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.”

Second of two parts; read part 1

Not every slave master in Moses Grandy’s life was cruel. Some actively worked with Grandy to help him buy his freedom.

There was “Richard Furley, who … gave me a pass to work for myself.”

The agreement between Furley and Grandy was simple.

“I obtained work by the piece where I could, and paid him out of my earnings what we had agreed on; I maintained myself on the rest, and saved what I could…He paid seventy, eighty, or ninety dollars a year for me, and I paid him twenty or thirty dollars a year more than that.”

Sometime around 1813 or 1814 Grandy noted “the English blockaded the Chesapeake, which made it necessary to send merchandize from Norfolk to Elizabeth city by the Grand Canal, so that it might get to sea by Pamlico Sound and Ocracock Inlet…”

A skilled waterman by this time, he “took some canal boats on shares; Mr. Grice … was the owner of them.”

Most likely that is Mr. Charles Grice, described in a National Register of Historic Places survey of Elizabeth City as “the leading merchant in Elizabeth City’s early years.”

Grandy’s arrangement with Grice gives an indication of how valuable and trusted Grandy was. “I gave him one-half of all I received for freight: out of the other half, I had to victual and man the boats, and all over that expense was my own profit,” he described as the business arrangement.

It was during this time, when visiting “my brother Benjamin returned from the West Indies,” that how cruel and capricious life was for an enslaved person becomes clear.

Grandy was in one room and in another room “heard the heavy blows of a hammer…went to see what was going on. I looked into the store, and saw my brother lying on his back on the floor, and Mr. Williams, who had bought him, driving staples over his wrists and ankles; an iron bar was afterwards put across his breast, which was also held down by staples.”

His brother had done nothing wrong, he was told, “but that his master had failed, and he was sold towards paying the debts.”

Grandy Tries to Buy His Freedom

Although increasingly independent, Moses Grandy was still owned by James Grandy and at the suggestion of Grice, Moses asked how much would it cost to buy his freedom.

After considerable negotiation, $600 was the agreed price.

“I then went heartily to work, and whenever I paid him (James) for my time, I paid him something also towards my freedom, for which he gave me receipts,” Grandy recalled.

When $600 was reached, Moses went to his master and “he tore up all the receipts: I told him he ought not to have done so; he replied it did not signify, for as soon as court-day came, he should give me my free papers.”

Read the first part: Enslaved in Camden County, Moses Grandy knew its cruelty

When the court date came, James “was playing at billiards, and would not go with me.”

Concerned his chance for freedom would be lost, Moses went to the Grices and asked for help. Mrs. Grice sent for James who “cursed her, and went out of the house.”

Mr. Grice then met with James and he agreed to go to court and sign the papers. Instead “he rode away, and kept away till court was over” and sold Moses for $600 to a Mr. Trewitt.

It was the first of three attempts by Grandy to buy his freedom.

Trewitt, agreed to the same arrangement Grandy had had with Grice and that $600 would buy his freedom.

After two and a half years, Grandy had paid the full $600. Trewitt on Christmas Eve asked him, though, to take a letter to a Mr. Mews on Newbegun Creek, a small tributary to the Pasquotank River, in Weeksville.

When he delivered the letter, Mews read it “and looking up at me said, ‘Well, you belong to me.’”

Trewitt had used Grandy as security on a loan and failed in his payments.

“‘Mews’ was almost assuredly William T. Muse, a Pasquotank land speculator who owned slaves and more than twenty thousand acres of swamp forest. Muse, who had not really wanted Grandy, sold him back to Sawyer,” Cecelski wrote.

Initially his time with Sawyer went well. His second wife was owned by Sawyer, and Grandy’s maritime skills afforded him a better life and more freedom than most other enslaved people.

“I got into a fair way of buying myself again; for I undertook the lightering of the shingles or boards out of the Dismal Swamp …” Grandy said.

But Sawyer had gone into business with “his two sons-in-law at Norfolk, who failed; in consequence of which, he sold eighteen coloured people, his share of the Swamp (lightering), and two plantations.”

Grandy was again in the fields, but this time may have been the worst.

“The overseer was a bad one, his name was Brooks,” Grandy said.

Working in the field, if a worker did not put in sufficient effort, “One black man is kept on purpose to whip the others in the field; if he does not flog with sufficient severity, he is flogged himself: he whips severely, to keep the whip from his own back.”

Grandy witnessed Brooks kill “a girl named Mary” and “also killed a boy about twelve years old. He had no punishment, or even trial, for either.”

After years working as a waterman, the hard labor of field work was wearing him down and Grandy told Sawyer that he had “not been used to it for a long time; that his overseer was the worst that had ever been on the plantation, and that I could not stand it.”

Grandy pointed to how little food the field hands were given, Sawyer agreed to provide more food. The slaves working in the field “much rejoiced that I got this additional allowance for them. But I was not satisfied; I wanted liberty.”

A payment of $230 had already been made to Sawyer, and Grandy again began negotiations for his freedom.

Sawyer agreed to sell Grandy for the $600 he paid for him plus the $230 already given him. Grandy, “hired an old horse and started for Norfolk.” At Deep Creek he went to the house of “Captain Edward Minner … in former days I had done much business for him.”

Minner agreed to pay the $600 for Grandy’s freedom with the understanding that he would be repaid. At first Sawyer refused to sell his property, but Minner “shewed him the paper he had given me, saying, ‘Mr. Sawyer, is not this your handwriting?’”

Unlike everyone else who had purchased him, Minner was adamant that he would not own another human being.

“Mind, gentlemen, I do not want him for a slave; I want to buy him for freedom. He will repay me the money, and I shall not charge him a cent of interest for it. I would not have a coloured person to drag me down to hell, for all the money in the world,” Moses recalled Minner telling Sawyer.

By 1828, Grandy had repaid Minner and he had his “free papers, so that my freedom was quite secure, my feelings were greatly excited. I felt to myself so light, that I almost thought I could fly, and in my sleep I was always dreaming of flying over woods and rivers.”

He moved north, first to Providence, Rhode Island, then to Boston, Massachusetts. He traveled the world as sailor, telling of trips to “St. John’s in Porto Rico…(and) several other voyages, and particularly two to the Mediterranean. The last was to the East Indies.”

He had now saved enough to purchase the freedom of his wife. “I sent it to Virginia…She came to me at Boston. I dared not go myself to fetch her, lest I should be again deprived of my liberty, as often happens to free coloured people,” Grandy said.

He was also able to buy his son’s freedom as well and learned that at least two of his six daughters had purchased their freedom.

Grandy, now a free man, found life in the northern states troubling.

“Although I was free as to the law, I was made to feel severely the difference between persons of different colours. No black man was admitted to the same seats in churches with the whites, nor to the inside of public conveyances, nor into street coaches or cabs …” he said, adding however, “the abolitionists boldly stood up for us, and through them things are much changed for the better.”

Grandy was particularly harsh in his criticism of the American Colonization Society, the organization that was founded to send Black and enslaved people back to Africa.

“As to the settlement of Liberia on the coast of Africa, the free coloured people of America do not willingly go to it. America is their home: if their forefathers lived in Africa, they themselves know nothing of that country,” he indicated.

Enoch Sawyer was a vice president of the Camden County American Colonization Society the Raleigh Register, and North-Carolina State Gazette recorded in 1825.

Although illiterate Grandy was a keen observer of events and the personalities of the people he met along his journey. There were slave owners, as he noted, that did treat their human property well, at least by the standards of many slave owners.

But overall “The proprietors, though they live in luxury, generally die in debt: their negroes are so hardly treated, that no profit is made by their labour. Many of them are great gamblers. At the death of a proprietor, it commonly happens that his coloured people are sold towards paying his debts. So it must and will be with the masters, while slavery continues: when freedom is established, I believe they will begin to prosper greatly.”

The concept of freedom and its importance to the individual is an idea Grandy returns to a number of times throughout “Late a Slave in America.”

“Slavery,” he observed, “will teach any man to be glad when he gets freedom.”

First of two parts

A highway sign installed last September in Camden County calls attention to Moses Grandy, born there an enslaved person, and the story of his life told in “Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy; Late a Slave in the United States of America.”

The book was published in London, England, in 1843. When the book was printed, he was, Grandy guessed, 56 years old, although as he notes in his book, “Slaves seldom know exactly how old they are: neither they nor their masters set down the time of a birth; the slaves, because they are not allowed to write or read; and the masters, because they only care to know what slaves belong to them.”

The book was published the following year in the United States.

There are no kindly “Old Black Joes,” elderly enslaved people treasured for their wisdom by caring masters in Moses Grandy’s autobiography. Rather, early in the book, there is a description of his mother, “blind and very old … living in a little hut, in the woods, after the usual manner of old worn-out slaves.”

Grandy observed late in his narrative that, “As far as the owner is concerned, they live or die as it happens; it is just the same thing as turning out an old horse.”

The book is filled with Simon Legree-like characters, capricious in their cruelty, and chilling descriptions of the horrors of the American institution of slavery. Legree is a harsh slaveowner in Harriet Beacher Stowe’s fictional, antislavery novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Yet the book is more than that. Grandy’s eye for detail and his memory are remarkable. What emerges from the pages is an exceptional and complex description of the institution of slavery.

It is Grandy’s penchant for remembering names that may provide the most damning indictment of slavery.

The title page of the book carries the warning, “It is not improbable that some of the proper names in the following pages are incorrectly spelled. M. G., owing to the laws of the slave states, being perfectly illiterate, his pronunciation is the only guide.” Yet, if some names are muddled in pronunciation and untraceable, there is still plenty to go on.

He describes his first master, Billy Grandy, as “a hard-drinking man” who “sold away many slaves.”

The Camden County 1790 census lists 18 slaves in the William Grandy household, but its apparent there had been more.

“I remember four sisters and four brothers; my mother had more children, but they were dead or sold away before I can remember. I was the youngest,” Moses Grandy recalled. 

His master died when he was probably 9 and the Grandy will bequeathed Moses to James Grandy, the son of William Grandy. James and Moses were the same age and there was a stipulation in the will that Moses would be hired out until “my master and myself were twenty-one years old.”

When he was old enough “to be taken away from my mother and put to field-work, I was hired out for the year, by auction, at the Court House, every January; this is the common practice with respect to slaves belonging to persons who are under age.”

The first person to buy his services, a Mr. Kemp, “used me pretty well; he gave me plenty to eat and sufficient clothing,” he then went to Jemmy Coates, “a severe man”

“Because I could not learn his way of hilling corn, he flogged me naked with a severe whip made of a very tough sapling…The point of it at last entered my belly and broke off; leaving an inch and a-half outside…On looking down I saw it sticking, out of my body: I pulled it out and the blood spouted after it. The wound festered, and discharged very much at the time, and hurt me for years after,” he said.

“I was next with Mr. Enoch Sawyer of Camden county,” Grandy recalled.

A prominent North Carolina politician immediately after the Revolution, Sawyer was deeply involved in developing the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. If the gravestone the Elizabeth City Economist found in November, 1897 is to be believed, Sawyer was a good man.

“Sacred to the memory of Enoch Sawyer, who was born on the 10th of March, 1758. and departed this life on the 16th of March, 1827, age 68 and six days. He was universally beloved and respected, and a faithful servant of the Lord Jesus. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints,” the Economist reported.

If Sawyer was a good man to his neighbors and peers, to Grandy, “It was cruel living.”

“We had not near enough of either victuals or clothes … I have often ground the husks of Indian corn over again in a hand-mill, for the chance of getting something to eat out of it,” Grandy reported. “In severe frosts, I was compelled to go into the fields and woods to work, with my naked feet cracked and bleeding from extreme cold.”

If the living was cruel in working for Sawyer, Grandy learned a skill that gave him a degree of freedom very few enslaved people enjoyed.

“The young Moses Grandy tended the ferry across the Narrows on the Pasquotank River,” historian David Cecelski wrote in his 1994 article “Moses Grandy: A Slave Waterman’s Life,” written for the Institute for Southern Studies.

The Black watermen were, Cecelski wrote, “an elite fraternity … both irreplaceable to the plantation economy, and subversive of the racial bondage that fueled it.”

That skill served Grandy well, raising his importance as a commodity, and the value that was placed on his skill as a waterman underscores how complex the institution of American slavery was.

After three years working for Sawyer his services were acquired by “Mr. George Furley (probably George Ferebee, early postmaster of South Mills) … he employed me as a car-boy in the Dismal swamp; I had to drive lumber, &. I had plenty to eat and plenty of clothes. I was so overjoyed… that I then thought I would not have left the place to go to heaven.”

Although no longer working under Sawyer, the “cruel living” touched him once again.

“I married a slave belonging to Mr. Enoch Sawyer,” he said. After eight months of marriage, he was returning home on a Friday, when he “heard a noise behind me, on the road which ran by the side of the canal … When they came up to me, one of them cried out, ‘Moses, my dear!’… It was my wife. She cried out to me, ‘I am gone.’

His wife had been sold.

He was able to walk with her for a short distance “and bid her farewell. I have never seen or heard of her from that day to this. I loved her as I loved my life.”

Next in the series: To purchase his freedom

Millions of dollars have been marked for coastal freight rail upgrades and improvements to include tracks, trestles, culverts and port infrastructure.

The projects are part of a total $16.3 million to go toward freight rail infrastructure improvements to a dozen short-line railroads and at the state Port of Morehead City, North Carolina Department of Transportation Rail Division officials announced Thursday.

The Morehead City port will see $177,500 for a rail scale installation and $844,860 for rail replacement and upgrades on the property.

The Wilmington Terminal Railroad will receive $627,000 for rail and switch improvements along its mainline corridor.

“These projects deliver significant benefits to North Carolina’s freight rail network,” said Rail Division Director Jason Orthner. “By working closely with our railroad partners, we are strengthening reliability and resiliency, supporting businesses across the state, and reinforcing the rail infrastructure that drives North Carolina’s economy.”

Other funded coastal projects include $1.23 million to the Carolina Coastal Railway for rail and bridge improvements along its Belhaven and Norfolk Southern Railway lines in Beaufort, Greene, Washington, and Wilson counties, and $712,801 for the Chesapeake & Albemarle Railroad’s bridge and track improvements along its mainline corridor and Edenton sidetracks in Camden, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Chowan counties.

NCDOT officials said the division’s $16.3 million contribution is funded through the Freight Rail and Rail Crossing Safety Improvement program, which the state legislature established in 2014 to support “the health, safety and performance of the state’s rail infrastructure while establishing partnerships to meet the growing demand for rail service.”

In total, the projects will upgrade more than 95 miles of track and eight railroad bridges and culverts in North Carolina to support an anticipated increase in freight rail traffic statewide.

The Rail Division said its grants are matched by investments from participating railroad companies and the North Carolina Ports Authority. The partnerships are putting $41.5 million into projects that improve North Carolina’s freight rail network.

Other awarded projects and NCDOT’s contribution to each include the following:

• Aberdeen Carolina and Western Railway — $4,845,392 in funding for rail replacement and improvements along its Piedmont Division in Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties.
• Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad — $771,397 for track upgrades and continuity of service on its mainline in Hoke County.
• Alexander Railroad Co. — $381,797 for track and corridor upgrades near the Alexander Industrial Park in Alexander County.
• Alexander Railroad Co. — $495,026 for track and grade-crossing upgrades on the mainline rail corridor in Iredell County.
• Atlantic & Western Railway — $690,440 for corridor improvements and rail track upgrades on the Jonesboro branch in Lee County.
• Great Smoky Mountains Railroad — $1.68 million for track improvements and bridge repairs along its mainline corridor in Jackson, Swain, Macon and Cherokee counties.
• North Carolina and Virginia Railroad — $979,813 for rail replacement and improvements along its mainline corridor in Northampton County.
• Raleigh & Fayetteville Railroad — $999,586 for rail corridor improvements to the Norfolk Southern and VF lines in Wake and Harnett counties.
• Winston-Salem Southbound Railroad — $1.11 million for rail improvements along its W line in Davidson County.
• Yadkin Valley Railroad — $754,700 for track upgrades and rail corridor improvements along its K and CF lines in Yadkin, Surry and Stokes counties.

Sinking your teeth into a buttery, old-fashioned sweet potato biscuit is a legendary experience quickly fading into North Carolina culinary obscurity despite an almost unbelievable pedigree.

Sweet potato biscuits were reportedly served at the opening of the First Continental Congress in 1774. One hundred and forty-eight years later, the great African American botanist George Washington Carver championed this Southern delight as a crucial way farmers could diversify their crop usage.

That significant history is now mostly memorialized in memory. East Carolina University alumni long past their college days join locals in pining for the version once served at the late Venter’s Grill in Greenville. Shuttered Sweet Potatoes Restaurant in Winston-Salem was celebrated for a recipe that today endures only in cofounder Stephanie Tyson’s “Well Shut My Mouth” cookbook.

With North Carolina foodways vanishing as quickly as residential sprawl eats up the state’s farmland, sweet potato biscuits are becoming rare finds on menus and in the repertoire of home cooks. But in Camden, it stands as a delicious reminder of why such a simple thing is worth saving.

Beyond nostalgia

On a foggy morning in the tiny, coastal community, dogs bound excitedly through endless farm fields. Ruritan Club signs announcing a Brunswick stew sale dominate political H-stakes stuck along the roadside.

Inside a crossroads restaurant marked by an age-tangled oak tree, the caramelly aroma of roasting sweet potatoes fills the kitchen as chef Katherine “Kat” Silverwood’s wooden rolling pin squeaks across a cold-hard block of pastel-orange dough.

“We found that sweet potato biscuits actually act better if you make the dough day before,” she says. “It’s best to let it chill for at least a few hours.”

Silverwood knows what she’s talking about. Her Taylor’s Oak Restaurant produces hundreds of sweet potato biscuits each year, especially around Christmastime when fastidious locals, like many North Carolinians, relish fried country ham on their sweet potato biscuits.

 “You feed a bunch of old farmers, you better be making something from scratch,” Silverwood said.

That kind of cooking is what the chef grew up on in Camden. Vegetables fresh from her parents’ garden and baking with Grandma launched her interest in cooking as a child.

She never encountered sweet potato biscuits until around age 9 or 10. Her sister was dating and ultimately married a farmer. His mother made sweet potato biscuits. Silverwood was smitten at first bite. Within a year or so, she was baking her own.

“It’s like that perfect balance of the sweet and the savory,” she said.

As much as Silverwood loved cooking, she didn’t envision it as a worthwhile career. Instead, she joined the military and worked in construction but always had a kitchen side gig. Along the way, she honed her sweet potato biscuit recipe, testing tips from fellow chefs, like folding the dough during rolling to achieve flaky layers.

Eventually, Silverwood accepted her calling, taking a full-time chef position and dreaming of one day opening a restaurant. Her position left time for a night job. She asked the grandfather of a childhood friend if he needed a hand at the family’s new venture, Taylor’s Oak Restaurant. The spot held a special place in Silverwood’s own heritage. Her maternal aunt married into the Taylor family. The couple helped raise Silverwood’s mother after she lost her parents.

“They were only open one day a week. So, I asked if they would like some help, maybe get open for breakfast in the mornings. And that’s how I started here,” she says. “I wrote the recipe for sweet potato biscuits.”

When Silverwood had the opportunity to purchase the business a few years after starting at Taylor’s in 2018, the chapters of her sweet potato story culminated.

“As soon as we decided we were going to open up for dinner, I was like, ‘We got to have mini sweet potato biscuits go on the tables … that’s our signature,’” Silverwood says.

The perfect bite

Throughout telling her story, Silverwood shares many pointers for preparing and eating sweet potato biscuits. Besides chilling the dough before rolling, the Taylor’s team pinches cold butter into flour by hand, just like Silverwood was taught as a kid. They roast whole, skin-on sweet potatoes. Boiling would introduce too much moisture. Before mashing, they drain all liquid from the vegetable. Bags of the puree are frozen so that biscuits can be made quickly.

Just enough sugar goes into the dough to enhance the sweet potato flavor. That’s different from recipes like the one Venters’ chefs used all those years ago in Greenville. Silverwood’s biscuits are flaky and savory; Venters’ were soft, sweet and pillowy with pronounced notes of warm spices like cinnamon. The recipe for Sweet Potatoes Restaurant’s version falls somewhere in between.

“Everyone has their own different ‘you got to do it this way, you got to do it that way,’” Silverwood says, declining to share the family recipe that inspired her way.

Carver’s formula, among the earliest, verifiable printed recipes, leans soft and savory. Although the biscuits served at the First Continental Congress have been attributed to Thomas Jefferson, no original recipe has been found. Any biscuit recipe Jefferson favored was likely developed in kitchens run by enslaved Africans. This is also true for the sweet and salty combination of fried country ham sandwiched between a sweet potato biscuit.

Silverwood prefers less salty city ham rather than country ham. A slice of New Jersey’s Taylor pork roll (no relation) is even better, she reveals. Sausage plus a little mustard is tasty, too, as was the sandwich she offered with pimento cheese and spicy fried chicken.

Still, most Taylor’s Oak Restaurant customers ask for country ham. It’s easy to understand why when Silverwood finally splits open a hot sweet potato biscuit and lays on sizzling country ham directly from the griddle.

The hot ham melds with the biscuit’s interior, creating an almost creamy texture and old-fashioned flavor that fills your mind with memories of home, family and holiday anticipation. Suddenly, you’re wrapped in thoughts of icy mornings, coffee boiling on an old stove and the simple life you wonder why anyone would leave behind.

“I’ve had a couple people almost bring me to tears because they said ‘That’s just how my grandma used to make it taste,” Silverwood says, “‘exactly like that.’”

With each humble bite, the sweet potato biscuit becomes more than a meal; it is a profound, lasting link between generations. It is the legacy of a waning recipe that fatefully defined one woman’s life and continues, every day in Camden, to feed the soul of an entire community.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

Take:

½ cupful mashed sweet potatoes

½ teaspoon salt

1 cupful flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons butter or lard

Milk sufficient to make a soft dough.

Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together several times; add these to the potatoes, mixing in with a knife.

Now work the fat into the mixture lightly; add the milk; work quickly and lightly until a soft dough is formed; turn out on a floured board; pat and roll out lightly until about one-half inch thick; cut into biscuits; place on buttered or greased pans and bake 12 or 15 minutes in a quick oven.

Source: “How the Farmer Can Save His Sweet Potatoes and Ways of Preparing Them for the Table” by George Washington Carver (Tuskegee Institute Press 1937).

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust has transferred the Pasquotank River Preserve in Camden County to the state for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to manage.

The 303.5-acre property lies along 1.7 miles of the Pasquotank River, a blackwater system within the Pasquotank River basin, and part of the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine System. The preserve neighbors the commission’s North River Land Game.

Turning the 300-plus acres over to the commission will facilitate long-term coordinated conservation management of both properties, the Coastal Land Trust said.

“We’re proud to see the Pasquotank River Preserve become part of North Carolina’s public conservation lands,” Coastal Land Trust Executive Director Harrison Marks said in a statement. “This transfer ensures lasting protection for vital wetlands, wildlife habitat, and water quality in the Pasquotank River basin.” 

The nonprofit purchased the property in March 2008 with funding provided by what is now called the North Carolina Land and Water Fund.

“The Pasquotank River Preserve lies within a North Carolina State Ecosystem Enhancement Program’s Targeted Local Watershed and is considered to be a wetland of exceptional significance by the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management,” the press release states. “The Preserve is also located adjacent to the Whitehall Shores Hardwood Forest State Significant Natural Heritage Area and southeast of the Shipyard Landing Natural Area, also a State Significant Natural Heritage Area.”

The nonprofit organization said that it has focused on conserving fish and wildlife as well as protecting the property’s extensive forested riparian buffer and bottomland hardwood forest from commercial logging and major soil-disturbing activities.

“This property protects important wildlife habitat beneficial to game species and for species of concern like the prothonotary and black-throated green warblers, and provides an opportunity to the public for hunting, fishing, and other wildlife-associated recreation,” Commission’s Land Acquisition Specialist Crystal Cockman said in a release. “Thanks also to the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund which helped provide funds for North Carolina Coastal Land Trust to acquire the tract originally. This is a great addition to our game land program.” 

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

MOREHEAD CITY – Keep telling your story.

That was the message to those who attended the first meeting of the North Carolina Coastal Counties Fisheries Coalition held Tuesday afternoon in the Crystal Coast Civic Center.

Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard, who initiated the coalition to be a voice for the commercial fishing industry, welcomed elected officials and staff from Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Chowan, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Hertford, Hyde, Onslow, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell and Washington counties, and 10 coastal legislators or their representative.

“We’ve got a lot of folks here today concerned about this coalition, and this effort,” Woodard said, adding that many of the more than 100 in the audience were in Raleigh to protest House Bill 442.

But the head of the state’s recreational fishing association called the group’s goals “disappointing.”

‘No due process’

First introduced in March to open up the recreational season for flounder and red snapper, the Senate amended the bill in mid-June to include a trawling ban in the state’s inland waters and within a half-mile of the shoreline.

The proposed ban was met with both outcry and support, but when the Senate kicked the amended bill back to the House, representatives chose not to advance the bill. Since June 25, the bill has been parked in a House committee.

Woodard set the coalition in motion July 3 with a letter to the 18 other coastal counties that border bodies of water from which licensed commercial fishermen are required to report their catch, representing 20% of the state’s counties, he explained.

“That should send a clear voice to our legislators, that we got 20% of the entire counties in the state of North Carolina, and hopefully we will grow up more for people that believe in eating the fresh local seafood from clean, clear waters in our state, rather than foreign food that comes into our country. I don’t know about you, but I want to eat fresh, seafood,” he said.

When Woodard began the meeting Tuesday, he told the crowd that he was “appalled to see that (proposed trawling ban) went to the House,” and wrote a letter June 30 to Senate Leader Phil Berger.

Woodard read the second paragraph of that letter aloud: “Our democratic system, established by our forefathers, was designed to ensure that every voice in leadership could be heard-whether in support or opposition. At its core, our Constitution is built on mutual respect and, most importantly, due process.”

Woodard said, “everyone in this room sitting here today certainly knows there was no due process,” and then explained how he pitched the idea to form the coalition to a fellow commissioner.

“I said, ‘Enough is enough.’ I’ve been a chairman in Dare County for the last 10 years. I’ve been on the board the last 12 years,” Woodard said. “Every single year, we have to fight the regulatory agencies. We have to fight the leadership.”

It was time “to come together, not just counties, not just fishermen, but stakeholders all over the south and this entire state. We need to educate those legislators that aren’t living on the coast.”

Once given the board’s blessing, Woodard sent the letter proposing the North Carolina Coastal Counties Fisheries Coalition.

“The goal of this coalition is to bring together county leaders from coastal regions to address these critical issues with a unified voice. By coordinating our efforts, we can better advocate for the long-term health and sustainability of our fisheries, our local economies and our fishermen’s way of life,” Woodard said.

About the coalition

Members agreed that the coalition would be a public body and have its next meeting at 1 p.m. Sept. 16 in the civic center, ahead of when the legislature is expected to convene.

After that, the coalition will meet quarterly in Carteret County because of its central location.

Woodard emphasized he wanted the coalition to be “as transparent as humanly possible,” adding he wanted the “public to be here.”

The coalition adopted a mission statement to support commercial fishermen and fishing communities, protect their livelihoods, preserve coastal heritage, “and safeguard the economic vitality of our working waterfronts. Together, we work to ensure the continued harvest of high-quality North Carolina seafood—feeding families, strengthening communities, and ensuring North Carolina Catch remains a priority for consumers to enjoy throughout our state and beyond.”

During the discussion, Pamlico County Commissioner Candy Bohmert said that the coalition should focus on promoting — rather than stating it’s out to save — the commercial fishing industry.

“We don’t need to save these people. They save themselves. We need to empower them,” Bohmert said. “We really need to kind of change that language. We’re promoting them. We’re promoting our commercial history. We’re promoting all of that because they’re important.”

Bobby Outten, Dare County’s manager and attorney, is to serve as staff to the board.

Outten explained that the intention with the coalition is to act as a governmental body.

“The fisheries groups have for years been working hard to deal with fisheries issues, and what we found is the legislators aren’t listening, and it’s a hard road, and it’s a tough time,” Outten said.

The idea is to get the governmental entities of the affected counties together and “then be the voice for the political side of this,” Outten said.

Fisheries groups will still be the resource to disseminate the information, but the coalition will be “the voice of the political counties.”

From the legislators

There were nearly a dozen coastal legislators at the meeting, including Sen. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck. Hanig has been a vocal opponent of the trawling ban since it was first proposed at a Senate committee meeting June 17.

“We’ve never had the opportunity to tell our story. Well, guess what God brought us? He brought us H442, and you know what that did? That wasn’t the shot heard around the world. That was the backfire heard around the world. Let me tell you why. Now we have the ability to be on the offense, and we have to keep that ability to be on the offense,” Hanig said.

That bill “is allowing us to tell our story,” he said, adding that it led to the coalition and got 700 people to Raleigh in about three days.

The turnout in Raleigh brought together various aspects of the industry, such as commercial fishermen, packing houses, “everybody. You know why? Because what’s the first thing they went after? The shrimp, right? They’re going after everything,” Hanig said. “Because that’s what they’re after, folks, they make no qualms about it. They’re after our industry.”

In response to an audience member asking who “they” are, Hanig said “Pick someone. The CCA, the Wildlife Federation, certain legislators, you know, their efforts. They’re after this industry. They make no bones about it. They’ve been telling the wrong story, the false story, for too long, and we haven’t stopped that.” The CCA is the Coastal Conservation Association North Carolina.

“I implore you, tell your story. Do not be afraid to tell your story,” Hanig said. “Let them know where you’re coming from, because those stories matter.”

Rep. Carson Smith, R-Pender, told the crowd that people in Raleigh think there’s no fish, no crabs, no shrimp, that “our fishery is completely depleted, because that’s what the Marine Fisheries Commission is telling them.”

He added that this message is what he feels pitted recreational against commercial fishing, and “they think that the shrimp trawl has killed all the fish.”

Smith suggested two resolutions: Ask the “General Assembly to completely redo the Marine Fisheries Commission,” and “tell the Wildlife Resources Commission, ‘hey, stay in your lane.’ You count the trout in the mountains, but don’t use state resources” to try to close the commercial fishing industry down.

Sen. Bob Brinson, R-Beaufort, said the best way to educate folks in Raleigh is by “getting them on your boats, getting them in your oyster beds, getting them in your fish houses, and showing them what it is you do and how you do it.”

Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Carteret, explained that when the Senate voted on House Bill 442 June 19, four voted against, but 40-plus voted in favor, which he didn’t expect.

He later found out that the votes for the amendment were for the “environmental side because they claim that shrimp trawling was destroying the environment in our sound. That it was going to destroy all kinds of fishing. Well, that’s one of the talking points that the CCA has used for the last 20 years,” he said.

Sanderson said that he was also upset about how the bill was amended in the Senate, “because the process stunk to high heaven.”

He explained that he was co-chair in the Agriculture Committee when the amendment “first came about, and that is the last thing that you ever do to a committee chairman,” he said. “If you’ve got something that’s going to be contentious, if you’ve got something that’s going to cause a lot of outcry or pushback,” you should go to them before the meeting. But Sanderson said that’s not what happened in this case.

“Let’s stay strong. Keep helping us. Keep telling your story, spreading this message across and around this state, so that the next time this happens, there’ll be an outcry from all over this state,” he said.

Response from CCA-NC

Coastal Conservation Association-North Carolina Executive Director David Sneed told Coastal Review in an email that “it is disappointing to read the goal of this new coalition is apparently to create a vehicle only for ‘battling issues that affect the state’s commercial fishing industry’ (fewer than 2,000 people who profit from a public trust resource) rather than acting in the public interest for the 11 million citizens of North Carolina who own our public trust resources and would benefit enormously from a healthy, sustainable coastal fishery.”

The coalition would be better served by recognizing the foundational, bedrock principles established by the public trust doctrine and the state’s constitution. “That North Carolina’s coastal fisheries resources belong to all 11 million citizens of this State and must be managed, preserved, and protected for the overall benefit of those citizens and future generations.  In addition, the coalition’s approach only divides and disenfranchises the not-for-profit fishing public that lives in and visits our coastal counties,” Sneed continued.

“There are more than 91,000 Coastal Recreational Fishing Licenses sold across the state’s 19 coastal counties each year, and it is reliably estimated that more than 300,000 people spend nearly $1.5 billion annually across the three Congressional Districts that encompass these 19 coastal counties—people who not only live in our coastal counties but also people from inland counties who visit our coast and spend money supporting our coastal fishing communities,” he said. “Our hope would be that any efforts by this coalition will be focused on building a true coalition in the public interest—one that will support the sound management of our coastal fisheries resources to achieve the long-term sustainability that all North Carolinians deserve and are entitled to under the law.”

Reprinted from Daily Advance

SOUTH MILLS — Unlike past First Day Hikes at Dismal Swamp State Park, Wednesday’s didn’t include a guided tour by a park ranger.

But that didn’t seem to matter to the couples, families and friend groups who showed up for the annual Jan. 1 event designed to showcase state parks and get more people outdoors to enjoy them.

John Wray and Jennifer Chavez, both of Virginia Beach, Virginia, said they were visiting a friend in the area when they remembered that the First Day Hike is an annual event at Dismal Swamp State Park.

Because they enjoy visiting state parks in Virginia, they decided to explore the park just below the state line.

“We’ve visited First Landing (State Park), Kiptopeke (State Park)” in Virginia, Chavez said. “We’re trying to get to as many as possible. We are trying to visit all 42 or 43 state parks in Virginia. This is our first time here at this park in North Carolina.”

James and Amy Kermitz of Tyner also enjoy visiting state parks. They said they were participating in their second straight First Day Hike.

“Last year we went to Merchants Mill Pond Park” in Gates County, Amy Kermitz said. “We haven’t been on this one in quite a while. We like to hike a couple of times a year when the weather is nice. We walk a lot.”

Terry Hutson said he showed up for the First Day Hike because he wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet and the amazing sights and sounds in the park. In addition to the exercise he gets from hiking, park visits also allow him to practice his photography skills, he said.

He participated in last year’s First Day Hike at Dismal Swamp Park and has kayaked the Dismal Swamp Canal during the summer.

“It’s good to get out in nature — nature does you a lot of good,” he said. “A nice casual walk, nothing too strenuous. To get out here, soak it all in — it’s calming. … It’s my goal to do more of that this year.”

Lauren Ross brought along to Wednesday’s First Day Hike her 3-year-old son, 10-month-old daughter, her sister and brother in-law.

“We’ve come every year since my son was born so now we are bringing the newest one to get her First Day Hike sticker like (my son) got his in his first year,” Ross said. “We’re going to save them in their memory boxes.”

Ross’ sister, Kaitlen Holman, of Chesapeake, Virginia, was busy scouring the scavenger hunt sheet that visitors were issued at the park’s visitor center on Wednesday. The list contained a list of clues that helped visitors complete a self-paced scavenger hunt in the park.

She said park visitors who passed up the scavenger hunt just to enjoy a morning of exercise missed a good event.

“They are missing the beauty of everything, getting out on the first day of the year and starting off on the right foot,” Holman said.

Tim Aydlett, president of Friends of Dismal Swamp State Park, greeted visitors as they arrived at the park’s visitor center. The all-volunteer group was serving free hot chocolate as well as passing out the scavenger hunt lists. Park officials estimated about 150 people took part in the First Day Hike at the park.

“All of our 41 state parks in North Carolina are having a First Day Hike today,” he said. “I’ve been involved in several of them in the past. The goal is to get people outdoors and enjoy our naturally wonderful state park.”

Aydlett shared a few tips for hikers who hoped to see examples of the park’s wildlife on their trek.

“I’ve seen some wildlife on other days much farther away in the park, farther away from here (the visitor center),” he said. “What I’ve heard lately is the prothonotary warbler, that little yellow bird that makes a lot of racket.”

It’s also important to speak in a low voice — or not at all — when you’re hiking.

“If you’re hoping to see wildlife, you must be quiet when you’re walking,” Aydlett said. “You can’t talk and laugh loud and expect to see wildlife.”

The Daily Advance is a newspaper based in Elizabeth City that serves Chowan, Camden, Currituck, Pasquotank and Perquimans counties. Coastal Review is partnering with The Daily Advance to provide readers with more stories of interest about our coast.

Of the $7.6 million awarded last month to state-managed lands, $600,000 goes to Dismal Swamp State Park in Camden County to construct an equipment storage building.

The funding from the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund for fiscal year 2024-25 was allocated by the nine-member Parks and Recreation Authority at their November meeting. North Carolina State Parks and Recreation announced the awards Thursday.

Barnes Sutton, representing Brunswick County, was reappointed to a three-year term and was sworn in during the meeting. Sutton is director of economic and community development director for Leland.

“Funding from the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund to expand and enhance state parks plays a vital role in preserving North Carolina’s remarkable natural areas, while also offering outdoor recreation and educational experiences throughout the state,” said D. Reid Wilson, secretary of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. “We are grateful for the continued financial support from the General Assembly and Governor Roy Cooper.”

Located at the northeast border of North Carolina and Virginia, the Dismal Swamp State Park offers hiking, biking, paddling, fishing and birdwatching opportunities, access to the Great Dismal Swamp, “the largest remaining swamp in the eastern United States,” and the 22-mile Dismal Swamp Canal, according to the state parks system.

Including the building to house trail maintenance and canal system equipment at Dismal Swamp State Park, $6.4 million of the $7.6 million in funds will go to renovations and other projects at Carvers Creek State Park in Cumberland County, Stone Mountain State Park in Wilkes County, Elk Knob State Park in Ashe County, and Bob’s Creek State Natural Area in McDowell County.

The two land acquisition projects totaling $1.23 million will add 2,410 acres to the Wilderness Gateway State Trail in McDowell County and 1.7 acres to the William B. Umstead State Park in Wake County.

In addition, $2.2 million will go to repairs and preventative maintenance at parks throughout the system.

The state receives 65% of the fund’s annual appropriation and revenue for state parks projects and projects at the DuPont Recreational State Forest. North Carolina State Parks is under the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which manages more than 100 locations across the state.

Dare, Brunswick, New Hanover, Carteret, Currituck and Onslow are the coastal counties to break into the Top 20 out of 100 for visitor spending in 2023.

Following a record-breaking increase of 15% in 2022, spending statewide rose 6.9% to $35.6 billion in 2023, setting another record year in visitor spending, according to data the North Carolina Department of Commerce released Tuesday.

The total spending is the amount spent on lodging, including second home spending, food and beverage, recreation, retail and transportation, and both ground and air transportation added together.

Mecklenburg County topped the list with $5.85 billion in total visitor spending, up 9.6% since last year. Though Camden had an 11.3% increase between 2022 and 2023 with a total spending of $4 million, the third highest increase of 100 counties, the county was at the bottom of the list for total spending.

State officials noted that last year, 98 of the state’s 100 counties saw increases in spending compared with 2022. Orange, Wake, Camden and Warren counties, in that order, led the state’s 6.9% growth in visitor spending. Dare ranked 10 in growth rate at 8.8%.

The two counties that had a decrease in spending are Alexander at -3.4% and Cleveland at -1.6%.

“It’s great to see increasing numbers of people continue to flock to North Carolina to see all we have to offer,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in the press release from his office. “Visitors are investing record amounts of money bolstering our booming tourism industry, and that brings good jobs and income to North Carolina businesses and families.”

The preliminary findings from an annual study commissioned by VisitNC, a unit of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, reflect the economic impact of tourism on local economies across the state.

The visitor spending study, commissioned by Visit NC and conducted by Tourism Economics, provides preliminary estimates of domestic and international traveler expenditures as well as employment, payroll income, and state and local tax revenues directly generated by these expenditures.

The statistical model draws on detailed data from Visit NC as well as data derived from federal and state government sources, nationally known private and non-profit travel organizations, and other travel industry sources.

Coastal counties by rank out of the 100 counties, total visitor spending, and growth rate:

• 4. Dare: $2.15 billion, 8.8%
• 6. Brunswick: $1.17 billion, 7.5%
• 8. New Hanover $1.12 billion, 5.9%
• 11. Carteret: $732.29, 5.3%
• 14. Currituck: $573.35 million, 4.3%
• 18. Onslow $412.12 million, 8.5%
• 35. Pender $199.12 million, 5%
• 39. Craven: $178.11 million, 4.4%
• 44. Beaufort: $142.48 million 5.9%
• 57. Pasquotank: $90.21 million, 6.7%
• 67. Hyde: $61.87 million, 6.1%
• 83. Pamlico $37.76, million, 3.7%
• 87. Hertford: $31.21 million, 6.7%
• 88. Chowan: $30.11 million, 4.8%
• 90. Bertie: $24.47 million, 4.5%
• 92. Perquimans $20.43 million, 3.1%
• 94. Washington $18.41 million, 3.3%
• 97. Gates: $9.89 million, 1%
• 98. Tyrrell $6.94 million, 3.1%
• 100. Camden: $4 million, 11.3%

Other tourism facts for 2023 provided by the state include the following:

• Total spending by domestic and international visitors reached $35.6 billion, a 6.9% increase over 2022 expenditures. 
• Direct tourism employment increased 4.8% to 227,200. 
• Direct tourism payroll increased 6.6% to nearly $9.3 billion. 
• Visitors generated nearly $4.5 billion in federal, state and local taxes, a 5.8% increase from 2022. 
• State tax receipts from visitor spending rose 5.6% to $1.3 billion. 
• Local tax receipts grew 5.4% to $1.2 billion.
• Visitors spend more than $97 million per day, adding about $3.7 million in state taxes and $3.4 million in local taxes.
• Each household saved $518 on average in state and local taxes as a direct result of visitor spending in the state. Savings per capita averaged $239.

Full tables can be accessed at partners.visitnc.com/economic-impact-studies.

The North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services says invasive, nonnative and destructive gypsy moths have been detected in coastal areas including Currituck and Dare counties, and a decision on how to treat the infestation is being considered.

The decision on treatment alternatives is to come after area residents have had an opportunity to weigh in, including during an in-person meeting set for Tuesday, Feb. 8, in Duck. The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Paul F. Keller Meeting Hall, 1200 Duck Road.

Residents may also submit comments through an online portal.

Proposed treatments

Organic products are to be used for all proposed gypsy moth treatments in 2022, according to the department.

One product is Btk, or a variant of Bacillus thuringiensis known as kurstaki, which is marketed under trade name Foray 48B and is a bacterium commonly found in forest soils worldwide. Btk, which, according to department information, is harmless to humans, must be consumed by caterpillars to be effective. Once ingested, the caterpillar’s alkaline gut activates the bacteria.

Another proposed method is mating disruption. This method uses a compound that serves as the female gypsy moth’s sex pheromone, decreasing mating success and suppressing the gypsy moth population. The compound is specific to gypsy moths only and does not affect off-target species, according to department information. Such a treatment is only effective at lower population densities. Three products are available for this treatment, including one in which the active ingredient is sandwiched between two outer layers of PVC plastic. All are are aerially applied.

Areas affected

Treatment areas on the North Carolina coast include the following:

Lake Drummond area: A 5,673-acre proposed treatment block is in Camden County and continues north into Virginia. On the North Carolina side, this block consists mostly of the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge and Dismal Swamp State Park. There are no residences in the block. In 2020, the department caught a total of four male moths in this block. In 2021, that number increased to 147, signifying that a reproducing population is present. One application of mating disruption is proposed for this block in late May or June.

Knotts Island area: This 311-acre proposed treatment block is in Currituck County and continues north into Virginia. In 2020, 482 male moths were captured in this block. In 2021, that number increased to 852. One application of mating disruption is proposed for this block in May or June.

Martin Point area: This 3,168-acre proposed treatment block is the Duck area in Dare County. In 2020, two male moths were captured in this block. In 2021, that number increased to 27. One application of mating disruption is proposed for this block in May or June.

Mossey Island area: This 1,933-acre proposed treatment block is in Currituck County. In 2020, no male moths were caught in this block, but in 2021, 23 were captured. One application of mating disruption is proposed for this block in May or June.

Buxton area: This 1,194-acre proposed treatment block is on the west side of Buxton in Dare County and includes a mix of residential areas, commercial development and a large maritime forest. There are small streams, canals and swamps in the block and the Pamlico Sound borders the north side. Wooded areas are composed of oaks, pines, and various other hardwoods and conifers. Past treatments of mating disruption and Gypchek and Btk at this site reduced the population significantly, but follow-up trapping indicates there is still a reproducing population present here. In 2020, 39 male moths were captured in this block. In 2021, that number decreased to 20. One application of mating disruption is proposed for this block in May or June.

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

The Albemarle region is known for its historical legacy, beautiful natural areas and quaint architecture. It is also mostly a quiet, rural area with small towns and limited economic activity.

The quietest, most rural county in the region by far is Camden County. It is known not for its buildings or major historic events but for its canal and its swamp.

While it does not have the tourist sites of Edenton or the industry of Elizabeth City, Camden County is still a fascinating part of North Carolina’s oldest region.

Camden County was part of the Albemarle, the first area permanently settled by the English in North Carolina. Its earliest settlers came south from Virginia and purchased land from the Yeopim Native Americans.

The county was originally the eastern part of Pasquotank County. The state legislature formed Camden County in 1777 because of the “width of Pasquotank River, and the Difficulty of passing the same, especially in boisterous weather,” which prevented some residents from reaching the courthouse easily.

As noted by David Leroy Corbitt, Camden County’s general boundaries were the Pasquotank River to the west, the North River to the east, and the Virginia border.

One sizable house still remains from this early period, Milford, near the county seat of Camden. Milford was constructed in 1746 by John Ivey, a local planter mentioned in William Byrd’s “History of the Dividing Line.” It is one of the largest pre-1750 houses in the state, made of brick with two stories. Milford is known for its rare, gable design pattern, which, according to H.G. Jones, was only found in one other colonial house in the South.

Like the Old Brick House in Elizabeth City and the Cupola House in Edenton, Milford was definitely a mansion during its day. The vast majority of colonists in Camden County lived in much simpler dwellings, at first log cabins and then one-story plank houses.

Camden County’s economy has always been defined by the Great Dismal Swamp, which makes up its upper half. The swamp is one of the largest on the eastern seaboard, comprising more than 100,000 acres in North Carolina and Virginia.

Byrd’s expedition was one of the first European groups to encounter and cross the swamp. Byrd wrote that the swamp did not contain most of the fanciful creatures that locals told stories about, but that it “had one Beauty, however, that delighted the Eye, tho’ at the Expense of all the other Senses: the Moisture of the Soil preserves a continual Verdure, and makes every Plant an Evergreen, but at the same time the foul Damps ascend without ceasing, corrupt the Air, and render it unfit for Respiration.”

As its edges were settled in the 18th and 19th centuries, the swamp became a source of shingle production. It was also a home for runaway enslaved people from North Carolina and Virginia.

They formed self-sufficient maroon communities, sometimes interacting with whites near the canals and edges of the swamp and often staying entirely away from white society.

Recent scholarship has unearthed several of their communities and has started to understand the extent of African American settlement in the region, according to a 2016 Smithsonian Magazine profile.

The early 19th century was a prosperous period for Camden County. It was the site of the Port of Camden up to the 1820s. By 1860, the county’s enslaved population was 42% of its total population, the 27th highest total in the state according to the Hergesheimer map. Many of these slaves worked in shingle production or on small farms growing foodstuffs such as corn and wheat, an 1860 census document states.

The Great Dismal Swamp Canal, which opened in 1805 and was widened in 1829 with the use of slave labor, passed through the county. The canal connected the Albemarle region with Norfolk and the Chesapeake Bay.

One of the few sizable communities in Camden County grew up along the canal.

South Mills was formed in the 1830s and named after mills that used water from a canal spillway for power. It was the site of a Civil War battle in 1862, where Confederates prevented a Union attempt to destroy the Great Dismal Swamp Canal’s locks, a 2012 Virginian-Pilot article explains.

The only other community with any size in Camden County is the county seat of Camden. Established as Jonesborough in 1792 according to the North Carolina Gazetteer, it is located on the Pasquotank River.

Two early public buildings remain in Camden from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Camden County Courthouse is an 1847 Greek Revival structure with four columns and a sizable porch. There is also the Camden County Jail, a brick building completed in 1910 that now houses offices and a museum.

Camden County remained one of the smallest and most lightly populated counties in North Carolina throughout the 19th and 20th century. In 1900, its population was only 5,474, a paltry total that made it less populated than 16 of the state’s towns. But a number of remarkable individuals still hailed from the swampy northeast county, many of whom were African American.

Julian Williams escaped from slavery to fight in the Union Army during the Civil War, while Moses Grandy purchased his freedom in the 1820s, wrote a narrative of his life, and later became an influential abolitionist.

Later on, Mary Elliott Hill, 1907-1969, born in South Mills, became a notable chemist who published dozens of papers and formulated processes important in plastic production.

Today, Camden County remains one of the most rural, sparsely populated counties in the state. It has the fifth smallest population in the state and still no incorporated towns.

But these circumstances may change in the next decade or so. Elizabeth City continues to grow on Camden County’s western border. There is a chance that its growth will jump the Pasquotank River and turn Camden into a bedroom community.

In addition, a new highway-widening project of US 17 and the proposed mid-Currituck bridge could bring thousands of travelers every year through Camden County on their way to the Outer Banks.

Time will tell if Camden County will become a waypoint for tourists or if it will retain the rural character that has defined it for the past three centuries.

Reprinted from Outer Banks Voice

The Sand Dollar Shores Homeowners Association has announced, through its attorney Casey Varnell, that it has appealed a Feb. 14 ruling by a Camden County Superior Court Judge that sided with plaintiff Bob Hovey’s claim that a beach access in Duck belongs to the public.

“It goes without saying that the HOA does not agree with the decision of the trial court,” read a March 9 statement issued by the Sand Dollar Shores HOA, which described its position in the litigation as, “respecting private property rights legally established within the public record.”

The statement added that “the current ruling by the trial court affects many other Outer Banks Communities, and communities statewide, and not simply Sand Dollar Shores.”

The HOA also indicated that it is seeking a stay of the trial court’s order that the Sea Breeze beach access in the Duck Subdivision of Sand Dollar Shores is public property.

The dispute over the beach access in Duck exploded into public view last May when Hovey was arrested and charged with second-degree trespassing while attempting to use the access at the end of Sea Breeze Drive. A video of Hovey being confronted by two angry homeowners at the time of that incident went viral and stirred up considerable public and social media passions.

In August, Hovey and his wife Tanya filed a suit against the HOA arguing the walkway was a public trust.

Last month, Judge Lamott Wiggins granted them a summary judgment without a trial, ruling that, “It is declared that the “8’ pedestrian beach access easement … is an easement dedicated to the general public for the purpose of providing pedestrian access to the Atlantic Ocean beach held in the public trust by the State of North Carolina and is now in the jurisdiction of the Town of Duck.”

In its March 9 statement announcing the appeal, the HOA, in an apparent reference to social media commentary on the case, said it “will not address this legal matter through the use of social media, nor any other online outlets, as these mediums have shown to misconstrue and/or misrepresent the facts surrounding this case and further the vitriol within the entire Outer Banks Community.”