“EDITOR CAMDEN SPY: According to
promise, I now write you a little about Delaware. Persons in your vicinity look upon the ‘Little Diamond State’ as a mere bog, or marsh, and mud and water they suppose are its chief productions; but, in my opinion, it is one of the finest little states in the Union. Although small, in proportion to the size it produces more grain and fruit than any other state in the country, and they are unexcelled as regards quality and flavor. Crime is kept in awe by that best of institutions, the whipping post and pillory! These are the bugbear of all the northern newspapers, and they can say nothing too harsh or severe against them. The whipping-post in Kent County is situated in the yard of the jail, and is about six feet in height and three feet in circumference; the prisoner is fastened to it by means of bracelets, or arms, on the wrist; and the sheriff executes the sentence of the law by baring the convict to the waist, and on the bare back lashing him twenty, forty, or sixty times, according to the sentence. But the blood does not run in streams from the prisoner’s back, nor is he thrown into a barrel of brine, and salt sprinkled over the lashes. On the contrary, I have seen them laugh, and coolly remark that ‘it’s good exercise, and gives us an appetite.’ But there are others who raise the devil’s own row with their yells and horrible cries of pain. The whipping is public, and is witnessed each time by large numbers of people who come from miles around to see the culprit disgraced.
“A public whipping occurred not very long ago, and the day was very stormy, yet there were fully three hundred spectators on the ground to witness this wholesome punishment! A person who has been lashed at the whipping-post cannot vote again in this state; thus, most of the criminals who are whipped leave the state in order to regain their citizenship. The newspapers can blow until they are tired about this ‘horrible, barbaric, and unchristian punishment,’ but if their own states would adopt this form of punishment, they would find crime continually on the decrease. What is imprisonment for a few months or years? It is soon over with; and then they are again let out upon the community, to beg, borrow, and steal. But to be publicly whipped is an everlasting disgrace, and deters men from committing wrong. Women are whipped in the same manner, and they take it very hard; but, to my recollection, there has not been a female prisoner for some time. I did not intend to comment so long upon the whipping-posts in the state of Delaware.
“The pillory next claims our attention. This is a long piece of board that runs through the whipping-post at the top, and has holes [as per engraving] for the neck and arms to rest in a very constrained position. The prisoner is compelled to stand on his toes for an hour with his neck and arms in the holes, and if he sinks from exhaustion, as it sometimes happens, the neck is instantly broken. Josiah Ward, the villain who escaped punishment for the murder of the man Wady in your county, came into Delaware, broke into a shoe-store, succeeded in stealing one pair of shoes, — was arrested, got sixty lashes at the post, was made to stand in the pillory one hour, is now serving out a term of two years’ imprisonment, — and he never got the shoes! The pillory is certainly a terrible and cruel punishment, and, while I heartily favor the whipping-post, I think this savage punishment should be abolished.
“Since writing the above, I have heard that a colored woman was convicted of murder in the second degree last May, and on Saturday the 17th of that month received sixty lashes on her bare back, and stood in the pillory one hour.
“What do you think of Delaware law, after what I have written? I have written enough for the present, so I will close, ever remaining, Yours very truly, P. P.”
For twenty years past, Delaware and
Maryland farmers have given much attention to peach culture, which has gradually declined in New Jersey and states further north. There are said to be over sixty thousand acres of land on the peninsula planted with peach-trees, which are estimated to be worth fifty dollars per acre, or three million dollars. To harvest this crop requires at least twenty-five thousand men, women, and children. The planting of an acre of peach-trees, and its cultivation to maturity, costs from thirty to forty dollars. The canners take a large portion of the best peaches, which are shipped to foreign as well as to domestic markets.
The low lands and river-shores of the peninsula exhale malaria which attacks the inhabitants in a mild form of ague. During the spring, summer, and early fall months, a prudent man will not expose himself to the air until after the sun has risen and dispelled the mists of morning. The same caution should be observed all through the low regions of the south, both as to morning and evening exercise. Chills and fever are the bane of the southern and middle states, as this disease affects the health and elastic vigor of the constitution, and also produces great mental depression. Yet those who suffer, even on every alternate day, from chills, seem to accept the malaria as nothing of much importance; though it is a well-known fact that this form of intermittent fever so reduces the strength, that the system is unable to cope with other and more dangerous diseases for which it paves the way.
Upon a little creek, tributary to St. Martin’s River, and near its confluence with the Isle of Wight Bay, a long day’s pull from the swamp of Love Creek, was the old plantation home of a friend of my boyhood, Mr. Taylor, who about this time was looking out for the arrival of the paper canoe. It was a question whether I could descend Love Creek three miles, cross Rehoboth and Indian River sounds, ascend White’s Creek, make a portage to Little Assawaman Bay, thread the thoroughfare west of Fenwick’s Island Light, cross the Isle of Wight Bay, ascend and cross St. Martin’s River to Turval’s Creek, and reach the home of my friend, all in one day. But I determined to attempt the task. Mr. Webb roused his family at an early hour, and I rowed down Love Creek and crossed the shallow waters of Rehoboth Bay in the early part of the day.
From Cape Henlopen, following the general contour of the coast, to Cape Charles at the northern entrance of Chesapeake Bay, is a distance of one hundred and thirty-six miles; from Cape Charles across the mouth of Chesapeake Bay to Cape Henry is thirteen miles; from Henlopen south, the state of Delaware occupies about twenty miles of the coast; the eastern shore of Maryland holds between thirty and forty miles, while the eastern shore of Virginia, represented by the counties of Accomac and Northampton, covers the peninsula to Cape Charles.
Commencing at Rehoboth Bay, a small boat may follow the interior waters to the Chesapeake Bay. The watercourses of this coast are protected from the rough waves of the ocean by long, narrow, sandy islands, known as beaches, between which the tides enter. These passages from the sea to the interior waters are called inlets, and most of them are navigable for coasting vessels of light draught. These inlets are so influenced by the action of storms, and their shores and locations are so changed by them, that the cattle may graze to-day in tranquil happiness where only a generation ago the old skipper navigated his craft. During June of the year 1821 a fierce gale opened Sandy Point Inlet with a foot depth of water, but it closed in 1831. Green Point Inlet was cut through the beach during a gale in 1837, and was closed up seven years later. Old Sinepuxent Inlet, which was forced open by the sea more than sixty years ago, closed in 1831. These three inlets were within a space of three miles, and were all north of Chincoteague village. Green Run Inlet, which had a depth of about six feet of water for nearly ten years, also closed after shifting half a mile to the south of its original location. The tendency of inlets on this coast is to shift to the southward, as do the inlets on the coast of New Jersey.
Oystermen, fishermen, and farmers live along the upland, and in some cases on the island beaches. From these bays, timber, firewood, grain, and oysters are shipped to northern ports. The people are everywhere kind and hospitable to strangers. A mild climate, cheap and easily worked soils, wild-fowl shooting, fine oysters and fishing privileges, offer inducements to Northerners and Europeans to settle in this country; the mild form of ague which exists in most of its localities being the only objection. While debating this point with a native, he attacked my argument by saying:
“Law sakes! don’t folks die of something, any way? If you don’t have fever ‘n’ ague round Massachusetts, you’ve got an awful lot of things we hain’t got here — a tarnashun sight wuss ones, too; sich as cumsempsun, brown-critters, mental spinageetis, lung-disease, and all sorts of brownkill disorders. Besides, you have such awful cold winters that a farmer has to stay holed four months out of the year, while we folks in the south can work most of the time out of doors. I’ll be dog-goned if I hadn’t ruther live here in poverty than die up north a-rolling in riches. Now, stranger, as to what you said about sickness, why we aren’t no circumstance to you fellows up north. Why, your hull country is chuckfull of pizenous remedies. When I was a-coasting along Yankeedom and went ashore, I found all the rocks along the road were jist kivered with quack-medicine notices, and all the farmers hired out the outsides of their barns to advertise doctor’s stuff on.”
In no portion of America do the people seem to feel the burden of earning a livelihood more lightly. They get a great deal of social enjoyment out of life at very little cost, and place much less value on the “mighty dollar” than do their brother farmers of the northern section of the states. The interesting inquiry of “Who was his father?” commences at Philadelphia, and its importance intensifies as you travel southward. Old family associations have great weight among all classes.
It was six miles from the mouth of Love Creek across the little sound to Burton’s marshy island at the entrance of Indian River Sound. Indian River supplies its bay with much of its fresh water, and the small inlet in the beach of the same name with the salt water of the ocean. Large flocks of geese and ducks were seen upon the quiet waters of the sound. Pursuing my southward course across Indian River Sound three miles, I entered a small creek with a wide mouth, which flows north from the cedar swamp, known as White’s Creek, which I ascended until the stream became so narrow that it seemed almost lost in the wilderness, when suddenly an opening in the forest showed me a clearing with the little buildings of a farm scattered around. It was the home of a Methodist
exhorter, Mr. Silas J. Betts. I told him how anxious I was to make a quick portage to the nearest southern water, Little Assawaman Bay, not much more than three miles distant by road.
After calmly examining my boat, he said: “It is now half-past eleven o’clock. Wife has dinner about ready. I’ll hurry her up a little, and while she is putting it on the table we will get the cart ready.” The cart was soon loaded with pine needles as a bed for the canoe. We lashed her into a firm position with cords, and went in to dinner.
In a short time after, we were rattling over a level, wooded country diversified here and there by a little farm. The shallow bay, the east side of which was separated from the ocean by sandy hills, was bounded by marshes. We drove close to the water and put the Maria Theresa once more into her true element. A friendly shake of the hand as I paid the conscientious man his charge of one dollar for his services, with many thanks for his hospitality, for which he would accept nothing — and the canoe was off, threading the narrow and very shallow channel-way of this grassy-bottomed bay.
The tall tower of Fenwick’s Island Light, located on the boundary line of Delaware and Maryland, was now my landmark. It rises out of the low land that forms a barrier against which the sea breaks. The people on the coast pronounce Fenwick “Phoenix.” Phoenix Island, they say, was once a part of the mainland, but a woman, wishing to keep her cattle from
straying, gave a man a shirt for digging a narrow ditch between Little and Great Assawaman bays. The tide ebbed and flowed so strongly through this new channel-way that it was worn to more than a hundred feet in width, and has at high tide a depth in places of from ten to fifteen feet of water. The opening of this new thoroughfare so diminished the flow of water through the Little Assawaman Inlet to the sea, that it became closed. The water was almost fresh here, as the nearest inlet which admits salt water at high tide is at Chincoteague Island, some fifty miles distant.
Passing to the west of the light-house through this passage, I thought of what a woman could do, and almost expected to hear from the rippling waters the “Song of the Shirt,” which would have been in this case a much more cheerful one than Hood’s. I now entered Great
Assawaman Bay, the waters of which lay like a mirror before me; and nearly five miles away, to the southwestern end, the tall forests of the Isle of Wight loomed up against the setting sun. Ducks rose in flocks from the quiet waters as my canoe glided into their close vicinity. If I could have taken less cargo, I should have carried a light gun; but this being impossible, a pocket revolver was my only fire-arm: so the ducks and other wild-fowl along my route had reason to hold the paper canoe in grateful remembrance.
Upon reaching the shores of the Isle of Wight I entered the mouth of St. Martin’s River, which is, at its confluence with Isle of Wight Bay, more than two miles wide. I did not then possess the fine Coast Chart No.28, or the General Chart of the Coast, No.4, with the topography of the land clearly delineated, and showing every man’s farm-buildings, fields, landings, &c., so plainly located as to make it easy for even a novice to navigate these bays. Now, being chartless so far as these waters were concerned, I peered about in the deepening twilight for my friend’s plantation buildings, which I knew were not far off; but the gloomy forests of pine upon the upland opened not the desired vista I so longed to find.
Crossing the wide river, I came upon a long point of salt-marsh, which I hoped might be Keyser’s Point, for I knew that to the west of this point I should find Turval’s Creek. While rowing along the marsh I came upon two
duck-shooters in their punt, but so enveloped were they in the mist that it was impossible to do more than define their forms. I, however, ventured a question as to my locality, when, to my utter astonishment, there came back to me in clear accents my own name. Never before had it sounded so sweet to my ears. It was the voice of my friend, who with a companion was occupied in removing from the water the flock of decoys which they had been
guarding since sunrise. Joyful was the unexpected meeting.
We rowed around Keyser’s Point, and up Turval’s Creek, a couple of miles to the plantation landing. There, upon the old estate in the little family burial-ground, slept, “each in his narrow cell,” the children of four generations. Our conversation before the blazing wood-fire that night related to the ground travelled over during the day, a course of about thirty-five miles. Mr. Taylor’s father mentioned that a friend, during one week in the previous September, had taken upon his hook, while fishing from the marshes of Rehoboth Bay, five hundred rock-fish, some of which weighed twenty pounds. The oysters in
Rehoboth and Indian River bays had died out, probably from the decrease in the amount of salt water now entering them. A delightful week was spent with my friends at Winchester Plantation, when the falling of the mercury warned me to hurry southward.
On Wednesday, November 25, I descended the plantation creek and rowed out of St. Martin’s River into the Bay. My course southward led me past “the Hommack,” an Indian mound of oyster-shells, which rises about seven feet above the marsh on the west side of the entrance to Sinepuxent bay, and where the mainland approaches to within eight hundred feet of the beach. This point, which divides the Isle of Wight Bay from Sinepuxent, is the terminus of the Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad, which has been extended from Berlin eastwardly seven miles. A short ferry conveys the passengers across the water to a narrow island beach, which is considered by Bayard Taylor, the author, the finest beach he has ever visited. This new watering-place is called Ocean City; and my friend, B. Jones Taylor, was treasurer of the company which was engaged in making the
much-desired improvements. The shallow bays in the vicinity of Ocean City offer safe and pleasant sailing-grounds. The summer fishing consists chiefly of white perch, striped bass, sheep’s-head, weak-fish, and drum. In the fall, bluefish are caught. All of these, with oysters, soft crabs, and diamond-backed terrapin, offer tempting dishes to the epicure. This recently isolated shore is now within direct railroad
communication with Philadelphia and New York, and can be reached in nine hours from the former, and in twelve hours from the latter city.
From the Hommack to South Point is included the length of Sinepuxent Bay, according to Coast Survey authority. From South Point to below the middle of Chincoteague Island the bay is put down as “Assateague,” though the oystermen do not call it by that name. The celebrated oyster-beds of the people of Chincoteague commence about twenty miles south of the Hornmack. There are two kinds of oysters shipped from Chincoteague Inlet to New York and
other markets. One is the long native plant the other, that transplanted from Chesapeake Bay: this bivalve is rounded in form, and the most prized of the two. The average width of Sinepuxent was only a mile. When I turned westwardly around South Point, and entered Assateague Bay, the watery expanse widened, between the marshes on the west and the sandy-beach island on the east, to over four miles.
The debouchure of Newport Creek is to the west of South Point. The marshes here are very wide. I ascended it in the afternoon to visit Dr. F. J. Purnell, whose attempts to introduce the pinnated grouse and California partridges on his plantation had attracted the attention of Mr. Charles Hallock, editor of “Forest and Stream”; and I had promised him, if possible, to investigate the matter. This South Point of Sinepuxent Neck is a place of historical interest, it being now asserted that it is the burial place of Edward Whalley, the regicide.
Early in 1875, Mr. Robert P. Robins found in a bundle of old family documents a paper containing interesting statements written by his great-great-grandfather, Thomas Robins, 3d, of South Point,
Worcester County, Maryland, and dated July 8, 1769. We gather from this reliable source that Edward Whalley left Connecticut and arrived in Virginia in 1618, and was there met by a portion of his family. From Virginia he travelled to the “province of Maryland, and settled first at ye mouth of ye Pokemoke River; and finding yt too publick a place he came to Sinepuxent, a neck of land open to ye Atlantic Ocean, where Colonel Stephen was surveying and bought a tract of land from him and called it Genezar; it contained two thousand two hundred acres, south end of Sinepuxent; and made a settlement on ye southern extremity, and called it South Point; to ye which place he brought his family about 1687, in ye name of Edward Middleton. His own name he made not publick until after this date, after ye revolution in England, (in ye year of our Lord 1688,) when he let his name be seen in publick papers, and had ye lands patented in his own name.”
The writer of the above quotation was the great-grandson of Edward Whalley (alias Edward Middleton), the celebrated regicide.
Four miles from South Point I struck the marshes which skirted Dr. Purnell’s large plantation, and pushing the canoe up a narrow branch of the creek, I waded through the partially submerged herbage to the firm ground, where the doctor was awaiting me. His house was close at hand, within the hospitable walls of which I passed the night. Dr. Purnell has an estate of one thousand five hundred acres, lying along the banks of Newport Creek. Since the civil war it has been worked by tenants. Much of it is woodland and salt-marshes. Five years before my visit, a Philadelphian sent the doctor a few pairs of prairie-chickens, and a covey of both the valley and the mountain partridge. I am now using popular terms. The grouse were from a western state; the partridges had been obtained from California. The partridges were kept caged for several weeks and were then set at liberty. They soon disappeared in the woods, with the exception of a single pair, which returned daily to the kitchen-door of a farm tenant to obtain food. These two birds nested in the garden close to the house, and reared a fine brood of young; but the whole covey wandered away, and were afterwards heard from but once. They had crossed to the opposite side of Newport Creek, and were probably shot by gunners.
The prairie-chickens adapted themselves to their new home in a satisfactory manner, and became very tame. Their nests, well filled with eggs, were found along the rail-fences of the fields in the close vicinity of the marshes, for which level tracts they seemed to have strong attachment. They multiplied rapidly, and visited the cattle-pens and barn-yards of the plantation.
The Maryland legislature passed a law to protect all grouse introduced into the state; but a new danger threatened these unfortunate birds. A crew of New Jersey terrapin-hunters entered Chincoteague Inlet, and searched the ditches and little creeks of the salt-marshes for the “diamondbacks.” While thus engaged, the gentle grouse, feeding quietly in the vicinity, attracted their attention, and they at once bagged most of them. A tenant on the estate informed me that he had seen eighteen birds in a cornfield a few days before — the remnant of the stock.
The Ruffled Grouse (Bonasa umbellas), so abundant in New Jersey, is not a resident of the peninsula. Dr. Purnell’s first experiment with the Pinnated Grouse (Cupidonia cupido) has encouraged others to bring the ruffled grouse to the eastern shore of Maryland. That
unapproachable songster of the south, the American Mocking-bird (Mimus polyglottus), is becoming scarce in this region, from the inroads made by bird-catchers who ship the young to northern cities. This delightful chorister is only an accidental visitor in the New England states. Indeed as far south as Ocean County, New Jersey, I saw but one of these birds, in a residence of nine years on my cranberry plantations; though I have heard that their nests are occasionally found about Cape May, at the extreme southern end of New Jersey.
My time being limited, I could enjoy the doctor’s hospitality for but one night. The next morning the whole family, with tenants both black and white, assisted me to embark. By dusk I had crossed the division line of two states, and had entered Virginia near the head of Chincoteague Island, a locality of peculiar interest to the student of American character. The
ebb-tide had left but little water around the rough pier abreast of the town, and heaps of oyster-shells rose from the mud flats and threatened the safety of my canoe. I looked up through the darkness to the light pier-head above me, and called for assistance. Two men leaned over to inquire, “What’s the row now, stranger? ” To which I replied, “I wish to land a light boat on your pier; and as it is made of paper, it should be carefully handled.” For a moment the oystermen observed a silence, and then, without one word of explanation, disappeared. I heard their heavy boots tramping up the quay towards the tavern. Soon a low murmur arose on the night air, then hoarse shouts, and there came thundering down the wharf an army of men and boys. “Pass her up, stranger!” they cried. “Here, give us your bow and starn painters, and jest step overboard yourself, and we’ll hist her up.” Some of the motley crew caught me by the shoulders, others “histed away,” and the canoe and its captain were laid roughly upon the ground.
There was a rush to feel of the paper shell. Many were convinced that there was no humbug about it; so, with a great shout, some of the men tossed it upon their shoulders, while the rest seized upon the miscellaneous cargo, and a rush was made for the hotel, leaving me to follow at discretion and alone. The procession burst open the doors of the tavern, and poured through the entrance to a court-yard, where they laid the boat upon a long table under a shed, and thought they had earned “drinks.” This was the spontaneous way in which the Chincoteague people welcomed me. “If you don’t drink, stranger, up your way, what on airth keeps your buddies and soulds together?” queried a tall oysterman. A lady had kindly presented me with a peck of fine apples that very morning; so, in lieu of “drinks,” I distributed the fruit among them. They joked and questioned me, and all were merry save one bilious-looking individual, not dressed, like the others, in an oysterman’s garb, but wearing, to use a term of the place, “store clothes.”
After the crowd had settled in the bar-room, at cards, &c., this doubting Thomas remained beside the boat, carefully examining her. Soon he was scraping her hull below the gunwale, where the muddy water of the bay had left a thin coat of sediment which was now dry. The man’s countenance lighted up as he pulled the bartender aside and said, “Look ahere;
I tell you that boat looked as if she was made to carry on a deck of a vessel, and to be a-shoved off into the water at night jest abreast of a town to make fools of folks, and git them to believe that that fellow had a-rowed all the way ahere? Now see, here is dust, dry dust on her hull. She ahain’t ben in the water mor’n ten minutes, I sware,” It required but a moment’s
investigation of my Chincoteague audience to discover that the dust was mud from the tide, and the doubter brought down the ridicule of his more discriminating neighbors upon him, and slunk away amid their jeers.
Of all this community of watermen but one could be found that night who had threaded the interior watercourses as far as Cape Charles, and he was the youngest of the lot. Taking out my note-book, I jotted down his amusing directions. “Look out for Cat Creek below Four Mouths,” he said; “you’ll catch it round there.” “Yes,” broke in several voices, “Cat Creek’s an awful place unless you run through on a full ebb-tide. Oyster boats always has a time a-shoving through Cat Creek,” &c.
After the council with my Chincoteague friends had ended, the route to be travelled the next day was in my mental vision “as clear as mud.” The inhabitants of this island are not all oystermen, for many find occupation and profit in raising ponies upon the beach of Assateague, where the wild, coarse grass furnishes them a livelihood. These hardy little animals are called “Marsh Tackies,” and are found at intervals along the beaches down to the sea-islands of the Carolinas. They hold at Chincoteague an annual fair, to which all the “pony-penners,” as they are called, bring their surplus animals to sell. The average price is about ninety dollars for a good beast, though some have sold for two hundred and fifty dollars. All these horses are sold in a semi-wild and unbroken state.
The following morning Mr. J. L. Caulk, ex-collector of the oyster port, and about fifty persons, escorted me to the landing, and sent me away with a hearty “Good luck to ye.”
It was three miles and three quarters to the southern end of the island, which has an inlet from the ocean upon each side of that end — the northern one being Assateague, the southern one Chincoteague Inlet. Fortunately, I crossed the latter in smooth water to Ballast Narrows in the marshes, and soon reached Four Mouths, where I found five mouths of thoroughfares, and became perplexed, for had not the pilots of Chincoteague called this interesting display of mouths “Four Mouths”? I clung to the authority of local knowledge, however, and was soon in a labyrinth of creeks which ended in the marshes near the beach.
Returning over the course, I once more faced the four, or five mouths rather, and taking a new departure by entering the next mouth to the one I had so unsatisfactorily explored, soon entered Rogue’s Bay, across which could be seen the entrance to Cat Creek, where I was to
experience the difficulties predicted by my Chincoteague friends. Cat Creek furnished at half tide sufficient water for my canoe, and not the slightest difficulty was experienced in getting through it. The oystermen had in their minds their own sloop-rigged oyster-boats when they discoursed to me about the hard passage of Cat Creek. They had not considered the fact that my craft drew only five inches of water.
Cat Creek took me quite down to the beach, where, through an inlet, the dark-blue ocean, sparkling in its white caps, came pleasantly into view. Another inlet was to be crossed, and again I was favored with smooth water. This was Assawaman Inlet, which divided the beach into two islands — Wallops on the north, and Assawaman on the south.
It seemed a singular fact that the two Assawaman bays are forty-five miles to the north of an inlet of the same name. In following the creeks through the marshes between Assawaman Island and the mainland, I crossed another shoal bay, and another inlet opened in the beach, through which the ocean was again seen. This last was Gargathy Inlet. Before reaching it, as night was coming on, I turned up a thoroughfare and rowed some distance to the mainland, where I found lodgings with a hospitable farmer, Mr. Martin R. Kelly. At daybreak I crossed Gargathy Inlet.
It was now Saturday, November 28; and being encouraged by the successful crossing of the inlets in my tiny craft, I pushed on to try the less inviting one at the end of Matomkin Island. Fine weather favored me, and I pushed across the strong tide that swept through this inlet without shipping a sea. Assawaman and
Gargathy are constantly shifting their channels. At times there will be six feet of water, and again they will shoal to two feet. Matomkin, also, is not to be relied on. Every northeaster will shift a buoy placed in the channels of these three inlets, so they are not buoyed.
Watchapreague Inlet, to the south of the three last named, is less changeable in character, and is also a much more dangerous inlet to cross in rough weather. From Matoinkin Inlet the interior thoroughfares were followed inside of Cedar Island, when darkness forced me to seek shelter with Captain William F. Burton, whose
comfortable home was on the shore of the mainland, about five miles from Watchapreague Inlet. Here I was kindly invited to spend Sunday. Captain Burton told me much of interest, and among other things mentioned the fact that during one August, a few years before my visit, a large lobster was taken on a fish-hook in Watchapreague Inlet, and that a smaller one was captured in the same manner during the summer of 1874.
Monday was a gusty day. My canoe scraped its keel upon the shoals as I dodged the broken oyster reefs, called here “oyster rocks,” while on the passage down to Watchapreague Inlet. The tide was very low, but the water deepened as the beach was approached. A northeaster was blowing freshly, and I was looking for a lee under the beach, when suddenly the canoe shot around a sandy point, and was tugging for life in the rough waters of the inlet. The tide was running in from the sea with the force of a rapid, and the short, quick puffs of wind tossed the waves wildly. It was useless to attempt to turn the canoe back to the beach in such rough water, but, intent on keeping the boat above the caps, I gave her all the momentum that muscular power could exert, as she was headed for the southern point of the beach, across the dangerous inlet.
Though it was only half a mile across, the passage of Watchapreague taxed me severely. Waves washed over my canoe, but the gallant little craft after each rebuff rose like a bird to the surface of the water, answering the slightest touch of my oar better than the best-trained steed. After entering the south-side swash, the wind struck me on the back, and seas came tumbling over and around the boat, fairly forcing me on to the beach. As we flew along, the
tumultuous waters made my head swim; so, to prevent mental confusion, I kept my eyes only upon the oars, which, strange to say, never betrayed me into a false stroke.
As a heavy blast beat down the raging sea for a moment, I looked over my shoulder and beheld the low, sandy dunes of the southern shore of the inlet close at hand, and with a severe jolt the canoe grounded high on the strand. I leaped out and drew my precious craft away from the tide, breathing a prayer of thankfulness for my escape from danger, and mentally vowing that the canoe should cross all other treacherous inlets in a fisherman’s sloop. I went into camp in a hollow of the beach, where the sand-hills protected me from the piercing wind. All that afternoon I watched from my burrow in the ground the raging of the elements, and towards evening was pleased to note a general subsidence of wind and sea.
The canoe was again put into the water and the thoroughfare followed southward for a mile or two, when the short day ended, leaving me beside a marshy island, which was fringed with an oyster-bed of sharp-beaked bivalves. Stepping overboard in the mud and water, the oars and paddle were laid upon the shell reef to protect the canoe, which was dragged on to the marsh. It grew colder as the wind died out. The marsh was wet, and no fire-wood could be found. The canvas cover was removed, the cargo was piled up on a platform of oars and shells to secure it from the next tide, and then I slowly and laboriously packed myself away in the narrow shell for the night. The canvas deck-cover was buttoned in its place, a rubber blanket covered the cockpit, and I tried to sleep and dream that I was not a sardine, nor securely confined in some inhospitable vault. It was impossible to turn over without unbuttoning one side of the deck-cover and going through contortions that would have done credit to a first-class acrobat. For the first time in my life I found it necessary to get out of bed in order to turn over in it.
At midnight, mallards (Anas boschas) came close to the marsh. The soft whagh of the drake, which is not in this species blessed with the loud quack of the female bird, sufficiently established the identity of the duck. Then muskrats, and the oyster-eating coon, came round, no doubt scenting my provisions. Brisk raps from my knuckles on the inside shell of the canoe astonished these animals and aroused their curiosity, for they annoyed me until daybreak.
When I emerged from my narrow bed, the frosty air struck my cheeks, and the cold, wet marsh chilled my feet. It was the delay at Watchapreague Inlet that had lodged me on this inhospitable marsh; so, trying to exercise my poor stock of patience, I completed my toilet, shaking in my wet shoes. The icy water, into which I stepped ankle-deep in order to launch my canoe, reminded me that this wintry morning was in fact the first day of December, and that stormy Hatteras, south of which was to be found a milder climate, was still a long way off.
The brisk row along Paramore’s Island (called Palmer’s by the natives) to the wide, bay-like entrance of Little Machipongo Inlet, restored warmth to my benumbed limbs. This wide
doorway of the ocean permitted me to cross its west portal in peace, for the day was calm. From Little to Great Machipongo Inlet the beach is called Hog Island. The inside
thoroughfare is bounded on the west by Rogue’s Island, out of the flats of which rose a solitary house. At the southern end of Hog Island there is a small store on a creek, and near the beach a light-house, while a little inland is located, within a forest of pines, a small settlement.
At noon, Great Machipongo Inlet was crossed without danger, and Cobb’s Island was skirted several miles to Sand Shoal Inlet, near which the hotel of the three Cobb brothers rose cheerfully out of the dreary waste of sands and marshes. The father of the present proprietors came to this island more than thirty years ago, and took possession of this domain, which had been thrown up by the action of the ocean’s waves. He refused an offer of one hundred thousand dollars for the island. The locality is one of the best on this coast for wild-fowl shooting. Sand Shoal Inlet, at the southern end of Cobb’s Island, has a depth of twelve feet of water on its bar at low tide.
In company with the regular row-boat ferry I crossed, the next day, the broad bay to the mainland eight miles distant, where the canoe was put upon a cart and taken across the peninsula five miles to Cherrystone, the only point near Cape Charles at which a Norfolk steamer stopped for passengers. It was fully forty miles across Chesapeake Bay from Cherrystone Landing to Norfolk, and it was imperative to make the portage from this place instead of from Cape Charles, which, though more than fifteen miles further south, and nearer to my starting-point on the other side, did not possess facilities for transportation. The slow one-horse conveyance arrived at Cherrystone half an hour after the steamer N. P. Banks had left the landing, though I heard that the kind-hearted captain, being told I was coming, waited and whistled for me till his patience was exhausted.
The only house at the head of the pier was owned by Mr. J. P. Powers, and fortunately offered hotel accommodations. Here I remained until the next trip of the boat, December 4. Arriving in Norfolk at dusk of the same day, I stored my canoe in the warehouse of the Old Dominion Steamship Company, and quietly retired to a hotel which promised an early meal in the morning, congratulating myself the while that I had avoided the usual show of curiosity tendered to canoeists at city piers, and above all had escaped the inevitable reporter. Alas! my thankfulness came too soon; for when about to retire, my name was called, and a veritable reporter from the Norfolk Landmark cut off my retreat.
“Only a few words,” he pleadingly
whispered. “I’ve been hunting for you all over the city since seven o’clock, and it is near midnight now.”
He gently took my arm and politely furnished me with a chair. Then placing his own directly before me, he insinuatingly worked upon me until he derived a knowledge of the log of the Paper Canoe, when leaning back in his chair he leisurely surveyed me and exclaimed:
“Mr. Bishop, you are a man of snap. We like men of snap; we admire men of snap; in fact, I may say we cotton to men of snap, and I am proud to make your acquaintance. Now if you will stop over a day we will have the whole city out to see your boat.”
This kind offer I firmly refused, and we were about to part, when he said in a softly rebuking manner:
“You thought, Mr. Bishop, you would give us the slip — did you not? I assure you that would be quite impossible. Eternal Vigilance is our motto. No, you could not escape us. Good evening, sir, and the ‘Landmark’s’ welcome to you.”
Six hours later, as I entered the restaurant of the hotel with my eyes half open, a newsboy bawled out in the darkness: “‘Ere’s the Landmark.’ Full account of the Paper Canoe,” &c. And before the sun was up I had read a column and a half of “The Arrival of the Solitary Voyager in Norfolk.” So much for the zeal of Mr. Perkins of the “Landmark,” a worthy example of American newspaper enterprise. Dreading further attentions, I now prepared to beat a hasty retreat from the city.
CHAPTER IX. FROM NORFOLK TO CAPE HATTERAS.
THE ELIZABETH RIVER. — THE CANAL. — NORTH LANDING RIVER. — CURRITUCK SOUND. — ROANOKE ISLAND. — VISIT TO BODY ISLAND LIGHT-HOUSE. — A ROMANCE OF HISTORY. — PAMPLICO SOUND. — THE PAPER CANOE ARRIVES AT CAPE HATTERAS.
On Saturday morning, December 5, I left the pier of the Old Dominion Steamship
Company, at Norfolk, Virginia, and, rowing across the water towards Portsmouth, commenced
ascending Elizabeth River, which is here wide and affected by tidal change. The old navy yard, with its dismantled hulks lying at anchor in the stream, occupies both banks of the river. About six miles from Norfolk the entrance to the Dismal Swamp Canal is reached, on the left bank of the river. This old canal runs through the Great Dismal Swamp, and affords passage for steamers and light-draught vessels to Elizabeth City, on the Pasquotank River, which empties into Albemarle Sound to the southward. The great cypress and juniper timber is penetrated by this canal, and schooners are towed into the swamp to landings where their cargoes are delivered.
In the interior of the Dismal Swamp is Drummond’s Lake, named after its discoverer. It is seven miles long by five miles wide, and is the feeder of the canal. A branch canal connects it with the main canal; and small vessels may traverse the lake in search of timber and shingles. Voyagers tell me that during heavy gales of wind a terrible sea is set in motion upon this shoal sheet of water, making it dangerous to navigate. Bears are found in the fastnesses of the swamp. The Dismal Swamp Canal was dug in the old days of the wheelbarrow and spade.
The Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, the entrance to which is sixteen miles from Norfolk, on the right or east bank of the Elizabeth River, and generally known as the “new canal,” was commenced about the year 1856, and finished in 1859. It is eight miles and a half in length, and connects the Elizabeth and North Landing rivers. This canal was dug by dredging-machines. It is kept in a much better state for
navigation, so far as the depth of water is concerned, than the old canal, which from inattention is gradually shoaling in places; consequently the regular steam-packets which ply between Elizabeth City and Norfolk, as well as steamers whose destinations are further north, have given up the use of the Dismal Swamp Canal, and now go round through Albemarle Sound up the North River, thence by a six-mile cut into Currituck Sound, up North Landing River, and through the new canal to the Elizabeth River and into Chesapeake Bay. The shores of the Elizabeth are low and are fringed by sedgy marshes, while forests of second-growth pine present a green background to the eye. A few miles above Norfolk the cultivation of land ceases, and the canoeist traverses a wilderness.
About noon I arrived at the locks of the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal. The telegraph operator greeted me with the news that the company’s agent in Norfolk had telegraphed to the lock-master to pass the paper canoe through with the freedom of the canal — the first honor of the kind that had fallen to my lot. The tide rises and falls at the locks in the river about three feet and a half. When I passed through, the
difference in the level between the ends of the locks did not reach two feet. The old lock-master urged me to give up the journey at once, as I never could “get through the Sounds with that little boat.” When I told him I was on my second thousand miles of canoe navigation since leaving Quebec, he drew a long breath and gave a low groan.
When once through the canal-gates, you are in a heavy cypress swamp. The dredgings
thrown upon the banks have raised the edge of the swamp to seven feet above the water. Little pines grow along these shores, and among them the small birds, now on their southern migrations, sported and sang. Whenever a steamer or tugboat passed me, it crowded the canoe close to the bank; but these vessels travel along the canal at so slow a rate, that no trouble is experienced by the canoeist from the disturbance caused by their revolving screws. Freedmen, poling flats loaded with shingles or frame stuff, roared out their merry songs as they passed. The canal entered the North Landing River without any lockage; just beyond was North Landing, from which the river takes its name. A store and evidences of a settlement meet the eye at a little distance. The river is tortuous, and soon leaves the swamp behind. The pine forest is succeeded by marshes on both sides of the slow-flowing current.
Three miles from North Landing a single miniature house is seen; then for nearly five miles along the river not a trace of the presence of man is to be met, until Pungo Ferry and Landing loom up out of the low marshes on the east side of the river. This ferry, with a store three-quarters of a mile from the landing, and a farm of nearly two hundred acres, is the property of Mr. Charles N. Dudley, a southern gentleman, who offers every inducement in his power to northern men to settle in his vicinity. Many of the property-holders in the uplands are willing to sell portions of their estates to induce northern men to come among them.
It was almost dark when I reached the storehouse at Pungo Ferry; and as Sunday is a sacred day with me, I determined to camp there until Monday. A deformed negro held a lease of the ferry, and pulled a flat back and forth across the river by means of a chain and windlass. He was very civil, and placed his quarters at my disposal until I should be ready to start southward to Currituck Sound. We lifted the canoe and pushed it through an open window into the little store-room, where it rested upon an unoccupied counter. The negro went up to the loft above, and threw down two large bundles of flags for a bed, upon which I spread my blankets. An old stove in a corner was soon aglow with burning light wood. While I was cooking my supper, the little propeller Cygnet, which runs between Norfolk and Van Slyck’s Landing, at Currituck Narrows, touched at Pungo Ferry, and put off an old woman who had been on a two years’ visit to her relatives. She kindly accosted the dwarfed black with, “Charles, have you got a match for my pipe?”
“Yes, missus,” civilly responded the negro, handing her a light.
“Well, this is good!” soliloquized the ancient dame, as she seated herself on a box and puffed away at the short-stemmed pipe. Ah, good indeed to get away from city folks, with their stuck-up manners and queer ways, a-fault-finding when you stick your knife in your mouth in place of your fork, and a-feeding you on China tea in place of dear old yaupon. Charles, you can’t reckon how I longs to get a cup of good yaupon.”
As the reader is about entering a country where the laboring classes draw largely upon nature for their supply of “the cup that cheers but not inebriates,” I will describe he shrub which produces it.
This substitute for the tea of China is a holly (ilex), and is called by the natives “yaupon” (I. cassine, Linn.). It is a handsome shrub, growing a few feet in height, with alternate, perennial, shining leaves, and bearing small scarlet berries. It is found in the vicinity of salt water, in the light soils of Virginia and the Carolinas. The leaves and twigs are dried by the women, and when ready for market are sold at one dollar per bushel. It is not to be compared in excellence with the tea of China, nor does it approach in taste or good qualities the well-known yerbamate, another species of holly, which is found in Paraguay, and is the common drink of the people of South America.
The old woman having gone on her way, and we being again alone in the rude little shanty, the good-natured freedman told me his history, ending with, –
“O that was a glorious day for me, When Massa Lincoln set me free.”
He had too much ambition, he said, deformed as he was, to be supported as a pauper by the public. “I can make just about twelve dollars a month by dis here ferry,” he exclaimed. “I don’t want for nuffin’; I’se got no wife — no woman will hab me. I want to support myself and live an honest man.”
About seven o’clock he left me to waddle up the road nearly a mile to a little house.
“I an’ another cullo’d man live in
partnership,” he said. He could not account for the fact that I had no fear of sleeping alone in the shanty on the marshes. He went home for the company of his partner, as he “didn’t like to sleep alone noways.”
Though the cold wind entered through broken window-lights and under the rudely constructed door, I slept comfortably until morning. Before Charles had returned, my breakfast was cooked and eaten.
With the sunshine of the morning came a new visitor. I had made the acquaintance of the late slave; now I received a call from the late master. My visitor was a pleasant, gentlemanly personage, the owner of the surrounding acres. His large white house could be seen from the landing, a quarter of a mile up the road.
“I learned that a stranger from the north was camped here, and was expecting that he would come up and take breakfast with me,” was his kindly way of introducing himself.
I told him I was comfortably established in dry quarters, and did not feel justified in forcing myself upon his hospitality while I had so many good things of this life in my
provision-basket.
Mr. Dudley would take no excuse, but conducted me to his house, where I remained that day, attending the religious services in a little church in the vicinity. My kind host introduced me to his neighbors, several of whom returned with us to dinner. I found the people about Pungo Ferry, like those I had met along the sounds of the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia, very piously inclined, — the same kindhearted, hospitable people.
My host entertained me the next day, which was rainy, with his life in the Confederate army, in which he served as a lieutenant. He was a prisoner at Johnson’s Island for twenty-two months. He bore no malice towards northern men who came south to join with the natives in working for the true interests of the country. The people of the south had become weary of political sufferings inflicted by a floating population from the north; they needed actual settlers, not politicians. This sentiment I found everywhere expressed. On Tuesday I bade farewell to my new friends, and rowed down the North Landing River towards Currituck Sound.
The North Carolina line is only a few miles south of the ferry. The river enters the head of the sound six or eight miles below Pungo Ferry. A stiff northerly breeze was blowing, and as the river widened, on reaching the head of the sound, to a mile or more, and bays were to be crossed from point to point, it required the exercise of considerable patience and muscular exertion to keep the sea from boarding the little craft amidship. As I was endeavoring to weather a point, the swivel of one of the outriggers parted at its junction with the row-lock, and it became necessary to get under the south point of the marshes for shelter.
The lee side offered a smooth bay. It was but a few minutes’ work to unload and haul the canoe into the tall rushes, which afforded ample protection against the cold wind. It was three hours before the wind went down, when the canoe was launched, and, propelled by the double paddle, (always kept in reserve against accidents to oars and row-locks,) I continued over the waters of Currituck Sound.
Swans could now be seen in flocks of twenties and fifties. They were exceedingly wary, not permitting the canoe to approach within rifle range. Clouds of ducks, and some Canada
geese, as well as brant, kept up a continuous flutter as they rose from the surface of the water. Away to the southeast extended the glimmering bosom of the sound, with a few islands relieving its monotony. The three or four houses and two small storehouses at the landing of Currituck Court House, which, with the brick court-house, comprise the whole village, are situated on the west bank; and opposite, eight miles to the eastward, is the narrow beach island that serves as a barrier to the ingress of the ocean.
At sunset I started the last flock of white swans, and grounded in the shoal waters at the landing. There is no regular hotel here, but a kind lady, Mrs. Simmons, accommodates the necessities of the occasional traveller. The canoe was soon locked up in the landing-house. Fortunately a blacksmith was found outside the village, who promised to repair the broken rowlock early upon the following morning. Before a pleasant wood fire giving out its heat from a grand old fireplace, with an agreeable visitor, — the physician of the place, the tediousness of the three-hours’ camp on the marshes was soon forgotten, while the country and its resources were fully discussed until a late hour.
Dr. Baxter had experimented in grape culture, and gave me many interesting details in regard to the native wine. In 1714, Lawson described six varieties of native grapes found in North Carolina. Our three finest varieties of native grapes were taken from North Carolina. They are the Scuppernong, the Catawba, and the Isabella. The Scuppernong was found upon the banks of the stream bearing that name, the mouth of which is near the eastern end
of Albemarle Sound. The Catawba was originally obtained on the Catawba River, near its head-waters in Buncombe County. The Long Island stock of the Isabella grape was brought to New York by Mrs. Isabella Gibbs: hence the derivation of the name.
Of the six varieties of North Carolina grapes, five were found in Tyrrel County by Amadas and Barlow. Tradition relates that these travellers carried one small vine to Roanoke Island, which still lives and covers an immense area of ground. There are five varieties of the grape growing wild on the shores of Albemarle Sound, all of which are called Scuppernong, — the legitimate Scuppernong being a white grape, sweet and large, and producing a wine said to resemble somewhat in its luscious flavor the Malmsey made on Mount Ida, in Candia.
The repairing of the outrigger detained me until nearly noon of the next day, when the canoe was got under way; but upon rowing off the mouth of Coanjock Bay, only four miles from Currituck Court House, a strong tempest arose from the south, and observing an old
gentleman standing upon Bell Island Point, near his cottage, beckoning me to come ashore, I obeyed, and took refuge with my new acquaintance, Captain Peter L. Tatum, proprietor of Bell Island.
“The war has left us without servants,” said the captain, as he presented me to his wife, “so we make the best of it, and if you will accept our hospitality we will make you comfortable.”
Captain Tatum drew my attention to the flocks of swans which dotted the waters in the offing, and said: “It is hard work to get hold of a swan, though they are a large bird, and abundant in Currituck Sound. You must use a good rifle to bring one down. After a strong norther has been blowing, and the birds have worked well into the bight of the bay, near Goose Castle Point, if the wind shifts to the south suddenly, gunners approach from the outside, and the birds becoming cramped in the cove are shot as they rise against the wind.”
More than forty years ago old Currituck Inlet closed, and the oysters on the natural beds, which extended up North Landing River to Green Point, were killed by the freshening of the water. Now winds influence the tides which enter at Oregon Inlet, about fifty-five miles south of the Court House. The difference between the highest and lowest tide at Currituck Court House is three feet. The sound is filled with sandy shoals, with here and there spots of mud. The shells of the defunct oysters are everywhere found mixed with the debris of the bottom of the sound. This is a favorite locality with northern sportsmen. The best “gunning points,” as is the case in Chesapeake Bay, are owned by private parties, and cannot be used by the public.
Thursday, the 10th of December, was cold, and proved as tempestuous as the previous day; but the wind had changed to the north, and I embarked amid a swashy beam-sea, with the hope of reaching Van Slyck’s Landing at Currituck Narrows. The norther, however, proved too much for my safety. My course would be easterly until I had passed the mouth of Coanjock Bay and Goose Castle Point, then following the trend of the west shore southerly down the sound; but the wind raised such a rough sea that I was obliged to turn southward into Coanjock Bay, ascend it five miles, and seek for a crossing-place overland to the sound again, which I found near the entrance of the
lockless canal that is used by steamers to pass from North Landing River to North River and
Albemarle Sound.
A fire was soon built, upon which I placed long, light poles taken from the drift-wood, and burning them in pieces of the required lengths, (no axe being at hand,) I was prepared to make the portage. Laying these pieces of wood on the ground, I drew my canoe over them to the shore of Currituck Sound; then, by making up back-loads of the cargo, transported everything to the point of embarkation, which was just inside the mouth of a little creek.
The row to Currituck Narrows was not difficult, as the north wind was a fair one. Along the west shore of the sound there were many little houses upon the high banks, and a windmill supplied the place of a water-power for grinding corn. The improvements made by Mr. Van Slyck, of New York, were in cheering contrast to what had been seen since leaving Norfolk. Here a comfortable hotel welcomes the northern sportsmen, few of whom, for lack of accommodations and travelling conveniences, go much south of this locality, in this state, to shoot wild-fowl. Currituck Sound has an average width of four miles. Its length is about thirty-five miles. At the Narrows, a group of marshy islands divides it into two sections, the northern one being the longest.
The keen, cold air of the next day made rowing a pleasant exercise. After passing through the tortuous channel, I should have crossed to the beach and followed it; but this part of the bay is very shallow, and deeper water was found on the west side. It was an enjoyable morning, for gunners were passed, secreted behind their “blinds,” or pens, of pine brush, which looked like little groves of conifera growing out of the shoal water. Geese were honking and ducks were quacking, while the deep booming of guns was heard every few minutes. Decoy-birds were anchored in many places near the marshes. Every sportsman gave me a cheering word as the canoe glided over the smooth water, while here and there the violet-backed swallow darted about over the marshes as though it were summer.
When opposite Dew’s Quarter Island, several men hailed me from a newly constructed shanty. When the oldest man in the company, who had never seen a shell like the paper canoe, had examined it, he shook his head ominously; and when I told him Nag’s Head must be reached that day, he grew excited, exclaiming, “Then be off now! now! Git across the bay under Bald Beach as soon as ye can, and hug the shore, hug it well clean down to Collington’s, and git across the sound afore the wind rises. Sich a boat as that aren’t fit for these here waters.”
Taking this kindly meant advice, I pulled to the east side, where there was now a good depth of water for the canoe. On this high beach the hills were well covered with yellow pines, many of which were noble old trees. On a narrow point of the shore was the comfortable house of Hodges Gallup, the Baptist minister, a generous old gentleman, who seemed to be loved by all the watermen along the sound. He was
described as being “full of fun and hospitality.” His domain extended for several miles along the beach, and, with deer quietly browsing in his grand old woods, formed a pretty picture.
The beach shore now became more thickly settled, while out in the water, a few rods from each little house, arose the duck-blind, with the gunner and his boat inside, anxiously watching for birds, while their decoys floated quietly on the surface of the water. A few miles below Mr. Gallup’s estate the canoe entered upon the broad waters of Albemarle Sound, and at dusk I approached Roanoke Island. The large
buildings of the hotels of Nag’s Head on the beach rose up as boldly to the eye as a fortification. The little sound between Roanoke Island and the beach was traversed at dusk as far as the first long pier of Nag’s head, upon which with great difficulty I landed, and was soon joined by the keeper of the now deserted summer watering place, Mr. C. D. Rutter, who helped me to carry my property into a room of the old hotel.
Nag’s Head Beach is a most desolate locality, with its high sand-hills, composed of fine sand, the forms of which are constantly changing with the action of the dry, hard, varying winds. A new and very large hotel was located south of the first one, and was inhabited by the family of Captain Jasper Toler, who furnished me with lodgings. A few fishermen have their homes on this dreary beach, but the village, with its one store, is a forlorn place.
The bright flashes of Body Island Light, ten miles distant, on the north side of Oregon Inlet, showed me my next abiding-place.
The beach from Nag’s Head to Oregon Inlet is destitute of trees, and the wind sweeps across it, from the ocean to the sound, with great violence, forcing the shallow waters to retire, and leaving the bottom dry as far out as three miles.
The next day was very windy, and the long, finger-like, sandy shoals, which extended one or two miles out into the sound, were covered with only from three to eight inches of water. I could not hug the beach for protection, but was forced to keep far out in the sound. Frequently it became necessary to get overboard and wade, pushing my boat before me. Then a deep channel between the shoals would be crossed; so, by walking and rowing in Roanoke Sound, with the wind blowing the water over the canoe and drenching its captain, the roundabout twelve miles’ passage to Oregon Inlet was at last accomplished, and a most trying one it was.
Body Island Lighthouse was erected in 1872, on the north side of Oregon Inlet, to take the place of the old tower on the south shore. It is in latitude 35 deg 48′, and longitude 75 deg 33′. Captain William F. Hatzel, a loyal North Carolinian, is the principal keeper, and a most efficient one he is.
The temperature was falling rapidly when I crawled into the high rushes of the wet marsh near the light-house to seek shelter from the strong wind that was blowing. As this treeless beach was destitute of fire-wood, or natural shelter of any kind, necessity compelled me to have recourse to other means for procuring them. I carried in my pocket a talisman which must open any light-keeper’s door; from Maine to the Rio Grande, from Southern California to Alaska, even to the vicinity of the Arctic Circle, the Lighthouse Establishment of the United States has planted a tower or erected a light. While shivering in wet clothes on this desolate beach, most thankfully did I remember that kind and thoughtful friend, who through his potent influence had supplied me with this open sesame to
lightkeepers.
There resides in Washington, when not engaged elsewhere in the important duties of the Commission of Fisheries, a genial gentleman, an ardent naturalist, a great scientist. To him the young naturalists of America turn for information and advice, and to the humblest applicant Professor Spencer F. Baird never turns a deaf ear. How this distinguished author can attend to so many and such varied duties with his laborious investigations, and can so successfully keep up a large correspondence with perhaps one thousand scientific associations of nearly every nation of the universe, is a difficult thing to imagine; but the popular and much beloved Assistant
Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, seemingly ubiquitous in his busy life, does all this and much more. America may well feel proud of this man of noble nature, shedding light and truth wheresoever he moves, encouraging alike old and young with his kindly sympathy; — now taking his precious moments to answer with his own busy hand the question in the letter of some boy naturalist about beasts, birds, reptiles, or fishes, with which epistles his desk is always covered; now stimulating to further effort the old man of science as he struggles with the cares of this world, striving, sometimes vainly, save for this ever ready aid, to work out patiently theories which are soon to blaze forth as substantial facts. The young generation of naturalists, which is soon to fill the place of their predecessors, have in this man the type of all they need ever strive to attain. How many, alas, will fall far short of it!
Since boyhood the counsels of this friend had guided me on many a journey of exploration. He had not deserted me even in this experiment, which my friends called “your wildest and most foolish undertaking.” He had obtained from the Light House Board a general letter to the lightkeepers of the United States, signed by the naval secretary, Mr. Walker, in which the keepers were authorized to grant me shelter, &c., when necessary. I did not have occasion to use this letter more than twice during my journey. Having secreted my canoe in the coarse grass of the lowland, I trudged, with my letter in hand, over the sands to the house of the light-keeper, Captain Hatzel, who received me cordially; and after recording in his log-book the circumstances and date of my arrival, conducted me into a comfortable room, which was warmed by a
cheerful fire, and lighted up by the smiles of his most orderly wife. Everything showed
discipline and neatness, both in the house and the light-tower. The whitest of cloths was spread upon the table, and covered with a well-cooked meal; then the father, mother, and two sons, with the stranger within their gates, thanked the Giver of good gifts for his mercies.
Joining the night-watch of the chief lightkeeper, I also joined in the good man’s enthusiasm for his wonderful “fixed white light,” the bright beams of which poured out upon the surrounding waters a flood if brilliancy, gladdening hearts far out at sea, even though twenty miles away, and plainly saying, “This is Body Island Beach: keep off!” How grand it was to walk out on this gallery in the sky! Looking eastward, a limitless expanse of ocean; gazing westward, the waters of the great sound, the shores of which were low marshes miles away. Below me could be heard the soft cackle of the snow-goose (Anser hyperboreus), which had left its nesting-place on the barren grounds of arctic America, and was now feeding contentedly in its winter home in the shallow salt-ponds; which the gentle shur-r-r- of the waves softly broke on the strand. Above, the star-lit heavens, whose tender beauty seemed almost within my grasp. Perched thus upon a single shaft, on a narrow strip of sand far out in the great water, the many thoughts born of solitude crowded my mind, when my reverie was abruptly broken by an exclamation from Captain Hatzel, who threw open the door, and exclaimed, with beaming eyes peering into the darkness as he spoke, “I see it! Yes, it is! Hatteras Light, thirty-five miles away. This night, December 13th, is the first time I have caught its flash. Tell it to the Hatteras keeper when you visit the cape.”
From Captain Hatzel I gleaned some facts of deep interest in regard to the inhabitants of the sound. Some of them, he told me, had Indian blood in their veins; and to prove the truth of his assertion he handed me a well-worn copy of the “History of North Carolina,” by Dr. Francis L. Hawks, D. D. From this I obtained facts which might serve for the intricate mazes of a romance. It had been a pet scheme with Sir Walter Raleigh to colonize the coast of North Carolina, then known as Virginia, and though several expeditions had been sent out for that object, each had failed of successful issue. One of these expeditions sent by Sir Walter to Roanoke Island consisted of one hundred and twenty-one persons, of whom seventeen were women and six children. Of all these souls only two men returned to the old country, the fate of the remainder being unknown, and shrouded in the gloom which always attends mystery. England did not, however, leave her children to perish on a barren shore in the new land without at least an effort to succor them.
On March 20, in the year 1590, there sailed from Plymouth three ships, the Hopewell, John Evangelist, and Little John, taking in tow two shallops which were afterwards lost at sea. In these days the largest vessels of a fleet did not exceed one hundred to one hundred and forty tons burden. This expedition was under the charge of Admiral John White, governor of the colony of Sir Walter Raleigh on Roanoke Island, and who had left the feeble band on the island in 1587. In thirty-six days and eight hours these small vessels arrived off “Hatorask” — Hatteras Beach. The fleet dropped anchor three leagues off the beach, and sent a well-manned boat through an inlet to Pamplico Sound.
There existed in those days passages from the ocean through the beaches into the sounds, which have since been filled up by the action of the sea. Old Roanoke Inlet, now closed, which was about four miles north of the modern Oregon Inlet, is supposed to be the one used by Sir Walter Raleigh’s expeditions. It is only four miles from the site of this closed inlet to Shallowbag Bay, on Roanoke Island. At the southern entrance of the bay, near Ballast Point, some vessel evidently grounded and threw overboard her stone ballast; hence the name of the point. Captain Hatzel has examined this stone, and gives his opinion, as an old pilot, that it is foreign in character. He never met with similar stones, and believes that this ballast was deposited at Shallowbag Bay by some of the vessels of Sir Walter’s expeditions.
As the boat’s crew above mentioned rowed northward to Roanoke Island — made famous two hundred and seventy-two years later by the National and Confederate struggles — they sounded their trumpets and sang familiar songs, which they hoped might be borne to their countrymen on the shore; but the marshes and upland wilderness returned no answering voice.
At daybreak the explorers landed upon Roanoke Island, which is twelve miles long by two and a half wide, and found the spot where Admiral White had left the colony in 1587. Eagerly searching for any tokens of the lost ones, they soon traced in the light soil of the island the imprint of the moccasin of the savage, but looked in vain for any footprint of civilized man. What had become of their countrymen?
At last some one spied a conspicuous tree, far up on a sandy bank, blazed and carved. There were but three letters cut upon it, C.R.O., but these simple symbols possessed a world of meaning. Three years before, when the sad farewells were being spoken, and the ships were ready to set sail for England, this feeble band, left to struggle in the wilds of the new land with sad forebodings of their possible fate, had agreed upon a signal, and had promised Admiral White that if driven to starvation upon the island, they would plant their colony fifty miles inland, near a tribe of friendly Indians. Indeed, before the ships sailed for England, they were making preparations for this move. Admiral White requested them to carve upon a tree the name of the locality to which they should remove, and if distress had overtaken them they were to add a cross over the lettering. Anxiously gathering round this interesting relic of the lost Englishmen, the rude chirography was eagerly scanned, but no vestige of a cross was found.
Much relieved in mind, the little company continued their investigations, when, farther on, almost in their very pathway, there rose a noble tree, pointing its top heavenward, as though to remind them in whose care their lost ones had been. Approaching this giant, who had stood a silent sentinel through winter storms and summer skies, they found he bore upon his body a message for them. Stripped of its bark, five feet upward from the ground there appeared upon the bare surface in bold lettering the word so full of hope — Croatan; and now also, as in the last case, without the graven cross. Cheered by these signs, and believing that the lost colonists had carried out their early intentions, and were now located among the friendly tribe of Croatans, wheresoever their country might be, the boat’s company decided to go at once to the ships, and return the next day in search of the lost colony.
One of the ships, in moving its position from the unprotected anchorage-ground, parted its cable and left an anchor on the bottom — the second that had been lost. The wind drove the ships towards the beach, when a third anchor was lowered; but it held the little fleet so close in to the breakers, that the sailors were forced to slip their cable and work into a channel-way, where, in deeper water, they held their ground.
In debating the propriety of holding on and attempting to wear out the gale, the scarcity of their provisions, and the possession of but one cask of water, and only one anchor for the fleet to ride at, decided them to go southward in quest of some favorable landing, where water could be found. The council held out the hope of capturing Spanish vessels in the vicinity of the West Indies; and it was agreed that, if successful they should return, richly laden with spoil, to seek their exiled countrymen. One of these vessels returned to England, while the Admiral laid his course for Trinidad; and this was the last attempt made to find the colonists.
More than a century after Admiral White had abandoned his colony, Lawson, in writing about the Hatteras Indians, says: “They said that several of their ancestors were white people, and could talk in a book as we do; the truth of which is confirmed by grey eyes being frequently found among them, and no others. They value themselves extremely for their affinity to the English, and are ready to do them all friendly offices. It is probable that the settlement miscarried for want of supplies from England, or through the treachery of the natives; for we may reasonably suppose that the English were forced to cohabit with them for relief and conversation, and that in process of time they conformed themselves to the manners of their Indian relations.”
Dr. Hawks thinks, “that, driven by starvation, such as survived the famine were merged into the tribes of friendly Indians at Croatan, and, alas! lost ere long every vestige of Christianity and civilization; and those who came to shed light on the darkness of paganism, in the mysterious providence of God ended by relapsing themselves into the heathenism they came to remove. It is a sad picture of poor human nature.”
It needed not the fierce gusts of wind that howled about the tall tower, causing it to vibrate until water would be spilled out of a pail resting upon the floor of the lantern, blowing one day from one quarter of the compass, and changing the next to another, to warn me that I was near the Cape of Storms.
Refusing to continue longer with my new friends, the canoe was put into the water on the 16th, and Captain Hatzel’s two sons proceeded in advance with a strong boat to break a channelway through the thin ice which had formed in the quiet coves. We were soon out in the sound, where the boys left me, and I rowed out of the southern end of Roanoke and entered upon the wide area of Pamplico Sound. To avoid shoals, it being calm, I kept about three miles from the beach in three feet of water, until beyond Duck Island, when the trees on Roanoke Island slowly sank below the horizon; then gradually drawing in to the beach, the two clumps of trees of north and south Chicamicomio came into view. A life-saving station had recently been erected north of the first grove, and there is another fourteen miles further south. The two
Chicamicomio settlements of scattered houses are each nearly a mile in length, and are separated by a high, bald sand-beach of about the same length, which was once heavily wooded; but the wind has blown the sand into the forest and destroyed it. A wind-mill in each village raised its weird arms to the breeze.
Three miles further down is Kitty Midget’s Hammock, where a few red cedars and some remains of live-oaks tell of the extensive forest that once covered the beach. Here Captain Abraham Hooper lives, and occupies himself in fishing with nets in the ocean for blue-fish, which are salted down and sent to the inland towns for a market. I had drawn my boat into the sedge to secure a night’s shelter, when the old captain on his rounds captured me. The change from a bed in the damp sedge to the inside seat of the largest fireplace I had ever beheld, was indeed a pleasant one. Its inviting front covered almost one side of the room. While the fire flashed up the wide chimney, I sat inside the fireplace with the three children of my host, and enjoyed the genial glow which arose from the fragments of the wreck of a vessel which had pounded herself to death upon the strand near Kitty Midget’s Hammock. How curiously those white-haired children watched the man who had come so far in a paper boat! “Why did not the paper boat soak to pieces?” they asked. Each explanation seemed but to puzzle them the more; and I found myself in much the same condition of mind when trying to make some discoveries concerning Kitty Midget. She must, however, have lived somewhere on Clark’s Beach long before the present proprietor was born. We spent the next day fishing with nets in the surf for blue-fish, it being about the last day of their stay in that vicinity. They go south as far as Cape Hatteras, and then disappear in deep water; while the great flocks of gulls, that accompany them to gather the remnants of fish they scatter in their savage meals, rise in the air and fly rapidly away in search of other dainties.
On Thursday I set out for Cape Hatteras. The old sailor’s song, that –
“Hatteras has a blow in store For those who pass her howling door,”
has far more truth than poetry in it. Before proceeding far the wind blew a tempest, when a young fisherman in his sailboat bore down upon me, and begged me to come on board. We
attempted to tow the canoe astern, but she filled with water, which obliged us to take her on board. As we flew along before the wind, dashing over the shoals with mad-cap temerity, I discovered that my new acquaintance, Burnett, was a most daring as well as reckless sailor. He told me how he had capsized his father’s schooner by carrying sail too long. “This ‘ere slow way of doing things” he detested. His recital was characteristic of the man.
“You see, sir, we was bound for Newbern up the Neuse River, and as we were well into the sound with all sail set, and travelling along lively, daddy says, ‘Lorenzo, I reckon a little yaupon wouldn’t hurt me, so I’ll go below and start a firs under the kittle.’ Do as you likes, daddy,’ sez I. So down below he goes, and I takes command of the schooner. A big black squall soon come over Cape Hatteras from the Gulf Stream, and it did look like a screecher. Now, I thought, old woman, I’ll make your sides ache; so I pinted her at it, and afore I could luff her up in the wind, the squall kreened her on to her beam-ends. You’d a laughed to have split yourself, mister, if you could have seen daddy a-crawling out of the companion-way while the water was a-running down stairs like a crick. Says he, ruther hurriedly, ‘Sonny, what’s up?’ It isn’t what’s up, daddy; but what’s down,’ sez I; it sort o’ looks as if we had capsized.’ Sure ’nuff,’ answered dad, as the ballast shifted and the schooner rolled over keel uppermost. We floundered about like porpoises, but managed to get astride her backbone, when dad looked kind of scornfully at me, and burst out with, ‘Sonny, do you call yourself a keerful sailor?’ ‘Keerful enough, dad,’ sez I, ‘for a smart one. It’s more credit to a man to drive his vessel like a sailor, than to be crawling and bobbing along like a diamond-backed terrapin.’ Now, stranger, if you’ll believe me, that keerful old father of mine would never let me take the helum again, so I sticks to my aunt at the cape.”
I found that the boat in which we were sailing was a dug-out, made from two immense cypress logs. Larger boats than this are made of three logs, and smaller ones are dug out of one.
Burnett told me that frame boats were so easily pounded to pieces on the shoals, that dug-outs were preferred — being very durable. We soon passed the hamlet of North Kinnakeet, then Scarsborough with its low houses, then South Kinnakeet with its two wind-mills, and after these arose a sterile, bald beach with Hatteras light-tower piercing the sky, and west of it Hatteras woods and marshes. We approached the low shore and ascended a little creek, where we left our boats, and repaired to the cottage of Burnett’s aunt.
After the barren shores I had passed, this little house, imbedded in living green, was like a bright star in a dark night. It was hidden away in a heavy thicket of live-oaks and cedars, and surrounded by yaupons, the bright red berries of which glistened against the light green leaves. An old woman stood in the doorway with a kindly greeting for her “wild boy,” rejoicing the while that he had “got back to his old aunty once more.”
“Yes, aunty,” said my friend Lorenzo, “I am back again like a bad penny, but not
empty-handed; for as soon as our season’s catch of blue-fish is sold, old aunty will have sixty or seventy dollars.”
“He has a good heart, if he is so head-strong,” whispered the motherly woman, as she wiped a tear from her eyes, and gazed with pride upon the manly-looking young fellow, and — invited us in to tea — YAUPON.
CHAPTER X. FROM CAPE HATTERAS TO CAPE FEAR, NORTH CAROLINA.
CAPE HATTERAS LIGHT. — HABITS OF BIRDS. — STORM AT HATTERAS INLET — MILES OF WRECKS. — THE YACHT JULIA SEARCHING FOR THE PAPER CANOE. — CHASED BY PORPOISES. — MARSH TACKIES. — OCRACOKE INLET. — A GRAVE-YARD BEING SWALLOWED UP BY THE SEA. — CORE SOUND. — THREE WEDDINGS AT HUNTING QUARTERS. — MOREHEAD CITY. — NEWBERN. — SWANSBORO. — A PEA-NUT PLANTATION. — THE ROUTE TO CAPE FEAR.
Cape Hatteras is the apex of a
triangle. It is the easternmost part of the state of North Carolina, and it extends farther into the ocean than any Atlantic cape of the United States. It presents a low, broad, sandy point to the sea, and for several miles beyond it, in the ocean, are the dangerous Diamond Shoals, the dread of the mariner.
The Gulf Stream, with its river-like current of water flowing northward from the Gulf of Mexico, in its oscillations from east to west frequently approaches to within eighteen or twenty miles of the cape, filling a large area of