A North Carolina Highway Historical Marker commemorating a landmark court case that changed voting in the state will be dedicated Sunday in Bertie County.

The ceremony for the Bazemore v. Bertie County Board of Elections court case marker is to begin at 1 p.m. at the intersection West Watson and Sterlingworth streets in Windsor.

“The case originated in May 1960 when Nancy Bazemore, a 47-year-old African American resident of Bertie County, walked into the Woodville precinct to register to vote. What followed was a legal battle that would reach the North Carolina Supreme Court and reshape voting rights across the state,” according to information provided by the Highway Historical Marker Program, which is a collaboration of N.C. departments of Natural and Cultural Resources and Transportation.

“Bertie County’s racial demographics told a stark story. Black residents outnumbered white residents by a 3-to-2 ratio, yet registered white voters outnumbered registered Black voters by nearly nine to one. County registrars maintained this disparity through a literacy test, a tool created in the late 19th century specifically to disenfranchise Black voters across the South,” the program continues.

For the test in Woodville, the registrar read aloud the state constitution and the applicants transcribed what they heard with spelling errors counting against them, though the state attorney general had declared in March of that year that spelling-based dictation tests were illegal.

Bazemore received a failing grade and was denied registration and appealed immediately.

Her attorney, James R. Walker Jr., an Ahoskie native and University of North Carolina School of Law graduate, announced at her hearing a week later that Bazemore refused to submit to another dictation test.

When the board rejected her appeal, Walker filed a lawsuit which ultimately landed before the North Carolina Supreme Court, where the attorney argued that the literacy test as administered in Bertie County was unconstitutional under the state constitution’s separation of powers clause, because it effectively granted legislative authority to local election officials.

He documented that the dictation requirement was applied exclusively to Black applicants, and identified the test’s inherent vulnerabilities to abuse, stating that a registrar’s pronunciation, reading speed, a voter’s hearing or speech patterns, and the registrar’s own discretion in grading could all determine the outcome, with little accountability. The court ruled in Bazemore’s favor in April 1961.

Though the justices declined to find bad faith on the part of Bertie County officials, they found the test as administered unreasonable and beyond legal intent.

“The significance of the court case extended beyond Bertie County. Federal civil rights reports and subsequent voting rights discussions cited the case as evidence of the burden of literacy tests imposed on African American citizens,” the program explained in the press release.

For more information about the historical marker, visit the Nancy Bazemore blog post or call 919-814-6625.

Millions will be awarded to broadband providers across rural North Carolina to connect homes, businesses, and community anchor institutions to high-speed internet access.

The governor’s office announced last week that $26 million will go to bring 5,161 rural homes, businesses and community anchor institutions in 66 counties access to high-speed internet infrastructure by the end of the year through the Stop-Gap Solutions program.

A part of the North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s Division of Broadband and Digital Opportunity, the program administers funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to coverage gaps in internet access. This is done by targeting broadband line extensions to reach individuals and small pockets of homes and businesses in hard-to-reach areas.

“These broadband projects will ensure more families can soon access telehealth, students can complete their homework, businesses can compete in larger markets, and communities can thrive,” Gov. Josh Stein said in the release. “I am committed to improving broadband access across the state and making sure no community is left behind.”

On the coast, FOCUS Broadband, also known as Atlantic Telephone Membership Cooperative, has been selected to receive $1.65 million to connect 145 locations in Duplin and Pender counties.

Connect Holding II, LLC, doing business as Brightspeed, will be awarded $1.68 million to connect 2,439 locations in Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Craven, Currituck, Hertford, Hyde, Onslow, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Tyrrell and Washington counties on the coast. Other counties to benefit from this award are Alamance, Bladen, Caldwell, Caswell, Chatham, Columbus, Cumberland, Edgecombe, Franklin, Greene, Halifax, Harnett, Hoke, Johnston, Jones, Martin, Montgomery, Moore, Nash, Northampton, Orange, Person, Pitt, Randolph, Rockingham, Sampson, Stokes, Surry, Vance, Wake, Warren, Wayne and Wilson counties.

HarvestBeam Inc., a broadband provider for rural North Carolina, will receive $413,260 for 95 locations in Craven and Pitt counties.

Roanoke Connect Holdings, operating as Fybe internet provider, will be awarded $2.4 million to connect 826 locations in Bertie, Chowan, Gates, Granville, Halifax, Hertford, Martin, and Northampton counties. 

Wilkes & RiverStreet Networks has been selected to receive $959,828 to connect 306 locations in Camden, Currituck, Stokes and Wilkes counties.

Other providers to be awarded serve customers in Alexander, Bladen, Buncombe, Durham, Henderson, Hoke, Iredell, Forsyth, Jackson, Macon, Orange, Robeson, Rowan, Sampson, Scotland, Swain, Transylvania and Yadkin counites.

“High-speed internet access is the foundation for health care delivery, public safety operations, workforce development, and economic growth in our state,” Teena Piccione, NCDIT secretary and state chief information officer, said. “This program allows us to move with urgency and precision to connect more North Carolinians.”

Two coastal communities have been awarded grants from the state for stream restoration, water-based recreation and water management projects.

North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources awarded the grants totaling more than $1.5 million to nine local governments, including Morehead City in Carteret County and Windsor in Bertie County, the agency announced Wednesday.

“These grants will boost public waterfront access in unique places around the state, including rare forests along the coast and the Mayo River north of the Triad,” DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson stated in a release.

Morehead City has been awarded $200,000 for the Spooner Creek Conservation Nature Park. The project includes acquiring almost 23 acres of undeveloped land to create a publicly owned nature park that provides public waterfront access and conserve shoreline including rare, maritime forestland.

Windsor was awarded $200,000 to retrofit Hoggard’s Millpond. The project includes reconstruction of a breached mill dam, removal of damaged mill infrastructure and replacement of a naturalized fish passage structure to reconnect more than 50 miles of potential stream habitat and also to store stormwater.

A full list of the awards is online. More details are available on the Water Resources Development Grant program website.

The Indian Woods historical marker at the intersection of St. Francis Road and U.S. Highway 17 in Bertie County is easily missed while cruising at 55 or 60 miles an hour.

Located at the edge of a farmer’s field after the fall harvest of cotton, the sign leans to the north, and hints of the story and its aftermath of an almost forgotten war between Native Americans and colonists in the early 18th century.

It is the northernmost of at least seven signs that are found throughout coastal North Carolina from Wayne County to Bertie County that trace the story of that conflict.

The Tuscarora War was brutal and horrific. Launching a coordinated attack on the morning of Sept. 22, 1711, Tuscarora warriors slaughtered 140 men, women and children throughout eastern North Carolina.

“The Tuscarora devastated white settlements in the Pamlico Neuse region and raised serious fears for the continuance of English occupation in North Carolina,” Thomas Parramore wrote for the North Carolina Historical Review in 1982.

Unable to defend its own people, the North Carolina colony’s general assembly begged Virginia and South Carolina for help.

Virginia refused to send troops, but put pressure on neutral Tuscarora villages in its colony to remain out of the conflict. South Carolina sent combined white and Native forces.

In the end in March of 1713, when the last pitched battle of the war was fought at Fort Neoheroka, which is present day Snow Hill in Greene County, at least a thousand Tuscarora were dead and another thousand sold into slavery in South Carolina.

In North Carolina, as many as 200 colonists were killed and the combined white and Native combatants provided by South Carolina suffered an additional 200 deaths.

Tuscarora lineage

The Tuscarora were part of the Iroquois, whose original lands stretched from New York state into Canada. The migration to North Carolina most likely occurred sometime around the 1500s, Dr. Arwin Smallwood, dean of the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at North Carolina Central University, told Coastal Review.

Smallwood, who traces his lineage to the Tuscarora people, grew up in Indian Woods and has studied the history of the Tuscarora extensively.

“In the 1500s they’d already moved down from (New York) and settled North Carolina,” he said, adding that “they never broke their blood ties to the five nations,” which are the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca.

By the 1580s, when Sir Walter Raleigh’s doomed expeditions landed on Roanoke Island, the Tuscarora were well established in eastern North Carolina and probably were the dominant Native nation of the region. They may have been the ones who decided the colony’s fate.

“Tuscarora oral traditions say they were the ones who destroyed the Lost Colony,” Smallwood said. “They always had large numbers of people who had European characteristics like red and auburn hair, even sometimes blonde hair, but definitely what (Native Americans) called the Tuscarora eye, which was blue-green, kind of a hazel eye, that was prevalent throughout the Tuscaroras and that distinguished them.”

War: Longtime complaints

At its simplest, the Tuscarora War was about long-established complaints of the Tuscarora: Encroachment on lands they had traditionally controlled and unfair and dishonest trading practices.

But, Smallwood noted, there were other factors at play.

It was “trade routes. The Tuscaroras controlled the Piedmont and the coastal plains of North Carolina. They controlled all the major trade routes between North Carolina and Virginia,” he said. “Anyone who needed knives, axes, guns, gunpowder, whatever they had to trade through them, including rum. They had to trade through the Tuscaroras. For the southeastern Indians, it was a way of eliminating them as the people who monopolized trade.”

It is possible that, after at least 60 years of observing the internal politics of the North Carolina colony, the Tuscarora were aware of the internal rivalries that were threatening to tear the colony apart, and that may have played a role in the timing of the initial attack.

Cary’s Rebellion pitted Thomas Cary, the Quaker-leaning former governor of the colony, against Edward Hyde, who the Lords Proprietors had selected to govern the colony. The rebellion exposed the deep political divisions within the colony that led to open warfare with Hyde finally taking the reins of the governorship in 1711.

At that time, the colony was divided into two counties: Albemarle in the north and Bath in the south. Although in 1711 the nominal capital of the colony was Bath. There was no government office there and it’s doubtful if the population of the town ever reached 300 people.

The northern Albemarle colony was dominated by the supporters of Hyde and the resentment from Cary’s attempt to wrest control of the colony permeated the region.

“The Cary Rebellion had pitted Albemarle against Bath and had left the colonists of the two counties somewhat at odds with each other. It was by no means clear that Albemarle would rush to the defense of Bath County and, in fact, it did not,” Parramore wrote.

If there was a proximate cause of the war, it was the settlement of New Bern by Swiss immigrants and members of the Palatine religious sect escaping religious persecution in Europe.

“New Bern was built on what (the Tuscarora) considered to be part of their capital city,” Smallwood said.

Baron Christopher DeGraffenreid, the founder of New Bern, in his “Account of the Tuscarora War,” touched on many of the issues that have been cited as causing the conflict.

“What caused the Indian war was firstly, the slanders and instigations of certain plotters against Governor Hyde, and secondly, against me, in that they talked the Indians into believing that I had come to take their land,” he wrote. “Talked them out of this and it was proven by the friendliness I had shown them, as also by the payment for the land where I settled at the beginning (namely that upon which the little city of New Bern was begun), regardless of the fact that the seller was to have given it over to me free.”

Captured with surveyor John Lawson, DeGraffenreid was able to talk his way out of imprisonment and possible death.

It is possible Lawson could have avoided his fate, but, Smallwood said, “he quarreled with the chiefs. You’re being held prisoner, and you’ve been put on trial, and then you go argue with the prosecuting attorney and the judge who decides whether you live or die.”

Lawson, whose book “History of North Carolina” gave accurate and clear-eyed accounts of Native life in the colonies, was not so lucky, and may have had a hand in his own undoing. Accused by his captors of surveying the Tuscarora land for the purpose of selling it, he was tried and convicted and sentenced to death.

Like the North Carolina colony, the Tuscarora had internal divisions. Parramore described the Tuscarora as “not a nation and probably not even a confederacy though colonial perceptions of them had not traditionally recognized any significant internal divisions.”

Smallwood, however, paints a different picture.

“The whole structure was family based,” he said. “With that being said, they were all united because the whole nation is united by blood.”

Within that nation family, there were specific ways to make decisions that would affect all members for the Tuscarora nation, Smallwood said, describing the decision-making process as “a democracy.”

Smallwood explained that Lawson was convicted after “all of the chiefs met in the war council. In that council, they all agree to execute Lawson.”

War: First conflict

When the war first broke out in 1711, South Carolina sent military aid. Col. John Barnwell left South Carolina with “30 white men and nearly 500 Indians,” the Carolana website states.

Although Barnwell may have included giving military aid to North Carolina in his reasoning, by his actions and those of the men under his command, the profit that could be realized from the bounty on scalps and selling Native Americans into slavery was an important part of why he made the trip.

Thomas Peotta in his 2018 doctoral dissertation, “Dark Mimesis: A Cultural History of the Scalping Paradigm,” at the University of British Columbia, describes how profitable scalps and prisoners could be.

“Virginia and Carolina offered scalp and prisoner bounties to militiamen and allied Indians. Virginia…offered £20 per scalp to British colonists, while uninvolved Tuscaroras on Virginia’s frontier were offered a bounty of 6 blankets apiece…for the scalps of Hancock’s warriors, and market prices for enslaved women and children,” he wrote.

For Barnwell, the scalps had an additionally benefit, Peotta wrote, noting that “scalps and prisoners also offered a way to tally the dead: Barnwell’s forces recorded 52 scalps and 30 captives after (his) victory at Torhunta in 1712.” Torhunta is present day Pikeville in Wayne County.

After a series of battles with the Tuscarora including a 10-day siege at their main settlement in Craven County, Barnwell reached an agreement with the Tuscarora combatants to pay tribute and lay down their arms. After signing the agreement, he invited some of the local Indians, who had not attacked the colonists, into his camp. They were then seized, DeGraffenreid wrote, and sold into slavery

“He thought of a means of going back to South Carolina with profit, and under the pretense of a good peace he enticed a goodly number of the friendly Indians or savage Carolinians, took them prisoner at Core Town (to this his tributary Indians were entirely inclined because they hoped to get a considerable sum from each prisoner) and made his way home with his living plunder…This so unchristian act very properly embittered the rest of the Tuscarora and Carolina Indians very much, although heathens, so that they no longer trusted the Christians,” he wrote.

War: Conclusion

The action reignited the war, with King Hancock again leading the Tuscarora aligned with him. Renewing the conflict may have been justified, but it was not sanctioned by the war council, allowing the northern Tuscarora to remain neutral.

It would take another military expedition from South Carolina, this one led by Col. James Moore to end the war, but it also led to an open rift between King Hancock and the northern Tuscarora.

King Hancock was captured by northern Tuscarora at the orders of Chief Blunt (or Blount) in November of 1712 and turned over to North Carolina authorities who executed him.

The war did not end with Hancock’s death, however.

The agreement with Blunt was that he was to deliver the scalps of key leaders to North Carolina authorities by the end of the year. When he failed to do so, Moore renewed his campaign.

Finally, following a three-day siege at Fort Neoheroka the war came to an end, although there were sporadic raids and fighting until 1715.

Aftermath

For the tribal nations that had aligned with the South Carolina expeditions, their participation sparked “a continental war in the back country,” Smallwood explained.

“Because of the role,” Smallwood continued. “Those Indians in that area played in the war, it set off a continental Indian War. he Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondaga, the Senecas, and (allied tribes) came south, and they completely obliterated the (the southern tribes).”

In North Carolina, the war was a harbinger of extraordinary change. Initially the war’s end brought brought economic hardship to what was then called Bath County, an area that now includes Beaufort, Hyde, Bladen, Onslow, Carteret and New Hanover counties.

“The concentration of Indian attacks on frontier settlements during the war and the continuation of raids after the peace of 1713 stifled economic growth in Bath County and contributed to temporary food shortages throughout the colony,” Christine Styrna explained in a 1990 doctoral dissertation at the College of William and Mary.

But if the initial effect was to wreak havoc on the colony’s economy, the war also “provided certain colonial leaders with the opportunity to reinforce their economic and political power while serving as a catalyst for economic development,” Styrna noted.

Bath and New Bern had taken the brunt of the Tuscarora raids, and there, Styrna wrote, “colonists slowly rebuilt their homes and fortunes.”

The rest of the colony, though, experienced a “boom period” in which coastal and local trade increased dramatically. According to the shipping reports Styrna cites from the Boston Newsletter, “the number of vessels sailing to and from ports in North Carolina ports elsewhere between 1716 and 1720 increased fourfold in comparison to the five-year period before the war.”

If, however, North Carolina was on the road to recovery, the fate of the Tuscarora was one of enslavement and exile, leading to a diaspora of the tribal nation that stretched from North Carolina to Canada.

Most of the southern Tuscarora emigrated north. The largest group returned to the Iroquois in New York, becoming numerous enough that in 1722 the Tuscarora became the sixth nation of the Iroquois Confederacy.

As they moved north, some settled in Pennsylvania. There is today, a Tuscarora Mountain in south central Pennsylvania.

Many of them, though, settled in small communities throughout North Carolina and other states east of the Mississippi.

“It’s like you take a plate or mirror and you drop it on the floor and it shatters and shards go everywhere,” Smallwood said. “There’s some big chunks, and then there are lots of little chunks. And those little chunks, are scattered all over eastern North Carolina. They’re at least today, seven different factions of Tuscaroras that are (in North Carolina). And larger groups of them who are in Virginia, and even over into eastern Ohio.”

Coastal Review will not publish Thursday and Friday in observation of the Thanksgiving holiday.

First of two parts.

It was a nasty January day about 14 years ago, not long after publication of his book, “The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast: Evolutionary History, Present Crisis, and Vision for the Future,” when veteran East Carolina University coastal scientist Dr. Stan Riggs, the book’s lead author, had an unexpected and impactful visit. Not only did it prolong the sunset of his then-50-yearlong career, it cemented the reach of his legacy beyond academia to the lives of everyday people.

And it inspired Riggs to write 10 reader-friendly books focused on a blend of science, culture and history of North Carolina’s northeast and central coastal region.

Related: Riggs to launch first book in series Sunday on Harkers Island

“I’ve done a lot of work here, but science builds on itself,” he said. “And so, I just decided in 2018 that they could just put me in the ground, and who would care? Who would know what I’ve learned?”

In October, the first volume in the series, “Cape Lookout National Seashore, Paradigm for a Coastal System Ethic,” was released. Subsequent volumes, several of which are already written, will cover North Carolinas Inner Banks, or inland coastal region, Outer Banks and the continental shelf.

The books, all planned for release over the next three years, present Riggs’ coastal science research in accessible and understandable language, accompanied by striking photographs and graphics that seek to educate, enrich and engage readers.

Also, the ecotourism-centered program called North Carolina Land of Water that was first proposed in the book, “The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast,” has been transformed from a dim concept into its current sunbeam of possibilities. All because of the support offered to him on that blustery day.

“A nor’easter was blowing Billy out there — it was cold!,” Riggs, 87, recalled in a recent interview with Coastal Review. “I got a knock on the door, and two people were standing there. They introduced themselves and asked if we would take them out on a field trip. And I said, ‘You don’t want to go out there today.’”

But they insisted on a tour of the region he and his co-authors had written about in the book. They wanted to see it for themselves, and chat with some of the folks who lived there. Intrigued, and convinced his visitors were serious, Riggs made some quick phone calls, and soon they were all piling into a vehicle and hitting the road.

“We had one hell of a good trip,” Riggs recalled about the four-day adventure. Starting in Greenville, the group wound their way through the Albemarle Penisula and Inner Banks counties, along rivers, through the wildlife refuges, and down the Outer Banks to Ocracoke Island, then on to a ferry to the Core Banks. Some year-round residents shared “incredible” meals, he said, and invited them to stay.

“We covered the whole system,” Riggs said, a tinge of amazement still in his voice. Finally, as everyone said their goodbyes, one man got out of the car and walked over to Riggs.

“He put his arm around my shoulder, and he said, ‘The real reason we’re here is we’re going to give you some money.’

Surprised, Riggs responded: “‘I don’t need money.’ He said, ‘Yes, you do.’ I said, ‘Why?’”

“‘We want you to implement the vision that you set out in your book,’” Riggs recalled. “And that was the beginning of NCLOW.”

After the visit, representatives from the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science at North Carolina State University provided funding for Riggs to create the North Carolina Land of Water, or NCLOW. The nonprofit is “dedicated to advancing coastal science, education, and community stewardship through research, outreach, and partnerships,” while working to ensure that the state’s coastal systems are “understood and safeguarded,” according to a press release.

In October, NCLOW announced the appointment of Stanton Blakeslee to its board of directors to guide the nonprofit’s future projects and fundraising. As noted in the release, the appointment “comes at a critical inflection point for the organization,” and his leadership will encourage “strategic investment and cross-sector innovation.”

Blakeslee, 55, who had attended ECU and worked for the N.C. Literary Review, is currently the president and CEO of Instigator Inc., a Greenville-based life science marketing firm. His experience includes investment in real estate development and consumer goods industries, and he serves as a member of the East Carolina Angels, an angel investment network.

So far, he has helped Riggs divide his approach to NCLOW in two phases, Blakeslee said. 

“Phase one culminated with the development of the books,” he said. “It was a way for Stan to formalize not only his life’s work, but what he sees as a sustainable future for the coast.” 

Blakeslee’s background as an entrepreneur who understands private equity and venture capital as well as conservation work provides insight into the goals of NCLOW, he explained.

“So the more I started to hear about what he was envisioning, I was like, ‘Oh, wow. So there’s like an economic concept behind everything that you’re trying to do here.’ We’re not trying to stay off the coast. What we’re saying is let’s look at where the opportunities are and invest …  so we can sustain this resource for everyone.”

Riggs’ earlier work with the Bertie County and Scuppernong River projects are two big success stories that drive NCLOW’s future initiatives, Blakeslee added. By harnessing creative ideas to manage and maintain the natural resources, a community’s economy and sustainability can benefit. For example, Windsor, Bertie’s county seat, mitigated flooding risk by requesting the water in a river dam be released slowly about a week before a predicted storm. And the community constructed tree houses above the river’s edge to rent, which quickly became a popular ecotourism attraction.

“The geographic setting of Bertie County provides a prime basis to capitalize on the incredible water system it has been blessed with,” Riggs wrote in his 2018 report, “From Rivers to Sounds in the Bertie Water Crescent” that proposed an approach to ecotourism and environmental education. “Consequently, NCLOW recommends developing a series of five educational and recreational ‘water hubs’ for ecotourism development.”

NCLOW can serve as a catalyst for other communities to take active steps towards sustainability, Blakeslee said. It’s a matter of determining the challenges, how to address them, and how to transform them into economic opportunities.

“I think Stan proved a lot of that in its first 10 years,” he said. “And now we’re looking at what the next 10 years, and possibly 20 years, looks like.”

Over his long career, Riggs, professor emeritus at ECU, has authored or co-authored 16 books and more than 100 journal articles.  But data-heavy research terminology and scientific jargon is a heavy lift for nonscientist readers, Riggs noted, and he believes that educating people about the science in their lives is a critical responsibility so people can understand the processes and relevant public policies that affect their lives.

“You know, when I was at the university, I got all my salary and everything was public funds, and all my research came from public organizations,” he said. “And so I see this as a give-back. It’s one thing to go out there and do a project and raise money and write your technical papers. But nobody in the public domain will ever, ever, read a technical paper.”

Riggs said he decided to write the Cape Lookout book because it is a success story. The undeveloped barrier island showcases how natural beaches recover, adapt and rebuilt after storms because over wash and other coastal processes are not blocked by infrastructure.

With an affable, every-man persona and an uncanny ability to recite minutia about ancient and ongoing geologic processes at seemingly every location he encounters, Riggs has spent considerable time traveling throughout the coastal region talking to residents and politicians in small communities, many of which are stressed by poverty, job losses and frequent flooding. 

As described in “The Battle for the North Carolina Coast,” the “Land of Water” coastal system in northeastern North Carolina includes a huge “drowned-river” estuarine system that encompasses vast shorelines, marsh, swamp forest wetlands, pocosin swamps, Carolina bays and blackwater streams.

“The natural resources that constitute this “Land of Water” can play an increasingly important role in the tourist economy, a role that would revitalize the region … build on the natural and human history and the dynamic coastal resources of northeastern North Carolina within an overarching and integrated umbrella program for sustainable, water-based ecotourism,” the book said.

And indeed, much of the land in northeastern North Carolina, from ocean beaches to river shorelines, from farmlands to forests, is surrounded by a body, or several bodies, of water. The Albemarle-Pamlico estuary is the second largest in the country, behind Chesapeake.

Although still rich with wildlife and natural resources, the low-lying region, some just inches above sea level, is becoming more threatened by impacts of climate change and rising seas: increased flooding, saltwater intrusion, stormwater inundation, shoreline erosion, ocean overwash and storm surge.

“The way I think about this is, you better understand the dynamics of our planet,” Riggs said. “That doesn’t mean that you have to be a scientist. It means you have to know something about water. You have to know something about land. And that comes down to the problem of education.”

That is, people, as a society, need to understand that how and where there is growth and development cannot be unlimited or driven by profit. 

Riggs says he’s had the benefit of learning over the decades from numerous other “incredible” scientists with whom he has worked together in teams, sharing spaces in classrooms and research ships. He has spent years warning about the futility of trying to control destructive natural forces, whether or not people believe they’re created by man-made causes such as burning fossil fuels. On the coast, sea walls, sandbags, and jetties ultimately make things worse by increasing erosion and will ultimately fail anyway, he has preached.

But as nightmare damages from storms, such as the recent deadly flooding in the mountains from Hurricane Helene, have increased, he said he’s noticed that people are starting to listen; they’ve realized that climate conditions are not the same as they were in the old days.

“There’s nothing wrong with the history and and yes, we can respect the history, but the history includes change,” he said.  “We better understand how rivers (and oceans) work, and if we don’t understand that, there will be human disasters. The more we politically ignore the science, the bigger the human disasters.”

Next in the series: “Cape Lookout National Seashore, Paradigm for a Coastal System Ethic”: An excerpt.

State health and water quality officials urge the public to avoid contact with green or blue water on the Chowan River between Arrowhead Beach in Chowan County and the Occano community in Bertie County.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Division of Water Resources notified the public Thursday about the algal blooms that have lingered in the area since Oct. 6.

The bloom has been observed in the Chowan River at its confluence with Salmon Creek near Occano, near Whites Beach, and at the Arrowhead Beach boat launch.

Cyanobacterial blooms usually appear bright green, but when a bloom starts to decay, the color can change to a milky blue. Decaying algae may produce a strong, foul odor that can impact a large area. Algal blooms tend to move due to wind and wave action.

The division determined the blooms are dominated by species of Dolichospermum, or as Anabaena, and Microcystis, which belong to the algal group cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae.

“Dolichospermum and Microcystis can produce microcystin, an algal toxin that may cause adverse health effects in humans and pets,” division states.

Testing shows that the three sites exceed public health advisory levels. Results are on the division’s Algal Bloom Dashboard.

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health recommends avoiding contact with large accumulations of algae and to prevent children and pets from swimming or ingesting water in an algal bloom.

The state health department suggests the following steps:

• Keep children and pets away from water that appears bright green, blue, discolored, or scummy.
• Do not handle or touch large mats of algae.
• Avoid handling, cooking, or eating dead fish that may be present.
• If you come into contact with an algal bloom, wash thoroughly.
• Use clean water to rinse off pets that may have come into contact with an algal bloom.
• If your child appears ill after being in waters containing an algal bloom, seek medical care immediately.
• If your pet appears to stumble, stagger or collapse after being in a pond, lake or river, seek veterinary care immediately.

To report an algal bloom, contact the nearest DEQ regional office or submit a report online. To view reported algal bloom events, visit the state Fish Kill & Algal Bloom Dashboard.

Officials also remind the public to take precautions as other microorganisms or pollution may be present in waterbodies that can lead to recreational water illness, see https://epi.dph.ncdhhs.gov/cd/water/prevent.html.

MOREHEAD CITY – The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management has awarded more than $2.25 million in grants to fund 10 projects to expand and improve public access to beaches and coastal waterways.

The grants, awarded through the Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access Grant Program, will help local governments in the 20 coastal counties acquire land for public access sites and build or improve amenities such as dune crossovers, fishing piers, parking areas, restrooms and kayak launches.

“These state investments will both ensure safe and expanded public access to our coastlines and strengthen the resilience of our communities by supporting infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather,” said DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson in a news release announcing the awards. “As we face increasingly severe storms, these projects will play a key role in safeguarding both public safety and the long-term health of our coastal environments.”

The division on Thursday announced the following awards:

• Atlantic Beach in Carteret County is awarded $115,200 for improvements to the New Bern Street Public Access. The work will entail removing the existing dune crossover and rebuilding 381 feet of the walkway with treated wood, Trex decking and handrails to provide access to the Atlantic Ocean.
• Beaufort in Carteret County is awarded $120,000 for an Ann Street Park water access project. The work will create an access site at the west end of Ann Street featuring an observation deck, greenspace, a picnic area and rain gardens while preserving existing open vistas and improving stormwater drainage.
• Belhaven in Beaufort County is awarded $540,000 for its Harbor Park expansion, which involves acquiring 0.74 acres. Recent site improvements include a new bulkhead and a 200-foot dock.
• Bertie County is awarded $80,000 for the second phase of the Tall Glass of Water Beach Access enhancement and will provide safe, maintenance-free access to the beach by providing a solid surface, accessible 12-foot by 440-foot path to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements and expanding the existing public beach by planting vegetation to stabilize the base of the bluff.
• Cedar Point in Carteret County is awarded $305,000 for the second phase of the Boathouse Creek Park bathroom facility project. The project is to add three ADA-accessible bathrooms and associated accessible parking to support and enhance usage of the town’s existing water access site at Boathouse Creek Park.
• Nags Head in Dare County is awarded $400,000 to replace the bathhouse and dune walkover at its Hargrove Street Public Beach Access. The project will also remove and replace existing decking, the emergency vehicle ramp, all wooden stairs and walkways, trash cans, fencing, three shower stations and signage.
• New Hanover County is awarded $265,000 to install a new kayak launch, ADA parking, and an ADA sidewalk to the existing pier, along with additional signage at the Trails End Waterfront Access. The work will be completed concurrently with bulkhead repairs.
• Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County is awarded $82,500 to replace a non-ADA-compliant dune crossover at the Shallotte Boulevard Beach Access. The new access will be widened to 8 feet and made to comply with ADA requirements. The stairs will be replaced with wheelchair-accessible ramps.
• Swansboro in Onslow County is awarded $127,623 to demolish the Main Street Dock, rebuild an existing pedestrian, fishing, and dinghy day dock at the end of Main Street, along the downtown waterfront area south of the White Oak River Bridge. The new docks will be built within the footprint of the existing facility.
• Vandemere in Pamlico County is awarded $167,700 to build an ADA-compliant fishing pier about 80 to 100 feet long and 9 feet wide. It will be located at the end of North First Street and provide access to the Pamlico River.

The North Carolina General Assembly created the Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access Program in 1981 in response to concerns over declining public access by amending the Coastal Area Management Act, also known as CAMA.

The program was expanded in 1983 to include estuarine areas. The program uses 5% of state Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, or PARTF, annual funds to offer matching grants to local governments. It has supported more than 528 projects, enhancing public access for recreation and coastal enjoyment.

For more information about the program, go to the Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access website.

Part of a series about the effects federal budget and staff cuts and the cancellations of programs and services are having in coastal North Carolina.

MANTEO — In the six months since the chaotic and seemingly random cutting in the federal government began, a terrible uneasiness has descended on the northeast corner of North Carolina, where all of the state’s nine national wildlife refuges employ neighbors and family members who live in the rural communities in which they’re located.

At least 10 Coastal North Carolina National Wildlife Refuge Complex staff and five employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s regional Ecological Services office in Raleigh, so far, are believed to have voluntarily left their jobs, whether nudged by coercion or incentives.

With staff forbidden to speak with media, and ongoing legal challenges and limited public information creating uncertainty, no one appears to know what will happen to their refuges.

“I just found out we should be getting some staffing numbers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the next couple of weeks,” Howard Phillips, the Southeastern representative for the National Wildlife Refuge Association, a nonprofit advocacy and support group for the refuges, told Coastal Review, citing informed but unofficial sources. “The dust seems to be settling a little and (the agency) is starting to get a handle on where they stand.”

But Phillips, who retired at the end of 2020 as manager of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Tyrrell County, says he fears that serious consequences are already baked into the refuges’ cake, no matter what the government decides to do. The lack of trust engendered by often abrupt, unexplained cuts of staff, research and budgets as well as the “crippling” brain drain of expertise, experience and local knowledge has only made the situation more problematic.

“Could the administration suddenly decide they want to hire everybody back and start doing conservation again?” he continued. “That would take at least six months, probably 12 months. They’d have to be trained.”

The stark reality, he added, is that without knowing the Trump administration’s timeline or goal in the current upheaval, it’s impossible to understand the long-term impacts and impractical to expect much to change, much less improve.

“I mean, they’ve just given no indication that they’re going to do anything that’s going to reverse the trend right now, which is down, down, down, down,” Phillips said.

An unnamed spokesperson from the agency’s public affairs office ignored Coastal Review’s request to authorize or facilitate a refuge staff interview, but responded to several questions about impacts on North Carolina’s wildlife refuges in a May 23 email.

“As part of the broader efforts led by the Department of the Interior under President Trump’s leadership, we are implementing necessary reforms to ensure fiscal responsibility, operational efficiency, and government accountability,” the spokesperson wrote. “While we do not comment on personnel matters, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service remains committed to fulfilling our mission of conserving fish, wildlife, and natural resources for the American people.” 

Refuges in the coastal complex encompass nearly a half-million acres of farmlands, swamp forests and pocosin peatlands, intersected by rivers, streams, canals, lakes and sounds within the nation’s second-largest estuarine system.

The nine refuges — Alligator River, Pea Island, Mackay Island, Currituck, Mattamuskeet, Pocosin Lakes, Cedar Island, Swan Quarter, Roanoke River — are stretched along vast swaths of geography in the coastal plain that provide habitat for unique species and globally important ecosystems.

For instance, the critically endangered wild red wolves, the only surviving in the world, roam within a five-county recovery area based out of Alligator River, descendants of Spanish mustangs range free in Currituck, and thousands of migratory birds and waterfowl passing along the Atlantic Flyway overwinter every year at Mattamuskeet and Pocosin Lakes.

Mattamuskeet, the state’s largest natural lake, is undergoing an innovative and intensive watershed restoration project many years in the planning. And Pocosin Lakes, named for the Native American term for “swamp on hill” because of its boggy peat soil, has been studied by Duke University researchers for its ability to remediate carbon pollution. The refuge has also nearly completed an extensive rewetting project to restore the ability of the pocosin peat to absorb carbon dioxide and resist wildfires.

Two major wildfires in and around the refuge in recent decades have burned deep in the ground for many weeks, spewing tons of carbon back into the environment, with one smoldering for six months before it was finally extinguished.

Therein lies the dilemma — and the risk — to the refuges: What happens when there’s no one available to take proper care of the refuges, and to even continue the conservation mission?

Pocosin Lakes, for instance, with the recent retirement of former manager Wendy Stanton, no longer has a refuge manager.

“You know, with Wendy gone now, I don’t know that there’s anybody left at Pocosin Lakes that really understands that hydrology restoration and how it works,” Phillips said.

But it’s more than the upper-level staff, said Bonnie Strawser, president of the Coastal Wildlife Refuge Society, a local nonprofit group that supports all of the eastern North Carolina refuges. It’s also the loss of staff that maintain buildings and trails, she said, as well as the biologists who monitor water and test soil.

Strawser, who retired in 2020 after 40 years with Fish and Wildlife as visitor services manager, said that the project leader for Coastal North Carolina National Wildlife Refuge Rebekah Martin has designated acting managers in each refuge, but that’s in addition to their regular jobs with the refuges.

Martin is based at the agency’s Roanoke Island headquarters but is not authorized to speak to reporters. According to a 2023 article on the coastal refuges website, Martin oversees about 400,000 acres of habitat with more than a dozen endangered or threatened species. At the time, it said, the complex had 35 employees and more than 400 volunteers.

“We are currently down to 10 staff, and this is regular O and M — operations and maintenance — funded by general funding, refuge funding,” Strawser said in a recent interview. “Now that does not include firefighters or law enforcement, because they are funded through different programs.”

Strawser said that there were no probationary employees in eastern North Carolina, so no one had been outright fired. Some staff who agreed to resign under one of the agency’s two rounds of the deferred resignation program, she said, were quickly shut down and put on administrative leave for varied periods of time while collecting their salaries.

Cuts in both the U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service will also hamper the agencies cooperative response to wildfires and disasters, including with the national interagency incident management teams. Strawser is a member of one of three teams in the southern area.

“I don’t know what in the world we’re going to do when fire season comes,” she said. “They stood down our team. It’s not going to be available, they said, at least until after July.”

As Strawser noted, a lot goes on behind the scenes to keep the refuges humming, including procedural processes to keep records and run programs, as well as have sponsors to maintain the “casual hire” personnel to respond to emergencies.

“But the Fish and Wildlife Service, because they lost so many people in the administrative positions, they don’t have anybody to handle the payments and the travel, so they can’t sponsor” for a team member, she said.

For the time being, the public many not notice much difference when they go to a refuge, Strawser said.

“The visitor centers are run by volunteers,” she said. “The public programs are conducted mostly by volunteers.” But there’s only three maintenance people for their nine national wildlife refuges.

“There’s been no talk of closing anything, but it’s just common sense there will problems if there’s nobody to grade the roads, if there’s nobody to do the mowing on the road shoulders, she said. “And if there’s no ‘daylighting’ of the roads, they’ll get overgrown, the sun won’t reach down, and the mud doesn’t dry out and the road is destabilized and before you know it, they’re not drivable.”

Mike Bryant, who was succeeded by Martin, had served as refuge manager for 20 years, from 1996 to 2016, and he witnessed decreasing support for the refuges from the federal government, he told Coastal Review in an interview. After retirement, he had also served as consultant for the National Wildlife Refuge Association, and was former president of the Coastal Wildlife Refuge Society. Although he said he keeps in touch, he is no longer directly involved with either group.

Since about 2010, Bryant said there has been a steady decline in staffing.

“You have refuges where there were multiple people, and with some of them, there’s just one person left, and so that’s part of the story,” he said. “So it had nothing to do with the past 60 or 90 days, whatever it is now.”

But it’s not just mandated reductions in staff that threaten the refuges, he said. The management challenge is also an aging workforce that may not be replaced.

“You got over half a million acres of National Wildlife Refuge in multiple counties, and spanning across North Carolina to the Virginia border, with all kinds of infrastructure and management mandates and no staff to get those mandates done,” Bryant said. “They’re just wondering, how are we going to meet our responsibilities if we’re the only ones left? It’s a morale buster.”

After being fully staffed around 2003, he said it seemed as if the Department of Interior stopped prioritizing conservation and Congress slowly began losing interest in supporting the refuges.

“The Fish and Wildlife budget has so many facets to it, so many other responsibilities under various laws, endangered species and ecological services and all these other entities within the agency, fisheries and all those things, are all important,” Bryant said. “But Congress was never convinced to budget specifically for operations and maintenance of national wildlife refuges.”

Meanwhile, scores of new refuges came on line in the last 25 years. And rather than hiring more personnel, more work was heaped on less staff.

“I was hired in 1996 to manage Alligator River and Pea Island,” Bryant said. “Two years later, when the manager left Mackey Island and Currituck refuges, the regional office called me and said, ‘Hey, we want you to manage those two.’ All of a sudden, I had four refuges.”

Two years later, he was told to hire and supervise a new manager at Pocosin Lakes. Then staff was reduced, forcing him to share staff between the refuges. Next, Roanoke River was added to his responsibilities — along with the 90-minute drive each way. During all those years, he was bumped up just one pay grade.

Bryant said he gets why people get frustrated with the inefficient, cumbersome aspects of the federal government. But he remembers back when the Clinton administration had reduced both staffing and regulations, and not only succeeded, but ended up with a balanced budget.

“We went through all of those things without ever feeling like the sky is falling,” he said. Rather than taking rational steps to achieve efficiency, the interest now seems more in “just destroying the government, constantly degrading it, and yes, crafting corruption.”

“There’s a few bad actors, no doubt, always, in every organization everywhere, no matter what the enterprise,” Bryant added. “There was a rational process to deal with bad employees, grounded in policy. And the policy was grounded in regulation, and the regulation was grounded in law.”

The first official unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System was Pelican Island in Florida, established for conservation in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt. Today there are 570 refuges and 30 wetland management districts on more than 150 million acres entrusted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and enjoyed by 69 million visitors.

Bryant is rooting for not just survival of the struggling refuge system, but its revival.

“I think we’ll recover,” he said. “I’m optimistic about that. But we’ll be deeply scarred.”

Clarification: Dr. Smallwood is a descendant of the Tuscarora people, not the Cherokee. During his presentation when he said “we were Cherokees” he was explaining that many Native descendants assumed that Cherokee was their heritage. This story has been updated for clarity.

MOREHEAD CITY — About 50 made their way to Mug Shot Caffeine and Cocktails on a chilly Saturday afternoon in mid-January to hear Dr. Arwin D. Smallwood explain “The History of the Coree and Neusiok Native Americans of Carteret County, North Carolina.”

Smallwood was the first to present for Coastal Carolina Riverwatch’s new initiative, “Cultural Perspectives Series: Coastal Indigenous Communities and Ecological Wisdom.” The nonprofit organization works to protect the water bodies, estuaries and coastline in the White Oak River Basin, mostly in Carteret, Jones, Onslow and Pender counties.

“I’m still just an ol’ country boy from eastern North Carolina, and that’s never left me, and it’s still a part of who I am,” Smallwood began. “I grew up in Bertie County in Indian Woods,” which was the old Tuscarora reservation established in 1717.

Now the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at North Carolina Central University in Durham, Smallwood has spent his career studying the relationships among African Americans, Native Americans and Europeans in eastern North Carolina during the colonial and early antebellum periods.

During his presentation when he said that while growing up in Indian Woods, “we were Cherokees” and “grandma was Cherokee, right?” he was illustrating that many Native descendants assumed their heritage was Cherokee because the Tuscaroras’ history had largely been erased.

Smallwood said that he never fully understood who the Tuscarora and other Native groups in eastern North Carolina were until he was a student at N.C. Central, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

“We didn’t know anything much about our community, other than we’ve always been from there,” he said. “I knew all my family and all my people, but we didn’t know very much about the history of the area beyond our family lore and family stories.”

In a class on state history he read “North Carolina: The History of a Southern State,” written by “two great professors out of Chapel Hill,” Hugh Talmage Lefler and Albert Ray Newsome.

They mentioned his community, Indian Woods, by name in the first chapter, and “I said to myself, if this is significant enough to be in this book from these two great Carolina scholars, then it must be significant,” Smallwood explained. This inspired him to commit his life to learning and researching as much as possible about Native peoples, particularly Tuscaroras and those in eastern North Carolina.

Smallwood went on to earn his doctorate in early U.S. and African American history from the Ohio State University, and has held positions at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee, and Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.

Smallwood said that, because he was presenting in Morehead City, he narrowed the focus of his talk to the Coree and Neusiok of Carteret County, who are among several groups in the region of Iroquois origin and have a connection to the Tuscarora whom he studies.

The Iroquois are an ancient people who migrated from Central America and Mexico thousands of years ago, to what is now the Midwest, then to what is now the state of New York. Many moved south from there, following the valleys and rivers, eventually reaching eastern North Carolina.

The Coree, Neusiok, Tuscarora, Meherrin and Nottoway, who straddle the Virginia and North Carolina border, are Iroquois, or the Haudenosaunee people. “We call them Iroquois. It was a name given to them by the French, but their Native name is Haudenosaunee,” or people of the long house.

“The Iroquois said that they had a confederation,” Smallwood continued. “If you attack one of the Iroquois, you attack them all. If you attack the Mohawks, then all of the Haudenosaunee would attack you. If you attack the Tuscarora, all of the Haudenosaunee and the Allies will attack you. They were a family. They were all kin.”

The Tuscaroras were the largest and most powerful group at one time and were scattered all over eastern North Carolina, from Virginia to the Cape Fear River. The population began to decline as early as Spanish contact in the late 1400s and early 1500s. By the start of the Tuscarora War in 1711, disease and conflict caused the once-heavily inhabited region to depopulate.

There were a “host of other Indians in Coastal North Carolina,” Smallwood said, and while some were Algonquian-speaking peoples, they were allied with the Tuscaroras and Corees at the start of the Tuscarora War, “and that war was as much about control of this region.”

After the Tuscarora war in the mid-1710s, “we call it the Tuscarora diaspora,” large numbers scattered all over North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, eastern Ohio, Pennsylvania into Canada, and many returned to New York.

The Tuscarora had a sophisticated trade network spanning from the Outer Banks to as far south as Florida, as far north as Canada and as far west as Memphis.

The trading paths the Native people created are now the state roadways, like U.S. Highway 70 and N.C. 12, connecting old Native communities that are now North Carolina towns.

One reason the coastal areas were important for trade is the access to seashells. “Native Americans value seashells in the same way that Europeans value gold and silver, diamonds,” and other precious stones. Seashells had great spiritual meaning and were used as currency.

“And to trade, you had to speak Tuscarora. That was the trading language,” he said.

The maps Ralph Lane and John White illustrated when first reaching eastern North Carolina in 1584-85 show a well-established community with religious buildings, houses and gardens.

The Native people knew the land and cultivated for food or medicine different types of crops, many of which were introduced to the settlers and are still grown today. Smallwood gave the example of tobacco, which was originally ceremonial but is now a multibillion-dollar industry, corn, beans and white potatoes.

He recounted traditions from his childhood in Bertie County. Going out at night to fill up the bed of a truck with herring, having wild plums, strawberries, apples, pears and peaches, and watching his mother garden the way her mother did and her mother before her.

“I found that so many traditions and customs that we think are African American or European, are actually Native American and were transferred to us, and we have carried them on — cooking traditions, gardening habits and behaviors,” he said.

“We have passed them on from generation to generation. And we don’t even know why we did these things, but they were transferred somewhere when we were blending cultures,” Smallwood said.

The blending of cultures happened a handful of ways, including early white settlers marrying Native women, and white indentured servants and enslaved African Americans would run away places like the Great Dismal Swamp and intermix with the Native population.

“Our cultures are blended. Native, African and European, and it is what makes us Southern, what makes us American, what makes us North Carolinians,” but, “We’re different here in eastern North Carolina,” he said. “This is home, and we share a culture, and we share an identity, and that identity and that culture has been forged over hundreds of years.”

About the series

Riverwatch Executive Director Lisa Rider told Coastal Review that Smallwood’s “expertise in African American and Native American history, particularly in North Carolina, provides invaluable insights into the often-overlooked narratives that shape our understanding of the coastal communities we serve.”

The organizers launched the series that “recognizes the intertwined histories of African American and Indigenous communities in coastal North Carolina, emphasizing their shared heritage and contributions to ecological stewardship,” and are planning the next installment for this summer.

Secotan Alliance president and founder Gray Michael Parsons is scheduled to be the speaker Saturday, July 12, in Morehead City.

Riverwatch said that the Secotan Alliance’s inaugural symposium, “In the Spirit of Wingina and Beyond” held in May 2024 in Manteo inspired the cultural series. The theme for the 2025 symposium the last weekend in May is “Our Women: Leaders of Indigeneity.”

Parsons is a descendant of the Machapunga-Mattamuskeet people and has focused his efforts on honoring Indigenous leaders and promoting environmental stewardship. He is also the author of “Hope on Hatterask,” a work rooted in his Indigenous heritage.

Parsons founded the alliance “to educate the public on the traditional indigenous principles of the Secotan Alliance under the leadership of Chief Wingina.” The Secotan Alliance was first documented by the English at initial contact in 1584. The alliance territory included Dare, Hyde, Beaufort, Washington and Tyrrell counties. Chief Wingina was beheaded by the English military in June 1586 after an attempt to expand the alliance. 

Parsons told Coastal Review that his focus will be on providing a “functional definition and real world understanding of the ‘Indigenous Earth Ethic’ and the inclusive concept of what I refer to as ‘Indigen-us’.” 

He added that his goal is to empower all to see and understand their own deep indigenous ancestral identity as a part of the natural world.

“In doing so it is my hope that they will embrace and live a more sustainable life and thus one that is in what I call ‘Righteous Relationship with Creation,’” he said.

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust and the town of Windsor have partnered to permanently conserve more than 300 acres in Bertie County for its environmental and historic significance.

The Wilmington-based conservation organization announced last week that the Hoggard’s Millpond purchase was finalized in December 2024 and then transferred to the town.

The 313.66 acres are northward of where Greens Cross and Hoggard’s Mill roads intersect, just a few miles north of where U.S. highways 13 and 17 meet in Windsor.

Critical for flood control purposes, the land features 2.2 miles of frontage along each side of Hoggard’s Mill Run, also known as Hoggard’s Mill, the largest tributary of the Cashie River, according to the land trust. In addition, there are mature cypress forest, bottomland hardwoods, upland ridges that offer habitat for bats, colonial waterbirds, and waterfowl, as well as crucial habitat for anadromous fish.

From the historical perspective, the first Bertie County seat was established on the site in the early 1720s, now known as the “Lost Town of Cashy.” The county seat relocated to Windsor in 1774. The site is also the location of what is believed to be the first millpond built in the state, which operated from the late 1700s until about 1934, according to the land trust.

“Importantly, the dam and water control structure on the property drained 22 square miles and controlled water flow extending 8 miles upstream, making the property of utmost importance for flood control purposes,” according to the land trust.

Windsor Mayor Lewis Hoggard said in a statement that the town was excited by the collaborative effort with Coastal Land Trust to acquire, preserve and potentially restore the Hoggard Mill property in Bertie County.

The town plans to create and manage a public nature and historic park on 28 designated acres. The remaining 286 acres are preserved under conservation restrictions held by the state to permanently protect the property’s natural, historic, and cultural features.

“This unique property also offers a small step forward in the ongoing flood management process of the Cashie River and its impact on the Town of Windsor and surrounding areas in Bertie County as well as future recreational use and enjoyment by our citizens,” Hoggard said.

The previous owners, the Thompson family, began discussions in 2016 with the Coastal Land Trust about conserving the property.

“Our father, Harry Lewis Thompson would be thrilled to know this mill pond property will be preserved for generations to come,” his children, JeNell Dilday, Pat Taylor, and Vic Thompson said in a statement. “It was always his desire to restore the property into a fully functioning mill pond to assist with restocking the river herring fishery as well as provide a place for people to come and enjoy its natural beauty – and at the same time assist the Town of Windsor with possible flooding containment. The Thompson family is proud to be able to fulfill his wishes.”

Grants from the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service North American Wetlands Conservation Act, a North Carolina Environmental Enhancement, U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities Inc., and the town funded the purchase.

“After years of dedicated effort and collaboration with the Town of Windsor and the Thompson family, we are proud to have secured the permanent protection of this treasured landscape,” Land Trust Executive Director Harrison Marks said. “Together, we are ensuring that this special place will continue to inspire and benefit future generations, preserving both the natural and cultural heritage of Bertie County.”

An invasive, wood-boring beetle responsible for killing tens of millions of ash trees in North America is getting closer to North Carolina’s coast.

With the North Carolina Forest Service announcement Wednesday that Bertie, Anson, Duplin, Martin and Sampson counties have been deemed positive for the emerald ash borer, the total number of counties where it has been detected in the state is now 76.

The emerald ash borer, or EAB, has been found in more than 75% of North Carolina counties including all of western North Carolina, most of the Piedmont and continues to track east, officials said.

“Seasonal trapping for EAB typically runs from late March to early May. During that time, we were able to extract adult beetles from ash stands in Anson, Bertie, Duplin and Sampson counties,” Jim Moeller, forest health specialist with the N.C. Forest Service, said in a statement.

Host plants include all native ash trees and native white fringetree. The Chinese white fringetree, often planted for ornamental purposes, is believed to be resistant.

“While we weren’t able to physically uncover the insect in Martin County, current signs and symptoms found in ash trees indicate EAB infestations are already underway. We’re going to consider Martin County positive based on these indicators so landowners will know what to expect and can plan accordingly,” Moeller added.

Emerald ash borer is a metallic green beetle that bores into ash trees and feeds on tissues beneath the bark, ultimately killing the tree. Adult beetles are about a half-inch long and 1/8-inch wide and lay eggs on the bark of ash trees. When the eggs hatch, the larvae bore into the bark and feed on tissues of the tree. This disrupts the movement of nutrients and water within the tree, causing the tree’s slow death usually within three to five years.

In North Carolina, the adult emerald ash borer is typically active from late spring to early summer, likely April through June. Its larvae may be found under tree bark most of the year.

Officials said signs and symptoms of an emerald ash borer infestation include the following:

• Thinning and dying crowns.
• Increased woodpecker activity that causes the tree to look like it is losing patches of bark.
• Small, 1/8-inch D-shaped exit holes where adult beetles emerged from the trees.
• Galleries on the inside of the bark.
• Cream-colored larvae.
• Epicormic sprouting or sprouting from the main stem of the tree.

The entire state is under a quarantine for emerald ash borer, which prohibits the movement of ash plant parts, the insect itself, ash nursery stock and all hardwood firewood into nonquarantined areas such as central Tennessee, most of Alabama and Florida, officials said.

The spread of invasive insects in the state is often due to human activity through the transportation of infested wood products such as firewood. It is strongly recommended that people burn local or treated firewood to reduce the spread of invasive pests.

The N.C. Forest Service Forest Health Branch monitors the spread of invasive pests. 

People who suspect there is an infested tree in an area near them should contact their county ranger. Contact information can be found online at www.ncforestservice.gov/contacts.

For more information about EAB, visit ncforestservice.gov and follow the links under the “Forest Health” section. To view current federal EAB quarantines, visit www.emeraldashborer.info. 

With the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust’s recent purchase of nearly 17 acres on the Chowan River south of Colerain in Bertie County, the property known as Point Comfort is forever protected.  

The 16.86-acre property features 85- to 90-foot bluffs overlooking the Chowan River and forms a part of the Wicomico Terrace, an old ocean shoreline dating as far back as the Pleistocene era that ended about 12,000 years ago, according to the Coastal Land Trust.

The east-facing bluff is made of clay, sand, quartz, ironstone, limestone, and marine fossils that have been deposited over time, creating visible layers of color and texture. Additionally, there is a coastal forest ecosystem of white oak, American beech and holly on the property.

Organization officials said that the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program recently ranked the site, Chowan River Point Comfort Bluffs, as a new natural heritage area of exceptional significance.

Dr. Stan Riggs, coastal geologist and professor emeritus at East Carolina University, and Mr. Tom Earnhardt, host and co-producer of UNC-TV’s “Exploring North Carolina,” made the conservation organization aware of the property at Point Comfort, Land Trust officials said.

“The Point Comfort property will be managed as a nature preserve and will be forever protected from development,” Lee Leidy, attorney and northeast region director for Coastal Land Trust, said in a statement. Leidy added that they are thankful to Riggs and Earnhardt for bringing this site to their attention, and sharing their extensive knowledge of the history and geology of the area.

The Coastal Land Trust also extended gratitude to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Stanback, and other private donors.

First in a series on the Albemarle region’s environmental-economic connections.

Standing on a bluff overlooking the Chowan River at Bertie County’s Tall Glass of Water outdoor education site, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein spoke last month about the North Carolina Environmental Enhancement Grants, or EEGs, what they have meant to communities, and what they have meant to him personally.

Stein, speaking during the May 4 event, said awarding EEGs is one of the most fun things he gets to do as attorney general. Addressing organizations selected for the EEGs, he said being able to support the good work of community organizations and civically minded folks was tremendous.

“To see these funds pour back into North Carolina … using a whole variety of different strategies … It’s my privilege to be able to do this work and it’s certainly my pleasure to do this work,” Stein said.

Earlier this year: State announces millions for park accessibility grants

The EEG program was part of a binding agreement in 2000 between Smithfield Foods and the state calling for the hog producer to phase out the use of open-air hog lagoons. As part of that agreement, Smithfield agreed to provide up to $2 million per year for 25 years of environmental projects across the state.

The EEG program began distributing grants in 2002.

“So far, we’ve done something like 210 projects in excess of $40 million,” Stein said.

Stein noted in his remarks that most, though not all, of the Environmental Enhancement Grants have been focused on eastern North Carolina, and the grants he came to Bertie County to talk about are specific to the area. The Albemarle Resource Conservation and Development Council received a grant to study algal blooms on the Chowan River, and the Audubon Society is applying a $98,000 grant to wetland restoration in Currituck County.

For many of the grants, the most apparent outcomes are visible. That is the case at Tall Glass of Water, as trails are cleared and much-needed unimpeded access to the beach becomes a reality.

For Bertie County, a Tier 1, or most-distressed county on the North Carolina Department of Commerce’s ranking of counties’ economic well-being, and facing a recent spate of violent crime, six murders this year, at least one of the grants may come to represent the human benefits of environmental enhancements.

The EEG funding for the Bertie County Hive House Virtual Learning Center at 103 Mitchell St. in Lewiston Woodville will create a green space from 4 acres of meadow, overgrown with invasive species and with limited access. But for Vivian Saunders, executive director of the Hive House, the grant, she explained to Stein, is more than just open space for the small town on the west side of the county.

Saunders spoke about “the unfortunate deaths” in Bertie County in the last couple of months, referring to the six homicides in 2023.

“What we’re going to try to do is … get our young people involved in some outdoor workforce-development training so we can get them outside (instead) of playing games and being on video games,” she said. “We’re trying to transform our young people’s minds from sitting in the house staying on video games to being back outside and around nature.”

Saunder’s remarks sparked an almost immediate response from Stein.

“That’s a wonderful articulation of the relationship of kids and mental health and nature,” he said.

Lewiston Woodville was once a small but thriving crossroads town. That was a long time ago. The few businesses that once lined the streets are now closed and falling into disrepair. The only open business by the crossroads is a gas station and convenience store. The paint on the front of the building is chipped and fading. On the west side of town is natural gas infrastructure where maintenance work in May produced a seemingly ceaseless din of venting gas and flame that resembled the sound of a jet engine.

The Bertie County Hive House, at the corner of Mitchell and Cashie streets, is just off the town crossroads. It is a rambling old house that Saunders has made into a gathering place for anyone who wants to come.

The house, Saunders said, was donated to her by her pastor, Dr. Gary Cordon. When she first got it, the house was not in very good shape, but a grant from Perdue Farms, the largest employer in Bertie County, paid for its rehabilitation.

“Perdue, they did the total renovations,” she emphasized.

The Hive House, as Saunders describes it, is a safe place, a shelter where people can come for whatever reason, and she added that space is available at almost any time, day or night.

“If you need somewhere to work, or chill, you can just give me a call: ‘Vivian, can I get into the Hive?’ And my people will come and unlock it,” she said.

For Saunders, the issues confronting the county have their roots in poverty and the hopelessness it creates, and she is uncompromising as she paints a picture of the impact on the county’s youth.

“You’re telling me, sitting in school, that I’ve got the whole world ahead of me. And then I go home, and some folks don’t have toilets. I’m in a mobile home, where I can see the dog running underneath. I don’t have lights on. Sometime my mom and dad are working so hard, I don’t get to see them,” Saunders said describing the county’s poverty.

She points out that the county has one of the state’s highest rates of juvenile diabetes related to obesity, an observation that is confirmed in the 2018 Bertie County Community Health Assessment, and to her the key is getting young adults and kids off social media and back outside.

“We got to get these babies back outside, loving nature, loving the community,” she said. “Kids don’t go outside. They want to be on MacBooks, phones and computers. One of the things that I’m going to require (on the green space work), you’ve got to leave that phone alone. You’ve got to go outside. Our project is to actually build that park.”

The work is still in its earliest stages. The design for the 4-acre green space is being handled by North Carolina State University landscape architecture and environmental planning professor Kofi Boone. He agreed that there is concern about the overall health of the community.

“The health disparities facing Bertie County broadly and Lewiston-Woodville specifically are alarming,” he wrote in an email response to Coastal Review. “That includes all sectors but especially seniors and young people. Vivian Saunders and Hive House have also expressed the need for young people to belong to the process and the transformation and see opportunities to look at workforce development associated with green space transformation.

Asked what the potential impact of creating a community green space could be, Boone was cautiously optimistic.

“The issues facing towns like Lewiston-Woodville are complex and beyond the scope of what one green space can solve on its own,” he wrote. “However, green space that can reflect and reinforce community values can engender a spirit of stewardship and care that can offer safe, and healthy open space for people to enjoy.”

That sense of cautious optimism is shared by Bertie County Sheriff Tyrone Ruffin.

“If people utilize it, yes, it will be a good thing for our county,” he said. “But do I think that is the solution to (all) issues? The answer’s no.”

Boone, however, does see the outdoor space as an important component in addressing the overall health of the community. He noted that the health concerns raised by Saunders could potentially be affected by an outdoor area for the community.

“The town does not currently have a public green space. From research, we know that a lack of access to green space can contribute to a lack of physical activity and poorer health outcomes. We know that well designed green space can help support improved physical health and mental wellbeing,” Boone wrote.

The field is going to take some work to create something usable. There are numerous ways to remove invasive species and Boone has not yet come to a decision on the best method.

“We’re going to be working with a number of partners to determine the right approach to handling invasive species. The treatments can vary,” he wrote.

There is also, evidently, material from what was once the West Bertie Elementary School that closed in the 1970s, according to Boone.

Graduate students from the N.C. State School of Landscape Architecture will be on hand to supervise the work, at times spending the night at the Hive House. Saunders mentioned that they are donating their time, and that the only request they made was, “all they’ve asked us to do is keep the fridge full for us.”

The project is still in its earliest stages, yet for Saunders even as the initial steps are taken, she sees hope in the willingness of people to work together to improve conditions in a troubled county.

“I want to thank everyone involved in helping us transform and take back our county from all the negativity that’s been going on,” she said.

Next in the series: A Tall Glass of Water.

The Coastal Land Trust announced Monday that the conservation organization has recently acquired two properties in Bertie County, a farm near Aulander and a large floodplain forest tract along the Chowan River near Colerain.

Brothers, Wayland L. Jenkins Jr. of Ahoskie and Joe Henry Jenkins of Nags Head, donated the 55.75-acre farm property to the Coastal Land Trust. The property, a portion of which has traditionally been known as the “Rice Farm,” was in the Jenkins Family for more than 100 years and has great sentimental value to the Jenkins brothers, land trust officials said. They elected to donate the property, a combination of cultivated land and woodlands, to the Coastal Land Trust to place the property in permanent conservation in honor of their mother’s wishes. The property lies within an area known as the Beaverdam Pocosin.

The Coastal Land Trust said it hopes to undertake a project to restore the native vegetation and natural hydrology of the former wetland site.

The Coastal Land Trust also completed the purchase of 421.38 acres along the Chowan River in Bertie County.

The acquisition involved the purchase of five adjoining riverfront parcels from six sets of landowners. The transaction was negotiated in 2019, contracts with each set of owners were entered into in 2020, and the purchase was completed at the end of 2022.

“One of North Carolina Coastal Land Trust’s board members, Dr. Stan Riggs, of Greenville, a well-known coastal geologist, introduced one of the landowners to us. That landowner, who was excited at the prospect of permanently conserving their land, then talked with their neighbors. It took a couple of years to pull this sale together,” said Coastal Land Trust Attorney and Northeast Region Director Lee Leidy. “All of these landowners and their attorney were committed to working to conserve their property, and that made all the difference.”

The combined tracts have more than 1.7 miles of frontage along the Chowan River and consist primarily of mature cypress gum swamp. Officials noted that the tracts are in the Colerain/Cow Island Swamp and Slopes Significant Natural Heritage Area and are classified as having high ecological significance.

After the Coastal Land Trust completed the purchase, it transferred the 421.38 acres, together with the 766.48-acre Keel’s Creek Tract, which the Coastal Land Trust purchased in December 2021, to the state to be managed by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission as part of the Chowan Swamp Game Lands, an almost 1,200-acre addition.

The purchases were made possible thanks to funding provided by the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, North American Wetlands Conservation Act and Coastal Programs grants, and the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund.

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust purchased 421.38 acres, made up primarily of mature cypress gum swamp, in Bertie County at the end of 2022. 

Called the “Chowan/Perry et al. Tracts,” the closing involved the purchase of five adjoining parcels at about $500,000 along the Chowan River from six sets of owners. Coastal Land Trust officials have been working on the project since 2019.

“The Coastal Land Trust is ever thankful for the vision and partnership of 6 adjoining landowners in Bertie County that were willing to come together to sell portions of their beautiful floodplain forest along the Chowan River for conservation,” Janice L. Allen, Coastal Land Trust director of land protection, told Coastal Review.

“This type of collaboration with multiple landowners to put pieces of land together for a single sale has never happened before in our 30 year history of land conservation! We are thrilled it all came together to forever conserve such a special place on our coast,” she added.

The tract, which has more than 1.7 miles of frontage along the Chowan River, adjoins a 451-acre parcel owned by the state that is managed by the N. C. Wildlife Resources Commission as part of the 32,570-acre Chowan Swamp Game Lands. The property lies within the Colerain/Cow Island Swamp and Slopes Significant Natural Heritage Area and is classified as having high ecological significance, according to the Land Trust.

A North Carolina Land and Water Fund grant, a U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service North American Wetlands Conservation Act grant, a Coastal Wetlands grant, and an Enviva Forest Conservation Fund grant funded the purchase.

This property, together with the 766.48-acre Keel Creek Tract, which the Coastal Land Trust purchased in December 2021, has been transferred to the state to be managed by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission as part of the Chowan Swamp Game Lands, an almost 1,200-acre addition to state game lands.

Bertie and Hertford counties are among the 19 rural communities chosen for a new, state-led initiative to help increase planning, implementing and managing economic development programs and opportunities. 

The Rural Community Capacity, or RC2, program, is a pilot effort by the North Carolina Commerce Department involving Appalachian State University’s Walker College of Business, the state announced last week.

The first group of participants were welcomed May 24 in Boone.

“As we build on North Carolina’s economic development success, we must make sure that success is shared among both urban and rural communities across our state,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement. “This program will strengthen the ability of local governments in rural communities to secure major economic projects and bolster North Carolina’s economy.”

The RC2 program, part of the Department of Commerce’s broader Rural Transformation Grant program, provides educational programming, technical assistance and guidance to local government staff in rural and distressed communities. 

Funding can go to downtowns impacted by the pandemic, removal and remediation of environmental contaminants or hazards from vacant or abandoned properties by the public sector and cleanups of vacant lots.

“Our rural communities can become stronger and more vibrant places to live and work, but to reach that goal we must build up local governments’ capacity to plan and execute proven economic development strategies,” said North Carolina Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders. “This new program, part of Commerce’s efforts to transform rural economies, will equip local governments and their staffs with the education, technical assistance, and implementation grants they need to succeed.”

As part of the RC2 process, communities have access to the Commerce Department’s rural planning team for additional training and technical assistance, including a strategic planning process focused on identifying economic development assets and priorities that are specific to each community.

Communities that complete the RC2 campus curriculum and participate in the rural planning process will then be eligible to apply for Community Implementation Grants offered by the Rural Economic Development Division through the new Rural Transformation Grant Fund.

“Success in economic development takes intentional preparation,” said Assistant Secretary for Rural Development Kenny Flowers. “We know the approaches that work well and lay the groundwork for success, and we’re excited to share these best practices with more local government officials.”

Other communities participating in the program include Martin County and the towns of Archdale, Carthage, China Grove, East Spencer, Garysburg, Hildebran, Jonesville, Liberty, Mars Hill, Marshville, Maysville, Pilot Mountain, Rosman, Spruce Pine, Vass and Wilson’s Mills.

More information about the Rural Transformation Grant Fund and the Rural Community Capacity initiative is available at nccommerce.com/transform.

Part of a history series examining each of North Carolina’s 20 coastal counties.

Most of the earliest English settlers in North Carolina lived on the northern side of the Albemarle Sound. Their settlements built the foundation of North Carolina and evolved into the Colony’s first towns and political centers.

At this same time, the English were settling slightly to the west of the Albemarle Sound near the Chowan River. One of the first areas in which they built homes and plantations later became Bertie County. This county, which turns 300 years old this year, has been a center of political leadership, agricultural wealth and local tourism ever since the earliest times in Colonial North Carolina.

English settlement of the Cashie River and areas west of the Chowan River began in the mid-17th century. Some of the earliest immigrants such as Nathaniel Batts and Samuel Stephens lived near the confluence of Salmon Creek and Chowan River. Settlers following their lead moved either south from Virginia or west from the Albemarle region. They established corn and then tobacco plantations. These efforts were relatively successful, as farmers could take advantage of the rich alluvial land of the Cashie, Roanoke and Chowan rivers.

Plantations also used these rivers for transportation and connections with Colonial government on the eastern side of the Chowan. In addition to agriculture, the county produced staves and other wood products from its abundant timber resources.

The area that became Bertie County also played a strategic role in the Colony’s early treatment of Native Americans. While the earliest settlers bought land from local Native Americans and coexisted with them, outright theft and exclusion soon became the English policy. Tensions caused by this policy led to the Tuscarora War of 1711-1713. After the English victory, the Tuscarora, who had signed treaties with the Colony, were granted a reservation in present-day southern Bertie County known as Indian Woods.

In his history of Bertie County, Alan Watson notes that by 1801, “finding little sympathy among the white populace and having their land taken in (a) callous fashion, the aged, dwindling remnant of the Tuscarora (at Indian Woods) soon proved ready to move northward.” The Tuscarora sold the last rights to their land in 1831.

Following the Tuscarora War, the region west of the Chowan River quickly gained enough English residents to petition for a new county. In 1722, that petition was granted. A new county was formed, with its eastern boundary being the Chowan River and its western boundary being the “limits of the government,” according to Daniel Leroy Corbitt. Bertie County was named after two Lords Proprietor of North Carolina, James and Henry Bertie.

The centerpiece of town settlement in Bertie County was Windsor, formed at the head of navigation of the Cashie River. Windsor, named for the royal castle in England and incorporated in 1768, was one of the last towns in North Carolina sanctioned by the British monarchy. It joined other Colonial towns established in the 1760s including Salem, Winton and Charlotte. Windsor became the county seat of Bertie County in 1774. The present courthouse off King Street was built in 1889.

Bertie County was an economically successful antebellum county. It became the site of several plantations and plantation homes that have survived to the present day. The most notable was Hope Plantation, built in 1803 by future North Carolina governor David Stone. There was also Rosefield, built in the mid-18th century — present building first constructed circa 1786 — and at one point the home of William Blount, one of North Carolina’s three signers of the Constitution.

Blount later, as a senator from Tennessee, was found to have committed treason by plotting to hand French territory in the South over to Britain. “When will we cease to have Judases?” Abigail Adams wrote in a letter to her sister when she learned of Blount’s plans. Blount later became the first and only senator to be expelled from Congress outside of the Civil War years.

Bertie County was mostly spared during the Civil War. It did not suffer a destructive fire like Winton or a significant battle like Plymouth. But following the war, the county’s economy was devastated like the rest of the state. Planters had to shift away from previous staples and toward newer crops such as peanuts and later soybeans. Bertie County eventually became the leading peanut-producing county in the state.

The political system shifted as well. In the years after Reconstruction, the county was in the 2^nd Congressional District and was represented by two African Americans, Henry Cheatham and George White, during the 1880s and 1890s. Bertie remains one of 20 majority-minority counties in the state.

The 20th century saw Bertie County continue the slow, mostly rural growth that characterized much of eastern North Carolina. Bertie County did not turn toward industry at the same scale as Plymouth or Elizabeth City. However, the county’s agriculture and location near U.S. 64 meant that it did not remain as isolated as Gates County to the north. Instead, Bertie’s towns mostly stayed small and continued with the same stores and patterns that had always characterized town life.

Despite the county’s slow growth, there were several influential people who hailed from Bertie County during the 20th century. These included Negro Leagues pitcher Willie Wynn, actor Jeorge Bennett Watson and University of North Carolina leader George T. Winston. There was also Joanna Houston Ransom, an influential university administrator who once helped lead the association of African American fraternities and sororities known as the Pan-Hellenic Council.

As for important businesses, one of North Carolina’s most well-known barbecue restaurants, Bunn’s Barbecue, opened in Windsor in 1938. Bunn’s received recognition in 2013 as one of LocalEats’s best barbecue restaurants in America. The Bertie County Peanuts company, Powell & Stokes, is also famous. In 2013, according to the Winston-Salem Journal, “the company shipped nearly 200,000 pounds of packaged peanuts as far away as Japan.”

The agricultural focus of previous decades has shifted somewhat in recent years, particularly in Windsor. The town of Windsor and its businesses have attempted to turn the small town into a tourist destination. They have done so by taking advantage of the natural environment of the town and its unique attributes. The town has publicized Livermon Park and its connected miniature zoo. It has also built tree houses on the Cashie River that appeal to campers and kayakers.

Bertie County today is in an interesting middle ground between eastern North Carolina regions. It is close enough to U.S. 64 and Elizabeth City to benefit from some beach and town development. But it is far enough away to retain much of its agricultural heritage and small-town charm.

The construction of Interstate 87 has the potential to increase Bertie County’s connections to Norfolk and the Albemarle region. But for now, it appears that the community will continue as a farm county with a niche tourism business for the foreseeable future.

Projects to preserve and protect habitat and improve water quality in eastern North Carolina have been awarded a total of $866,591 in grants through the Environmental Enhancement Grant program, Attorney General Josh Stein announced Tuesday.

This year, the program is awarding nearly $3 million to 27 grantees across the state.

The grant program began after an agreement made in 2000 between the North Carolina attorney general’s office and Smithfield Foods, which provides $2 million to the state every year to be distributed among environmental projects across the state. Including this year’s grants, listed below, the attorney general office’s has awarded nearly $37 million to more than 190 projects in the state.

Jacksonville

Jacksonville is to receive $175,000 to continue efforts to preserve and protect the New River.

The grant is to help the city expand 12 of the existing New River Estuary Oyster Highway sites, construct 1,850 small patch reefs and add nearly 2.5 million oysters to improve biofiltration.

“The City of Jacksonville is committed to preserving and protecting the New River, a process which began 21 years ago with the close of the City’s Wilson Bay WWTP (waste water treatment plant) and the immediate cleanup efforts utilizing an innovative process called bioremediation,” said Pat Donovan-Brandenburg, stormwater manager for city.

“We continued those efforts three years ago with the “New River Oyster Highway” where we created 12 half-acre artificial reefs or stepping stone habitats for oyster and fish populations in the region between Wilson Bay and Stones Bay within the New River, Donovan-Brandenburg continued. Using funds these funds will enable the city to expand the 12 existing New River Estuary Oyster Highway sites by adding more than 2.48 million oysters and constructing an additional 1,850 or so patch reefs across all sites.

“This grant will help safeguard the New River,” said Stein. “It will help marine life thrive and help improve the quality of water sources.”

New Bern

New Bern is getting $134,000 to build stormwater infrastructure in an underserved neighborhood that has long been subject to flooding. The grant is a part of the city’s larger resiliency and revitalization project.

“The Attorney General’s Environmental Enhancement Grant Program award supports the city’s overall resiliency initiatives and one of the primary goals of our Resiliency and Hazard Mitigation Plan, to improve conditions for our most underserved and socially vulnerable populations,” said Jeffrey Ruggieri, Development Services Director for New Bern.

“Flooding is the biggest concern and most frequent hazard experienced in the Greater Duffyfield Community. The Stormwater Enhancement Project is a representative mitigation solution to retrofit sustainable practices and nature-based solutions in our older neighborhoods that have been plagued with disinvestment. The project will make the neighborhood safer, improve water quality, and add an amenity for the surrounding residents,” he continued. “EEG funds have been imperative to the city’s broader planning efforts, which encompass a holistic approach toward building the resilience capacity of New Bern and being better prepared for the future.”

Stein said in a statement that New Bern is making smart investments in improving water quality and preventing flooding in historically underserved neighborhoods. “I hope this grant will help improve the quality of life for people in New Bern.”

North Carolina Coastal Land Trust

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust is receiving $50,000 for the Hoggard’s Millpond Conservation Project, which will help the trust acquire 348 acres of Hoggard’s Millpond Tract and transfer it to the town of Windsor in Bertie County to create a new public park.

“Coastal Land Trust is ever appreciative of this recently approved EEG grant for our Hoggard’s Millpond Conservation Project which represents a unique community conservation partnership to protect a site with significant wildlife, historic, water quality, and recreational resources,” said Janice Allen, director of land protection, adding that the trust’s primary partner, Windsor, is one step closer to having a new nature, historic park for all to enjoy.

“Public parks make our communities stronger and happier,” Stein said. “I’m pleased to distribute these funds to help the town of Windsor create a new public park that the community can enjoy for decades to come.”

Ducks Unlimited

Ducks Unlimited is getting $75,000 to restore wetlands within the Goose Creek Game Lands in Pamlico County, a project to increase water exchanges between Smith Creek and its estuary.

“The Environmental Enhancement Grant award serves as a critical funding source in support of our project to enhance 25 acres of tidally-influenced managed wetlands,” said Ducks Unlimited Regional biologist Ethan Massey.

“The grant funds will be leveraged with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) and Ducks Unlimited matching support to complete the project. Wetland restoration projects like these are important to maintain and improve wetland function and water quality in North Carolina,” Massey said, adding that the project will also allow the commission to manage the area more effectively to provide high quality wildlife habitat and public outdoor recreational opportunities.

“Wetlands protect our communities from flooding and enhance water quality,” said Stein. “I’m proud to partner with Ducks Unlimited to preserve this area for more people to enjoy in the future.”

Bertie County Hive House

Bertie County Hive House is receiving $74,350 to improve a 4-acre greenspace in Lewiston Woodville through cleaning, stormwater remediation and planting. The greenspace provides recreational and educational opportunities for the underserved community.

“Public green areas are vital to our community health,” Stein said. “This grant will help create a community space people can visit and enjoy.”

Other EEG awards in eastern North Carolina:

Pollocksville will receive $114,000 to construct publicly accessible wetlands in Riverfront Park to help protect flood-prone properties.

Kinston Cares, a nonprofit organization run by the Center for Community Self-Help, is receiving $95,000 to rehabilitate Federal Emergency Management Agency flood buyout property in east Kinston through research, community planning and environmental education.

East Carolina University will receive $149,241 to identify and evaluate stormwater control measures throughout Greenville. The project will help the city determine which locations are at a higher risk for flooding and poor water quality and take steps to reduce the environmental damage caused by stormwater runoff, especially in underserved communities.

WINDSOR — For John M. Bunch of Tampa, Florida, the voyage of discovery as he traveled through his family history was perhaps more shocking than genealogy is for most people.

Describing his journey Saturday during the Historic Hope Foundation’s 10^th Family History and Genealogical Fair at Hope Plantation near Windsor in Bertie County, Bunch said it took him to the earliest days of our nation’s history and ultimately delineated the story of race in America.

While growing up, he experienced two narratives of race.

“The … maternal side was mostly poor rural Scots-Irish. None of those people had slaves,” he said. “My grandmother was a fundamentalist Christian. She was very human. She insisted and made sure that I had a shared (view of) humanity that was loving, kind, with an appreciation of all races.”

The paternal side, however, viewed race very differently.

“The Bunch side was, ‘We don’t have any Black blood at all,’” he said.

Except the Bunch side was wrong.

There were hints, clues that suggested there was maybe more to the family history than the Bunch family was willing to acknowledge. There was an older cousin who traced the family tree back to a Bertie County man, Jeremiah Bunch, who was biracial.

“He interpreted it as a white man who had married an Indian woman,” Bunch said in a recent phone interview.

A few years later, an aunt did similar research, got the same results and simply rejected it, claiming it could not be true.

For Bunch, the real search began when Barrack Obama became president and his family tree was traced back to a John Punch who had come to America as an indentured servant from Africa sometime before 1640.

That’s when Bunch, who has a doctorate in social psychology and cognitive science, began a systematic and scientific search of his ancestry.

He traced his family tree further, before his ancestor Jeremiah Bunch, and concluded that he probably was, like Obama, also a John Punch descendent. He then had a Y-DNA test looking for the specific marker that would show African heritage on the male side.

The marker was present, but with the confirmation that he was of multiracial lineage came more questions about his family history, questions that held some painful answers.

Jeremiah Bunch’s son was Solomon Bunch, who was born in 1785. At some point in the early 1800s, after his father’s death, Solomon Bunch moved from Bertie County to Maury County, Tennessee. When he gets there, he faced a choice.

“He’s got to make a decision. ‘Either I’m going to be white, or I’m not going to be white,’” Bunch said.

Solomon Bunch chose to be white.

“He builds a business, builds a farm, and apparently does pretty well. Also he has slaves,” he said. “That bothered me for a long time … still bothers me, I suppose,” John Bunch added. “Why in the world would he, coming as a free person of color, is he going to turn around and have slaves. How does a free person of color do that? How are they going to justify that? From a modern perspective it seems inconceivable.”

But in antebellum Tennessee, the choices available to Solomon were limited. North Carolina, where he grew up, had specific laws defining race. In Tennessee, such choices did not exist.

“You’ve got to be either white or nonwhite. That’s his choice,” Bunch said. “He chooses to be white. He marries a woman and has slaves. From our modern perspective, you can’t justify that. But slaves were part of Bertie County (where he grew up) part of the culture. It’s something that must have seemed natural for Solomon.”

We do not know, however, what he was thinking when he chose to be white, and we may never know. He left no record of his thoughts on the decision, leaving his descendant John Bunch with no clear answer.

“I wish he had written a great letter like Frederick Douglass, but he was an ordinary man … motivated by ordinary human motivations.”

The discovery prompted John Bunch to examine how the history of race in the United States led to where we are today.

He began his talk at Hope Plantation noting that as a social psychologist his approach differs from that of a historian.

“The way I interpret history is always through the psychological lens. This (is an) ongoing narrative, so that you see history not as a TV show that ran and is now over. The historical forces of radical pro-slave powers and anti-slave forces, those are still with us, they still battle,” he said.

When John Punch was brought to the New World around 1640, enslavement of Africans in the British Colonies was not commonplace. It was not until 1661 that Virginia enacted the first slavery laws allowing a human being to become the property of another. 

To create a moral basis to place another human being into permanent bondage requires a view of that person as less valuable and distinctly different.

“To justify that, you have to dehumanize the person. They’re Black, they’re not Christian, they’re from Africa, they don’t look like us. Let’s make them slaves. This is the vilification of Blackness,” Bunch said.

That dehumanization did not end with the freeing of enslaved people in 1865. Nor were the 200 years of enslavement or the years immediately following the Civil War the most profound example of racial animosity in our history. That distinction, according to Bunch, belongs to the early 20th century.

“It continues to grow past the Civil War. (It) reaches a peak in the ‘20s and ‘30s, pre-World War II,” he said. “That’s when you see this real hatred — lynchings, D.W. Griffith’s ‘Birth of a Nation’ comes out, this reinventing of the role in the Civil War to the Great Lost Cause. We are now on the downside of a vilification of Blackness, but it’s still there.”

The was the era of the “one-drop rule,” a time when states enacted laws declaring that any amount of African descent meant a person was Black and therefore subject to the laws restricting Black participation in society.

The laws, which no longer exist, were a peculiarly American view of race, according to author and sociologist F. James Davis.

“Apparently the rule is unique in that it is found only in the United States and not in any other nation in the world,” Davis wrote for PBS Frontline.

The one-drop rules were largely rescinded or found unconstitutional, but not until after World War II. Still, their legacy remains, Bunch said.

The Jim Crow era, the Ku Klux Klan and other vestiges of the one-drop rule live on in the form of modern-day white supremacists and the political movements they support. Those forces, though, are counterbalanced by other mostly white groups.

“Throughout history, you’ve got this dichotomy between whites on the one hand who just want to find someone to be cruel to. On the other hand, you’ve got this group of white people who is your typical white liberals. And American racial politics to me seems like it’s always this balance between radical pro-slavery forces and this Age of Enlightenment liberal force,” he said. “What happens is neither really get what they want. And the people that are caught in the center, never really advanced like they should. Because what you end up with is, you’ve got people on both sides who can make themselves comfortable that they’ve done what they’re supposed to do.”

He said that for those caught in the middle, despite some improvement, the conflict remains.

“It’s no less intense than it ever was. It’s just changed forms,” Bunch said.