This story has been updated to correct the name of Duke University’s Jackson Ewing.

As part of a potential coupling of two regionally powerful electric utilities, a proposed agreement between Virginia-based Dominion Energy and Florida-based NextEra Energy includes a small corner of North Carolina territory in the state’s northeast. But Dominion’s main attributes lie over the border to the north, with its access to a slew of data centers in Virginia as well as what will be the nation’s largest offshore wind energy operation off Hampton Roads.

NextEra Energy, already the nation’s largest electric utility by market value, announced last month that it had reached a $67 billion, all-stock deal with Richmond-based Dominion Energy to essentially absorb its business.

“It’s too soon to tell if this will be overall good thing for North Carolina,” Director of Energy and Climate Policy Jackson Ewing at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability, told Coastal Review in a recent interview. “There are several reasons to think that it might be.” But, he added, the opposite may also be true.

As the regulatory process plays out, including securing approval from the North Carolina Utilities Commission, the details and consequent ramifications of the massive deal will become more evident.

“The combined company will be more than 80% regulated, serve approximately 10 million utility customer accounts across Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina and own 110 gigawatts (GW) of generation across a broad mix of energy sources,” the companies said in a joint press release on May 18.

With a market value of about $190 billion, NextEra’s marriage to Dominion, which is valued at about $59.4 billion, would become the “world’s largest regulated electric utility,” according to the release, allowing the business to “drive affordability in the long term by leveraging scale and … efficiencies as the company makes smart investments on behalf of its customers to meet growing power demand.”

The agreement still requires approval from the companies’ shareholders as well as federal and state regulators.

“We have not received any filing,” Lucy Edmondson, chief counsel with the public staff at the North Carolina Utilities Commission, told Coastal Review in late May.

Once it is filed, she explained, the commission would issue a procedural order that issues a docket number. At that, the details of the process moving forward would be publicly available online to view in the docket. By law, the cost-benefit to customers would be investigated, and the commission typically would schedule public hearings.

Although Edmondson said that there is no legal requirement on how long the process should take, the companies said in their announcement that they expect the transaction to close in a year to 18 months.

Ewing, with the Nicholas Institute, agreed that when scale is increased in utility industries, gains in efficiency can follow. For instance, the ability to streamline processes across a larger scale can lead to operational efficiencies, he said, and those can lead to cost savings for customers.

“So, with the larger scale, it’s certainly possible that the merged NextEra-Dominion entity could put more investment into modernizing the grid and developing clean energy sources,” he said. “NextEra has a really well-established track record of building out utility-scale renewable energy. With a greater capital base, potentially lower borrowing costs, and with more influence over their supply chains, you could have some dividends that come from that.”

On the other hand, Ewing said, negative consequences could be lying in wait down the road.

“When scale increases, you also risk having utility policies and approaches that are less appropriate for a particular small service territory,” he said. “In the case of Dominion, just being the northeastern part of North Carolina, this is going to become a relatively small piece of a much larger puzzle with the merger.”

In other words, Ewing elaborated, being a little fish in a big pond could decrease opportunities to innovate development of infrastructure tailored to the local environment or limit creation of programming that responds to those particular customers.

Dominion Energy North Carolina currently provides electricity to about 130,000 customers in much of the northeastern area of the state, including parts of Dare, Pasquotank, Currituck, Hertford, Pitt and Washington counties, among others.

As part of the proposal, $2.25 billion in bill credits would be spread, after the deal closes, over two years to Dominion Energy customers in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to the announcement.

The newly reorganized power provider would also fund an additional $10 million annually in charitable support for five years in communities within the three states. And it promised to continue “robust” utility assistance programs for customers facing hardship.

Additionally, Dominion Energy would continue to operate with the same moniker, relative to each of the three states, such as “Dominion Energy North Carolina.”

But the titles at the top will change. John Ketchum, the current chief executive officer at NextEra will become chairman and CEO of the combined company, and Robert Blue, the current CEO at Dominion, will become president and CEO of regulated utilities and a member of the board of directors.

In light of industry-wide electric bill increases, critics have noted bloat in CEO salaries. According to an April 21 article in Energy & Policy Institute that analyzed CEO salaries at investor-owned electric and gas utilities, in 2025 Ketchum was paid $24.2 million, the third highest salary, and Blue was paid just over $16 million, the 10th highest.

Even absent bumps in the regulatory road, electric utilities have been in the crosshairs of public ire as consumer’s power bills continue to climb upward. Mixed in the dismay with growing costs, data centers, which are typically large facilities that can be noisy and often strain local resources such as water, are popping up in communities, sometimes without residents’ previous input or even knowledge.

Nationwide, data centers, which are critical to power the boom in artificial intelligence, or AI, have become such a huge public concern that famed citizen activist Erin Brockovich has gotten involved, creating a website, brockovichdatacenter.com, to collect reports from consumers.

Virginia has some of the highest numbers of centers in the country. Numerous public reports estimate that there are more than 600 data centers in the state, mostly in Northern Virginia. According to an Oct. 25, 2025, article in Inside Climate News, citing a report from Cushman & Wakefield, as of last June, the state had 6,247 megawatts of data centers and an additional 2,610 megawatts under construction.

The existing centers are not the only asset the Florida company will gain in the proposed utility coupling.

When Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, aka CVOW, is completed in 2027, the 2.6 GW project will become the largest offshore wind farm in the United States. With 176 turbines, the project would generate enough energy to power as many as 660,000 homes and is expected to save customers about $3 billion in fuel savings in its first decade, according to Dominion.

While the result of NextEra’s environmental stewardship remains to be seen, Ewing said that an important point in its favor is the company’s record as an aggressive developer of renewables.

“Their integration with the supply chains for renewable energy and batteries and their capital base will allow them to build that out more aggressively than Dominion would have been able to,” he said. “And so there it is kind of a shot in the arm to big renewable and battery storage builds, which is positive for the environment.”

On the flipside, he said, large utilities tend to seek significant centralized control. For instance, NextEra has been resistant to compensating rooftop solar users in Florida for the energy it produces, and he expects that approach could carry over to North Carolina.

“It’s not dismissed those things out of hand, but it has not given many of the consumer advocates what they wanted in terms of compensation on that metering,” he said. “And it has been much more on the side of, ‘Well, the utility controls the grid, we’re responsible for this infrastructure, we don’t want to socialize those costs.’”

NextEra is also showing more of an appetite to build natural gas plants, Ewing said. Still, those types of sites take about five years to come online, where renewables can usually produce energy quicker and at less cost.

“So that’s the thing we all need to be watching, is how that actually progresses in reality in coming years,” Ewing said.

To commemorate Women’s History Month in March, Somerset Place in Washington County is highlighting the contributions that enslaved and free women made to the development, maintenance, and infrastructure of the 18th century plantation with guided tours.

The fee is $10 for the tours being offered at 10 a.m. on March 14, March 18, March 21, March 25 and March 28. For 15 or more people, group reservations are required. The site is located at 2572 Lake Shore Road, Creswell.

Somerset Place was an active plantation from 1785-1865. Rice, corn, oats, wheat, beans, peas and flax were planted on hundreds of acres, and sawmills turned out thousands of feet of lumber. By 1865, Somerset Place was one of the upper South’s largest plantations.

Now an historic site, Somerset Place is a representative state historic site offering a comprehensive and realistic view of 19th-century life on a large North Carolina plantation.

During its 80 years as an active plantation under slavery from 1785-1865, “enslaved persons converted thousand of acres into high yielding fields of rice, corn, oats, wheat, beans, peas, and flax. Meanwhile, enslaved and free millwrights operated sophisticated sawmills that turned out thousands of feet of lumber. By 1860, Somerset Place was one of the Upper South’s largest plantations,” according to North Carolina Historic Sites.

Almost 200 Black and white, enslaved and free men, women, and children were assembled as a labor force by 1790. “Over the life of the plantation, three generations of owners, around 50 white employees, two free black employees, and more than 861 enslaved people lived and worked on the plantation,” , the sites website continues.

By the mid-19th century, there were more than 50 buildings on-site including barns, saw and gristmills, stables, a hospital, an Episcopal chapel, a kitchen complex, 26 houses for members of the enslaved community, and homes for overseers, tutors, ministers, and the owner’s family, along with a kitchen/laundry, dairy, storehouse, and smoke and salting houses.

Nearly all the emancipated Black families left the plantation by the end of 1865 after the Civil War. The owners eventually sold and left the property. The plantation remained functioning through 1945.

Somerset’s plantation house and six adjacent structures were incorporated into what was the newly formed Pettigrew State Park in 1939, and in 1969, became a state historic site under the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Regular hours for the site are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

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.

The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources has a full schedule of holiday events planned at sites across the state, several of which are in eastern North Carolina.

From candlelight tours of historic sites like Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site to programs at state parks, the department that manages, promotes, and enhances the state’s diverse arts and culture, rich history, and natural areas provided a schedule of festive festivities through the next month.

Tree lighting at Historic Bath 6-7:30 p.m. Nov. 29. Enjoy light refreshments, music with soloist David Harragin, and Santa. Free. 

Holiday Pops with the North Carolina Symphony at Riverfront Convention Center in New Bern, 4 and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2. Tickets start at $50 and can be purchased online or at the New Bern Visitors Center on Front Street.

History of Santa Claus, Patron Saint of Sailors 11 a.m. Dec. 4 at Fort Macon State Park. During this family friendly presentation, N.C. Maritime Museum Associate Education Curator Christine Brin will try to answer some questions about the jolly fellow without taking away any of the magic. Visit ncmaritimemuseumbeaufort.com/virtual to attend the program online.

Yuletide by Lantern at Historic Halifax 4-8 p.m. Dec. 5. Visit homes, public buildings, and taverns decorated for the season with festive, all-natural décor, experience interactive historical vignettes and enjoy a warm fire in the Tap Room tavern. Tickets are required for this event on Eventbrite or at the site.

Holiday Open House: A Colonial Christmas by America 250 NC at the Museum of the Albemarle 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Dec. 6. Watch the Albemarle Express model train stop at each of the 13 counties represented at the museum, and receive a keepsake bell. A petting zoo with farm animals is scheduled for 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., holiday face painting from 12:30-2:30 p.m. and visits with Santa Claus from 1:30-2:30 p.m.

Candlelight Christmas at Somerset Place 4-5:30 p.m. Dec. Take a self-guided tour of traditional holiday decorations illuminated by candlelight inside the historic Collins House in Creswell. Admission is $5 for adults $2 for children.

Friends of the Maritime Museum Holiday Flotilla evening of Dec. 6. Join the Friends of the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort for their annual Holiday Flotilla! Yachts, oars, kayaks and commercial vessels decorated for the season can be seen at 5:30 p.m. on the Morehead City waterfront and at 6:15 p.m. on the Beaufort waterfront. 

Island Jingle at Roanoke Island Festival Park 5:30 p.m. Dec. 6. Free event is follows the annual Town of Manteo Christmas Parade. Music will start at 6:30 p.m. with The Tilet Sisters hosting. Music by That Guy Shane, Doug Dino, The Lion Band, Jeremy Russell, plus the Mustang All Stars and Mustang Kids bands. All proceeds from concessions run by the Friends of Elizabeth II go to support the Mustang Outreach Program.

Somerset Place’s 35th Christmas Open House 1-4 p.m. Dec. 7. Explore the plantation on a self-guided tour with staff members and volunteers available to answer questions. mingle with Saint Nicholas from 2-3:30 p.m. Admission is free but donations are welcome. https://events.dncr.nc.gov/event/somerset-places-35th-christmas-open-house

Holiday Pops with the North Carolina Symphony at Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community in Wilmington 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Dec. 11. Tickets available on the symphony’s website.

A Light in the Darkest of Night at Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site 4-7 p.m. Dec. 12. Self-guided exploration of the ruins of St. Philips Church. The site’s visitor center and gift shop will remain open during the evening for holiday shopping. 

The John Costlow Christmas Train Show at the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center in Beaufort Dec. 12-14. The annual train show, hosted by Beaufort Lions Club and the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, offers a glimpse into the past with antique working model trains and model trains of all sizes. Admission is free. Children ages 12 and younger will need to be accompanied by an adult. 

Holiday Hike to the Light at Jockey’s Ridge State Park 5:30-6:30 p.m. Dec. 13. Join Ranger Paul Austin for a fun and festive evening hike to the light. Experience the dunes at night with an educational tour up to the solar powered Christmas tree. Email austin.paul@ncparks.gov to register. 

Santa by the Sea at the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Dec. 13. Games and activities will be stationed throughout the aquarium. Tickets available on the aquarium’s website.

Candlelight at Tryon Palace, Farewell to our Royal Governors 4:30-9:30 p.m. Dec. 13 and Dec. 20. The Governor’s Mansion will be illuminated by candlelight while costumed interpreters present a story that relates to back to the Palace’s colonial history.

An 18th Century Christmas at Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site 1-5:30 p.m. Dec. 14. Participate in an authentic period candlelit service in the ruins of St. Philips Anglican Church from 5-5:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the gate upon arrival at the site located in Winnabow.

Holiday Pops with the North Carolina Symphony at Northside High School in Jacksonville 7:30 p.m. Dec. 17. Tickets available on the symphony’s website.

Cookies and Crafts: Christmas Open House at CSS Neuse Museum 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Dec. 18. Enjoy Christmas lights, cookies, crafts, and activities at the site in Kinston.

Holiday Cheer at Historic Bath 4-7 p.m. Dec. 20. Visit Bonner Point under the marquee tent to enjoy wassail and hot cider, ginger muffins and festive music. There will be 20-minute tours of the Bonner House focusing on the 19th-century household, and a chance to visit Carrow Cottage that portrays a family of fishermen.

Twelfth Night at Roanoke Island Festival Park 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Dec. 27. Black-powder demonstrations, carols aboard the ship, archery, scavenger hunts, and more activities happening throughout the park in Manteo. Included in cost of admission.

New Year’s Eve Cannon Blast at Fort Macon State Park Dec. 31. Live entertainment starts at 6 p.m., and the cannons will go off at 7 p.m. at the site in Carteret County. Bring folding chairs and a picnic meal. Come early as parking is limited. 

EAST LAKE — Red wolf populations in northeastern North Carolina are still far from recovered, but there are optimistic signs that the highly endangered species now has a solid chance.

More wolves are breeding, more pups are surviving, coyote hybridization has been cut, and there are fewer mortalities from vehicle strikes and gunshots.

While still modest, those successes reflect increased community engagement and renewed commitment from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its numerous partners.

“It’s kind of a small crew, but we’re really dedicated to what we’re doing here,” wildlife biologist Joe Madison, North Carolina program manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Red Wolf Recovery Program, said during a virtual meeting held Sept. 23 to provide updates on the program. “We want to make this work. We want to work with landowners to make this work. We don’t want to impose it.”

Madison said that only about half of the red wolves roam within Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge land. The population, as of August, according to Fish and Wildlife data, totals about 30 red wolves, including 18 collared adults as well as uncollared juvenile wolves and a few other adults. This population roams the designated recovery area, 1.7 million acres of public and private land in Hyde, Dare, Tyrrell, Washington and Beaufort counties. Red wolves have been seen in all five counties

It is the only known wild population in the world.

Red wolves had once ranged over wide swaths of the U.S. mainland, including much of the Gulf Coast and Southeast regions, but after years of overhunting and habitat loss, the animals were declared extinct in the wild and added to the Endangered Species List in 1967. Twenty years later, four pairs of captive wolves, offspring of wild stragglers captured earlier in Louisiana, were transferred to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, headquartered in Dare County. Innovative management tactics led to steady population growth, reaching a height of about 120 red wolves by 2007.

In 2020, there were only about seven collared wolves.

But poor communication with landowners led to angry confrontations over wolves coming onto private lands, while coyote hunting regulations led to mistaken identities.  Political support and funding for the recovery program dropped precipitously, and more wolves were being shot, whether intentionally or by mistake. By 2015, proposals were introduced to drastically reduce or potentially eliminate the program. After a series of lawsuits by environmental groups, the recovery program was eventually restored.

As Red Wolf Recovery Program Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Emily Weller has acknowledged, the agency had to change the way it operated.

“Reintroducing a large carnivore into the wild had never been done before, and the focus of this program in the beginning was almost entirely biological,” Weller said, according to minutes of a management update meeting in September 2024. “But the social aspects, the community engagement, and human dimension — those were the cracks in our program’s foundation.”

Now the concept of “collaborative conservation” is viewed as critical to the survival of the red wolf, she said recently. 

“We cannot recover this species on our own,” Weller said during this week’s virtual update. “Our work depends on a pretty complex network of organizations, agencies, communities and individuals.”

That network includes veterinarian care at North Carolina State University and local veterinarians, staff with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, and assistance from numerous nonprofit and nongovernment groups.

“The science tells us what’s possible,” Weller said. “But it’s the relationships, the trust, the collaboration, that really determine what’s achievable.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service also now works with “Prey for the Pack,” a habitat-improvement program that engages with private landowners in eastern North Carolina wolf recovery areas in mutually beneficial habitat programming.

The Red Wolf Recovery Program also works closely with 52 zoo and wildlife centers across the country as part of the Saving Animals From Extinction, or SAFE, program, an initiative of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which currently cares for 280 captive red wolves. Part of the program’s goal is to increase the SAFE population to 400.

“They are a critical piece of this program in that they support the establishment of wild populations in maintaining genetic diversity,” Weller said.

Much care goes into choosing captive wolves to transfer to the recovery program in hopes of future pairing, as well as deciding which pups to place into dens with similarly aged pups for wild mothers to adopt, Weller noted.

“We rely on universities and academia for research and data to guide and base our decisions, and we’re using it constantly to adapt our management,” she said. “And then we need close coordination and communication with local landowners and community members to understand and incorporate their concerns and hopes for their community, as they have the most direct bearing on conservation and recovery, since they are the ones that live with the red wolves.”

Weller said that, other than a period of time when spending was frozen or restricted, the current funding for the Red Wolf Recovery Program had not been reduced.

Ultimately, she said, success will be when red wolves can be delisted — when they don’t need human help to survive — which is expected to take about 50 years, if all goes as planned.

Criteria that meets that goal include measurable thresholds: three viable populations, distributed to maximize redundancy and protect from catastrophic loss; one population of at least 180 and two with a minimum of 280 wolves, each with high gene diversity. Populations must be stable or growing for a decade with minimal human help and have a 95% probability of persisting for 100 years.

And finally, there must be long-term commitment that the sustainable populations can be maintained into the foreseeable future without Endangered Species Act protections.

“Red wolf recovery is about far more than just saving the species,” Weller added. “It’s about restoring ecosystems or landscapes to their natural balanced state and creating healthier environments that benefit plants and wildlife, including game species, and people.”

Every December, the red wolf program issues a release strategy for the coming year, that sets out a plan of how many captive wolves to release into the wild population that will best enable genetic diversity and sustainable growth. Changing conditions will be considered in any necessary revisions.

“It is also important to recognize that the ability to execute many of the releases is highly dependent on numerous on-the-ground factors,” according to the 2024-25 plan. “These factors include, but are not limited to, the ability to successfully capture specific wild Red Wolves, the correct timing of birth, and size of wild ad captive litters, to allow for pup fostering, and the survival of individual wild Red Wolves included in the scenarios.

“Given the myriad of factors that influence the different scenarios, the Service’s actions described in this strategy require real-time flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing factors on the ground and situations; thus, they require management discretion in the field to maximize the chances of success.”

Madison said that the team depends on having that flexibility to make judgment calls and adjust management tactics. During the update meeting, he elaborated on numerous and highly complex strategies that go into pup fostering, proper wolf-human interactions and handling — as little as possible — and wolf feeding – frozen, wild, small mammals like rabbits, raccoons, nutria and fresh frozen roadkill, like deer — and matchmaking (wolves are picky and fickle, too).

But Madison seemed quite pleased with the improvements in pup population survival, an obviously critical component of species recovery.

The pup survival rate to one year is typically about 50%, he said, but after two complete litters didn’t make it in recent years,  the recovery team determined that the likely cause was canine distemper.

“So this year when these pups were in an acclimation pen, and they were five weeks old, we went in the pen, recaptured them, and we gave them their first round of vaccines,” Madison explained. “Also, we implanted them with abdominal transmitters so we would be able to track them after they were released.”

So far, so good, he said. A family group that was released into the wild in May seems to be thriving.

“We may go into the season with a great plan, but then, you know, stuff happens out there,” Madison said. “And we have to adjust and make do with the best we possibly can.”

Note from the author: This is the second photo-essay in a series I’m calling “Working Lives: Photographs from Eastern North Carolina, 1937 to 1947.” You can find my introduction to the series here or here.

In this second group of photos, the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development Collection photographers introduce us to workers in a sawmill, a handle mill, and a veneer plant that were located on the banks of the Roanoke River in 1938 and 1939.

During the late 19th and early 20th century, wood mills seemed to be up every river and creek on the North Carolina coast turning out lumber, shingles, veneer paneling, and, as we’ll see, even ax handles.

At the industry’s zenith around 1900, tens of thousands of men worked in those mills.

Millions of acres of forest were cut. Thousands of miles of railroad track were built to carry logs to mills and lumber to distant markets. Towns rose, and often fell, with the opening and closing of mills.

I was drawn to this photograph, and to the others below, because they give us a rare glimpse at the people inside those mills.

In this first photograph, we see two young men and an older gentleman cutting and stacking veneer panels at the Weitz Veneer Co.’s plant in Plymouth in 1938.

Based in Chicago, Weitz had made veneer paneling in Plymouth since the turn of the century.

The work was hard, exacting, and much of it required great skill. It was also notoriously dangerous. The rate of accidents was especially high in the furnace and boiler rooms and for those, like the men in this photograph, who operated lathes, planers, and other cutting machines.

At Weitz, the making of veneer began by sorting, debarking, and cutting raw logs into boards.

The company’s workers then used rotary lathes and slicing machines to cut the boards into thin sheets of veneer. Once that was done, they dried the veneer in kilns, then cut and fashioned the panels into whatever size and shape that was appropriate for the final product.

From there, the workers handed the veneer panels over to the finishing department, where other workers sanded and often stained or coated them in some way before other workers assembled them.

According to newspaper reports, the Weitz plant’s workers were largely using the veneer to manufacture wooden boxes when this photograph was taken in the late 1930s.

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In this photograph, also from 1938, we see the Weitz Veneer Co.’s plant from the outside, a lone man strolling by.

The Roanoke River and the company’s wharf is on the other side of the plant. Down the road, but not visible in this photograph, was a section of company housing called White City.

Plymouth was booming in those years just before World War II. Large numbers of people were migrating to the little river town to work in the lumber and wood products industry.

Some came to Plymouth to work at Weitz or one of the town’s smaller wood products companies. Most, however, were looking for work at a massive new pulp mill that had opened in Plymouth in 1937.

A division of a large corporation based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the North Carolina Pulp Co. had built the pulp mill on the banks of the Roanoke, 3 or 4 miles upriver of the Weitz plant.

Some of the town’s new residents came to Plymouth from towns where other mills had closed. A sizable contingent of workers from a shuttered mill in West Virginia, for instance, moved to Plymouth to take jobs at the pulp mill.

But hundreds of others were African American families that had forsaken sharecropping or tenant farming elsewhere in eastern North Carolina to make a new start at Weitz, the pulp mill, or one of the town’s other companies that were connected to the lumber industry.

At Weitz, the work was sweltering hot in summer, freezing cold in winter, ill paid, and as I mentioned earlier, often dangerous.

Nonetheless, from all I have heard, the company’s workers still considered a job at Weitz a big step up from sharecropping or tenant farming, which no doubt says a lot about what farming was like in that day, at least if you were African American and landless.

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This is a photograph of a pair of the Weitz Veneer Co.’s workers in one of the company’s cutting rooms in 1938.

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This is photograph from another company on the Roanoke, a sawmill in Williamston 20 miles upriver of Plymouth, in 1938. I am not sure, but I believe it is the sawmill at Saunders & Cox, a lumber company that had docks on the river a quarter mile east of the town’s U.S. 17 bridge.

If you look close, you will see at least four of the mill’s workers, and possibly a fifth back in the shadows.

The workers at Saunders & Cox received raw logs on the river and by truck. The logs could have been felled almost anywhere in the Roanoke River bottomland swamps or in the hinterlands– along the Cashie River or in the headwaters of the Pungo River, for instance.

Once the logs were sorted — “decking” in the trade — the sawyers went to work debarking and running the logs through the big saws. In most mills, they then ran the rough lumber through resaws or gang saws, capable of cutting multiple boards, that cut them into thinner boards.

The sawyers then used edging and trimming machines to shape the boards into four-sided lumber, after which the boards were ready for drying, which was sometimes done in kilns, sometimes in the open air.

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This is another view of workers hoisting and debarking a log at the sawmill in Williamston, possibly Saunders & Cox, in 1938.

Judging from the company’s newspaper ads, this was not the kind of mill that shipped lumber far and wide. During the Great Depression, national demand for lumber plummeted and Saunders & Cox’s ads focused on local markets, mainly offering firewood and lumber for local building.

-6-

This is a our Williamston sawmill again, possibly Saunders & Cox, in August of 1938. A man leading a mule and cart through a lumber yard, or a field, was still a common sight in those last years before the Second World War, but that would not be true much longer.

Even in the 1920s and ’30s, mules, work horses, and oxen were everywhere. They pulled plows, hauled in fishing nets, dragged logs out of forests, and hauled wagons and carts laden with all manner of things.

But by the time that I was growing up in eastern North Carolina in the 1960s that had all changed.

I do not remember ever seeing a mule or any other work animal at a mill or factory.

At my grandmother’s little farm, we only knew one neighbor who still farmed with a mule in those days. He was a very endearing man, and very set in his ways, and so was his mule.

-7-

This photograph takes us back downriver to another wood products company that was located on the Roanoke River in 1938: the American Handle Co.’s factory in Plymouth.

The company was a division of the National Hoe Co., which was based in Cleveland, Ohio.

The National Hoe Co., in turn, was a subsidiary of the American Fork and Hoe Co., a sprawling near monopoly that had its roots in Vermont in the early 19th century.

At plants across the eastern U.S., the company’s workers made wooden handles for an astonishing array of farm, factory, and garden tools and equipment; purportedly more than a hundred types of shovel handles alone.

At the Plymouth plant, the company’s workers fashioned wooden handles for axes, hoes and other farm implements. I have often heard local people refer to the plant as the “ax factory.”

By most accounts, the workers made all of the handles out of white ash, which the company obtained from extensive forest holdings in Bertie, Washington, Martin and Halifax counties.

During and just after the Second World War,  the company’s workers were part of a wave of union organizing that sought to improve pay and working conditions for mill workers along that part of the Roanoke and throughout much of eastern North Carolina.

-8-

Finally, we see a train load of logs rolling down the branch of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad between Plymouth and Williamston, 1938.

-End-

Editor’s note: Coastal Review regularly features the work of North Carolina historian David Cecelski, who writes about the history, culture and politics of the state’s coast. More of his work can be found on his official website.

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.

In April 1864, a Confederate attack on U.S. troops in Plymouth led to the killing of at least 100 Black soldiers and civilians.

The state is recognizing the Plymouth Civil War Massacre with a highway historical marker that will be dedicated during a ceremony at 11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 13, at the intersection of U.S. 64 and Rankin Lane in Plymouth.

Related: ‘As Long as a Star Can Be Seen’: 1864 Plymouth Massacre

Plymouth was a thriving port in the mid-1800s, according to the history the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources provided.

Ships based there transported naval stores and crops on the Roanoke River as far east as the Atlantic Ocean and west to Weldon, where the river met the then called the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad. Weldon is just off Interstate 95 and about 8 miles south of the Virginia border.

Union troops first occupied Plymouth in May 1862 and the town was under Union control until April 1864. While the Union occupied the Washington County town for those few years, Confederate commanders would regularly make attempts to recapture the Plymouth, the history continues.

The Civil War Battle of Plymouth took place April 17-20, 1864, and was the result of a handful of factors, including that Confederate forces wanted to end the Union occupation of eastern North Carolina, and Union authorities occupied strategic intercoastal river ports in the region.

Accounts of a Black massacre on April 20, 1864, began shortly after Brig. Gen. Henry W. Wessells surrendered the Plymouth garrison. After the battle, Confederate soldiers killed at least 100 Black soldiers and civilians, ransacked the town for souvenirs and left Plymouth in shambles, according to historical accounts.

“The loss of Plymouth influenced recruiting and placement of African American troops in North Carolina. African American forces moved mainly to Virginia and fought as part of the Army of the James. Not until the United States attacks on Fort Fisher in December 1864 and January 1865 would African American troops again be involved in fighting in North Carolina,” the press release states.

The North Carolina Highway Historical Marker is a collaboration between the departments of Natural and Cultural Resources and Transportation. For more information about the historical marker, visit the website or call 919-814-6625.

As N.C. Highway 32 winds through Washington County, it passes through Skinnersville, an unincorporated township with a population of just over 700.

There isn’t much here; a few homes along the south bank of the Albemarle Sound, but it’s mostly open farmland and forest. Pea Ridge, where the first bridge connecting the south bank of the Albemarle Sound with the north side and Edenton, is about 2 miles to the east. Roper is 8 miles or so west.

There is a historical marker on the north side of the highway that the Division of Archives and History posted in 1974 that reads: “Rehoboth Church — Colonial Anglican congregation known as Skinner’s Chapel. Present church constructed 1850-1853. Now United Methodist.”

Behind the sign, framed by trees and expansive farm fields, is the Rehoboth Methodist Church. A lovingly restored, simple, Greek Revival structure.

The church has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1976. The evaluation of the structure noted, “The simple yet dignified frame church in its picturesque setting in a grove of trees draped with Spanish moss has been preserved through local efforts as a landmark of the county.”

Many of those trees are gone now, lost to time and weather. The restoration was originally done by the Washington County Historical Society, but the more recent work that has recreated the original look and feel of the church has been done by the Rehoboth Church Preservation Society.

Chris Barber, chair of the organization, is one of the founding members of the Rehoboth Church Preservation Society. She had retired from teaching in 2006 and was looking for something to do, had seen the church, knew it needed work, and “I started calling around,” she said.

What she found were the people who had worked on the church in the 1970s and brought it to the attention of the National Park Service, the organization that administers historic places, were, “either dead, moved away, or they were elderly people.”

Two years later in 2008, she and four others founded the Rehoboth Church Preservation Society as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Grants followed — perhaps the most important was the first $32,000 award.

“It enabled us to raise the church, but because it was sinking,” Barber said. “When you looked at the images, it looked like the brick foundations were failing. But actually what was happening is the sills were rotting, and as they rotted, they were twisting the church on the foundation.”

The grant was the first of a number of funding sources that have brought the church back to a more accurate state of restoration. Some of what has been found as the church has been restored has been surprising.

For instance, the windows are original, Barber said.

“There are no records at any time that the windows were ever changed. I wrote a grant to have the windows refurbished and restored,” she said, adding that was in 2019.

Barber, who has written a book about the history of the church and its significance, “The Tie That Binds: Rehoboth Methodist Church and 300 Years of Worship,” points to some of the more fascinating features and pieces of history housed within the church.

When the church was completed in 1853, the structure did not originally have a ceiling.

“We know from some records that they probably put the ceiling in about the 1880s or so. If you look, you’re going to see the prints of hands. The men in the church did it,” she said.

The church is a time capsule in other ways, offering a glimpse of life in antebellum North Carolina.

Occupying 1.75 acres donated in 1850, apparently by Joseph H. Norman, who is described in the National Historic Places evaluation as, “the owner of fifty slaves and was Washington County’s fourth largest slaveholder.”

There are no records indicating who built the church, although the evaluation suggests it was the enslaved people Norman owned who did the work.

“Local tradition has it that these slaves built the church,” the evaluation noted.

The church, because of its mostly original state, features details seen only in the oldest churches, such as its two doors — men entered on one side, women on the other.

The pews are original and are fitted with a separator between the male and female congregants’ seating.

The doors of the church face away from the highway.

“That road (N.C. Highway 32) wasn’t here when they built the church. The main road was there,” Barber said, pointing toward an open field.

Enslaved people were permitted to attend the church, but segregation was enforced. There was also a separate door for the enslaved families that opens to stairs leading to a balcony where the pews are narrower and not as well built, compared to the pews on the main floor.

The balcony itself is significantly angled toward a high balustrade. When looking into the chapel, only the pulpit and pastor would have been visible from here.

For Barber, the church’s importance extends beyond its architectural significance.

“This is the fourth church in a small area of this county,” she said, noting that the county’s first church was built about a mile and a half to 2 miles away. “That was South Shore Chapel, built somewhere between 1715 and 1733.”

The county’s second house of worship was Skinner’s Chapel, built, Barber writes in her book, probably because, “the first chapel … fell into disrepair.”

“No records have been found that give exact dates, but presumably, Skinner’s was built sometime in the mid-18th century,” she writes.

At the end of the 18th century, the Rev. Charles Pettigrew, who was instrumental in bringing the Anglican Church to North Carolina, became aware of Skinner’s Chapel and that the structure was no longer fit to be used.

“In his travels … Pettigrew saw that old Skinner’s Chapel was in poor condition and dangerous for continued use,” Barber noted.

Acting on Pettigrew’s advice, church leaders purchased an acre for a shilling, and “sometime in 1805 the new church (Swain’s Chapel) was completed.”

By the middle of the 19th century, Swain’s Chapel itself had fallen into disrepair and leaders decided to build a new church to higher standards than any of the previous churches. That church is now Rehoboth Methodist Church.

The history of the churches of Washington County reflects broader societal changes happening here during the 18th and 19th centuries, including growing intolerance.

That first south shore chapel was the result of the Vestry Act of 1715, which was in response to the growing influence of the Friend’s Society, or Quakers, in the region.

Writing about the influence of the Vestry Acts, the first was in 1701, the Nahunta Friends Church in Pikeville noted that, “With the planting of the Church of England and the Vestry Acts of 1701 and 1715, religious tolerance was no longer practiced and problems for Friends increased.”

Pettigrew was an Anglican deacon and minister, but after the American Revolution the Anglican Church was in decline. The Protestant faith, including the Methodist Church, based on the reformist drive of John Wesley in England, took root here.

It is unclear whether the third church here, Swain’s Chapel, began as an Anglican or Methodist church, but by the time Rehoboth was completed, the congregation was Methodist.

For perhaps the first 50 or 60 years of its existence, the Rehoboth Methodist Church thrived, but over time, the primitive, sparse nature of the church may have been behind the loss of parishioners to more modern houses of worship.

“They had wooden heat originally,” Barber said. “Probably by the mid-20th century, or just before, they put in kerosene heaters.”

The church did not have electricity until 1965. There is still no indoor plumbing.

“It was like living in the 18th or 19th century when you came to church,” Barber said.

By 1970, the church was no longer listed as part of the United Methodist Church. Today, there’s no congregation, but the church is available for special events by contacting the preservation society.

All the tears shed when El’s Drive-In closed for summer could cut a new inlet through Carteret County.

The owners promised that the beloved Morehead City landmark would return this fall after renovations. They also opened an outpost in up the coast in Smyrna. Nonetheless, a hole remains in the hearts of locals who still remember when El Franks opened this go-to for the famous N.C. shrimp burger in 1959.

El’s is one of those local-favorite seafood restaurants along North Carolina’s coast that don’t just serve tasty food. They bring a sense of joy and connection that keep regulars coming back.

Staff are just so nice, and you’re bound to see someone you know. Even if you don’t, folks at the next table or in line behind you will strike up a conversation. Before long, the owner might join in, sharing family stories, cherished recipes passed down through generations and the names of commercial fishers who harvested the fresh catch.

Of course, fried seafood aromas drift from kitchens into homespun dining rooms, more reasons why locals return again and again.

O’Neal’s Sea Harvest

618 Harbor Road, Wanchese 

The L-shaped counter hosts a cashier taking lunch orders on one end and a second ringing up fresh seafood at the other. Fish and shellfish glisten on ice in between while crews cut seafood behind them. Customers filling the zero-frills dining room savor fried black drum, sheepshead, golden tile, whatever’s biting. Daily specials might list scallop po’boys, grilled mahi tacos or blackened shrimp and asiago cheese stuffed inside baked potatoes. If you decline a side dish, expect the cook to change your mind at the pickup window: “Are you sure I can’t make you something?”

Basnight’s Lone Cedar Café

7623 S. Virginia Dare Trail, Nags Head

The all-hands-on-deck Basnight family, including commercial crabber Vicki Basnight, opened the restaurant in 1996 to uplift the region’s seafood industry during a challenging period of high fuel prices and increased imports undercutting the domestic seafood supply. The local catch remains central in dishes like Wanchese clam chowder and seasonal lump crab cakes, as well as on an “Outer Banks Traditions” menu, keeping year-rounders loyal, even during the busy tourist season.

Bay Brothers Seafood

100 Jean St., Plymouth

You could mistake Bay Brothers’ simple, red brick building for an industrial plant instead of seafood central. Locals come for live hard and soft N.C. blue crabs (a soft-shell crab shedding operation occupies the back), lump crab meat and various fish and shellfish. Tables in the middle of the immaculate market are where neighbors tuck into uncomplicated seafood specials like she-crab soup, tuna salad and broiled, Old Bay garlic butter shrimp.

White Point Take-Out

101 Core Sound Loop Road Ext., Atlantic

This itty-bitty gray cottage tucked within a residential neighborhood has a single take-out window serving fried-to-order seafood like shrimp burgers and soft-shell crab sandwiches, with a side of crinkle-cut fries. Eat on picnic tables under twisty, old live oak trees. Hours vary but the owner reports that for summer 2024, the window opens at 11 a.m. and closes by 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and by 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Wild Will’s Revenge

1015 Morris Marina Road, Atlantic

The hashtag #coresounders and family commercial fishing photos on Wild Will’s Instagram tell you it’s worth the drive to far-flung Atlantic. Grandchildren of esteemed community and fishing industry leader, the late Billy Smith, have Down East roots dating to the 1700s. They named the restaurant for their late father, William Ellis Smith, who ran the original Wild Will’s 20 years ago in nearby Harkers Island. The kitchen serves whatever’s fresh, like jumbo-lump, blue crab cakes. Specials might spotlight heritage recipes such as corned spots in fall and fluffy Down East light rolls. Hours are limited, usually Friday and Saturday starting at 5 p.m.

The Spot Grill

202 Wellons Drive, Beaufort

You’ll leave the pine-paneled dining room wearing the delicious perfume of fried mahi, soft-shell crab, flounder or whatever’s fresh (sometimes conch stew) even if you don’t sit at the counter that’s practically inside the wide-open, galley kitchen. The lingering aroma is a pleasant memory of seafood cooked to order with a side of eavesdrop-worthy conversations about everything relevant in the community. Lunch only and cash only, but there’s an ATM inside.

Blackbeard’s Grill

1644 Live Oak St., Beaufort

The Rose family of commercial fishers operates Blackbeard’s next door to its seafood market. Cross your fingers that the specials menu features North River clams, harvested nearby and smothered in garlic butter, white wine and parmesan. Pray, too, for the Local’s Supper of fresh shrimp and speckled trout with crispy okra and sweet potato casserole and a plate of Harkers Island soft-shell crabs fried according to Aunt Dora’s recipe.

Jordan’s Smokehouse & Seafood

129 Phillips Loop Road, Swansboro

You know the fried sea mullet is fresh when you ask if it’s local and the server replies, “I caught it myself last night.” Arrive early to sit among regulars who don’t mind traveling from the other side of Onslow County for the old-timey oyster bar vibe. Forget being shy. Everyone talks to everyone like they’ve known each other all their lives. In many cases, they have.

Riverview Café

119 Hall Point Road, Sneads Ferry

Sneads Ferry is no longer a tiny fishing village, but it still feels that way at this waterfront restaurant owned by the same family since 1946. Riverview started as an oyster bar behind a store with a single gas pump. All that’s changed but the fresh seafood hasn’t, including shrimp harvested on the family trawler. The whiteboard lists so many specials you have to walk up to read it. Fantail shrimp, bang bang shrimp, peel-and-eats, whole flounder, deviled crab, steamed clams and homemade pie baked from treasured family recipes.

Seaview Crab Co. Kitchen

1515 Marstellar St, Wilmington

Lunchtime is crush time, but moms from the neighborhood, workers in uniform and the guy who just needs a break from his honey-do list wait patiently for orders. They’re quick to share picnic table seats mere steps away from iced-down seafood. Steamed blue crabs and overstuffed fried fish sandwiches are legendary. No matter what you select, expect fellow diners to swoon over your plate. “I almost got that,” they’ll lament. Fortunately, there’s always next time to try and decide between specials like fresh-shucked clam chowder and seared tuna bao buns with gochujang mayo.

Coastal Review regularly features the work of North Carolina historian David Cecelski, who writes about the history, culture and politics of the North Carolina coast. More of his work can be found on his personal website.

A few days ago, I gave the keynote address at an extraordinary event held in Plymouth to commemorate the Plymouth Massacre of April 1864. I found the event deeply moving, and I was honored to be there. This is a copy of my remarks.

Thank you for the invitation to say a few words here today. I will do my best not to go on too long, but I do feel as if some things need to be said. I of course will talk about the Plymouth Massacre. But I also want to talk at least briefly about the larger struggle for freedom, and to end slavery, that occurred here in Washington County and across the North Carolina coast during the Civil War.

I think that taking that somewhat broader view will help us to understand better what happened here in Plymouth and will help us to remember, mourn, and honor more fully those who lost their lives here 160 years ago.

In a way, I feel as if this is the funeral, the memorial service, that the victims of the massacre never had. They were unburied, left, by all accounts, where they fell, many of them in swamps where children would find their remains in the following days and weeks. No gravestones marked their passing. No monument has ever been raised to remember them.

We are here, then, to do what should have been done a long time ago. We are here to say words that for too long have not been spoken. We are here to lift prayers that are long overdue.

We are here to make sure that the forgotten will be remembered.

If you will bear with me, I will begin by setting the scene for what happened here in Plymouth.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Plymouth was a small town, quite a bit smaller than it is today. Most of the town’s population was African American, and the large majority of those Black men, women, and children were being held in slavery.

On the outskirts of Plymouth, on the Roanoke River, at Lake Phelps, and here and yon in every direction, thousands of African Americans were being held captive on plantations — slave labor camps, I think we would call them today, a kind of gulag of their time.

As we all know, by the time that the Civil War began in April 1861, white Southerners —and much of the North — had been treating African Americans as property, not as human beings, for more than two centuries. People, including little children, were bought and sold like mules.

That world — that way of life — finally began to crumble here in Washington County in the early part of 1862.

Very early in the Civil War, Union forces captured a long sliver of the North Carolina coast. Even before the first Yankee soldier stepped ashore, enslaved African Americans began to escape from plantations across Eastern North Carolina and move toward the sea.

Hundreds, then thousands, of African American men, women, and children fled from bondage in Confederate territory to freedom in New Bern, Beaufort, Washington, Roanoke Island—and Plymouth. As the Union force’s commanding general said, those communities were “overrun with fugitives from the surrounding towns and plantations.”

A great boatlift to freedom had begun. Across the sound here, on the Chowan River, slaves sailed away while their master shot at them from shore. Another night, a slave woman named Juno gathered her children into a dugout canoe and paddled down the Neuse River to freedom. A little east of here, at Columbia, a large group of African Americans confiscated a schooner and sailed down the Scuppernong and across the Albemarle Sound.

A little to our west, a Black boatman known as “Big Bob” carried 16 slaves down the Tar River to freedom, then turned and went back upriver for more.

Here in Plymouth, a group of slaves “patched until their patches themselves were rags” escaped and sailed through stormy weather and rough seas all the way to Roanoke Island. “How they succeeded is a wonder to us all,” a Yankee soldier exclaimed.

A little southeast of here, in Hyde County, an overseer informed a plantation’s owner that he could no longer control the enslaved men and women on the plantation, no matter what he did. Some had already escaped to Union lines. He said that he had even shot “old Pompey.”

Ten days later, that overseer reported that “something like 100 [slaves had] gone off in the last month,” 35 in a single night.

 “Almost every day negroes are shot … for attempting to run away,” a journalist in Goldsboro reported. One plantation owner, William Loftin, described the situation in letters to his mother. Even before Yankee troops reached Roanoke Island, he wrote that “a good many negroes are running away” and “all of mine are gone from the oldest to the youngest.”

“All that I ever had is gone,” Loftin wrote. Later, in 1863, reality really set in. “My boy Tony came up with the Yankees in full uniform saying he was a U.S. soldier…. He went to J. H. Bryan’s and took his gun away from him. He says he has killed four damned rebels…. He had a rifle strapped to his back.”

William Loftin’s ”boy Tony” was only the beginning. By the spring of 1864, thousands of African Americans on the North Carolina coast had joined the Union army. By war’s end, nearly 180,000 African American men had served or were serving in the Union army. (Forty thousand of them did not survive the war.) Another 19,000 served in the Union navy.

The Civil War here in Plymouth was not much like the one that you or I read about in our history books when we were young (especially if you are my age) or that you may have seen in movies such as “Gone With the Wind” or even in more recent documentaries such as Ken Burns’ “Civil War.”

The large majority of Washington County’s people were opposed to the Confederacy. Half the population, we have to remember, was African American, and large numbers of the county’s white citizens also supported the Union. In fact, in Washington County, roughly as many white men enlisted in the Union army as enlisted in the Confederate army.

The divisions among the county’s white people were deep and bitter. To quote one leading historian, here in Washington County, “Brother fought brother. Neighbor attacked neighbor.”

Prior to the Battle of Plymouth, the low point was probably in December 1862, when, in a quick in-and-out raid, Confederate troops burned most of the town.  (By that time, Plymouth had been in Union hands for months. Town leaders had peacefully handed the town over to the Union army in May 1862.)  According to a local planter, the Rebel troops burned the town to “prevent its affording shelter to the Abolitionists and run away [sic] negroes …”

By that time, a Union private reported, Plymouth had become “a general rendezvous for fugitive slaves.” They escaped from plantations far up the Roanoke, and many got their first taste of freedom on the ground where we stand.

Many of those Black men enlisted in the Union Army. For the first time, many Black families were also able to send their children to schools that had been started here so that they could learn to read and write and do arithmetic. (None of the Confederate states allowed Black children to go to school.)

By the spring of 1864, Plymouth had been held by Union troops for nearly two years. But on April 17th, some 7,000 Rebel troops under Major Gen. Robert F. Hoke lay siege to the town, hoping to take it back from the Union and make it once again part of the slave South.

Every Black man here, both those in uniform and those that were civilians, including many fugitive slaves, understood the danger. If Plymouth fell, they could expect at the very least to be re-enslaved. But by that point in the war, most African Americans understood that, if rebel troops captured them in battle, or found them wounded on the battlefield, they might well be murdered.

By the spring of 1864, relatively well-known Confederate massacres of Black Union soldiers had occurred at Fort Pillow, Tennessee; Fort Wagner, South Carolina; Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana; Poison Springs, Arkansas; and at Saltville, the Crater, and Suffolk, Virginia.

But there were others. Many killings of Black Union prisoners did not make even a ripple in the news. Memory of them was lost in the fog of war, the slowness with which news traveled, and the reluctance, even in the North, to take the accounts of Black witnesses at face value.

The Battle of Olustee was one of those. Early in 1864, reports of a massacre of wounded Black soldiers from the 35^th Regiment, United States Colored Troops, after an especially bloody battle in Olustee, Florida, reached New Bern. (The 35^th had been recruited in and around New Bern.)

After Olustee, Union leaders had grown suspicious because the Confederate commander supplied them with such a short list of Union soldiers wounded or taken prisoner in the battle. But not for some months did they conclude what the surviving Black soldiers had always known, that “most of the wounded colored men were murdered in the field.”

I do not know if the Black men and women here in Plymouth knew that Confederate general Robert Ransom’s soldiers were among the Rebel troops attacking Union positions here in Plymouth. But if they did know, they would have expected the worst. Ransom’s Brigade was one of those Confederate units notorious for not taking Black prisoners alive.

Ransom’s own men wrote about that policy. Only a month earlier, Ransom’s Brigade had taken no prisoners after encountering Black troops of the 2^nd Regiment, United States Colored Calvary, 75 miles from here, at Suffolk, Virginia. “Ransom’s Brigade never takes any negro prisoners,” one of Ransom’s soldiers bragged in a letter to the Charlotte Observer.

Another of Ransom’s soldiers, Pvt. Gabriel Sherrill, echoed those words. In a letter home a few weeks before the Battle of Plymouth, he wrote, referring to Black soldiers, “They will fite,” rather than surrender, “for they know that it is deth eny way if we got hold of them for wee have no quarters for a negroe.”

One of Ransom’s officers, Maj. John W. Graham, said much the same in a letter to his father. (Graham’s father represented North Carolina in the Confederacy’s senate.) In that letter, Maj. Graham said, speaking of Suffolk, the “ladies … were standing at their doors, some waving handkerchiefs, some crying, some praying, and others calling to us to `kill the negroes.’”

He told his father, “Our brigade did not need this to make them give `no quarter,’ as it is understood amongst us that we take no Negro prisoners.”

After a very bloody, four-day siege — one hard on both sides, but with especially heavy Confederate casualties — Hoke’s forces did capture the town of Plymouth on April 20^th, 1864. At that point, Rebel troops were left to ransack the town and the worst fears of the Black people and the white Unionists in the town were realized.

One of the first historians to write about the Plymouth Massacre in any detail was Dr. Wayne Durrill. Durrill earned his Ph.D. in history at the University of North Carolina in 1987, and he is now a professor at the University of Cincinnati. His book “War of Another Kind“ is the fullest scholarly study of the Civil War here in Washington County.

In his book, Professor Durrill quotes the only known account of the Battle of Plymouth given by an African American eyewitness, a man who identified himself as a Union sergeant. “Upon the capture of Plymouth by the rebel forces, all the negroes found in blue uniform, or with any outward marks of a Union soldier upon him, was killed,” he testified.

The Black eyewitness also observed that “some [were] taken into the woods and hung … Others I saw stripped of all their clothing and then stood upon the bank of the river with the faces riverward, and there they were shot … Still others were killed by having their brains beaten out by the butt-end of the muskets in the hands of the rebels.”

Professor Durrill quotes another Union serviceman, a white lieutenant named Alonzo Cooper, of the 12^th New York Volunteers, who reported that “the negro soldiers who had surrendered, were drawn up in line at the breastwork, and shot down as they stood.”

According to another eyewitness, when an unknown number of Black men, probably Union enlistees, saw what was happening and fired at Confederate troops, the Confederates “charged them with every conceivable weapon in their possession, whereupon the negroes [most of whom were unarmed] ran, taking refuge in Coneby Creek swamp and the flats beyond, scarcely a mile away.”

According to that account, the Rebels followed them into the swamp and “slaughtered” them “like rats.” Lt. Cooper, recalled, “the crack, crack of muskets down in the swamp where the negroes had fled to escape capture,” and reported that the Blacks were “hunted like squirrels or rabbits.”

Years later, B. D. Latham, who was a 12-year-old boy at the time, remembered that he and some other local white boys went into the swamp the Sunday morning after the battle. Professor Durrill wrote: “There they saw `hundreds of slain negro troops,’ their bodies having been left to decay for four days.”

Soon after Professor Durrill’s book was published, two highly respected Civil War historians, Weymouth T. Jordan and Gerald W. Thomas, undertook a far more exhaustive and in-depth study of the Battle of Plymouth’s aftermath. Deeply knowledgeable of the Civil War, both had, and have, reputations for being conservative, judicious, and diligent scholars.

Their goal was first to determine if what happened in Plymouth should truly be called a “massacre” and — if a massacre did occur here — how many people were killed.

At the time of their study, Jordan was the head of the Civil War Roster Project at the N.C. Division of Archives and History. Thomas, a native of Bertie County, had nearly finished his book “Divided Allegiances: Bertie County during the Civil War,” but took a break to assist Jordan to get to the bottom of what happened in Plymouth.

Together they sifted through thousands of pages of historical evidence. They then presented their results in a 72-page article called “Massacre at Plymouth:  April 20, 1864.” That article was published in the North Carolina Historical Review, the state’s foremost historical journal, in the spring of 1995. To this day, it remains the definitive study of what happened here in Plymouth.

Theirs was a very cautious approach. They did not accept evidence that could not be corroborated, and they looked askance at evidence if the individual that was the source of that evidence had any reason to exaggerate or be dismissive of claims of a massacre.

At times, when I reviewed their research, I personally felt that they may have been too cautious and leant over backwards too far for the sake of wanting their research to be utterly beyond reproach.

In their article, Jordan and Thomas acknowledged that we will probably never know every detail of what happened here on those April days in 1864, or know the exact number of people that lost their lives here. Yet their findings were unambiguous. In their conclusion, they wrote, “it is clear that blacks and Buffaloes [white Unionists] were killed at Plymouth under circumstances that merit the appellation `massacre’….”

They concluded that Confederate troops, mainly Ransom’s Brigade and cavalrymen led by Col. James Dearing, executed approximately 25 Black prisoners in the first days after the Battle of Plymouth. “Some blacks captured in uniform were shot out of hand…. [S]ome were dispatched later, [and] some black male civilians were murdered also….”

They went on to say: “The number of blacks, uniformed and otherwise, who were murdered in Plymouth on April 20 was probably no more than 10. Fifteen more may have been executed on April 23 or 24…. Forty were killed as they fled the battlefield, [and] 40 were hunted down and dispatched in the swamps.” Others died in combat, hundreds of others managed to escape, and “approximately 400, including a few uniformed soldiers and many women and children, were captured and taken prisoner.”

At least a handful of “Buffaloes” — the white Unionists — were also killed either in town or in the swamps.

To me one of the war’s most remarkable phenomenon was the courage and determination that African Americans soldiers and sailors displayed even though they knew that this kind of treatment could well be their fate whenever, and wherever, they fell into Rebel hands.

“We have fought … where captivity meant cool murder on the field, by fire, sword, and halter; and yet no black man ever flinched,” African American delegates — including North Carolina’s Abraham Galloway — declared at a convention of African American leaders in 1864.

Here in Plymouth, as well as on distant battlefields, America’s Black soldiers held onto a prophetic vision of the Civil War that in their eyes justified their hardships and sacrifices.

We have to remember: their courage, and their willingness to fight and die, was rooted in something bigger than themselves and far more personal than the Union cause. Their Civil War — the slaves’ Civil War — was grounded in the love of their wives and children, their brothers and sisters, their mothers and grandmothers, their yet-to-be-born grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all of whom, if they prevailed, would be free.

If they prevailed, they knew, a child of theirs might one day go to school. A son might not be whipped to his last breath. A daughter could be raised in safety. Husbands and wives would know that they could grow old together.

If they prevailed, the unspeakable fear that a child could be taken away from them at any age, and at any moment, of any day, would disappear forever. A man or woman’s work would be their own.

A Black Union sergeant named Charles Brown expressed the prevailing sentiment among the country’s Black soldiers as well as anyone in the ranks.

While encamped near New Bern, Sgt. Brown weighed the dangers that his company faced from Confederate soldiers, as well as the discrimination that his men faced within the Union army due to their race.

And yet he wrote: “I feel more inclined daily, to press the army on further and further; and, let my opposition be in life what it will, I do firmly vow that I will fight as long as a star can be seen, and if it should be my lot to be cut down in battle, I do believe… that my soul will be forever at rest.”

As his regiment marched into battle, Brown said, they sang:

We are the gallant first 
Who slightly have been tried, 
Who ordered to a battle, 
Take Jesus for our guide.

May all of their souls forever be at rest. May they all be remembered. May we all find hope in the stars as they did.

Note: Photographer Sharon C. Bryant is the African American Outreach Coordinator at Tryon Palace in New Bern, and she prepared extensive educational materials on the history of the 35th USCT that were displayed at the encampment in Plymouth.

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

The earliest permanent settlement of North Carolina by Europeans occurred north of the Albemarle Sound. But increased migration and the desire for land soon pushed those settlers outside of this limited area.

The men and women who moved south of the Sound found a swampy, inhospitable region. Their perseverance helped create Washington County, at one time a prosperous county that gave the state several of its most famous leaders.

The story of Washington County is one of isolation, success and an eventual renewal on the banks of the Roanoke River.

Following the earliest settlement of the Albemarle region in the late 17th century, English immigrants to North Carolina craved more arable land for tobacco cultivation. While some went west, others moved south across the Albemarle Sound.

Early North Carolinians also secured land grants on several of the area’s major rivers. One of these was the Roanoke River, which starts in Virginia and enters North Carolina near present-day Roanoke Rapids. The community that later became Plymouth, located on a bend of the Roanoke River, was first settled in 1727, according to the North Carolina Gazetteer. Other communities like Roper and Mackeys grew up around the county’s creeks and on the sound. 

The area south of the Albemarle Sound remained sparsely populated for several decades. Over time, an increase in population led to the need for more counties. In 1729, the section of North Carolina north of former Bath County and south of Albemarle Sound became Tyrrell County. In 1799, Tyrrell County’s westernmost section became Washington County, named for George Washington.

According to “The formation of the North Carolina counties, 1663-1943” by David Leroy Corbitt, the eastern boundary was a line “beginning at Bull-point … to the centre of the Indian swamp, where the road crosses … [extending] to the west end of lake Phelps… to [the] Hyde county line.” An 1801 annex gave Washington County all of what was then known as Indian Swamp.

In the antebellum period, Washington County was defined by some of the largest plantations in North Carolina. The Roanoke River and Albemarle Sound were ample sources of transportation. Tobacco and corn were planted in the rich soil of river-adjacent districts. The county also had communications with the northern side of Albemarle Sound by way of Mackey’s Ferry. The ferry operated for more than 200 years and was a key link between the older communities north of the Albemarle and the growing regions to the south and west. 

The most prized plantation in the county was Somerset Place, which was founded by a group led by Josiah Collins on Lake Phelps in the 1780s. According to the plantation’s National Register of Historic Places nomination, Collins was a political leader in the state who acquired a massive amount of land, built mills, and introduced agricultural methods new to North Carolina such as rice cultivation. A nearby plantation owner, James Johnston Pettigrew, became a famed Confederate general that was killed at Gettysburg.

As in the rest of the state, slave labor was prevalent. Over 40% of the county’s population was enslaved, according to the Hergesheimer map of 1860. Somerset Place has become noteworthy not only as a center for antebellum wealth but also a site of memory for the hundreds of enslaved African Americans who lived there in the 19th century.

In the 1980s, historian Dorothy Spruill Redford traced the lives of many of these families and helped organized a reunion of around 1,500 descendants of slaves and their owners. The reunion garnered national attention and a number of prominent visitors, including the North Carolina governor and “Roots” author Alex Haley, according to the New York Times.

In his introduction to Redford’s “Somerset Homecoming,” Haley wrote that when he learned of the project, “I was thrilled — thrilled not just at what was happening there that day, but for the connections that such a gathering of families spoke of — for the thread that ran back through the generations and will most surely run ahead into the future.” Redford’s work transformed the interpretation of slavery at Somerset Place and other plantations throughout the South.

During the Civil War, Plymouth played an important role in an often-ignored campaign late in the conflict. In 1864, the Confederacy attempted to take back eastern North Carolina from the Union. Confederate Gen. Robert F. Hoke, along with the ironclad ram Albemarle, launched an exceptional raid that defeated Union leaders Henry W. Wessells and Charles W. Flusser and led to Confederate control of Plymouth.

The victory was short-lived, for Hoke was recalled back to Virginia a few months later and the Union reoccupied the town for the remainder of the war. Research has shown that the Confederates were also responsible for war crimes against African Americans after recapturing the area.

Following the war, Washington County embarked on an economic project like those of surrounding counties in eastern North Carolina. Much of the county remained agricultural. Tenant farming replaced the plantation system, and some farmers moved from tobacco and corn to peanut and truck farming. But in some areas, industry began to take a hold.

This industry centered on Plymouth, where the population doubled between 1900 and 1910. Plymouth became a center for the manufacture of wooden handles, lumber, and paper. Industrial prosperity led to the construction of the neoclassical Washington County Courthouse in 1919.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, numerous notables called Washington County home. These included stage director Augustin Daly, author and activist Don Brown, and NFL linebacker Charles Bowser.

Comedian J.B. Smoove, known for his work on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” was born in Plymouth and often visited his maternal relatives there.

These famous residents did not lead to prosperity in the county, however. Following the decline of industry, Washington County became one of the poorest in the state. Unemployment remained high and the town of Plymouth emptied out, losing population every decade from 1970 to the present.

Today, Washington County is showing signs of renewal. Farms still dominate the landscape, and agriculture remains the primary economic engine. But the county is also starting to attract tourism. Somerset Place and Pettigrew State Park attract thousands of visitors each year. Plymouth has been the site of new development, especially on its waterfront. There are new restaurants and several museums in the town, along with several historic restoration projects.

The county’s towns also benefit from Outer Banks traffic because of their location on U.S. 64. But because of its distance from the beach or major towns such as Elizabeth City or Greenville, Washington County will likely remain a testament to North Carolina’s agricultural, small-community past.

A $3.6 million contract has been awarded to a Raleigh company to improve two sections of U.S. 64 totaling almost 12 miles in Tyrrell and Washington counties.

The state Department of Transportation awarded Rose Brothers Paving Co. of Raleigh the contract to work on two sections of the highway. The project can begin as soon as June 1 and is expected to be complete by Sept. 30, 2022.

A 7-mile section just west of Columbia in Tyrrell County and a 4.75-mile section between Millpond Road and Northline Road east of Plymouth in Washington County will undergo milling, resurfacing and remarking of the roadway.

The Washington County segment also includes a layer of friction course, while the Tyrrell County segment includes replacing and upgrading 20,000 linear feet of guardrail.

For real-time travel information, visit DriveNC.gov or follow NCDOT on social media.