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Danielle Carey of Holly Ridge recently submitted this image of various shorebirds congregating on a sand bank in the Sneads Ferry area as if time for a shift change. “This was my first time taking this lens out on the water, and I felt like it was the one day I wasn’t seeing any birds out” Carey told us in her submission. “On our way back, I spotted this little sandbar with a whole variety of birds. I was so excited, and although I aim to capture birds in flight, I loved that I was able to capture a moment where one was taking off, and another was landing at the same time.”

Snapped an image of the North Carolina coast worth sharing? Submit your photo.

Donate your flounder carcass and you could win a prize.

The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries will collect flounder carcasses from recreational anglers during the season, which runs Sept. 1-14 this year, for research purposes.

Anyone who donates their flounder carcass and fully completes the required catch-card will be entered to win one of two rod and reel combinations.

Cards and donation supplies are available at year-round donation sites in the following locations:

• Frisco Rod & Gun, Frisco.
• Jennette’s Pier, Nags Head.
• Eastside Bait & Tackle, Washington.
• Cape Pointe Marina, Harkers Island.
• N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries Headquarters, Morehead City.
• Tex’s Tackle, Wilmington.
• Clem’s Seafood, Southport.

Additional temporary donation locations have been established at the following:

• Quarter Deck, 503 Carteret St., Bath.
• Chasin Tails Outdoors Bait & Tackle, 709 Atlantic Beach Causeway, Atlantic Beach.
• Pelagic Hunter, 104 James St., Sneads Ferry.
• Intracoastal Angler, 6332 Oleander Drive, Wilmington.
• Carolina Beach Municipal Docks, Carl Winner Drive, Carolina Beach.
• Ocean Isle Fishing Center, 65 Causeway Drive, Ocean Isle Beach.

Anglers are asked to leave the fish head and tail intact when cleaning and, if possible, the guts/reproductive organs. Fishers on charter or head boats should let the fish cleaner know the carcass will be donated.

The division’s biologist measure each fish, determine the sex of each when possible, and remove the otoliths, or ear bones, to determine the age of each fish. This information will used in future flounder stock assessments.

Recreational flounder season opens this year at 12:01 a.m. Sept. 1 and closes at 11:59 p.m. Sept. 14. There is a one fish per one person per day limit through the season and the size limit is 15 inches total length.

Biologists will gather data from commercially caught flounder at fish houses. Carcasses caught by commercial fishers should not be left in the Carcass Collection Program freezers.

For more information, visit the Carcass Collection Program website or contact Amanda Macek, division sportfishing specialist, at 252 515-5537 or amanda.macek@deq.nc.gov.

People have activities they pursue for a variety of reasons. The ones that tend to get the most enjoyment out of it are not the ones who do it to be better than somebody, or to always win — these people do it for the nature of the activity itself.

It may be no surprise that these people are often highly skilled at whatever the endeavor they have chosen and usually experience success. And so it goes with fishing. Approach it for the intrinsic values and don’t worry about “winning,” the success will follow.

Chris Ellis goes fishing for the pure joy of it, the opportunity to experience things he could not otherwise and share those experiences with his friends and family. It’s not an accident that he also happens to be quite good at it and is one of the people who will be catching fish when others might not. By focusing on the why and the how instead of how much, he gets more joy and hence more success. Fishing is a journey, not a destination. The fish will follow.

A native North Carolinian, Ellis  was born at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and he lived out his formative years in Carrboro. The lakes and ponds of central North Carolina proved to be his training ground.

“I’d do any kind of fishing I could — bass, bluegill, and crappie in local farm ponds, creeks, ditches, or lakes like University Lake or Jordan,” Ellis told Coastal Review.

Ellis credits his family members for getting him started.

“My father Wayne Ellis and grandfather Robert Ellis were my main influences and they took me everywhere. My whole family fished, from my grandparents to my mom.”

Even when he was young, Ellis knew the saltwater would be calling him.

“We’d take weekend trips to Atlantic Beach and Pine Knoll Shores to fish the piers and I loved it,” he said.

Catching spots and blues would have to suffice for a few years though. Like so many, he moved away from home as a young adult.

“After college, I headed to the Midwest, living in the Indianapolis and St. Louis areas for work,” he explained.

In 2000 Ellis started working for Auto Zone as regional loss-prevention manager for 100 auto parts stores in the St. Louis region. He said his philosophy then and now has been all about training and taking care of people.

“Coworkers need to understand the why behind the what of their jobs. If there is no understanding of the end result, it’s just another task,” he said.

That includes treating the people who work for him well, with the understanding that they will then do well. He said that family-style communication led him to becoming the loss-prevention manager for more than 1,000 stores and leading a whole division in the largest auto parts retailer in the nation.

For the past five years, Ellis and his wife Rachel, son Emerson, and daughter Lelaina have been surrounded by water in Sneads Ferry. Ellis takes his family with him to the beach that’s less than 10 minutes away, often to fish, but also many times just to eat ice cream and enjoy the view. Emerson loves to fish the ponds on the golf course where they live.

“My wife and kids enjoy being around the water and love to fish. My son is a lot like I was growing up and spends his free time fishing, if he’s not playing baseball or golf,” said Ellis.

He also has a brother who loves to fish, “Scott and his family enjoy fishing as well.  They mainly fish in Atlantic Beach area where they have a house,” He said. “My mom enjoys fishing when she can get away but not as often anymore.”

There really isn’t any kind of fishing Ellis won’t do but he has his preferences.

“Fly fishing for redfish has got to be my favorite, whether hunting for tailers and crawlers, or sight fishing in clear water,” he said.

And for Ellis, fishing is not just a loner’s endeavor. He said the aspect of time together with others has genuine appeal.

“It’s really a team effort with you getting your fellow angler in the right position to make the cast while poling the skiff,” he said.

The fall run is really where Ellis gets a lot of action, especially chasing false albacore and casting for speckled trout in the surf.  And although there is so much fishing possible nearly just outside his front door, he likes to travel, too.

“We take a few trips a year to West Virginia or the North Carolina mountains to trout fish,” Ellis said, adding that he’s caught some big rainbows out there. He is always attempting to fish beyond what he has already mastered, because he knows that is the only way to grow.

Ellis’ philosophy is reflected in his professional accomplishments. Auto Zone recently made him an offer of promotion, and he and his family are set to move to the company’s corporate offices in Memphis, Tennessee. But he said there is zero chance that he won’t find the best fishing near his new home.

“The key is being out on the water and fishing. Time on the water makes a better angler. Even when you aren’t catching fish you are still learning,” he said. “I think a successful day is being able to spend some quality time with friends or family. Regardless of if you catch fish or not.

“The true test to whether you enjoy someone’s company is if you are able to spend a whole day on the boat with them and want to do it again.”

The military has been a boon to North Carolina’s economy. It has brought in millions in government spending, thousands of jobs, and generations of families eager to live and retire where they used to serve.

Newspapers, historians, and the media often focus on large cities, base locations such as Fayetteville and Jacksonville, when discussing the impact of these military installations. But smaller towns also play an important role. This is the story of two coastal towns and how their histories have been shaped during the past 80 years by the Marine Corps bases nearby.

For more than 200 years, Snead’s Ferry, the vessel for which the Onslow County community was named, plied the waters of the New River between Ferry Point and Pollocks Point. It served as a vital connection on the King’s Highway, a colonial postal route near present-day U.S. 17 that was essential to communication in remote parts of eastern North Carolina. The ferry continued long after the end of colonial rule, the widespread building of bridges and new turnpikes, and the emergence of railroads in the 1840s. Snead’s Ferry finally ceased operations in 1939 following the construction of a nearby bridge.

Today, Snead’s Ferry likely could not legally run the same route. The Ferry Point side is still part of the historic community, surrounded by fishing companies and old homes. But the other side of New River features a small wildlife viewing area surrounded by Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base with more than 40,000 stationed Marines and restricted public access

Camp Lejeune, founded in 1941, has severely limited outside traffic on the base since the terrorist attacks of 2001. Just 1,500 feet on the other side of the Sneads Ferry bridge on N.C. 210 is a gate that would stop any prospective traveler. Except for the wildlife area, there would be nowhere for the ferry to land that was accessible to the public.

Sneads Ferry, the community that grew up along the New River ferry, is just one of several coastal towns that have been shaped by military expansion in the past 70 years. Nearby towns such as Sneads Ferry and Newport in Carteret County are now destinations for thousands of military families and employees. Before the bases were built, these towns were small, located on naturally advantageous river bends and points of land. They operated small-scale businesses and were mostly bypassed by the large-scale agricultural and industrial developments of the past century. 

But the needs of military bases changed the nature of their locations. Chosen for their cheap land and access to water, these installations ended up radically transforming not just their host towns but the overall region in which they were located. This new situation presents challenges and opportunities that create a new way of living for many in coastal North Carolina.

Sneads Ferry dates back nearly three centuries to the earliest years of the North Carolina Colony. In 1725, Edmund Ennett began running a ferry across the New River. It was known as the Lower Ferry because it was down river from Wantland’s Ferry, near present-day Jacksonville.

A later ferry at the same spot was operated by Robert W. Snead, who moved to the area in 1760. By the mid-18th century, the ferry was an established part of postal communication in the colonies. 

Like many places in eastern North Carolina, Sneads Ferry was overlooked by the historical forces that built up much of the state. It was not attractive to railroad lines or a productive location for industry. The railroad did not reach the vicinity of Sneads Ferry until the 1880s.

Robust growth in Wilmington and New Bern did little to change the fortunes of New River communities. In his history of Onslow County, Alan D. Watson makes only the occasional reference to Sneads Ferry, the main examples being its historic relevance to the post road and its status as the home of John Everett, an African American who fought for the Union during the Civil War. Sneads Ferry remains unincorporated to this day.

This quiet history was surpassed only slightly by development in Newport, about a 60-mile drive from Sneads Ferry and about 10 miles from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

Settled in the 18th century, Newport remained a mostly isolated spot on the Newport River. During the Union occupation, it was the site of a Civil War battle in which a Union barracks and a railroad bridge were destroyed. The town incorporated in 1866, but from 1870 to 1940, Newport’s population never exceeded 500. The town remained small until the middle of the 20th century.

In 1941, the futures of these two towns were dramatically changed. It was during that year that the Marine Corps began work on what would become Camp Lejeune on the New River. The Marine Corps acquired a sizable tract of land in what was once the community of Marines and began constructing barracks and warehouses. Men and women from Sneads Ferry, lured by the prospect of well-paying jobs during the Great Depression, flocked across the river to pitch in. By 1942, thousands of Marines were living in and being trained just a few hundred feet north of the community. 

That same year, in Havelock, construction began at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. The air station became home to thousands of Marines as well as various squadrons and aircraft repair facilities. Those repair facilities saw active use during the Vietnam War and drove the 488% population spike in Havelock during the 1970s.

Neither Newport nor Sneads Ferry is host of a military base. Neither has witnessed the expansion seen in Jacksonville or Havelock. But of the two, Newport is closer to embracing its status as a military town.

In Newport, town leaders early on saw advantages in putting out the welcome mat by way of a land swap for national forestland to create a large residential neighborhood primarily for military retirees from the air station.

Plans for Newport’s Cherry Point Veterans Mutual Housing Association development were drawn up in 1951, and the first houses were completed before the new streets were paved. The new part of town, also referred to as West Newport, included more than 70 homesites near the still-standing Forest Service fire tower.

Newport today is mainly composed of two areas, the older downtown along old U.S. 70, or Chatham Street, and the more recently developed areas on either side of the U.S. 70 bypass. This divide is clear when looking at historical growth patterns versus the growth that characterizes development connected to Cherry Point. The town has grown from fewer than 500 residents in 1940 to nearly 5,000 residents today. This growth does not take into account the expansion along the U.S. 70 bypass, where the ZIP code that includes the town has ballooned to approximately 10,000 housing units. As Mayor Dennis Barber told Coastal Review, the downtown was small prior to the base’s construction.

“Newport had everything they needed,” Barber said, referring to the community’s resistance to change for much of its history. This resistance led to an outflow of population, as mainly younger residents left the town in search of new opportunities and did not return.

Sneads Ferry, on the other hand, has grappled with its connection to the massive base across the river. Like Newport, the community is in many ways split in two. There is the historic town area near the site of the former ferry, also known as Fulcher’s Landing and home to the Riverview Cafe. This area is the site of the annual Shrimp Festival. It is still tied to the seafood industry. A 2009 Our State feature on Sneads Ferry described the town as one defined by “shrimping, family, and the pleasures of life in flip-flops,” not as a military retirement community.

Beyond the waterfront, Sneads Ferry is growing. Businesses stretch back several miles up and down nearby N.C. 210. These are not historic seafood restaurants and local shops but are modern retail chains, much different from the coastal community at Fulcher’s Landing. 

Newport, meanwhile, continues to embrace its reputation as a small town that attracts current and former military personnel. Mayor Barber said he’d like to see Newport remain a military destination. Barber is a former Coast Guardsman and has been connected to the town for decades, loving both its military connection and its being the kind of small town where “people still wave at each other.”

Meanwhile, Sneads Ferry continues to develop its waterfront. When asked about Sneads Ferry’s future, Lisa Whitman-Grice, director of the Onslow County Historical Museum, credited Camp Lejeune with making the county part of a global community. But she added that despite the trappings of military-related growth, “Sneads Ferry really wants to keep its historical connections.”

Library assistant Amanda Summers agreed. A local with connections to the seafood industry, she noted that “the town is growing and everyone can feel it,” but she rejected the idea that there was any conflict associated with military growth.

Sneads Ferry and Newport continue to be defined by their relationships to the Marine Corps. Both towns welcome more military-related newcomers and the infrastructure challenges associated with rapid growth on the North Carolina coast. These challenges include land use, sewer, and water infrastructure. Newport, for instance, is about to build another water treatment plant, and town officials have touted the town’s exceptional water infrastructure for a municipality of its size.

Despite numerous obstacles and the threat to small-town life, proximity to a military base means money and activity for these towns, both of which many of its residents welcome.

As Dee Lewis, genealogist and volunteer at the History Museum of Carteret County, said when asked about Newport’s future as a military retirement center, “The weather is nice, the people are friendly, and you can golf all year round. Of course people would want to retire there.”

Coastal Review is featuring the work of North Carolina historian David Cecelski, who writes about the history, culture and politics of the North Carolina coast. Cecelski shares on his website essays and lectures he has written about the state’s coast as well as brings readers along on his search for the lost stories of our coastal past in the museums, libraries and archives he visits in the U.S. and across the globe. 

In recent years, I have been taking Charles Farrell’s photographs of the North Carolina coast back to the fishing villages where he took them in the 1930s.

One of the places that I have enjoyed going most is Sneads Ferry, which is located on the New River in Onslow County, a short ways from the river’s inlet into the Atlantic.

In Sneads Ferry, I have been blessed that many of the village’s oldest residents and most knowledgeable local historians have been willing to sit down with me and look at Farrell’s photographs. They identified people and places, shared stories and memories and recalled a bygone way of life on the edge of the sea.

I could not be more grateful to them and I feel privileged to share at least a little of what I Iearned from them with you.

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Note from the author

A thousand thanks to Ron Brown, Dennis Chadwick, Dolly Fulcher, Jim Fulcher, Joe Fulcher, Michael Fulcher, Melba Marines McKeever, Freddie Midgette, Ginny Midgett Richardson, Betsy Taylor Sergomassov, Sheri Thurston, Rosetta Ward and David Yopp for sharing so much of their time, knowledge and wisdom with me. I cannot tell you how much it means to me.

Special thanks also to all the people who came out to the community meeting in Sneads Ferry. I learned so much from you all. For a historian like me, there’s just nothing more fun!

I’d also like to extend a very special thanks to Kim Andersen, the long-time head of photographic collections (now retired) at the State Archives of North Carolina, for so patiently assisting me in finding and copying Farrell’s photographs. Thanks to Kim and her colleagues, the entire Charles A. Farrell Photographic Collection is now available on the State Archives’ flickr site.

I would also like to thank to my old high school friend Peggy Garner, without whom I don’t think the community meeting in Sneads Ferry would have been possible. And for many different kinds of help, I want to thank Amelia Dees-Killette at the Swansboro Area Heritage Center Museum and Lisa Whitman-Grice and Patricia Hughey at the Onslow County Museum in Richlands.

To learn more about Sneads Ferry’s history, by the way, I highly recommend Ginny Richardson’s lovely, lyrical memoir, “Memory as a River: Recollections of the People and Places in the Small Fishing Village of Sneads Ferry, North Carolina.“

Taking Charles Farrell’s photographs back to Sneads Ferry, discovering these stories and getting to know you all has been such a joy — thank you, thank you, thank you.

Photo of the Week: Sept. 14-20, 2015

Photograph by Frank Ostmann of Hampstead.

Photographer Frank Ostmann of Hampstead captured this image, “Sunrise at Sneads Ferry,” at 6 a.m. June 11 at Sneads Ferry Marina.