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PAMLICO AGE OF

SAILTalk sponsored by Historic Port of Washington

Museum ProjectSat. April 30 2016

11 am NC Estuarium, Water Street, Washington NC

By Gill Hookway- Jones, volunteer

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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

• EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT• SHIPBUILDING in WASHINGTON 1760-1850• THE CIVIL WAR & AFTER INTO THE 20TH CENTURY

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16TH CENTURY

1585 Sir Richard Grenville sponsored exploration of present day Beaufort & Craven counties. Thomas Harriott made the first record of Washington when he published his travels in1590

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16TH CENTURY

Watercolorist John Waite went with Raleigh’s 1584 expedition to Virginia , his map shows ships approaching and Indians in canoes on Pamlico Sound. Another visitor in 1595-86, John White, painted eastern Carolina’s native Americans fishing.

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16TH CENTURY

The Queen Elizabeth II, the replica now in Manteo’s Festival Park on Shallowbag Bay was modeled after ones who sailed to Roanoke Island in 1584 and 1587. The Silver Chalice is a companion smallcraft with 2-3 foot draft, carries max15 people including crew of 5-7 when under sail.. could be rowed or sailed to explore the sounds and rivers. Will be at Bath Town Dock Sat. May 28th, BathFest ‘16

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17TH AND 18TH CENTURYTRADE ROUTES TO & FROM EUROPE

Bath County cr. 1696 was the state’s second oldest county and forerunner of Beaufort, Hyde, and Craven Counties. Bath cr. 1705 was the state’s first town and Port Bath cr. 1716 was the first British-American port of entry seaport town.

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PORT OF BATH 1716-1790PORT OF WASHINGTON EST. 1790

MANY VESSELS SAILED INTO THE PAMLICO RIVER FROM OVERSEAS, THE CARIBBEAN AND FROM 18th CENTURY COLONIAL PORTS UP AND DOWN ALONG THE NORTH ATLANTIC COAST. EACH VESSEL WAS REQUIRED UPON ENTRY OR EXIT TO DECLARE CARGO and PRESENT SHIP’S PAPERS TO PORT OFFICIALS.

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18TH CENTURY COLONIAL SLOOPS MOST COMMON BETWEEN OCRACOKE, PAMLICO SOUND AND THE PAMLICO RIVER

Sloops were relatively small merchant vessels with a single mast, rigged with a fore-and-aft mainsail and a jib foresail on a long angled bowsprit.EXAMPLES: Blackbeard’s Adventure,-a Jamaica rigged sloop, a Bermuda Rigged Sloop Privateer on the Spanish Main, and Continental Sloop Providence , Lieut. Robert Maynard’s sloop Ranger chartered by Gov. Spottswood to kill and capture Blackbeard. One of the first known sloops built in Beaufort County was built on Harding’s Landing, Bath for Governor Cary.

Sloop rigging from Bermuda and Jamaica originally were ideal for the Carolina coast and the Caribbean because rfore-and-aft-sails could more easily sail against or into (beat) against the prevailing winds. Heavier bigger square riggers sailed best with beam and broad reaches so had difficulty sailing directly into the wind. Labelled Sloop Sail Plan from Chamber's Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language (1908)

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PAMLICO COLONIAL WORKCRAFT18TH C. “PICKUP TRUCKS”

BARBADOS PERIAUGER

COLONIAL SHALLOP WORKBOAT

REPLICA PERIAUGER made by the Beaufort Maritime Museum

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WASHINGTON SHIPBUILDING 1760-1850

As early as the 1760s, the construction of single-mast sloops gave way to turning out small multi-mast schooners, most often two-masted. The town was a critical supply center for the Continental Army when Wilmington, Savannah and Charleston were blockaded. By 1783, a visitor said Washington had 40 houses, and the chief occupation was "the building of small ships and vessels." Alexander Hamilton and the Washington port collector Nathan Keais funded building of one of the first ten Continental revenue cutters authorized by George Washington. Diligence was launched in Washington in 1791, and from then until the Civil War, its yards along the sandy Pamlico River banks turned out at least two or three vessels each year. A free black named Hull Anderson owned one of the shipyards there between 1830 and 1841 and owned four slaves who were engaged in his shipbuilding activity. By 1850 Beaufort County was probably the most important shipbuilding center in the state, thus a popular antebellum destination for runaway slaves (the east Carolina maritime Underground Railroad).

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WASHINGTON SHIPBUILDING POST-AMERICAN REVOLUTION

DILIGENCE I was one of the first ten U.S. Revenue Cutters. Built in 1791 in Washington, North Carolina, was commissioned and outfitted in New Bern, NC prior to moving to her permanent homeport of Wilmington in October of 1792. DILIGENCE I distinguished herself by seizing a noted French smuggler in the Cape Fear area. The cutter's original master, Thomas Cooke, and his son, mysteriously disappeared in 1796 never to be seen again, supposedly killed in retribution for interdicting smugglers. The original Cooke home on 4th Street near St. Mary's church in Wilmington is reportedly haunted by the soul of Thomas Cooke.

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NORTH STATE WHIG 21 MAR 1844, THU   PAGE 3 NORTH STATE WHIG 1 AUG 1835, SAT  PAGE 3

THANKS TO rlm FOR ANTEBELLUM PORT VESSEL CLEARANCES!

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THE CIVIL WAR AND AFTERAKA THE RECENT UNPLEASANTNESS

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INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURYTwo Fowle schooners in Barbados

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20TH CENTURY 1906 SCHOONER 6-8 FOOT DRAFT

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20TH CENTURY 1915 ADA MAE SKIPJACK

a floating classroom based in New Bern.

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2000 THE CASTLE ISLAND SHIPS’ GRAVEYARD. ELEVEN VESSELS WRECKED OR ABANDONED1998-2000 Castle Island Field work, Underwater Archeological Site Report BY Bradley Rodgers and Nathan Richards, ECU Maritime Studies, Greenville NC. Online pdf download.

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CASTLE ISLAND CONT’DSKIPJACK

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CASTLE ISLAND CONT’D GRAVEYARD IMAGES

Terrapin SmackPythagoras Schooner, 3 guns and 35 man crew, captured by the Bream

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THE USCG DILIGENCE TODAY STATIONED ON THE CAPE FEAR

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COME SEE HPOW’S MURAL OF THE OLD WASHINGTON WATERFRONT AND THE NEW PAMLICO RIVER DIORAMA FEATURING THE SHARPIE.

HPOW Museum Space 132 S. Market Street, Open Saturdays 9a-1:30 p

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THANK YOU!!FOR

ATTENDINGOur downtown Washington museum space 132 S. Market Street is open 9:30 – 1:30 every Saturday.

Our current exhibits:

Port of Washington Permanent ExhibitWashington Riverfront Mural 1880-1910

Lifestyles of Washington1900-1915

300th Anniversary Port of Bath1716-1790

For more photos of early Washington and history see the Historic Port of Washington Museum Project’s website www.hpow.org or follow us on FaceBook.