Newspapers / The Coastland Times (Manteo, … / Feb. 27, 1953, edition 1 / Page 1
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VOLUME XVIII NO. 35 INTERIOR DEPT LENDING AID TO « GETTING FERRY National Park Service Joins State in Effort to Obtain Landing Craft for Oregon Inlet If the State Highway Commis sion is successful in getting a boat suitable to handle Oregon Inlet ferry traffic this year, it will be due largely to the National aPrk Service which was responsible this week in getting the Secretary of the Interior to request of the Navy Department, one of its idle land craft now in storage, so that it may be converted into a ferry boat. The only possibility of getting such a craft appeared to be upon request of a Federal Department. The state had exhausted its efforts to find a boat to relieve the acute situation at Oregon Inlet. This week A. C. Stratton of the Nation al Park Service requested that the Director, Conrad Wirth, appeal to Secretary McKay of the Interior Department to make the request. Mr. McKay came to the rescue, and aided the Highway Depart ment. Senator Willis Smith inter vened also in behalf of the proj ect. If the suitable boat is located among Navy surplus craft, it will require several months for conver sion. With its three motors, it can cross Oregon Inlet in ten minutes, carrying 22 cars. DARE TIMB’RLAND OWNERS EARN 91 MILLIONS IN ’52 W. Va. Pulp & Paper Com pany Announces Plans For Development The role of the North Carolina Woodlands of Dare County in West Virginia Pulp and Paper Com pany’s raw material supply pro gram is explained in the com pany’s annual report released to day to stockholders and employ a,. ?s * W*- The North Carolina Woodlands nclude about 150,000 acres ac quired by the company in 1952. William Ernst, Jr., with offices in Manteo, is manager of the tim berlands. In his letter to stockholders, Da vid L. Luke, Jr., president of the company, stated: “The paper industry is still al most completely dependent on wood as its primary raw material. While others and ourselves are constantly examining possible al ternative raw materials, there is still no other known source of fiber which is both as effective and as economical as wood for paper making uses. We anticipate that this will be true for some time to come. “Therefore, when we can do so on an attractive basis, we add to our holdings of timberlands. In general, during the past year prices for such lands were so high as to make possibilities for furth er purchase unattractive. Howev er, in Dare County, North Caro lina, our wood department did find the opportunity to purchase rough ly 150,000 acres of timberland at a price low enough to make pos sible what we hope will be a rea sonable return on the investment. The price was low becausd of un certainties regarding accessability and drainage of the property. Therefore the purchase involved a calculated risk, but so far our initial assumptions appear sound and we expect that this property will provide further assurance of a wood supply adequate for our future needs.” In a section of the report devoted to problems of raw material sup ply it was stated that the North Carolina property, long idle and to some extent damaged by fire in the past, will now receive the same careful control devoted to the com pany’s other major timber hold ings, more than 400,000 acres in South Carolina known as The Southern Woodlands. Very little wood is being cut on JT he company’s Southern Wood ands because, at the present time, in common with the rest of the in dustry, the company is able to pur chase most of its pulpwood re quirements from independent sup pliers such as small woodlot own ers and farmers. As a result of this situation, much of the com pany effort is devoted to develop ing these lands as a source of fu ture supply. Through such management prac tices as systematic cutting only in balance with growth, planting where growth is sparse, elimina tion of inferior trees and good fire protection over a number of years, the Southern Woodlands now are in excellent condition, the report See PLANS, Page Four THE COASTLAND TIMES PUBLISHED WEEKLY IN THE INTEREST OF THE WALTER RALEIGH COASTLAND OF NORTH CAROLINA SAUNDERS MOVING UP WITH AVIATION MAG. Rl I I I I I I The son of a famous newspaper editor, W. O. Saunders of Eliza beth City, now living in Wash ington, D. C., and in the aviation magazine publishing business, is rising all the time. Keith Saunders, formerly leg islative editor is now American Aviation's news analyst. This ti tle means simply that, in Keith’s capacity as managing editor of the American Aviation Daily, he receives all the raw material which comes into the office dai ly in the form of news releases, newspaper clippings, wire re ports, and government agency reports. His judgment of news values is often reflected in the magazine through the close re lationship of the two publica tions. Keith’s background of more more than 20 years of newspaper and magazine writing and edit ing, including eight years of av iation writing, makes him unus ually well qualified for his pre sent post. Educated at Elizabth City (N.C.) High School and at the University of North Carolina, he went to work on his father’s newspaper, The Independent, in 1930, and subsequently work ed for the Raleigh Times as Capi tol Hill reporter, the Oxford N.C. Public Ledger as editor, and the Norfolk Virginian Pilot as gener al assignments reporter. He rea lized his initial goal of working on a metropolitan daily when he joined the staff of the Balimore Evening Sun in January 1945. Assigned to cover industry and transportation, Keith soon be came a frequent visitor at the Glenn L. Martin and Bendix Ra dio Division plants, and the war time Baltimore base of British Overseas Airways Corporation. Before long, he was writing avia tion news almost exclusively, covering aviation events around the U.S.A. When Editor and Publisher Wayne W. Parrish offered him a job in December, 1946, Keith ac cepted immediately. He explain ed his decision later as follows: “American Aviation Publications then seemed to me to be the top outfit in aviation publishing. I figured that aviation was slated to grow into big business and that this company would grow with the industry.” Keith has acquired a well rounded knowledge of aviation in the more than six years he’s been with us, having served as assist ant managing editor of the mag azine, airports editor, and legisla tive editor before becoming man aging editor of the Daily. Though his entry into aviation writing dates back only to 1945, Saunders had an interest in the industry long before that. His fa ther interviewed Orville Wrighi for Collier's magazine in 1926, and in 1927 the elder Saunders became the founder and first presdent of the Kill Devil Hjlls Memorial Association, dedicated to honoring the Wright Brothers and furthering aviation. Kitty Hawk was in the same Congres sional district as Elizabeth City, and Keith’s father enlisted the support of the Congressional Representative from the district in persuading the government to build a fitting memorial to the Wrights atop Kill Devil Hill. Keith is a good friend today of three men actively associated with the Wrights’ 1903 flight: Al pheus Drinkwater, Coast Guard telegrapher who sent the mes sage of the first flights to the out side world; Harry Moore, Virgin ian-Pilot reporter whose story about the flight was believed by few readers at the time; and Capt. Bill Tate, in whose home the Wrights boarded during their experiments at Kitty Hawk. A member of the Aviation Writers Association and the Na tional Press Club, Keith serves as editor of National Aeronautics, monthly publication of the Na tional Aeronautic Association. He See SAUNDERS, I’age Four AYCOCK BROWN PISCATORIALLY IS PREDICTING Prophesies Big Early Mid- Spring Fishing News on the Dare County Coast By AYCOCK BROWN Manteo—Since channel bass have already been reported in the surf and sound .of lower Dare County this year, with several already caught in nets of commercial fish ermen, prognosticators are mak ing the piscatorial prediction that channel bass will show up at Ore gon Inlet earlier this year than usual. Old timers who fish by the tides and swear by the full moon are saying that the first of this species to be taken with rod and reel will be sometime during the last half of March. Thus, the mid-Atlantic coast’s biggest fishing news each year would break earlier than usual. The first channel bass taken by a sportsfisherman trolling at Oregon Inlet in 1952 was landed on April 5. Two weeks earlier on March 23, two channel bass were brought to the beach by surf casters at the Point of Cape Hatteras and by early April the fish were plentiful southward to Hatteras Inlet. Af ter April 5, the fishing was fair in in the surf from Bodie Island to Oregon Inlet, but not as good as it had been during some previous spring seasons when anglers troll ed through literally acres of the big copper beauties ranging from 30 to 55 pounds. Old time guides point out one fact that may bring the first catches earlier this season and that is the March moon which becomes full on the 30th. There is some thing about the tides of a full moon which does something to fish, especially channel bass. They are usually found in larger fish and larger numbers at such periods, and they usually take lures or cut bait more readily during the full moon period. That is what the old timers say. Arrival of channel bass at Ore gon Inlet each spring in recent years has become national news. Outdoor editors throughout the east from Chicago to New York and other metropolitan areas stand by' for the news each year and usually give the story a big play when the first fish is taken and as long as they are being caught with rod and reel. Credit for making the Oregon Inlet and Cape Hatteras channel bass fish ing nationwide news goes largely to the North Carolina State News Bureau. Sportsfishermen coming to the Dare Coast this year will not only find more boats in the fleet and all paved highways which make it pos sible to drive to points near the best sloughs of the surf, but also many additional and new places of accommodations. Dare County Tourist Bureau in Manteo serves as a local clearing house and information source for sportsfishing inquiries, it was stat ed today by L- L. Swain, chairman of the organization. TALENT SHOW MARCH 7 BY PERFORMERS OVER 40 The popular adage “Life Begins At Forty” is to be proven by per formers over 40 years of age on Saturday night, March 7, when a talent show featuring people who have reached that fair age will be put on in the Manteo school audi torium, sponsored by the Manteo Parent-Teacher Association. The show will begin at eight o’clock and a small admission will be charged. Not only are all the performers over 40—two of them are 75 years of age. They will do the numbers they did 10, 20 and 30 years ago when they entertained. Mrs. Ray mond Wescott, P-TA president, asks that anyone wishing to ap pear on the show, who has not al ready been contacted, get in touch with her. All available talent will be welcomed. CANCER CLINIC FRIDAY, MARCH 6 The Northeastern Cancer Clinic will be held Friday, March 6, 1953 in Elizabeth City at the health cen ter with registration from 12:45- 2:00. A free chest x-ray will be given anyone who wishes it along with the examination of the five areas of the body where cancer is most easily found and cured. There are no limitations as to sex, race, physical, or economic status at the center; however, there are age requirements. Women should be 35 or more; men should be 40 or over unless referred by your doc tor, or unless you have one of the seven danger signals or symptoms. No appointment is necessary, but a priority may be secured by writ ing the Cancer Center, Elizabeth City, N. C., for one. MANTEO, N. C., FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1953 DARE COUNTY’S BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS I KS'! v ■ fcl I 1 h s IBL yx-iraa ‘•H? I I ■ * !>• IJfL , 1 ll| ■ n ' t : liigg J HERE’S the group who manages the business affairs of Dare County. Reading from left to right, they are Commissioners Lawrence L. Swain of Manteo, William Lloyd Scarborough of Buxton; Chairman Claude C. Duvall of Manns Harbor; standing Melvin R. Daniels, Clerk to the Board for the past 27 years; James W. Scarborough of Avon, and Willie H. Lewark of Kill Devil Hills. Photo by Aycock Brown. DICK JORDAN QUITS TV FOR LOST COLONY WORK Dick Jordan makes his last ap pearance of the season on WTAR TV Norfolk, Friday at noon and he plans to devote much of this program to the Lost Colony and Dare Coast attractions. He has been featured on the Norfolk tele vision station for the past several monthis and his piano playing and singing has made a hit with TV spectators throughout Tidewater Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Mr. Jordan recently took the $5,- 000 a year job as manager of The Lost Colony. He is currently pres ident of Manteo Rotary Club, and usually active in all civic matters. While his regular daily program is being discontinued due to his other duties he will likely appear on TV programs often during com ing months in connection with pro motional activities for Lost Colony and the Dare Coast area, it was stated. CAPE HATTERAS CITRUS TREES TO BLOSSOM SOON Buxton.—Citrus fruit trees here are scheduled to start blossoming on or about March 15, it was stat ed today by Mrs. Maude White, postmaster at this community. The new blossoms will be coming at just about the time the last fruit are picked from the trees. Orange, grapefruit and tanger ines grow prolifically here in the front and back yards of local res idents. There are also a few lemon and comquot trees in the area. Most of the small trees have been started within the past two years from the plants provided by N. C. Department of Conservation and Development. There are sev eral old trees also, in the commu nity, some 15 years of age. Larg est grapefruit tree is one in the front yard of Mrs. White. This year she harvested about four bushels of fruit from the tree and there are still a few fruit on the tree at present. Tourists now driving to the Outer Banks over the all-paved Nags Head - Hatteras highway are amazed to find citrus fruit growing in profusion here fat north of the citrus belt of Florida and southern states. DARE’S FIRST BEAUTY SHOW OF ’53 SEASON Dare County’s first beauty show of the season will be held here early in May under the sponsor ship of the Manteoa Lions Club. Contestants from every Dare com munity will participate and from the group “Miss Dare County of 1953” will be selected. She will represent this coastal county in the annual Albemarle Potato Fes tival at Elizabeth City during late May and probably enter other con tests in the state. DARE TOURIST BUREAU TO MEET IN HATTERAS Members of the board of direct ors, Dare County Tourist Bureau, will meet in Hatteras on Wednes day, March 16, L. L. Swain, chair man, advises. The meeting will be held in the new restaurant build ing of Atlantic View Hotel at 10 o’clock. This will be the regular spring meeting of the board of di rectors. GROUNDWORK FOR BIG VFW ENCAMPMENT IN DARE COUNTY IN JUNE By AYCOCK BROWN Nags Head.—What the promot ers say will be one of the largest encampments ever held by the North Carolina Department, Vet erans Foreign Wars, will be three days at Nags Head, June 4-7, it was stated here by Earl D. Knauff of Jacksonville who came to make arrangements for opening an ex ecutive director’s office on May 1, several weeks in advance of the gathering which is expected to at tract up to 5,000 persons to the area. First day of the gathering in June will be devoted to activities of the VFW’s “Military Order of the Cootie,” which to this veteran’s organization is similar to the American Legion’s “40 and Eight” order. The state’s grand adjuatant quartermaster of the Order of the Cootie is R. L. Rhodes, Jr., of Fayetteville. Already Rhodes is making arrangements for local ac commodations as are other Posts in North Carolina from the coast to the mountains. Executive Director Knauff stated that rooming headquarters and his office would be located in the Nags Header Hotel. Varied entertainment is being planned for the VFW’s during the four day encampment including dances, fishing contests, boating trips and visits to places of his toric and recreational interest in the area. Easiness meeting during the convention will be held in aud itoriums of Club Casino, the Dare Shrine Club and in the various hotels here on the Dare Beaches and in Manteo. “BARNEY" FISCHER, FORMER DARE RESIDENT, IS DEAD Funeral services for Bernar Joseph Fischer, 60, who died Wed nesday, Feb. 18th at the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Va., were conducted Thursday, Feb. 19th at 4 o'clock at the Twiford Funeral Home Chapel, Elizabeth City, by the Rev. Anthony Thibodeaux, pas tor of the Church of Christ. Bur ial was in New Hollywood Ceme tery. Mr. Fischer was a native of Philadelphia, but had lived in Elizabeth City for a number of years. He was a veteran of World War I, having served in the U. S. Navy. Surviving are his wife, Mrs. Sarah Cartwright Fischer of Eliz abeth City; and one sister, Mrs. Lou McGaraul of Camden, N. J. Mr. Fischer lived for a number of years at Salvo, Dare County. DIAMOND BACK TERRAPIN ARE CAUGHT ON COAST Ocracoke. During warm days here recently a number of hiber nating diamond back terrapins have been caught, according to Wilbur Gaskill. Unusually mild .veather is believed to have caused the terrapins, once considered a rare delicacy, too come out of hi bernation so early. Gaskill caught 75 diamondbacks in one day and Jerd Williams, another islander, has caught about 100 recentlv. Once terrapins brought high prices but the demand is not great today and the price for them is much lower than in the old days. ANOTHER DARE COUNTY BROADCAST PROPOSED Med Maxwell whose radio pro gram “Let’s Go Visiting” is broadcast in 38 states for Allied Mills flew to Manteo today for a 15-minute interview with Dare County Tourist Bureau Manager Aycock Brown. Maxwell’s inter view will be broadcast sometime between now and June 1, and it is scheduled to give this Dare coastal area some excellent advertising as a vacation, sportsfishing and his torical country. With Maxwell came Jay Gould of Radio Station WOWO, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, who also inter viewed Brown about Dare County for an early travel broadcast on a 3-station middle west chain. The interviews included descrip tions of each area in Dare County from Roanoke Island and Fort Ra leigh to Kitty Hawk and Nags Head to Cape Hatteras and the Gulf Stream. In the party with Maxwell and Gould were several technicians and Glenn Peacock, area manager of Allied Mills, makers of stock and poultry feeds. CAPE POINT ROAD GRADING” UND’RWAY ON OUTER BANKS Buxton.—Grading is now under way for a paved road that will ex tend from the new Hatteras Island highway at its approach to Buxton and the Point of Cape Hatteras. The new road, something over two miles in length, is being routed via America’s tallest lighthouse, spir al-painted Cape Hatteras to the point of the Cape. When completed during the summer of 1953, the new spur highway will give an all-weather route for vacationists and tourists wanting to visit the famous light house and a paved road for fisher men going to the point for the jsurfcasting. Previously it was al most impossible for ordinary au tomobiles to negotiate the*sandy trail which the new road will re place. The point of Cape Hatteras, rarely seen by outsiders except fishermen who made the trip there over a haphazard trail, is one of the nation’s maritime wonders. At the Point the surf rolls in from two directions and sometimes dur ing storms from three directions. From the point the dreaded (by mariners) Diamond Shoals extends southeasterly for some 10 miles or more. These shoals, the inner and outer Diamonds, are made up of qu.cksand so treacherous that foundered ships have been known to sink completely out of sight within two or three days after wrecking on same. The shoals are sj shallow at times that it is pos sible for persons to stand on bot tom, several miles offshore and on See ROAD, Page Four MARCH OF DIMES AIDED BY NAGS HEAD HD CLUB One hundred dollars was collect ed for the March of Dimes on 22 miles of beach this year. The proj ect was sponsored by the Nags Head Home Demonstration Club with Mrs. Lewis Mann and Mrs. E. H. Reber in charge of collec tions. The Home Demonstration Club voted to give $3.00 as the first donation made during the col lection period. Single Copy 7< AIR-TIGHT TITLES SELDOM SEEN IN HATTERAS LANDS The Older Generations Left All Legal Questions to Posterity to Untan gle Buxton on Cape Hatteras, Feb. 20.—Six months diligent search through the fragmentary records of land ownership along the 75- mile strip that is to become the Cape Hatteras National Seashore has barely turned up a land title that will pass the grim scrutiny of the Lands Division of the De partment of Justice, who have to nod before money can pass and another six months will likely elapse before the log-jam breaks. There is an easier way to do it but A. C. Stratton, who directs the land-acquisition for the Sea shore project is adamantly con mitted to the hard way because he believes it is the fairway and in the long run the owners of the land will get their money with none or little of it obligated to pay court costs and the fees of the lawyers they would have to hire. Six months after the purchase money was placed in the U. S. Treasury and the Treasury of North Carolina by the administra tors of the estate of the late An drew W. Mellon and the Governor and the Council of State of North Carolina, not a penny of it has been paid out for land. Nor for much else though the relatively negligible cost of the title-search ing and the negotiation with own ers has been charged up to the fund. Up to now it amounts to lit tle more than one per cent of the $1,236,000. Literal fact is that nearly every title yet examined in the area has some sort of a cloud over it, and this is no fault of the owners of the land, Mr. Stratton believes and they ought not to be penalized for something they had nothing to do with. Even the Worth property on the north side of Oregon Inlet has a total of 14 flaws in title that would have arched the brows of the lawyers in the Lands Division who have a rigid book to go by and they go by it. Record-searching discloses that in the neighborhood of Cape Hat teras one land holder has sold the same small tract of land to five different buyers in the course of 25 years-—and that without having a clear title to it himself. Addition ally he leased the mineral rights to seven competing oil companies during the oil boom in 1945 and, currently, he is cheerfully willing to sell the same land to the Sea shore project. But in any case Mr. Stratton is not going to take the easier way with that tract of land until he has exhausted every possibility of es tablishing title to it without going to court. He proceeds on the thes is that, after all, the apparent own er may have a just claim to the land and until he discovers other wise he will continue to search and negotiate. Nearby is another tract that was held in one family for 200 years and distributed from generation to generation by the simple process of the owner calling his heirs to his bedside as he lay dying and apportioned the land among them. No will, no deed. That went on for generations and as of this week Mr. Stratton has discovered a total of 528 lawful heirs. And to complicate the matter further, about 30 years ago one of the heirs sold the land to some people in Philadelphia, and they have since died, leaving about 50 claimants to a tract with a heavily clouded title. About the only deeds to land on the Outer Banks that pass muster are of comparatively recent date and involve lands pur chased from or granted by the State. Up to now the Seashore has not only been unable to buy, but even to accept lands as a gift. The title has to be clear. Up to now the only absolute deed discovered is that by which Mary Gaskins, widow, transferred for SIOO a tract of four acres on Cape Hatteras to be used as the site of a lighthouse. The deed is now in the National Archives in Washington but a photostat of it is here and a part of the record of the Alexander Hamilton Light house. That deed was registeded by the government in the Curri tuck Courthouse. Not only have the Outer Banks been isolated but they have from time to time been in doubt about what county they were in. Earlier deeds are recorded in Currituck, later ones in Hyde and recent ones in Dare county. The island has stayed put but county lines have changed, often as not without the residents of the island knowing it. Their feeling has been “we’ve got the land—what do we need with a deed?” See 111 LES, Page Four
The Coastland Times (Manteo, N.C.)
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Feb. 27, 1953, edition 1
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