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.

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.”

Several coastal counties are expected to experience unhealthy heat levels over the weekend.

Chowan, Perquimans and Washington counties are expected to have a maximum heat index of 96 degrees or higher on Saturday.

Craven, New Hanover, Onslow, Pamlico and Pender counties should plan for the same on both Saturday and Sunday.

The National Weather Service explained that the heat index, also called the apparent temperature, is what the temperature feels like to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature.

The North Carolina Health and Human Services Climate and Health Program sends out the heat-health alerts when the forecast is projected to reach or exceed the heat index threshold for the region.

Duke Heat Policy Innovation Hub established the region-specific thresholds by using historical heat index data and state records to determine when emergency room visits increased for heat-related illnesses.

“Heat of this magnitude can be dangerous to your health, particularly for people who are more exposed to extreme heat or more sensitive to extreme heat,” which includes those who are pregnant, living with disabilities or underlying health conditions, are without access to air conditioning, who work or exercise outdoors or are older adults, the department stated in a release.

To prevent heat-related illness, the health department recommends drinking plenty of fluids, avoiding caffeinated, sugary or alcoholic drinks, staying in air conditioning as much as possible, watch for symptoms and stay informed, the department continued.

Visit the health department’s website to sign up for the heat alerts, or for more information on heat-related illnesses and tools to prevent it.

The Perquimans River is a narrow, twisting coastal river that never leaves Perquimans County.

It’s rarely more than 50 or 60 feet wide until it suddenly opens up just upriver from Hertford, the county seat. As it passes Durants Neck a little more than a mile south of the town, the river becomes a broad estuarine waterway offering a direct route to the Albemarle Sound.

County Manager Frank Heath stood recently on the edge of a wide, bulkheaded boat basin telling Coastal Review about the Perquimans County Marine Industrial Park that, after more than 10 years of false starts and missed steps, finally completed the first phase of the project last year: The $7 million deep-water boat basin now allows direct water access to the Albemarle sound.

“It’s 350 feet wide, more than a football field in width, and it goes inland 700 feet,” he said. “We do have such spectacular water resources, to me, it makes sense that we start with this.”

For some time, there have been calls to develop the county’s water access. More than 65 years ago in 1958, in celebration of the bicentennial of the founding of Hertford, W.G. Newby compiled “Town of Hertford Bi-Centennial” note, among other historic facts, “One of the very important contributing factors in the growth of a town is transportation. We have here … a great and beautiful river, the Perquimans.”

The author went on to note that by 1958 the river “is only used by a fleet of oil tankers that supply oil of home, U.S. Navy and other uses. However, it could be put to work of industry and we hope some day that this will come to pass.”

The basin, Heath explained, is phase one and it took a while to complete that first step in developing the county’s waterfront for commercial use.

“We spent quite a bit of energy getting the grants for phase one,” he said.

Getting the first phase completed, began Heath said, “12 or 13 years ago” when North Carolina identified Hertford as a secondary marine resource when the Wanchese Marine Industrial Park ran out of space.

It was, Heath explained, a much-needed economic lifeline for the county.

“The textile industry left in the 1980s and ’90s, we had several good-sized factories, those shut down,” he said. “We have an agricultural-based economy, which is very important, and we want that to continue to thrive, but we also want other industries to come in.”

Originally a state project, as plans moved forward, it became apparent that the state was not in position for the grants needed to build the marina project.

“What they found as … a state entity, they weren’t eligible for state grants, like the county would be. So, they transferred the ownership back to the county, and in the past, say, four years, we have been piecing funds together to get this done,” Heath said.

The county’s plan for the marina targets companies that need water access for large scale construction projects as likely tenants for the marina.

“There are builders from this area and outside the region, we’ve talked to companies that are looking to reshore back (return manufacturing) into United States,” Heath said.

At least one company has moved from Hampton Roads to Hertford. East Coast Steel Fabrication, a company providing heavy steel fabrication for barges and marine structures, is located immediately adjacent to the basin, although it is not part of the marina.

Heath mentioned there have been contacts with potential customers for the marina, although any announcement remains months in the future.

“I would think by the beginning of next year, we would have some news, if not sooner,” he said. “I’d love to have something before the end of the year.”

There is still work to be done.

There is not yet a road to the basin. Heath mentions the county is working with the North Carolina Department of Transportation on getting a road built.

“I’ve worked in cooperation with NCDOT. They’ve helped me do cost estimates and preliminary drawings, and I included that in requests that I’ve sent to the General Assembly to try to get funded through a budget process,” Heath said, adding that the budget impasse in the state legislature this session has stalled funding.

As a short-term solution, the county does have the funds to put in a gravel road something Heath said would be done in the next three months.

Phase two of the project will include a substantial extension of the boat basin, although Heath is careful to not get ahead of himself.

“We spent quite a bit of energy getting the grants for phase one. For grants for phase two to open up, getting the current basin leased out, is going to be important, because it proves the case itself. So, my primary goal now is to market to potential companies that need that kind of access,” he said.

Perquimans County is not considered an economically distressed county by North Carolina. The state uses a three-tier rating system, with Tier 1 being the most distressed and counties with a rating of 3 having the healthiest economies.

Perquimans County falls squarely in the Tier 2 category, but at least part of that economic health is created by workers who don’t work in the county.

“Our goal is to create jobs here in Perquimans County,” Heath said. “We have a lot of people that go to Hampton Roads to work, and we’d like to give them a place at home to work.”

That would, he noted, be more convenient for the workers, but there is more to it than that. Workers employed in the county also spend money in the county.

“They could buy gas here, they could buy lunch here. You’re going to stop by the grocery store and stop by the hardware or the auto place where you work,” Heath said. “We want to recapture that leakage.”

The Albemarle Sound region, one of the oldest areas in the state to be continuously settled by Europeans, has dozens of small towns with centuries of history.

One of these is Hertford, the county seat of Perquimans County.

Though the town, which has never had more than 2,500 residents, has seen some growth in recent years, it is still rural and quiet.

Wonder Lewis, a Perquimans County native who has worked for the library for three decades, said that when it comes to town expansion, “we’ve added a few things, but not enough.” She believes that Hertford’s charm is its “rural nature,” which makes it a haven for retirees from up north.

The town incorporated in 1758 has played an important role in the political, social and sports history of North Carolina.

In the mid-17th century, settlers in Virginia began to trickle across a yet-to-be drawn border with what would become North Carolina. They bought land from Native Americans and established corn and tobacco plantations along the Albemarle Sound.

Slowly, the increasing population coalesced into new communities. One of these, which later became Hertford, was located in Perquimans Precinct on the Perquimans River.

This community became known early on for its attachment to Quakerism. The founder of the Quakers, George Fox, traveled throughout the region as a popular preacher in 1672.

According to his journal, the people of Perquimans “much desired after (Quaker) meetings,” mainly because there were no other churches.

While all Albemarle Sound counties were influenced by the visiting Quakers in some way, Perquimans was more readily converted than its peers.

The county became home to the first Quaker meeting in the Colony a few years later and remained the center of Quakerism in North Carolina for more than a century.

Apart from the dominance of Quakerism, Hertford resembled other small towns of the Albemarle region such as Windsor in Bertie County. It was a center for the tobacco trade located on a large navigable river that wound its way through the region’s tobacco plantations.

This location brought a modest amount of wealth to the small settlement. One group of prosperous residents near the Perquimans River helped contribute to the construction of the oldest surviving brick house in North Carolina.

The Newbold-White House, likely built in the early 1730s, remains an outstanding example of 18th-century Quaker plan architecture.

Hertford played an ancillary role in events of the late 18th and 19th centuries. It was too small to be a notable target for either the British in the 1770s or the Union in the 1860s. But Hertford did build up a quaint historic downtown.

The current Perquimans County Courthouse completed in 1824 is one of the town’s more remarkable structures.

Hertford also contributed several important people to the state and nation in its early years. Perhaps the most influential was John Harvey, a leader of the North Carolina Provincial Congress and one of the leading Patriots before his untimely death in 1775.

The 20th century saw Hertford grow and gain some of its more notable attributes.

One was the “S bridge” connecting Hertford and neighboring Winfall, the oldest swing-span bridge in the state until it was replaced in 2021. Its replacement opens in the same way and looks much the same as its 1920s predecessor.

The town also gained a commercial district with the banks and department stores of typical eastern North Carolina towns, and became a minor tourist attraction in the 1980s when the Newbold-White House was opened as a historic site.

Besides John Harvey, the most notable native of the town lived during the 20th century.

Jim “Catfish” Hunter excelled at multiple sports at Perquimans County High School before making his way to Major League Baseball. He won over 220 games and five World Series in his 15-season career, according to ESPN.

There is some uncertainty as to how the construction of Interstate 87 will affect the area. The road, which will connect Interstate 40 in Raleigh to Interstate 64 in Norfolk, Virginia, is projected to increase traffic and potentially expand the suburban sprawl of Norfolk, located less than 60 miles to the northeast.

Hertford has remained small despite centuries of growth in nearby Elizabeth City and Edenton, and there is a high chance that it will retain the small-town character that has defined it for centuries.

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

The Albemarle region is home to Colonial North Carolina’s original four counties. Of these four, two contain prominent historic towns, Pasquotank and Chowan, and one, Currituck, is now an Outer Banks destination. In some ways, Perquimans may be the odd county out.

It was not the home of a center for higher learning like Elizabeth City or Blackbeard’s friend in government. But its small size did not prevent Perquimans County from having an exceptional impact on the history of North Carolina’s religion, sports or culture.

Perquimans County was one of the original precincts of Albemarle County, the first county established by the Lords Proprietor of North Carolina in 1663. In his history of North Carolina counties, David Leroy Corbitt traced the precinct’s origins as early as 1668 and noted the county’s boundaries: the Little River to the east, Yeopim River to the west, and the Virginia border. The northern section was later taken to form Camden and Gates counties.

The Perquimans River bisects the county.

Perquimans County was settled in the 1660s by men and women from Virginia migrating south, including early Colonial leader George Durant. They were at first sold land by the Yeopim Native Americans who lived in the area. After this earliest English settlement, the county received one of its first notable visitors in 1672, one who would influence the development of the county for centuries.

George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, introduced the major tenets of the religion in England in the 1640s. He then felt called to visit adherents to his religion living in the Americas. From Virginia, he arrived in North Carolina in 1672 and wrote in his journal that the journey involved no established roads and was “full of cruel bogs and swamps; so that we were commonly wet to the knees, and lay abroad at nights in the woods by a fire.”

During this visit, supported by his follower William Edmundson, Fox converted a number of Perquimans County residents.

Quakerism’s tenets greatly affected the development of Perquimans County. Quakers believed in purchasing land from Native Americans, as opposed to taking it by force, meaning that they did not immediately acquire the most fertile lands. Such lands were the best for tobacco production, so the Quakers focused on wheat and corn in the early years of the county. The Quakers, guided by their views on the equality of all people, also started to fight against slavery in the late 1700s. Many Perquimans County residents advocated against slavery and freed their slaves in a process known as manumission. According to historian Stephen B. Weeks, one of the most notable Quaker opponents of slavery in the county was Barnaby Nixon, who became known for both his views on slavery and his vegetarianism.

The Quakers were eventually displaced by pro-slavery settlers who hungered for the fertile land of the Albemarle Region. By 1860, Edwin Hergesheimer’s map showed that 52.1% of Perquimans County residents were enslaved, the second highest total in the Albemarle region.

Fifty years after the first Colonial settlement, descendants of the first settlers built one of the most famous Colonial houses in the state. The Newbold-White House is usually accepted as North Carolina’s oldest brick house. It was built around 1730 on land at one time associated with the famous Blount family, although historian Tom Parramore believed it may have been built even earlier.

The house changed hands multiple times until it was purchased by the Perquimans County Restoration Association in 1973, when the county began to return it to its former appearance. The Newbold-White House can be visited and toured today. It is an exceptional, publicly accessible relic from the earliest period of the Colony.

The county’s small population meant it developed differently from its neighbor to the east, Chowan County. While Edenton was settled quickly and became a prosperous town, Perquimans County did not have an incorporated town for decades. The county court met at private homes for several decades. Perquimans County’s first recognized town, Hertford, was settled in 1701, according to the “North Carolina Gazetteer,” but not incorporated until 1758.

Hertford became known for its stately homes and for its swing-span “S bridge.” Until its disassembly earlier this year, it was one of the few remaining S-shaped bridges in the country. The Perquimans County Courthouse, built in 1824, is one of the oldest extant structures in the county and is a fine example of Federal-style architecture.

Perquimans County remained small throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Its population decreased from 9,466 to 9,178 between 1880 and 1960. But there were still a number of notable people who called the tiny county home. Arguably the most famous was Jim “Catfish” Hunter, a Major League Baseball pitcher with the Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees. Hunter won more than 200 games in his illness-shortened career, pitched a perfect game, and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1987.

Catfish became known for his laid-back attitude and country witticisms. Once, in reference to his teammate Reggie Jackson, he famously said, “The difference between God and Reggie Jackson is that God doesn’t think he’s Reggie Jackson.”

A close competitor in fame was Wolfman Jack, the famous midcentury radio DJ and a resident of Perquimans County later in his life. Born Robert Weston Smith in Brooklyn in 1938, the Wolfman was known for his distinctive gravelly voice. He was a mainstay of early rock-and-roll radio from his perch at several American-Mexican border stations in the 1960s. His 1995 New York Times obituary noted that his famous voice had given him “something of a cult following as one of America’s best-known radio personalities.”

Wolfman Jack’s fame led to several commemorative songs and a spot in George Lucas’s 1973 film “American Graffiti.” Although he lived in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, when he died in 1995, Wolfman Jack was buried in Belvidere, where he had moved nine years earlier to live with his wife’s family.

The late 20th and early 21st centuries have brought a number of opportunities to Perquimans County. Albemarle Plantation is a planned community on the Albemarle Sound that opened in 1990. As noted in the Perquimans Weekly, Albemarle Plantation is home to 475 families and provides a golf course as well as a marina for residents.

There is also a military facility, the Harvey Point Defense Testing Activity, located on Harvey’s Point between the Albemarle Sound and the Perquimans River. The county continues to be mostly rural, although it is an attractive bedroom community for commuters from Elizabeth City.

While most of the Quakers left in the 19th century because of their opposition to slavery, there are still two Quaker meetings left in the county. The Quaker heritage remains and serves as one of the many factors that make Perquimans County a unique part of North Carolina’s original Albemarle region.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation has awarded a nearly $4 million contract to improve roads in Chowan, Gates and Perquimans counties.

The $3.9 million contract, awarded to Rose Brothers Paving of Raleigh, includes milling and resurfacing U.S. 17 Business, or Queen Street, in Chowan County, milling and resurfacing U.S. 13 in Gates County, and milling, resurfacing and shoulder reconstruction on several secondary roads in Chowan, Gates and Perquimans counties, according to officials.

Work on the projects can begin as soon as March 22 and is expected to be complete by the end of June 2022.