Super Salesman—
Came To See And Stayed To Sell
By EUGENE FAULON
Young men and young worn
men in high school and college
have no stories to tell; or rather
have no completed stories be
hind them. This is natural
enough, since they are, in a
manner of speaking, just begin
ning their journey. But you take
Long Beach and Tranquil Har
bour now, these are places of
refuge and rest. Among its
citizens are numbered many snc- i
cessful people, retired. Memories
are long, and the roads traveled
have been many.
To this resort hard by the sea,
these people have come from
near and far, and their number
increases daily. One reason the
flood continues to make ingress
upon Southeastern North Caro
lina’s finest strand, and shows
no sign of abating, is a man
named Ed W. Morgan. This fel
low with the blue eyes and the
husky shoulders has something
in common with most of the
visitors to Long Beach. He came
here almost 8 years ago, him
self a visitor; was captivated by
the siren song of the sea, and
remained to become sales mana
ger for the Tranquil Harbour
section of the beach. Morgan, in
selling thousands of lots to satis
fied customers, has sold himself
but strongly.
“This place sells itself,” he in
sists. “All I do is take pros
pective clients out and show
them what we’ve got. They come
to the coast by preference. We’ve
got exactly what they are looking
for-high, dry lots situated be
tween the Inland Waterway and
the Atlantic Ocean.”
In between selling Tranquil
Harbour lots, Morgan has time
for the consuming passions of
his life-hunting and fishing, with
the emphasis upon the latter. His
exploits in the last field are leg
endary. Readers of The Pilot will
recall several of the off-beat
fishing tales of this star real
estate salesman. The time for
example when Morgan trailed a
large flounder from its bed in
Davis Creek to shallow water,
where he leaned over the bank
in a quick move, to literally stab
the fish to death with a Barlow
knife. And the magical night
when the Pied Piper of Tranquil
Harbour actually sang small
schools of shrimp and fish into
Morgan The Fisherman
Here is one of the typical flounder catches made
by Ed Morgan in the waters of Davis Creek. His ad
miring visitor is Clint Bellamy.
an open Doat on Uavis Creek.
Both of these implausible outdoor i
dramas are fully authenticated, i
What brought Morgan to Brun
wick County to begin with ?
He smiled at the question. “I
wanted to see the ocean,” he
said. “You see, although my an
cestors were Tarheels, I was a
mountain boy by birth .... I
suppose you could call it a
‘sentimental journey, back home."
Questioning brought out the
following facts: Morgan’s fore
bears left North Carolina in the
great Western trek. They fol
lowed the Wilderness Road, which
began just this side of the Great
Smokies and advanced through
virgin country, north and west
into Kentucky. The very same
road blazed by Daniel Boone-he
of the restless feet and the long
rifle.
Traveling, family-style, was a
rugged pursuit in those days, and
many of the travelers-including
some early Morgans - sort of
gave up hope after coming face
to face with yet another range
of mountains, called Cumberland,
after the raging mountain stream
of the same name. Building a
cabin in the heart of the Cum
berlands, once the fall leaves be
gan to swirl, the pioneers decid
ed to spend the winter in the
sheltered cove they had selected.
But April came in as days of
mist and soft rain. The laurel
stirred. The skies were high a
bove the purple hills. Kentucky
awoke that spring, as a fair
fair young girl skipping without
care in meadow-grasses tall, “we
will go no further,” the Morgans
might have said to each other;
“particularly since we do not
know what lies beyond . . . .
could be an unending mass of
mountains, filled with savage In
dians and with no semblance of
a trail”.
Leslie County they named it
much later. And here Morgan
was born, near the county seat
of Hyden. Shortly after the turn
of this century, a young gradu
ate engineer from the Bluegrass
bastion of Lexington went up in
to the Cumberlands in search of
coal veins. History does not re
late what success, if any, John
Fox, Jr., had with the black gold,
but he gave America its first
peek into one of this country’s
most remote and picturesque re
gions, the Kentucky hills.
He wrote of stories, partly
based on observation and facts,
filled with the peculiar idiom of
the Kentucky mountaineer, the
rifle-ambuscades staged by the
fuedists; stories such as “The
Trail of the Lonesome Pine” and
“The Little Shepherd of King
dom Come.”
This then, was the country
which shaped Ed Morgan. The
Tranquil Harbour booster was in
business up in Leslie County for
a number of years, but things
seemed to grow tired almost
over night. Coal began to peter
out. Whole hamlets became de
serted. Worse of all. according to
Morgan, who certainly should
know, the game and fish, once
plentiful enough to earn the Blue
grass State the nickname of
Happy Hunting Grounds among
the redskinned inhabitants, began
to fail alarmingly. Morgan wrote
the Department of Game and
Conservation in D. C., asking to
be directed to more unspoiled
outdoor paradise. The answer
was immediate. Go to the Coas
tal Plains of North Carolina, it
read. And the Kentuckian heeded
the advice. Let him tell what he
found in his own words:
“I drove to Wilmington, then
to Southport. Liked the town.
Hung around a day or two .and
heard of Long Beach. Drove over
there. Caught 50 pounds of fish
that first day - not in a boat,
mind you, but fishing from a
bank on Davis Creek.”
This was in 1954. Morgan re
mained at Long Beach for two
weeks. Then he rented a house
along the oceanside, drove back
to Kentucky, packed his belong
ings and moved his wife and
two children to Brunswick
County.
Four and one-half years ago
he went to work as a salesman
at Tranquil Harbour. And how
did his family take this removal?
“We are all situated,” says the
sales manager, “as close to heav
en as ever mortals dare in this
life.”
The interview up to this point
had taken place in the sales of
fice at Tranquil, but moved to
the Morgan home - located in
Tranquil Harbour of course, and
owned, not rented.
Here some additional pertinent
data was located. Perhaps most
interesting of this was a volume
of genealogy, a tracing of the
Morgan family tree, which vol
ume included a certain John
Hunt Morgan. He was a military
man. A pretty successful one at
that, rising to general in charge
of cavalry; the finest cavalry
which ever sat horse in these
United States - the Confederate
Cavalry. Gen Hunt was a great,
greatuncle of Ed Morgan. There
was a picture of the soldier. Be
neath his beard he resembled his
great, greatnephew.
Known as the Thunderbolt of
the Confederacy, General Morgan
led his hard-driving horsemen
on paralyzing sorties against the
Yankees. Hit and shock treat
ment was their specialty. And
there’s the story which relates
to shooing. This had nothing to
do with horses, either. Seems
Gen. Morgan’s feared raiders
swept behind the Union lines one
fine afternoon to capture a train
following a brief but fierce en
gagement which was broken off
when the yankees rode hell-for
leather away from the sabre
swinging warriors in gray, with
their daredevil riding and their
strident Rebel yells.
The train was bearing a ship
ment of new shoes and boots for
the Northern soldiers. Morgan’s
raiders dismounted following the
battle long enough to exchange
their worn cavalry boots for
brand new ones fresh from
Massachusetts factories. The en
tire train was then switched and
sped south - to furnish footwear
for the Confederate footsoldiers,
desperately in need of them.
At Ed Morgans home also, a
newspaper with the rather re
markable name of THE THOU
SAND STICKS, turned up, Hap-'
pened to be a copy of that
periodical, published weekly,
which serves Leslie County, Ken
tucky.
And there’s a story behind the
name of the paper, a story re
dolent with the breath of the
Kentucky mountains. A region
called, in the days of Daniel
Boone, Esquire “The Dark and
Bloody Ground.”
What does the title signify, if
anything? Well, a number of
years back an Indian armory was
discovered in one of the lime
stone caves which dot Eastern
Kentucky. In the dry, curative
airs of that labyrinth more than
a thousand arrow shafts were
still stored intact. No one knows
how long they had remained
there. But that they were arrow
shafts indeed, was proven by the
fact that in a nearby passage in
the same cave, more than a
thousand arrowheads were found.
It was an arsenal of antiquity,
and well for white intruders or
members of hostile tribes that
these had never been assembled
and used. The paper on its in
ception in Leslie County, drew
upon this bonafide source of
folklore for its name.
The limestone caves of Ken
tucky in their time have been
utilized by other than redskins
for armories. The pure waters
issuing from limestone strata
have given the state an undis
puted leadership in the produc
tion of burbon whiskey. The
combination of corn, limestone
spring water and skill, combine
to make a drink which, served
cold and with the essence of
mint, has gained favor all over
the civilized world.
And there’s sadness in lime
stone caves to. In 1925, a lanky
25-year-old mountain boy named
Floyd Collins entered just such
i Kentucky cave in search of
a pet dog which had chased a
fox into it, and had failed to
return.
Collins was alone. But he inch
ed into the narrow entrance cal
ling loudly for his dag. Perhaps
t was the noise; perhaps Floyd
iislodged a small boulder in
making his way into that gloomy
subterranean hole in a hillside.
Whatever the reason, the pas
sageway crumbled suddenly,
sending huge boulders down from
some hidden height. One of the
•ocks fell across Collins' legs,
winning him helplessly.
They found him after a serch
:he following day, still alive and
able to talk to them across a
mass of lodged rocks and dirt.
They began to dig furiously,
miners, woodsmen, neighbors.
But the hole kept caving in. The
National Guard were called out.
Mining experts from all over the
and came pouring into Cave City
Continued On Page 4
Waterfront
"The more fishing we have
the better we like it”.
We thought we were hearing
things when Hal Reeves said that
to Bill Sharpe Monday when the
State Magazine editor was visit
ing at Boiling Spring Lakes.
“That’s right,” Bill coarborated
“in these stocked ponds you have
to keep them fished out or they
don’t do well.”
We were still unconvinced, and
thought that both of them were
spoofing us.
“Your best fishing always is
from a new pond.” Bill declared
with more authority than is be
coming to a man who does pre
cious little freshwater fishing.
“After a couple of years, things
tend to settle down and the fish- I
ing isn’t near as good as it is
the first year or two."
“That's why fishing in our
lakes is so good now,” Hal re
minded us. “Those 400,000 finger
lings we released last year are
hungry and looking for food.
And that accounts for some very
good catches that have been
made out of our big lake with
in the past few days.”
At this point. Art Huntley
as
got in on the act, and he is a
man who has caught many a
fish out of the lakes, both be
fore they were stocked and since
then. “There always were plenty
of big jackfish out here,” he
said, "but now there is a variety
that will make a freshwater
fisherman drool.” We asked if
they had a picture of either of
two good Sunday catches, but in
the excitement of having a big
crowd and a real, live elephant
on hand no shots had been taken.
“I’ll get you one.” Huntley
volunteered, "even if I have to
catch them myself. I'm tied
Sown this week while Phil King
is busy getting ready for his sale.
But when he gets back I’ll see
if I can get something good
enough for a newspaper photo.”
One of the fellows who was
having the good luck Sunday
was Guy Shuler, who knows the
place well and who is a good
fisherman-fresh or salt water.
The Poindexter family of South
port had the other string of fish
that created quite a bit of com
ment.
Candidate for State Senate
I wish to announce that I am a candidate for
the Democratic nomination for State Senator from
the 10th State Senatorial District.
I have had the honor to serve for one term
as a member of this body, and I will appreciate
your vote and active support in behalf of my
candidacy.
RAY H. WALTON
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