CARTERET COUNTY
10c
SECOKD SECTION
PACES I TO 4
A Merger el THE BEAUFC3T MEWS (Established 1912) and THE TWIN CITY TIMES (Established 1936)
38th YEAR NO. 60.
MOREHEAD CITY, AND BEAUFORT, NORTH CAROLINA, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1948
PUBLISHED TUESDAYS AND FRIDAY!
i
The Story of a Man, a Vision,
And the Town He Believes In
(Special (o THE NEWS TIMES)
By Chester S. Davis
Feature Editor, Winston-Salem
Journal
Back in 1884 when John J. Royal
walked down Arendcll Street button-holing
his friends and saying
"It's a boy named him Ben,"
Morehead City wasn't really a city.
It was a fishing village and, in all
probability, a fishing village with
an inferiority complex. Beaufort,
after all, was across the way on
the other bank of the Newport
Kiver and, to hear those folks tell
it, Beaufort had a history.
Young Ben Royal was born in
I
Dr. Ben Royal looked to the fu
ture and in it saw a hospital for
Morehead City.
a town which needed some history. 1
He has spent the past 64 years
uking care of that.
Like any good story-teller, Ben
Royal starts at the beginning and
he is careful to explain that there
are three families of Royals in
North Carolina . . . "The ones in
Goldsboro have some money. The
ones in Wake Forest have some i
sense. My branch comes from More-'
head C'liy." j
With Bogue Sound for his Mis
sissippi and the Bogue Banks as
his Cardiff Hill, Ben grew up in !
a salt water Tom Sawyer fashion,
n wasii t many years belore he
caught the cars and rode the Mul-,
let Line (the Atlantic and North 1
Carolina Railway) to Goldsboro
and then found his way to Chapel
Hill. He didn't have any money
and, he says, even less sense.
His friends argue this last point,
saying that when Ben came back
to Morehead City he had an A. -B.
(University of North Carolina) and
an M. D. (Jefferson Medical Col
lege in Philadelphia) behind his
name. Doctor Ben grunts that the
fact he ever came back proves his
point.
His argument has merit. More
head City, at least in 1910, was
scarcely a spot a young doctor
would select for his place of prac
tice. The town, founded as a land
speculation in 1857, offered no
more than 1,000 potential patients
and they were a hale folk, bloom-1
ing with the health which is the
gilt of sun and sea and a fish diet. j
more man mat, mere was no hos
pital in Morehead City. The near
est beds were in New Bern, 38
miles away. Only one train made
the run to New Bern each day and
there were no roads. There were,
of course, the fishing villages
which clung to the edges of the
inland sounds and spotted the Out
gr Banks. But they were peopled
with, the same healthy breed and,
besides, to reach them you had to
travel by boat.
By way of putting his practice on
firm financial footing Dr. Ben
Royal made a deal with the United
States Public Health Service. It
was agreed that he would watch
over the health of the Coast
Guardsmen who manned the lone
ly stations on the Outer Banks
which stretch in great sandy runs
to the north and south of More
head City. In return, he was to be
paid $11 a month.
With the basis of his practice
cared for, Dr. Ben turned promoter
and he made this occupational shift
with the easy out tusiasm of a dry
duck flatfooting it for a pond.
The Start of a Hospital
He sold the community-minded
citizens of Morehead C'uy on uie
need for a hospital. This done, he
proceeded to sell them $25 shares
of stock to finance the project. He
raised just over $3,000.
Assisted by the chief of police
and an ex-Coast Guard man. Dr.
Ben Royal took string and chalk
and marked off one-half of the
second story of the Paragon build
ing (on Arendell Street, above the
five and-ten-cent store) for a seven
bed hospital. Early in 1912 More
head City was caring for its own.
Patients came from the fishing
villages scattered along the Caro
lina coast and came, Dr. Royal re
calls, ". . . bringing all of the ills
to which the flesh is heir." Those
too sick and crippled to walk were
met by the squat, powerfully chest
ed doctor and carried up the steep,
31-step flight of stairs to a hospital
bed.
Once in the hospital Edith
Broadway, superintendent of nurs
es, took over. Miss Broadway came
to Morehead City in 1912. For 31
years she gave the Morehead City
hospital a spirit so many hospitals
seek and so few find. Dr. Royal
puts it this way, "The story of our
hospital really is a story of Edith
Broadway. She is one of those rare
women who put greatness in the
traditions of nursing. Her work
here wasn't a job; it was her life
and she gave it everything she was
and everything she later became."
Dr. Ben remembers 1918 and the
weeks when the savage, little-understood
flu epidemic clotted the
limgs of this country. By then the
hospital in the Paragon building
had expanded to 18 beds and yet
there was not room for all of the
patients who needed care.
Miss Broadway and Dr. Royal
fought flu while their case load
built up and their small staff dis
solved. As cooks, janitors and nurs
es came down with the disease
these two took over.
On Oct. 17, 1918, after his sec
ond operation that morning, Ben
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The hospital is located right on the waterfront. AinonK its un ique records a five-year period
without any patient's death, 30 months without a maternal death, and during the war, a case load
of hundreds of burned men, victims of German U-boats, without a single death.
Royal collapsed. For a period of
days Edith Broadway fed, bathed
and treated all of the patients. It
was a brutal 24-hour-a day grind
and yet she carried the entire hos
pital load until Dr. Royal again
was able to stagger up the 31
stairs. When he made the trip he
found everything under control
and he also found Edith Broadway
with a fever of 104 degrees.
She accepted this work and res
ponsibility with the same matter-of-factness
she accepted her $40-a-month
salary.
Modern Hospital Is Built
The epidemic of 1918 convinced
Doctor Ben that Morehead City
lacked sufficient bed space and al
so that the town needed modern
hospital facilities. Once again he
turned promoter and this time
raised $77,000 (of which $65,000
was put up by his father-in-law,
B. B. Adams) and with this money
he built a trim, 26 bed hospital
directly on Morehead City's water
front. He .even built a large dock
the hospital dock which served
as the parking space for his water
borne patients.
It would be interesting to know
if the aristocrats in Beaufort help
ed finance this project. Even today
the conflict between the two towns
is amusing and it wasn't so very
long ago that the folks in Beau
fort looked down on hustling More
head City and seldom saw any
thing more interesting than the
tips of their long, blue noses. One
story probably a wicked fiction
illustrates the feeling. At the time
Morehead City sought to build a
bridge across to the Beaufort side
one of that town's leading citizens
was approached and asked to con
tribute to the project. His reaction
was immediate, "Bridge hell!" he
is supposed to have said, "Why I'd
like to build a brick wall so high
Morehead City wouldn't sec the
sun until 4 o'clock in the after
noon. In any event, with or without
the help of Beaufort, Morehead
City built a new hospital. Even in
Morehead City some people were
horrified that their small town
should be so extravagant and they
had little hope that the hospital
would pay its way.
As a matter of fact it didn't do
much more than keep its ears out
of water. In 1928, after a general
election, Morehead City took over
the hospital, paying $65,000 for the
26 bed unit. All stockholders, ex
cepting Dr. Royal and Edith Broad
way, were paid 100 cents on the
dollar.
For a year or two all went well
and then the depression came
along and, among other things,
knocked the bottom out of the fish
market. Even in the best of times
the fishermen along the Carolina
coast have a limited cash Income.
Their real income the wealth of
crabs, fish, clams, terrapin, ducks,
geese, brant, oysters and shrimp
provided by nature and their
flocks of poultry, pens of pigs and
wandering cattle is something a
salaried worker well can envy.
, Doctor. Ben turned bill collector
In those threadbare years. Faced
with a hospital grocery bill of
$1,300, he dunned patients for bills
long due. And he took payment in
kind, frequently walking into the
hospital pantry with an armload
of hams to tell the cook "Here is
a gall bladder, a caesarean section
and one Ingrown toenail."
From 1918 until 1940, the 26-bed
hospital served the medical needs
of Morehead City-Beaufort. Then
things began to happen,
war Cornea to Morehead
That year scarcely had gotten;
under way when Ben Royal recog
nized that his hospital was located
smack in the center of one of this
country's major defense areas.
Few weeks passed without the j
Army, -Navy, Marines or Coast j
Guard announcing a new installa
tion in the vicinity of Morehead
City.
You get an idea of the extent of
this program when you consider
what actually was built and in
operation by 1944. Tlrnrc whs
Cherry Point, one of the world's
largest air fields, 18 miles away.
Cherry Point whs capable of quar
ering 50,000 men, and Camp Le
Jeune, only 33 miles from More
head Ciy, had facilities for 70,000
Marines. The Marines also had air
area adequately. Then in 1941
strips at Atlantic and Bogue
Fields, each staffed by 1,000 men.
There were 500 Marines at the
gunnery range near Salter Path on
the Outer Banks. The Army kept
500 men at Camp Branch on the
outskirts of Morehead City and
there were 200 artillerymen at
Cape Lookout and another 700 at
Fort Macon. The Coast Guard had
1.000 men patrolling the beaches
between Ocrncoke and New River
Inlet and the U. S. Navy frontier
base in Morehead City was man
ned by 350 men.
Along with the troops there were
the hosts of civiliiin workers and
the wives and families of the
servicemen. Doctor Ben saw this
concentration building up, he look
ed at his 26-bed hospital and he
hollered for help.
Throughout lale 1941 and early
1942 Ben Royal gigged every pos
sible source of funds with long let
ters in which he explained the des
perate and growing need for ad
ditional hospital space. There was
no local money. Both Morehead
City and Carteret County had de
faulted on their bonds during the
depression.
On February 2, 1942, Graham A.
Barden, Representative from the
Third District, wjred Doctor Royal
that the Federal Works Agency
would advance $54,000 toward a
15 bed hospital annex. But the of
fcr came too late.
Sometime during the following
week the first American ship was
torpedoed off Morehead City. From
that red day and for the remain
ing months of 1942 the Carolina
coast, from Ilatteras south to Bo
gue Inlet, was a battle ground.
Since the days of the windjam
mers the Ilatteras Light has been
the sighting point of north and
southbound coastal traffic. The
ships moving south run a course
between land and the Gulf streum
(to avoid the speed loss caused bi
this north-running ocean river)
and at Hatteras they come withjrj
10 miles of land. Moreover, the
Cape Lookout bight was used as
a convoy concentration point. .It
was an ideal hunting ground for
the German U-boats.
They made the most of it. Some
250 ships were sunk in those w
ters. In Morehead City you coulfl
look out toward the eastern hor
7.on and watch as many as thrjee
vessels flame and sink on a single
night.
The windows of the Morehead
City hospital rattled with the blasts
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