In May of 1938, a young woman named Muriel L. Wolff spent several weeks interviewing people in Terra Ceia, a community of Dutch immigrants, African Americans, and other settlers who had all come to that part of the North Carolina coast to try to make a new home in hard times.
Environmental History
Logging in the Great Dismal Swamp
Today I want to highlight two historical photographs of loggers in the Great Dismal Swamp. In the foreground of one of the photographs, we can see a man named Willis Warren Powell. His great-grandson shared the photographs and his family's stories with me.
Logging on the Lockwood Folly River, 1943
In this group of photographs, we see two young black men unloading a truckload of logs onto a barge at a landing on Lockwood Folly River in March of 1943. (Part 13 of my "Working Lives" series.)
On the Diamond Shoals Lightship, 1939
In the sixth photo-essay in my "Working Lives" series, I am looking at historical photographs of the captain and crew of the Diamond Shoals Lightship, on duty 20 miles out at sea off Cape Hatteras.
Mending Net at Hatteras, 1939
In this fourth photo-essay in my "Working Lives" series, we can see a quartet of Hatteras fishermen getting their gill net ready for fall fishing: patching holes, mending tears. The date is August 1939.
At a Cotton Gin in Dunn, 1938
In this third photo-essay in my "Working Lives" series, I am looking at the Tart brothers' cotton gin in Dunn and the cotton fields of Harnett County in 1938.
The Sawmill Workers of the Roanoke River, 1938-1939
In this second photo-essay in my "Working Lives" series, we go inside a sawmill, a handle mill, and a veneer plant that were located on the banks of the Roanoke River in 1938 and 1939.
In the Peanut Fields of Edenton, 1937-1942
This is the first photo-essay in my series "Working Lives: Photographs of Eastern North Carolina, 1937-1947." In this photo-essay I am looking at a group of 21 photographs that chronicle threshing time on a peanut farm near Edenton, N.C. in the years just before the Second World War.
“The Huckleberry Capital of the World”: Sampson County’s Wild Blueberries, 1850-1950
As I drove along the Black River, I thought about the history of Sampson County's once legendary wild blueberries. Long before the country's first blueberry farm was established, the county's wild blueberries were famous as far away as New York City and Boston. Locals called them "huckleberries." In the rest of the world, they were known as the "Sampson blues."
Our Coastal Heritage: Past, Present, and Future
This was my keynote address at the North Carolina Coastal Federation's "Coastal Summit" in Raleigh, N.C., April 8, 2025.
“The Beach is Lined with Crab Camps”
When the mailboat Violet arrived in Marshallberg, News & Observer correspondent C. J. Rivenbark discovered a whole village where life seemed to revolve around soft-shell crabbing.
Canning Sea Turtles, Marshallberg, N.C., 1938
In this photograph, we see workers slaughtering and canning sea turtles at a cannery in Marshallberg, N.C., in September 1938. (This is the 26th photograph in my photo-essay “Working Lives.”)
“It Was Like a Ballet”: Menhaden Fishermen at Work, 1947
In this photograph from the State Archives, we see a crew of menhaden fishermen at work in the waters off Morehead City and Beaufort, N.C., in 1947. They have tied their purse boats up against the mother boat after making a set and are beginning to load their catch onto the mother boat.
Lifting a Purse Seine onto a Net Reel, Beaufort, N.C., 1944
In this photograph, we see fishermen raising a purse seine onto a net reel at a menhaden factory in Beaufort, N.C., December 1944. They are standing in one of their crew's purse boats and another fisherman, or a factory hand, is turning the reel and lifting the seine onto the reel.
In the Galley of the Menhaden Boat Dewey
In the African American communities that were home to menhaden fishermen-- in Morehead City and Beaufort, in rural communities such as North River and Harlowe, and in fishing ports up and down the coast-- it seemed like everybody lost a loved one when the Parkins went down.
The Menhaden Boat C. P. Dey
In this unfortunately rather blemished photograph, we see the menhaden fishing boat C. P. Dey at the docks in Morehead City, N.C., looking well-used but tidy, her purse boats in good view, November 1942.
The Wallace Fish Factory, 1939
This is the Charles S. Wallace Co.'s menhaden factory in Carteret County, N.C., 1939. The factory was located three miles west of Morehead City, on Bogue Sound, just opposite the site of the county hospital today.
When Fishermen Harvested Seaweed: The Agar Industry in Beaufort, N.C. during the Second World War
This is the story of seaweed harvesting on the North Carolina coast during World War II and of a wartime crisis that led to the construction of a factory in Beaufort that turned that seaweed into agar, a jelly-like substance that was critical for making vaccines, treating infections, and diagnosing diseases.
Working Lives: The Herring Fisheries at Plymouth, N.C., 1939
This is a special group of photographs that were taken on the Roanoke River, just west of Plymouth, N.C., in the spring of 1939. Now preserved at the State Archives in Raleigh, they show the last days of two of the oldest herring seine fisheries on the North Carolina coast.
“A Collection of Log Huts, Inhabited by Fishermen”: Stumpy Point, 1888
Traveling down Pamlico Sound in 1888, a New York Times correspondent found "a collection of log huts, inhabited by fishermen" at Stumpy Point, N.C. He wrote, "The ground on which these huts are built is so boggy that the lowest tier of bunks . . . is generally half full of water."
The Road to Mashoes
Today I am focusing on the history of Mashoes, a fishing village, now almost gone, that sits on a remote and solitary hammock on the mainland of Dare County, North Carolina, in a place of breathtaking beauty.
The Land of the Longleaf Pine
My friend Tom Earnhardt recently sent me an extraordinary array of photographs from The Nature Conservancy's Green Swamp Preserve, a magical place famous for its longleaf pine savannas, its wild orchids and its carnivorous plants.
Making a Way: Photographs of the Army Corps of Engineers on the North Carolina Coast, 1930-1932
Dating from 1930 to 1932, an extraordinary photograph album gives us a rare, up-close portrait of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' dredge boats and their crews on the rivers, canals and sounds of the North Carolina coast.
The Last Days of the East Dismal Swamp
I have written this as kind of an on-line history exhibit. The story starts with a short introduction, then features more than 40 annotated photographs and other images illustrating the last decades of an ancient swamp forest that was once located on the North Carolina coast.
Wharf Pilings and Sawdust: Visiting the Lost Villages of Hyde County, N.C.
More than 50 years ago, a high school history teacher named Morgan Harris and his students at Mattamuskeet High School created what I believe are the only surviving maps of four lumber mill villages in Hyde County, N.C.
David Cecelski 