Additional Reference Materials There is much more to the history of Hampstead than just recitations of events and genealogies, all essential, but much more information helps anchor Hampstead in a historical framework of time and place, and certainly no other period of time caused more dramatic changes in daily living than wars - notably the War Between The States and World War II. Setting The Context The Yankees blockaded Southern ports with lines of federal warships. The South was agricultural and had to import hard goods from "up north". The South had cotton and wanted to trade directly with England, Scotland and Ireland, to export cotton and take in finished goods and hardware not locally produced. The US Congress wouldn't allow it and forced goods to come from US manufacturers, all located in the northern states. The other thing was that while agriculture was the essential activity for most Southerners, a few wealthy planters had their money tied up in their slaves. For instance, a moderately successful planter might produce a few thousand dollars from the sale of cotton, corn, wheat, beans and tobacco. The average price for a slave field worker might be five hundred dollars, house slaves a thousand dollars or more, a woman with children even more. With
the Emancipation Proclamation, the government in fact set the bank
accounts of wealthy planters free. Naturally they were upset. This
war, like wars in general, was Salt Works: One of the items most essential to the economy was salt, * ordinary common salt. Why? There were no refrigerators, and the only way to preserve meat was to dry it or salt it and without huge amounts of salt were necessary to preserve a single hog - after butchering, individual pieces were rubbed in salt and then layered with enough salt in between the pieces to make sure they didn't touch or drip juices. The blockade prevented large quantities of cheaply mined salt from coming in. Many communities along the coast were in favorable locations for the manufacture of salt, and Hampstead had some. To make salt, it was necessary to have clean water, suitable tide, suitable ground at the near high-tide line and lots of firewood. Here how it worked. The tide carried saltwater up a creek or dug ditch to a large level area with an impervious clayey mud surface. A low dam or wall was built across the face of the holding pond. The water was allowed to inundate the area, and return at low tide was blocked by a gate or simple banked up mud wall. Over several days the water would evaporate, and leave a saturated saline solution behind. From time to time more seawater was let in, more evaporative cycles removed more water, and when a suitable amount of saturated saline was ready, it was taken out and poured, bucket by bucket, into a large metal pan several feet across. The pan was on blocks and a large fire was kept going until all the water was evaporated and coarse sea salt was left. It was then bagged and ready for use. Naval Stores: Before iron ships came into use, the major export from Wilmington was "Naval Stores" - all the materiel necessary to build, equip and maintain sailing vessels, workboats, barges - anything and everything that enabled trade exchange over water. Ships
spars - the masts, booms, assorted poles - from straight pines, timbers
for construction, tar for the bottom, and to waterproof rigging * ,
pitch, turpentine, all extracted from our abundant resource, pinus
palustris, the longleaf pine. Slashes were cut into the trunk and
the Confederate Breastworks: Remains of Confederate defensive positions are still visible in several places in the area, this one in Pelican's Reef where they've been preserved as a public area. The breastworks are ridges of soil piled in front of the ditch dug out behind. Soldiers could stand in the ditch and be behind breast-high protection. Most of the breastworks around here guarded waterways. I suspect these were manned by part of Newkirk's Coast Guard and may have protected a saltworks just on the other side of Virginia Creek, on Salt House Road. Not too far away is the site of a tar still, with the outline of the base and drain channel still discernable.
"The Hampstead area (Annandale), in 1861, was sympathetic to the Southern Cause. Two hundred names, many still heard around Hampstead, made up the unit first known as Newkirk's Coast Guard and later, as the Rebel Rangers after Major Newkirk resigned. "The unit was stationed at Camp Heath, located near Scotts Hill. It was a cavalry unit, part of the command of Lt. General Greene whose headquarters were in Wilmington. "Major Charles W. McClammy succeeded Major Newkirk as commander and continued in that capacity for most of the war. (Major McClammy is buried just North of Scotts Hill in the family cemetery.) A report of this unit, Company A, is found in the book North Carolina Troops 1861-1865 Vol. II. pages 178-183." 7 Camp Davis was located in Holly Ridge and was built
up almost overnight. Construction started the day after Christmas in
1940 and the first troops moved in five months later, in April 1941. The
scrub marshland was developed into a 10,000 acre training center with
2,000 buildings housing an anti-aircraft artillery school, barrage
balloon school, Officer Candidate School, and even a 2,000 bed hospital.
Over 110,000 soldiers passed through the gates while
it was active.
Artillery practice ranges were located at Sears Landing, near the present day Intracoastal Waterway, and near Fort Fisher, about 50 miles away near the mouth of the Cape Fear River. There were two landing fields at Camp Davis. Anti-aircraft gunners needed aerial targets to shoot at, and targets were towed behind aircraft at the end of 2,400 foot cables. 60 inch diameter searchlights were used to illuminate the aerial targets for night time gunnery practice. Women Air Service Pilots, WASP, flew tired, badly maintained A-24 and A-25 dive bombers. Two women lost their lives because of engine failure, and several were hit by ground fire, but others volunteered for that risky business, which few male pilots wanted.
Then the war ended, and just as quickly as the base built up, it emptied. One of the things that endured after the camp came and went was the Martha Ann Motel, which was built during camp construction days to house workers and visitors. It was taken down only recently. Camp Davis had a real economic impact that lasted for years. Construction jobs provided immediate relief for thousands of workers who were struggling with the economic disaster of the Great Depression, and once construction was finished, many of the workers joined the shipyards in Wilmington to build Liberty Ships to transport material and troops to the European War which would become World War II after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Topsail Island Observation Towers: Camp Davis sprang to life again when the Navy took charge on June 1, 1946. It became the base for "Operation Bumblebee," a secret guided missile testing program for the US Navy. They operated a scaled-down version of the camp since they only had 500 to house.
The Navy Bureau of Ordnance and John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory built camera towers, roads, buildings, and a revised pontoon bridge for a missile test facility on Topsail Island. On this 26 mile beach test range, some 200 experimental rockets were fired from 1947 to 1948. The missile launch pad is still visible, only now it's the ocean side patio of the Jolly Roger Motel in Topsail Beach. The observation towers were erected along the length of the island with telemetry equipment, cameras, and radio equipment on the top that measured the precise time the missile passed a predetermined mark, thus enabling speed to be calculated. The launch control tower is across from the Assembly Building in Topsail Beach. The missiles were assembled here, moved to the launch platform, fired and the results recorded. Ramjet rockets are capable of great speed, and rely on the effect of compressed incoming air, ram air, to take the place of compressor blades in a conventional jet turbine engine. To get the ram jet rocket to flying speed at which the ram air would be effective, it was fitted to a gang of standard Army 5 inch solid fuel rockets. Once launched, the speed would be compared. The flight times for the standard rocket assembly including the non-firing ramjet was known. In the missile tests, if the flight times for the ignited and functioning ramjet were much less, it was determined that the ramjet test was successful and was working the way it should have. Once it was shown that ramjets would actually perform as predicted, the whole project moved to Alabama for development.
1) goodliest land - from an address by Charles Kuralt at Scenic America’s National Conference, May 12, 1997, Baltimore, Maryland. "In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh sent Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe to scout out a place for a settlement. In a vast sound behind Barrier Islands, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, my home state, they found the green haven of Roanoke Island. They ignored the mosquitoes and the heat and the sand spurs and the possibly hostile Indians. They emphasized the good fishing in the waters and the abundance of grapes on the land. In their report to Queen Elizabeth, they kept coming back to those grapes. They summed up Roanoke Island by mentioning the grapes one more time and concluding, "It is withal, Madam, the Goodliest Land Under the Cope of Heaven." Except for the Elizabethan English, doesn’t that sound familiar? The surveyors arrived the next year, and they started laying out the first English colony in the New World." 2) HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST of LATTER-DAY SAINTS in HAMPSTEAD, NORTH CAROLINA, Marion F. Barnhill Sr., Gateway Press, 2004 3) ECHOES of Topsail by David A. Stallman. There is probably no better book around to get the background story on the island and its surrounds. 4) Lea/Hutaff Islands in Pender County 5,344 acres Lea and Hutaff Islands are undeveloped barrier islands, and associated saltmarsh, located between Figure 8 Island and Topsail Island. The islands are now joined following the closure of Old Topsail Inlet. This barrier island is characterized by large, open expanses of bare sand caused by overwash during the hurricanes of 1996, 1998 and 1999. Remnants of primary dunes exist in a few locations along the island. The saltmarsh is a typical tidally-flooded saltmarsh and creek system. This barrier island is one of North Carolina's few undisturbed and relatively pristine barrier islands. Habitats: Typical, undisturbed barrier island. Open bare sandy beach with remnant dunes dominated by Uniola paniculata and Iva imbricata. Extensive overwash fans caused by the hurricanes of 1996-1999 exist over much of the island. Tidally flooded saltmarsh with small, scattered islands and an extensive tidal creek and bay system exist west of the island. Audubon Society website 5) A History of Hampstead, by Jack Howard. Available in the local history reference folder at the Hampstead Library. 6) The Diaries of George Washington. Vol. 6. Donald Jackson, and Dorothy Twohig, ed. The Papers of George Washington. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1979 Available online at the Library of Congress American Memory Collection 7) market by rail - a few years ago, I interviewed Roger McGlohon who grew up in Penderlea, a small community in northern Pender County. His father raised flowers for market, and said he remembered helping out: "We went into the flower business, big time - gladiolus, iris, daffodils. We shipped these thing North - Boston, New York. We had a seven day a week job, when the glads come on you got to cut those glads every day when they're coming. We'd cut sometimes as many as 500 dozen a day. It was hard work and you made a livin'. That wrap around barn was where we'd go out in the fields and cut 'em, bring 'em here, on the bench and grade 'em out, and bunch 'em in numbers of 12, box 'em up and that afternoon carry 'em over to the railroad in Willard and send 'em off." The worst thing that could happen was an early Spring in North Carolina, and a later Spring further South - all the flowers would mature at the same time. "Well, it's a crazy thing . . the flower market'd start in Florida, and then it would work up to Georgia, and then South Carolina, North Carolina and up into Virginia as the weather changed. You might cut all that season, 500 dozen a day, and carry 'em and ship 'em and you wouldn't hear anything for about three weeks, whether the wholesaler sold 'em, and you'd get a little notice in the mail, "Your flowers got here and there was no market - had to dump 'em," The market was glutted, and you'd get the bill for shipping and storage." Roger would attend school during the day, until noon, and then come home to work in the fields. His job was to lay sticks of dynamite and blast up the roots marked earlier in the day by his father as he worked the plow. He was 9 years old. 8) A History of Hampstead, op. cit. 9) A Historical Sketch of Hampstead from 1871 - 1981, by Nellie (Nell) Howard in the private collection of Charles and Ginger Hardee Howard, of Hampstead 10) This is from a document in the Hampstead local history folder, and was written by Jack Howard. It's not the same as A History of Hampstead, and has different and additional information. 11) Hampstead, The Evolution of a Pender Fishing Village, by Dora Corbett. Topsail Voice, May 16, 2007. Available in the local history reference folder at the Hampstead Library. 12) Video interview with Kye Howard in 2004 13) Video interview with W. T. and Estelle Batchelor, Sept. 09 14) Video interview with Robert Foy, Jr., Sept. 09 15) Video interview with Peggy Lewis, Sept. 09 16) Video interview with Alma Sanders, Sept. 09
Where is Topsail Inlet? Like shifting sands, the exact location of Topsail Inlet varies - there may have been more one, and its (their) location moved around as rivers and tidal streams meandered, and erosion from tropical storms and Nor'easters moved sand around. * A New Voyage to Carolina; Containing the Exact Description and Natural History of That Country: Together with the Present State Thereof. And a Journal of a Thousand Miles, Travel'd Thro' Several Nations of Indians. Giving a Particular Account of Their Customs, Manners, &c. by John Lawson, (London, 1709). "Topsail Inlet is above two Leagues to the Westward of Cape Lookout. You have a fair Channel over the Bar, and two Fathom thereon, and a good Harbour in five or six Fathom to come to an Anchor. Your Course over this Bar is almost N. W. Lat. 34° 44″." * waterproof rigging - Jack Tar is our ordinary sailor, the seaman jack of all trades who rubbed tar into standing rigging, pounded tar infused 'small stuff' - shredded old rope and cloth called 'oakum' - pounded the oakum in between ships planking to prevent leaks. "Worm and parcel with the lay; turn and serve the other way," was the technique I learned in the section of my Navy training called 'Marlinspike Seamanship' as recently as 1964 when I went though boot camp at USNRTC San Diego. Jack grew his hair long, and plaited it into a ponytail, and tarred it, too. The flap on a seaman's jumper is to keep tar off chair backs, etc, in the same way an antimacassar protected parlor chairs from another early hair dressing, Makassar oil. * From RECONSTRUCTION IN NORTH CAROLINA by J. G. Roulhac Hamilton, MA, late scholar in Columbia University. Doctoral thesis, 1906 The State was even without an adequate source for a supply of salt and this early occupied the attention of the convention. An ordinance was passed, providing; for the election of a commissioner to manufacture salt and sell it to the people at cost price. A later ordinance gave the commissioner power to purchase land for salt works, and if necessary to seize it under the right of eminent domain. The same act exempted from military service all persons under contract to make salt. This remained in force until 1864, when General Whiting broke up the salt works and conscripted the employees. In 1862, the governor was directed to employ in the works, Quakers who could not pay the exemption fee of $100. Dr. John M. Worth was appointed commissioner, he was later succeeded by D. G. Worth. The first works were at Morehead City and were captured by the enemy before they were well in operation. Works were then located near Wilmington, and were producing 250 bushels per day when yellow fever broke out. The work was later resumed and carried on, with some interruptions, until the capture of Wilmington. The works were raided by the Federal troops in 1864. but with little damage. During the year 66,100 bushels of salt were made and sold at $7.75, when the market price at Wilmington was $19. Before the end of the year, the price was raised to $13, the market price rising to $25. By March, 1865, the market price in Raleigh was $70. The works were entirely self-supporting and paid back the original outlay. The State was also interested in the works at Saltville, Virginia. In addition to the State works, it was estimated that private individuals made about 2,500 bushels a day. Most of this was carried to other States for speculation. The value of the salt works cannot be fully realized, unless the conditions existing in the army and in some of the other States where no provision for a supply was made, are remembered. The following extract from The Last Ninety Days of the War gives an excellent idea of the condition of the portion of the population that had been wealthy before the war: "In North Carolina families of the highest respectability and refinement lived for months on corn bread, sorghum and peas. Meat was seldom on the table, tea and coffee never; dried apples and peaches were a luxury. Children went barefoot through the winter, and ladies made their own shoes and wove their own homespuns; carpets were rut into blankets, and window curtains and sheets were torn up for hospital use; soldiers' socks were knit day and night, while for home service, clothes were turned twice and patches were patched. * Hampstead didn't become known as the "Seafood Capital of the Carolinas" without large scale fishery operations nearby, and Edmund Ruffin, described it in this book. Edmund Ruffin was an ardent supporter of the Confederacy, and claimed to have fired "the first shot of the Civil War", and may have. He did take part in firing one of three cannons at Ft. Sumter on April 12, 1861.
AGRICULTURAL, GEOLOGICAL, AND DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES OF LOWER NORTH
CAROLINA, AND THE SIMILAR ADJACENT LANDS The seines used in different fisheries vary in length from 2,200 to 2,700 yards and are eighteen feet deep, as fished. They are laid out at about a mile and a quarter from the shore. Of course the hauling ropes, from both ends, to reach the shore must be together more than two and a-half miles long. A seine is carried out by two large boats, each managed by twelve able hands, (in some cases ten suffice,) and is laid out beginning from the middle straight and nearly parallel with the shore. The boats, from each end of the seine, then row to the shore, letting the attached hauling ropes run out from the boats. The shore ends of the ropes are then attached to large capstans, each turned by six horses. Except two men required at each cap(s)tan, one to drive the horses, and the other to watch and direct the passage of the rope around the shaft, all the other men attached to the seine are discharged to rest, eat, or sleep, as they may choose, until the ends of the seine reach the shore--except, that, at fixed and equal intervals, (indicated by marks on the ropes,) the few men employed at the capstans, are relieved by others. The fishing labors are carried on without cessation, through the twenty-four hours, except when suspended because of storms. Therefore, the hands, like sailors at sea, work and rest, not by day and by night, but by shorter "watches." Besides the fishermen, or boats' crews, there are fifteen other men employed on the shore, and forty women and boys, to trim, salt, and pack the herrings caught. The particular large draughts of herrings as well as the whole number caught by each seine in a season, have greatly diminished, as the seines have been increased in number. The seine at Stevenson's Point once brought in, and landed, 220,000 herrings at one haul. On the rare occasions of such enormous draughts of fish, and at other times when the cleaning and salting cannot proceed fast enough to save the fish if all were landed at once, and in warm weather, the ends of the seine are landed gradually, and a smaller seine hauled within the enclosed space, so as to land the fish no faster than needed, or than is safe. In this way, one draught of the seine has in some cases been more than twenty-four hours in being landed. The first outfit of one of these seines, and the expenses of the first season, make from $12,000 to $15,000. Afterwards, the expense for the season is lessened by as much as will serve again of the seine, boats and fixtures. The hands are either hirelings for the time, or the cost is counted as such. Considering that all these herrings are fish of passage, and enter every spring from the ocean, it is astonishing that such multitudes should enter through the very narrow and shallow inlets through the sand-reef. It is understood by naturalists that fish of passage, if not obstructed, seek every spring to return to lay their eggs in their native rivers. If so, it would be an excellent policy to forbid by law the taking of such fish except within stated intervals of time, the best of the season. This would cut off only the least profitable extremes of time; and by permitting enough breeders to pass safely, the numbers of fish would be greatly increased for the future, and the fisheries enabled to obtain more fish within the limited time, than now in the whole usual time of fishing. |
