A Story of North Carolina's Historic Beaufort

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INTRODUCTION

In writing this book about Beaufort, my hometown now for over thirty years, I wanted to provide the reader with a taste of what the town has been like for more than three hundred years, though it is now changing. In the spring of 2006, a plaqued historic home next to mine was destroyed to accommodate new development. There are changes like this occurring up and down the Inner Banks of our state, particularly along the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds as well as here in the third-oldest town of the state. The destruction of my neighbor’s home was very moving for me. What follows are my thoughts from that day.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

This is the day the Lord has risen. In a few hours I will be attending services at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. I should be grateful and pleased to be able to do so. However, there is an anxiety and fear within me this day that has been building over the past weeks.

It is what is happening in this town, this county, this state, this country and around the world. People today apparently have no regard for others around them, especially when it comes to appreciating their heritage and the history of the community.

When I first came to this charming, idyllic, small town over thirty years ago, it brought back memories of where I was born in Milford, Connecticut, along the Long Island Sound. As a child, I spent some of the happiest days of my life there playing in the clean waters and on the sandy beaches, walking along the narrow streets to and from my grandparents’ home.

In the early 1970s Beaufort was a small dot on the map, as far away from the noise and busyness of the larger cities as one could get. It was the peace and quiet, the folks who cared about each other, who had grown up surrounded by extended family, the water, the fishing boats, the tree-lined streets and the history of this community that made life here so pleasant. What fun to watch the menhaden boats move along Taylor’s Creek and to wake the next day with the smell of money surrounding the village.

Beaufort was a destination, not just a happen to be going byplace.

Change is a constant, like the tides that roll in and out of our channel and along our waterfront. Much of what is happening in our town has been slow in coming. Yet today we find that most people coming to town are interested in owning a home that has little need for restoration, with no yard to keep mowed or flower beds to be weeded. In some cases, bigger is better. Some of the earlier apartments, built in the middle of last century and rented by the month, have now become town houses or condominiums, purchased in a lump sum. There are very few places one can rent, the way graduate students from Duke University working at the marine laboratory, or summer visitors from inland, did in the past.

We have been blessed, however, with the forethought of some citizens who cared about the historic nature of this community and established, in 1974, the Beaufort Historic District that is within the National Historic District. The local district covers nearly the same blocks that were laid out in 1713. In this area, our Historic Preservation Commission governs all changes, additions or deletions to homes built more than one hundred years ago. The commission also receives and approves the plaquing of some of these properties. Unfortunately, the local district does not include many of the other historic structures on the fringes. Some of these homes have been purchased of late, destroyed and replaced by modern houses, with no care or thought as to their history or the families who occupied the properties over the past centuries.

Houses here in town have been moved around like matchboxes, from one location to another, over the years. Older houses may have been damaged by storms or other natural causes, as well as neglect. At one time the owners of the beautiful, large homes built in the late 1700s along our waterfront were occupied by the descendants of the builders. Many have been lovingly restored and preserved. Some have been made even larger by the new owner who purchased the property when the former could no longer afford to pay the taxes.

Some of the smaller cottages built in the eighteenth century still stand today, nearly the same as then. They are somewhat hidden from the ravages of the weather and have survived all these years. It is these large Front Street homes—as well as some smaller ones on Ann Street and many of the cottages—along with the builders and their history, that are the subject of this book.

From its beginning, Beaufort has seen growth, albeit sometimes in small steps. Many of the people who came here and settled the town built the industries that created more growth. Shipbuilders from New England in the 1730s started our large and booming boat-building companies of today. The sea and its mysteries helped establish national and university-wide laboratories for marine study. As time went on, the need for churches, courts and jails, schools, libraries and other businesses was realized. The population grew slowly in the beginning, with a spurt following the Revolution in the early 1800s, and then steadied again until well into the twentieth century. The industries of Beaufort, primarily that of commercial fishing, have dwindled over the years. Fifty years ago or so, the thought of inviting people to visit this historic town was developed and today tourism is promoted and is now the means of living for many in Beaufort and Carteret County.

HISTORY AND FLAVOR

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

The history of this small community in what is known today as Carteret County in the state of North Carolina is long and involved. In the book Beaufort, North Carolina written by this author and published in 2002, there is a full chapter on the discovery of our coast in 1584. As many folks know, Sir Walter Raleigh sent four voyages over several years to the New World. It is supposed that the first settlement in North Carolina was at Manteo in the upper northeastern part of our state.

At a later time, after the Virginia settlement at Jamestown, many curious and daring men in that area explored south into the northeastern part of this state along the rivers and sounds. Some settled in the area that soon became the center of the new province of Carolina. As early as the late 1600s, several of those settlers did further exploration along the sounds of Albemarle, Pamlico and Core. Seeing goodly land protected by large sand banks and with deep water near the mainland, they began buying and settling in the area.

The Lords Proprietors, a group of Englishmen who were in the circle of family and friends of King Charles II in 1676 with names familiar in the states of North and South Carolina—Hyde, Clarendon, Albemarle, Craven, Berkeley, Cooper and Carteret—had extended settlements to the south. By 1696, with interest high in what was happening, the county of Bath was established. Within ten years, the growth was such that the governor’s council, the governor and twelve gentlemen he chose divided the county into three precincts, with two representatives each to the general assembly. Towns that sprang up early on in these new precincts included Edenton in Chowan Precinct, Bath in Bath County, Beaufort in Carteret Precinct and New Bern in Craven Precinct.

A TOWN IS BORN

Beaufort was born in the early 1700s primarily because the powers that be, the Lords Proprietors of England, saw the possibility for a deepwater, safe-haven port. Owners of land in the northeastern part of the colony, in their ever-increasing desire to learn more about their surroundings, came south, exploring the rivers and sounds along the way. At some point these searchers discovered the waters along Core Sound, which lay hidden from the ocean by the sand banks protecting the area. Although the Coree were living here, these Englishmen took it upon themselves to take up the land primarily along the sound by traveling inland a bit through the streams and waterways. Many of the rivers and creeks today bear the names of these explorers.

Based upon research by this author and a paper in 1963 by Charles L. Paul, settlers from the northeastern part of our state began to migrate to the Neuse River, which is a part of the northern boundary of Carteret County. By 1706 some of these folks had even come across the river and made homes there. Exploration and migration continued south until about 1709, by which time people were building homes and businesses around the North River and Newport River.

By 1709 a number of the folks from the northeastern part of the state and even the country of New England had moved into this area. Farming was begun and fishing and whaling were good. Small houses were built to sustain the men and their families, and these folks were supplying food and other commodities to their neighbors to the north along the Neuse River. The Coree and others, however, were not too happy about the invasion of these foreigners and the Tuscarora uprising of 1711 occurred, lasting two years. The uprising was quelled by Indians and militiamen from the South.

Earlier settlers or purchasers of property in this area included Farnifold Green in 1707, John Nelson in 1708, along with Francis and John Shackelford, for whom our Outer Banks is named. Others included John Fulford, Robert Turner and Enoch Ward, who lived and worked here, intent on making a community grow. There were others, such as Christopher Gale, Thomas Cary and Richard Graves, who merely speculated on land along the waters in the precinct.

A further indication of settlement in Beaufort was the order of the general assembly to have a fort built on Core Sound to protect the people from some few Coree Indians lurking about. It appears that Green and Peter Worden of Pamlico River had thoughts about the prospect of a port in the area. Topsail Inlet, today’s Beaufort Inlet, sometimes referred to as Old Topsail Inlet, allowed ships to come into the deepwater harbor from the ocean only two miles to the south. They renamed the Core River flowing into Core Sound on the west side of the town as the Newport River.

STREETS OF BEAUFORT

It was following the Tuscarora War of 1711–13 that the first attempt at mapping the area occurred. Green sold the property he had purchased earlier to Robert Turner of Bath town, who obtained permission from the Lords Proprietors to lay out a map of the town he called Beaufort. In 1713, Richard Graves, an early speculator as well as the deputy surveyor of the province, drew the plot map that was recorded in the office of the secretary of the colony. This map, with some additional lots in Old Town and the creation of New Town, still exists today.

Hungry Town, or Fishtown, drawn by the deputy surveyor of the province, included only 106 lots, beginning with number 1 at the eastern end of the town on Pollock Street. Only two streets, Ann and Broad, are shown running east and west parallel to the waterfront at the south, and only six north-south streets are named. These are, from east to west, Pollock, Queen, Craven, Turner, Orange and Moore. Deeds as early as October 17, 1713, name these same streets and the lots.

Streets were named in honor of many of the English ruling party: Ann and Queen for Queen Anne and Orange for William III of Orange, who had served before Anne on the throne of England. Turner, of course, was to honor Robert Turner, who had the foresight to see the potential of the town. Pollock was named for the acting governor of the colony, Thomas Pollock, who served until 1714. Craven was for a Lords Proprietor, as was the name of the town itself, for Henry, Duke of Beaufort.

ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION

As soon as the map was drawn, Turner began promoting sales of lots and what a boon this port would be to all who lived here. He sold lots to a number of his friends who lived in Bath, such as Christopher Gale, who purchased 16, 17 and 18 on the harbor as well as 52 and 62 behind. Mr. Bellinger bought lots 29 and 34 while a Captain Sullivan purchased 28. James Davis (not the 1800s house builder) purchased 6, 48 and 58. Colonel James Moore of South Carolina bought 31, 32, 33 and 34, while Major Maurice Moore, a hero during the Indian uprising, became owner of 25, 55 and 65. Captain Hale, also of South Carolina, took 30, 56 and 66. Thomas Roper, 4; Thomas Hardine, 46; John Slocum, 21; John Porter, 9 and 10; William Hancock, 33; William Brice, 22; and Captain John Royal of Boston 1, 2, 47 and 57. Apparently all lots lapsed, except those of Gale and Maurice Moore, since they were purchased on speculation.

By 1720, Turner was back in the Pamlico area representing Beaufort County, and particularly Bath Town, in the colonial assembly. He sold the property he had purchased from Green to Richard Rustull for £150. Rustull was one of the first justices in the precinct, as well as being a vestryman for St. John’s Parish, a tax collector, town commissioner, treasurer and customs collector for Port Beaufort. His home, built at Town Creek on the north side of Beaufort and near the road to Newbern, was also used as the first customhouse. This small, story-and-a-jump, gambrel-roof house has been lived in and carefully preserved over the centuries by many local preservationists, including Dr. John Costlow and his wife, Virginia, who have turned the house into a museum of early construction in the past several years. Today the Beaufort Women’s Club is proposing to buy the property and have it relocated to the upcoming Olde Beaufort Seaport at Gallant’s Point.

The Ward-Hancock/Richard Rustull house and early customhouse museum. Courtesy of the author.

INCORPORATION

Ten years after Beaufort was laid out and at least fifteen years after the first permanent settlers arrived, Beaufort was officially incorporated. The major reasons for this were that the town was already laid out, lots were being sold, buildings were being erected and progress was being made in the growth. There was also a petition from the people requesting that the Lords Proprietors establish the town into a seaport.

A quote from the Colonial Records of North Carolina by William L. Saunders states that Governor George Burrington made the following comment regarding the incorporation of the town: "This