Thursday, Aug. 21, 1941
PAGE FOUR
THE BEAUFORT NEWS BEAUFORT, N. C.
Ocracoke's New Coast Guard Station Is One Of
Most Modern Along The Entire Atlantic
Coast.
. : IJiFWil ..... .. . ,
j. 'x4 RflO iri!fiiHiiiitiiigi i
Lilt 1Ljw y I I
J I I f ' I , . --. - j
Wi -fk 4 .i-"!- . - - - m'f' -' "1 1
PICTURED ABOVE is Ocracoke's New Super Coast Guard Station, one of the most
modern and finest along the Atlantic Coast which is now complete (except for a few mi
nor details) and will soon be occupied as the headquarters station of Ocracoke, Hatter
as Inlet, Portsmouth Coast Guard Life Boat Stations and Ocracoke Light House . . . Lo
cated on Silver Lake Harbor, this new station represents a total investment of approximately $165,000.
The super structure as seen in the picture was built by the James I. Barnes Construction Company. The
foundation was built by Tidewater Construction Company of Norfolk; the bulkhead by the Boney Con
struction Company of Norfolk and the dredging in the immediate vicinity of the station was done by the
Stern Dredging Company of Norfolk. It is now time to talk about the attraction in the foreground. She
is Miss Elsie Bowen of Bath, vacationing on the Island when the Beaufort News Photographer made this
picture of the main station of the Coast Guard on Ocracoke which is under the command at the present
time of Chief oBatswain Mate Steve Basnight, of Manteo. (Beaufort News Photo).
Two State Groups
Endorse Clean Up
Or Close Up Drive
Raleigh, August 20. The beer
industry's "clean up or close up"
campaign, which has resulted in
the elimination of 183 undesirable
retail outlets, has been endorsed
by two State groups.
The State Association of Coun
ty Commissioners, at its annual
convention at Wrightsville Beach,
adopted a resolution endorsing the
campaign and expressing the com
missioners' appreciation for coop
eration shown in ridding communi
ties of objtctionable outlets.
The North Carolina Sheriffs' As
sociation, at its coonvention in i
Elizabeth City and Manteo, com
mended the campaign and express
ed it appreciation "for the coope
ration of State Director Edgar H.
Bain and members of his staff".
The endorsement of the "clean
up of close up" campaign by these
two groups is timely in view of the
fact that approximately four-fifths
of the committee's clean-up activi
ties are with the sheriffs and commissioners.
Governor J. M. Broughton, dur
ing a speech before the sheriffs
meeting, also commented favor
ablyton the work of the North Car
olina committee.
MORE ABOUT
OUTER BANKS
Continued from i.age one)
very much, being a devout Confed
erate, to see what there is left of
the Yankee ironclad "Monitor"
which did battle with the "Merri
mac" 77 years or such matter ago.
You didn't know that it could still
be seen? Well, that would be be
cause you don't know about en
chantments. The Monitor is there,
securely imbedded in the sands of
Hatteras and, given a suitable ex
treme, you may go and look at it.
All that you would need would
be an extremely smooth day, a day
when the heavens are drained of
every wisp of wind, and the sea,
unstirred for days, is smooth and
clear. One other thing you would
need, but that land of enchant
ment has thoughtfully provided
that, too. You would need an air
plane, and the airplane was born,
in its way a child of the winds, not
so far away. Within sight, if you
will but glance northward when
you look for the Monitor.
There's the Monitor
Calculating by charts and the
rudiments that men have learned
but lately about the height you
must get if you would see to the
bottom of water of a given depth,
you tan determine how high you
must fly. The Monitor is there,
placidly resting in the sand. Its
iron sides are still battered by the
impotent gunnery of the Merri
mac, and it -may be that the ghost
of the dozen men who died when
the Monitor imprudently got itself
between the Northern Ocean and
the Southern Ocean in one of
their more difficult moments, still
hover about the place. If you are
good at ghosts, you may see them.
To be sure you may miss the
Monitor altogether. Not because
it isn't there, but because the floor
of the ocean is littered with other
apparently completely .intact
wrecks of boats that range from
what look like Spanish balleons to
very modern, steel-hulled ships.
Off Hatteras, this land of enchant
ment keeps a sort of marine mu
seum that began to collect there
four centuries ago and its latest
acquisition may be as fresh as the
ink on today's edition of this pa
per. But the Monitor is there and,
given the right extreme of weath
er, you can go and look at it. If
you are afraid of airplanes and
that is foolish in this land of en
chantment where airplanes were
born you can take passage iis
some sort of surface craft, though
it isn't advisable always since the
Diamond Shoals are unpredictable
about boats. Your own might set
tle down beside the Monitor and
the Monitor's ghosts have com
panionship ... j
You'd rather hear about the
Monitor than run the risks that
might be involved in actually see
ing it? Well, that's possible, too,
but another, the other, extreme of
weather would be very useful in
that case. Preferably a night
when all the winds of heaven are
massed off the Cape, and the seas
come roaring across the Diamonds,
piling mountainously against the
ysow slender thread of sand, and
even the trees bend their backs
before it, and wait, hushed.
That would be ideal weather for
hearing about the Monitor. Out
there, if the sea attuins its utmost
savaqrery, the Monitor may even
be storing in its grave and in some
sheltered cottage hidden deep in
Buxton Wood back of the Cape,
memories will be stirring ... It
was on a night like this . . . One,
a dozen men could tell you about
the night the Monitor foundered
off Hatteras and tomorrow,
when the winds have gone and the
sea is repented for its fury, they
could show you where the men on
the Monitor were buried when the
sea was ashamed of itself and
brought them and laid them very
gently there to be buried ... He
could remember their names. A
child he was then, but his father,
and his grandfather he watched
them while they opened the earth
to receive its own . . .
Spell of the Diamonds
Nor is it just here where two
dissident oceans have contrived
them a fabulous cape and you
come upon its enchantment. North
ward and southward, a hundred
miles above and two hundred or so
below, the land is a piece with this
point where the two oceans meet,
and that would bring you to the
Virginia Capes on the north and to
Cape Fear on the south. So far
in each direction does this the
spell of The Diamonds reach,
where almost anything is rather
more than likely to happen, be
cause it has happened already
and where yesterday is tomorrow
and tomorrow is yesterday and
Time stands unchangingly still.
Thirty miles north there is pro
jecting above the foam of the surf,
is the boiler of the old Sheridan,
which was a fabulous ship in its
day, which was right after the
Civil War. Not all the rust the At
lantic Ocean has been able to con
coct has done much by way of
scarring that husky piece of ma
chinery, and neither has there been
any beginning to forget, ashore,
the things that happened in con
sequence of the Sheridan's wreck
ing. One glimpse of Captain Adam
Etheridge wearing a fantastic
beaver hat is enough to open the
well springs of Dare County's
memory of the Sheridan, and a
day when every man, woman and
child in the county would have
been in jail if there had been suci
a jail, and there being none, the
owners of the Sheridan induced
the Federal government to send
down half a regiment of soldiers to
act as jailors, which they did . . .
But Captain Etheridge still keeps
the beaver hat and the Atlantic
Ocean has not seriously disturbed
the Sheridan's machinery . . .
But that one would take a book,
and this is not going to be a book.
Southward from the capa, since
this story must in some fashion,
account for the 300 miles that is
the State's eastern boundary, its
frontier. Not a mile of the whole
fabulous country but has its iten.
that could be lengthened into a
book, and if you were especially
prolific in the matter, of books;
there are places where you cauld
stop and write one round dozen
books and still leave out a lot.
Maybe it had better be two dozen
books.
At Hatteras Inlet once there
were mighty forts, and in 1862
the world's heaviest concentration
of fire-power afloat was assembled
there. There were more ships than
composed the mighty Spanish Ar
mada, which has a very definite
historical connection with this re
gion. Because of it there was no
help sent to Raleigh's Lost Col
ony, and the fort on Roanoke Is
land was abandoned.
Every inlet was guarded by its
fortress. Oregon Inlet had perhaps
the strongest of them, and it ap
pears to have been commanded by
the weakest of fort commanders.
He turned it over to the Yankees
in '62 without wasting an ounce of
powder, and since then the tides
and the winds have removed the
last trace of the place, which is
perhaps as well. You can read
about it in Dr. Hill's excellent his
tory of North Carolina in the Civil
War.
The bulk of the population of
the Outer Banks is descended from
castaways, people who were ship
wrecked there. Wrecked there,
they could not get away, and then,
after a little, they didn't want to.
Here is probably as good a place
as this narrative will get for inclu
sion of the story of John Oden's
arrival on Hatteras. Not everybody
arrived so dramatically, of course,
but this one is average enough to
suffice. There had been a by no
means unprecedented storm, as
storms go on Hatteras, but there
had been a wreck offshore durins
the night, and the inhabitants
were watching the ship drift in in
smashed bits. With now and then a
limp figure whose arms flapped
loosely.
Here, too was something else
that was a little out of the ordi
nary. The ship's figurehead, a
classic carved figure, had become
detached from the prow, with
enough of the ship's structure to
hold it upright in the thundering
surf. The classic lady approached,
full erect, rising and falling with
the bwell. She seemed alive, al
most, and the people watched her
fascinated, and without noticing
that a huge cask was bobbing on
a wave nearby.
Some vagrant quirk of the sea
made the cask outrun the ap
proaching figurehead, and it sud
denly landed with a crash on the
beach, its staves falling apart.
John Oden, sole survivor, stepped
from his nest of cask staves, and
the classic lady of the figurehead
landed on the beach at his feet . . .
Apparently, John Oden took up
resilience right away. The Outer
Banks are thick with his descend
ants . . . and pretty nearly every
family can trace its native begin
nings back to some similar trag
edy. Saga of the Outer Banks
Comparisons are always of
doubtful worth, but one may be
permitted here. Mountain people
know what isolation is and your
mountaineer is surely cut off from
the world by the hills that encircle
him, but here, beside a limitless
and capricious ocean, these people
on the Outer Bankks have dwelt
from the beginning beside the
highroad of the world, and they,
probably more than any people on
the earth, are a cosmopolitan lot.
Nobody asks a shipwrecked
mariner questions, and since a na
tive of the Outer Banks is himself
a castaway, one or a dozen genera
tions removed, he doesn't greet
other castaways, even if they ar
rive in impressive vehicles, any in
hospitable questions. The assump
tion is that you are just not guilty
of hostility until you prove it
yourself, and he will grin tole
rantly if you set out by assuming
that the native is a strange sort of
being unlike anything else in the
world. You'll get over the notion
and nobody knows it better than
the native . . . Nothing can disturb
the tranquil aplomb of the Outer
Banks tomorrow the skies will
clear: they always have.
Sure it is no accident that so
many revolutionary things have
happened here, and it isn't strange
at all once you embrace belief in
enchantments. Run a little wav
down the roster of things that have
J happened here the first settle
ment ol tnglisn people in tne iev;
World, the first message sent by
wireless telegraph, the wreck and
salvage of the first workable sub
marine ever built, the tallest light
house in the world . . . the list
could be drawn out to improbable
lengths.
Go back, even, beyond these be
ginnings. Here, beyond any per
adventure, as amateur archeolog
ical inquiry is beginning to show
pretty definitely, there must have
been a civilization that was older
than the Indians that the first set
tlers found here, pibably a col
ony of the older civilizations of
the middle Americas. And the In
dians must have known the Span
iards and the Portuguese 1'ing be
fore Sir Walter Raleigh's colonists
came to the quiet of Kotmok?
Sound within a forgotten inlet. . .
Or come on down to the wore
immediate time. Here you can
find, scores of them, the only
Americans who stood in their own
front yards and witnessed the im
probable spectacle of a Gcinian
submarine blasting the daylights
out of a continent's smug belief
that the Atlantic Ocean woulil
shield it from any possibility of
such menace. . . . The hulk of Dia
mond Shoals lightship settled down
beside the hulk of the Monitor
nearby the grave of a galleon. A
little lurther away, to the north,
the submarine mortally wounded
a mighty tanker going serenely on
its way and from the shore set
out the rescue of the crew of the
Mirlo that became classic.
Censorship saved the continent
a bad attack of hysterics, but the
Outer Banks were not troubled at
all by the submarine. . . . Dozens
could remember when the Yankees
battered away with much noisier
gins and the sight of the dead
on the heach was not new. ... A
liciie while later the natives watch
ed with much livelier interest the
unfolding of what was to become
the basis of this modern war when
General Billie Mitchell brought I
all airplanes in America and land
ed them on the flat reaches of
Rodanthe and day after day drop
ped bombs on actual battleships
and sank them very noisily. Here
was something new and some
thing that Germany and Great
Britain are trying now to do to
each other in reality. . . . But the
Outer Banks saw it from a ring
side seat when it was beginning.
. . . Yesterday is tomorrow, and
tomorrow is yesterday along this
three hundred-mile frontier of
North Carolina, where an enchant
ment broods above the earth. But
to lift it, you have to believe in
enchantments, and maybe you
can't until you have experienced
enchantment first.
DEEP SEA FISHING
IN THE FAMOUS
WATERS OFF HATTERAS
Blue Marlin - Dolphin - Amber jack
CRUISER: "ALBATROSS"
Write or Wire For Reservations
ERNUL FOSTER
HATTERAS
NORTH CAROLINA
rAi USA VLMI VVHLIN
YOU VISIT
HATTERAS
Staple and Fancy Groceries
FISHING TACKLE
All Kinds Of Iced Soft Drinks
t
t
i
t
i
I
Dan Q. Oden
MANTEO--HATTERAS
BUS LINE
OPERATES EVERY DAY IN
THE YEAR
Only Bus Line In The World Operating On A
Route Which Has Neither State or Govern
ment Maintained Roads . . .
THIS TRIP BY BUS ALONG OUTER BANKS
IS A REAL REVELATION
s
Operated By
HAROLD MIDGETTE
HATTERAS
Merchant
NORTH CAROLINA
t
Come To Hatteras
ALL ARRANGEMENTS MADE
FOR YOUR FISHING TRIP
A CHEERFUL WELCOME AWAITS YOU
AT OUR HOTEL
American Plan $3 Per Day ((
Atlantic View Hotel
William Scotty Gibson, operator
HATTERAS NORTH CAROLINA
SIC
G. D. JONE
OF
BEAUFORT NORTH CAROLINA
DEEPLY APPRECIATES THE BUSINESS GIVEN THIS FIRM BY THE
HOTELS AND PEOPLE OF
OCRACOKE ISLAN
DURING THE PAST 27 YEARS
D
WE CARRY A COMPLETE LINE OF FANCY AND STAPLE GROCERIES
1 AT ALL TIMES. YOUR CONTINUED PATRONAGE WILL BE APPRECI
1 ATED.
c
O W
CO
CARTERET'S
Leading
O Retail Grocery Firm