 the packing houses were abandoned. Many saltwater fish were caught by fishermen in Dare and Hyde counties and also sent to market. Fish wholesalers in Elizabeth City, such as the Globe Fish Company, were important brokers before World War II. Shrimp, once considered to be of no commercial value, became a major money crop after World War II.
19. Life Saving
The Outer Banks of North Carolina rightfully merits the title “Graveyard of the Atlantic” because of treacherous and shifting shoals and dangerous storms that have claimed innumerable vessels since recorded history. Lighthouses have been important beacons to guide mariners along the northern coast of North Carolina since completion by the federal government of the Shell Island Lighthouse near Ocracoke in 1800. Additional lighthouses were soon erected along the northern coast: Hatteras (1802), Ocracoke (1823 and still standing; built to replace the Shell Island light destroyed by lightning in 1818), Bodie Island (1848), Beacon Island near Ocracoke (1852), and a second Bodie Island Lighthouse in 1858 to replace the seriously flawed 1848 structure.Along with the need to better mark the North Carolina coast for navigation was the need for rescue services for passengers and crew on vessels in danger. Although there was no state effort to recruit coastal residents to assist in the rescue of shipwrecked persons until 1801, the resourceful and self-reliant residents of the coastal islands often risked their lives to assist those endangered. Still, to them the call of “Ship on beach” also meant the opportunity to salvage much-needed materials. The keepers of lighthouses also provided assistance and refuge when possible.1870 was when the United States Lifesaving Service was established. Stations were not created in North Carolina until 1873 and the next year District 6, composed of North Carolina and southern Virginia. By the end of 1874, the first seven stations were completed: Jones Hills (later renamed Whales Head then Currituck Beach), Caffeys Inlet, Kitty Hawk, Nags Head, Bodie Island (later renamed Oregon Inlet), Chicamacomico, and Little Kinnakeet. While the station keeper resided there all year, the “surf men” were present only during the “active” season—December through March---although they could be summoned otherwise in event of a wreck.The use of submarines by Germany during World War I brought a new chapter to Outer Banks lifesaving. The first German Unterseeboot or “u-boat” to appear off the Outer Banks was U-151 in June 1918, torpedoing the British steamer Harpathian off Knotts Island. It sank four more foreign ships in the region, and later four vessels were sunk by U-140 in addition to the Diamond Shoals Lightship No. 71. The most famous submarine sinking during World War I was the Mirlo, a British oil tanker sunk on August 16, 1918, by U-117.
20. Market Hunting
Beginning with the earliest settlement and throughout the 1700s, an abundance of game furnished food for the settlers in addition to marketable furs, especially deerskins, to hunters and fur dealers. Wild game and especially waterfowl remained important food sources well into the 1900s. This was particularly so in rural areas and among poorer residents and increased during the Great Depression of the 1930s.Great flocks of migratory waterfowl along the Atlantic coast made the Albemarle one of the prime hunting spots on the east coast. In the late 1800s, this abundance of fowl, a growing urban population in the North, and improved transportation encouraged the hunting of waterfowl and wildlife for profit, a practice known as market hunting. This industry became especially important in Currituck, Dare, and Hyde counties, aided by an absence of hunting laws, bag limits, and other shooting regulations that allowed hunters to sell as much game as they could shoot. Market hunters killed waterfowl and other birds for their plumage as well as for their meat. Hunting methods depended on the types of water and species present. The birds themselves were considered an unlimited, renewable, natural resource. Sport hunting was immensely popular during the late 1800s and early 1900s, particularly among urban Northerners. The region’s sounds provided bountiful opportunities, and numerous hunt clubs acquired large tracts of land and built hunting lodges, with many of the most noted clubs being along Currituck Sound. Hunting waterfowl required decoys and by the early 1900s local craftsmen—some of who were hunting guides as well-- were supplying gun clubs and clients with skillfully executed goose, duck, and shorebird decoys.Market hunting and other hunting methods were made illegal by state and federal laws in the early 1900s. Limits were placed on the numbers and kinds of birds hunted, and preserves were established to provide havens for migrating waterfowl.
21. Religion
Religion has been an important aspect in the civil, social, and political order in the Albemarle region since earliest settlement. By provisions of the Carolina Charter of 1663, the proprietary colony of Carolina was Anglican by legal statute. However, it was the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, who were the first successful religious organization in the area, with Quakers from New England and Pennsylvania migrating into Pasquotank and Perquimans precincts by the 1670s.Religious activity in the Albemarle during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were dominated by Baptists and Methodists, although Quakers retained a stronghold in Perquimans County. The Episcopalians were in nearly every county and were particularly strong in the larger towns.Few congregations for free blacks or slaves were organized before the Civil War, the largest being in Elizabeth City (which had an unusually large free black population). In 1850 the local Methodist Church organized a “Colored Mission.” By 1860 a large church with a handsome spire had been built on African Street (later African Church Street and now Culpepper Street) and the church had 363 members, the largest of any church in the town. This congregation continues today as Mount Lebanon African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.After the Civil War, black churches were organized in nearly every community in the thirteen counties, many forming directly from mother white congregations that issued letters of a release of transferal for its black members. These congregations often selected their names by adding “New” to the mother white church name, while others were named to recognize the person from who the land was acquired. Many new congregations—black and white alike---met under rudimentary “brush shelters” until land and funds could be raised to erect simple buildings. Like among the whites churches, the dominant denominations among blacks were Baptists and Methodists, or more officially, Missionary Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal Zion.Along with the dominant Baptists and Methodists and the town situated Episcopalians, many other denominations became established in the Albemarle region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While a Roman Catholic Church was formed and built in Edenton in the 1850s, another Catholic parish did not organize until white and black congregations were established in Elizabeth City in 1927 and 1941, respectively. Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Christian, Assemblies of God and smaller denominations have added to the region’s ecumenical climate. In the mid-1960s a small Mennonite community was established in western Hyde County by families fleeing growing Chesapeake, Virginia for a simpler rural lifestyle in keeping with their beliefs.The importance of religion in the region has been enhanced by two private sectarian ministerial preparation schools in Elizabeth City. The oldest is Roanoke Institute, founded in 1896 by black churches in the Roanoke Association in North Carolina and Virginia as a private high school for the training of students for the ministry. Since 1988 it has been known as the Roanoke Theological Seminary. In 1948 Roanoke Bible College was organized to train ministers in the Church of Christ and Christian denominations in North Carolina and Virginia.
22. Automobile Era
The personal automobile allowed even greater mobility and personal travel for Albemarle residents, bringing with it improved highways and modern bridges across waters that were now viewed as barriers rather than transportation routes. Maritime activities eventually became primarily recreational and the railroad ceased as well. Everything seemed to be bigger or faster or better, seemingly hindered only---and then just temporarily---by major disruptions caused by the Great Depression and World War II. After the war, the “Baby Boom,” the Civil Rights campaign, and space and computer ages shaped and defined Our Story as we entered a new century in this wonderful region of half water and half land. Throughout this portion of the exhibit, you will see items and hear stories that relate to the impact of roads.
23. Wright Brothers
The most profound and far-reaching transportation event of the period was the successful aviation tests of Ohio bicycle makers and aeronautical experimenters Wilbur and Orville Wright at Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks. Beginning in 1900, the Wrights made annual trips to the coastal sand dunes, traveling by train to Elizabeth City and then by boat to Kitty Hawk. Their time at Kitty Hawk was spent testing their theories with a succession of kites and flyers, an, in the process, refining important principles of flight. On December 17, 1903, Orville made the first machine-powered flight, lasting just 12 seconds and covering approximately 100 feet. By the end of the day the fourth flight, with Wilbur at the controls, covered an astonishing 852 feet in 57 seconds. The Age of Flight had truly begun. After several years of continued experiments and modification, the Wrights returned to Kitty Hawk in May 1908 for the last time to practice for demonstrations in Virginia and France. With the feats of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, the Albemarle’s place in aviation history was firmly established.
24. Social Issues
Opportunities increased for all segments of the population. Swimming—then known as “bathing” ---was a popular means of cooling off during the summer, whether it was at the ocean, a private sound or river resort, or local swimming hole. Baseball was exceedingly popular and teams were established on many levels. A spirited competition was held among community teams, with fierce rivalries forming between neighboring sections. Some of the “Negro” teams were widely known, with the “Quick Steps” of Edenton playing teams throughout Hampton Roads, Virginia and as far away as New York. Edenton’s Hicks Field, built in 1939, stands today as a monument to the Albemarle’s enthusiastic embrace of baseball. Bicycling was a popular sport in addition to a useful means of transportation and every town and community had a bicycle shop. Moving pictures became widely popular during the early twentieth century, with theaters opening in all of the larger towns; by the late 1920s some of the more modern facilities were even “air-cooled.” The most noted entertainment venue was the James Adams Floating Theatre, which traveled the region’s waterways during the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s, bringing sophisticated traveling shows to numerous locations. In rural areas, tomato canning clubs begun in the 1910s evolved into home demonstration clubs that provided both a social outlet for women and girls outside of the home and church and disseminated useful information about domestic issues. Four-H and other of clubs for young people organized to provide recreational and outlets as well as educational endeavors. The first Four-H Club in North Carolina was organized in 1909 in Ahoskie as the Corn Club, and by 1940 there were dozens of similar clubs throughout the Albemarle region. Boy and Girl Scout troops were organized in many communities to provide additional educational and recreational activities, the Edenton Boy Scout Troop 2 being the second oldest in the state, organized in the mid-1910s.
25. Depression
The Great Depression staggered the Albemarle economy. The declining need and prices for farm, forest, and manufactured goods, forced lower wages and raised unemployment. Building activity all but ceased for several years, idling thousands of workers in regional lumber mills. Hundreds of farmers lost their farms, with statewide farm income in 1932 falling to just one-third of what it has been four years earlier. As individual incomes fell and farms failed, consumer businesses also failed at an alarming rate, including groceries, farm supply stores, general mercantile stores, and banks.With the Great Depression at its lowest point in 1932, the voters elected Franklin D. Roosevelt as President and Elizabeth City native John Christopher Blucher Ehringhaus (1882-1949) as Governor. The state’s crushing economic condition fell to Ehringhaus to resolve, which was accomplished largely by instituting the state’s first sales tax. Though the tax was not popular, it enabled the state to survive the Great Depression and lay the groundwork for uniform statewide schools and superior roads and highways.Federal assistance to the Albemarle took many forms. Perhaps the most widespread were employment endeavors of the Works Projects administrations (WPA) that provided funds for public construction projects. These included school additions, courthouse additions and annexes, post office, sidewalks, National Guard armories, and even a baseball field. The Lost Colony, the nation’s oldest continuing outdoor symphonic drama, began in 1937 under the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project. The largest WPA project in the Albemarle region was assistance in the construction in the United States Coast Guard Air Base just south of Elizabeth City. With the assistance of $411,000 from the WPA, the base was completed in 1939.One of the first federal programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps, begun in April 1933 to train single, needy, and jobless teenage boys and young men for work in conservation areas. Among the first of these camps—where many a boy experienced electricity and indoor plumbing for the first time---was Camp #424, which opened in June 1933 at Bells Island in Hyde County; other regional camps were at Manteo and Hatteras in Dare County.
26. World War II
The 1940s saw the region and World again plunged into war. Young men and women from the Albemarle entered the Armed Forces and were deployed in all theaters. Fabric stars hung in many windows indicating the home of someone in the service, with gold stars indicating a death. Thousands more worked in the region’s shipyards, factories, forests, and farms to equip and supply the fighting forces. Others migrated, particularly from rural areas, to the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News areas to provide critical civilian labor in shipyards and military bases.Wartime combat affected the region in the form of German U-boats along the Outer Banks that exacted a heavy toll on merchant shipping. Some ships in so-called “Torpedo Junction” were sunk in sight of swimmers, and burning oil slicks and bodies washed on shore were a grim and not uncommon occurrence along the Outer Banks.To fight the U-boats, the Weeksville Naval Air Station was established south of Elizabeth City in 1940 to house K-class airships. These “blimps” escorted merchant ships along the coast, and in concert with Civil Air Patrols and blackouts along the coast, losses due to German submarines were reduced by more than ninety-five percent.Other wartime bases were established in the Albemarle. A Marine Corps Air Station was established along the Albemarle Sound east of Edenton. It primarily trained glider pilots and airborne troops and had more than twenty buildings.Other stations in the Albemarle included the Harvey Point Naval Air Station, established in Perquimans County as a seaplane base in 1942, and Watkins Civil Air Patrol Base 16 in Manteo.Shipyards in Elizabeth City constructed sub tenders and repaired small Navy vessels, employing hundreds of workers. An airstrip at Maple in Currituck County was built as an emergency landing strip, primarily for planes unable to make it back to the Oceana base in present Virginia Beach. In a different vein, in 1943-1944 a prisoner-of-war camp was established across the Roanoke River in neighboring Martin County, with Italian and German internees providing critical labor on the farm and in the forest.
27. Civil Rights
On March 4, 1960, Edenton’s African-American teenagers began to quietly picket the town’s lone movie theater. Organized by Golden A. Frinks, protests quickly spread to other downtown stores. For over a year, the black community picketed and boycotted Edenton’s white-owned businesses.These early demonstrations climaxed in the fall of 1962. To try and end the protests, Edenton officials adopted a set of laws that restricted picketing. The resulting mass arrests attracted national attention. At the urging of Frinks, Martin Luther King Jr. decided to visit northeastern North Carolina in December 1962.During the 1962 visit, King spoke both in Elizabeth City and Hertford. The keynote address took place at the National Guard Armory in Edenton on December 21, 1962. He encouraged the 500-member, majority African-American audience to keep up their economic boycott, proclaiming “if you want to respect my dollar, you must also respect my person.”In response to the national press attention that King’s visit generated, Edenton’s white leaders partially disassembled local segregation laws, and several businesses hired African-American workers. However, any meaningful attempts at desegregation quickly stalled, and the status quo returned.African-American protests continued across the Albemarle, reaching a crescendo in the spring of 1966. In Hertford, town officials answered calls for the hiring of black policemen and store clerks with firehoses and nightsticks. As a rejoinder to the violence, 100 African-American protesters marched from Hertford to Edenton.Again prompted by area civil rights organizers, King returned to the region on May 8, 1966. Speaking once again at Edenton’s National Guard Armory, he discussed local events but focused his remarks on the greater national movement for equality.He also talked of his devotion to racial justice saying, "There are some things worth dying for and if a man hasn't found something for which he is willing to die, then he isn't worth living." Less than two years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lay dead in Memphis from an assassin’s bullet
28. The Tourism Era
Post-war prosperity expanded personal leisure and travel. Seaside resorts along the Outer Banks offered a wide variety of opportunities, with the vacation industry growing to become the leading economic resource in the region after agriculture. While seaside resorts had existed since the 1840s, the establishment of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area by the federal government in 1953 ensured the protection of much of the area’s natural beauty. The region’s long and varied history itself became destinations for education and recreation, with sites of historical and natural interests being established in every county.Motion pictures, organized and recreational sports (especially baseball), and automobile driving remained favorites for personal and family activities. Another popular activity was frequenting a variety of restaurants, with favorites existing in every town and crossroads. Some became local meeting places, much like the old general store, where one gathered not just for lunch but also to catch up with local news.
29. Coast Guard
The Coast Guard embraced airplane technology after World War I, opening its first aviation station in 1920 near Morehead City. They flew single-engine Curtis HS-21 flying boats lent by the Navy. Though the planes quickly proved their value in locating ships, funding was eliminated in 1922. The airplane fleet was re-established, and in 1938 Pasquotank voters approved issuing bonds to purchase land south of the city for a large Coast Guard Base. Partially funded through a Works Progress Administration grant, the base was completed in 1939. During World War II, air patrols by the Coast Guard (once again under Navy authority) combined with airship (blimp) patrols from the Weeksville Naval Air Station south of Elizabeth City virtually eliminated previously heavy losses of coastal shipping to German submarines in “Torpedo Junction” off the Outer Banks.After the war, the old land-based lifesaving stations were gradually decommissioned, the last ones in the 1950s. A large number of the old buildings still stand, some having been converted into dwellings, businesses, restaurants, and offices. A marine Coast Guard presence is still maintained at Hatteras and Oregon inlets and on Ocracoke Island. The base at Elizabeth City has grown into a major facility and is the main air station and rescue base for the mid-Atlantic region between New Jersey and Georgia.
30. Albemarle Playground
Recreational fishing has increased greatly since the late 1800s, as the joy of spending time on the water gradually surpassed the economic necessity of putting food on the table. As individual leisure time increased, fishing activities grew to become a favorite pastime. Along the Outer Banks, surf, and deep-sea fishing has developed into a major commercial and tourist industry that today supports a prospering sport boat building industry in the region.
31. The End
This concludes the Our Story Audio Tour. We hope you have enjoyed this in-depth overview of our region's history from its beginnings thousands of years ago to the present.If you want to learn more about the museum, and any upcoming exhibits and events please visit www.museumofthealbemarle.com for more information.The Museum would like to thank Robyn Eure and Dean Schaan of the Encore Theatre Company for their narration included in this tour.
