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April 21, 2008
Homecoming: A return to Portsmouth Island
By ANNE C. BOWERS
 - Surviving
former residents of Portsmouth Island and descendants of those who once
inhabited the island returned to their homeland on Saturday, April 19,
to remember and honor the island’s history and heritage. About
500 people made their way across the shallow waters of Ocracoke Inlet
for this biennial celebration.
Portsmouth Island is located south of Ocracoke. Before Hatteras Inlet
opened up in 1846, it was a powerhouse in the shipping industry. In
fact, Portsmouth Island was the biggest port in North Carolina, housing
around 1,600 ships in its heyday. Large oceangoing ships traveling from
Europe and the West Indies couldn’t cross over the sandbar to get
to the navigational waters of the Pamlico Sound. It was at Portsmouth
that cargo was off-loaded to smaller boats and carried to the mainland
of North Carolina.
Portsmouth Island was also home to the first building ever built as a
hospital in North Carolina’s history. Smallpox and yellow fever
were contagious diseases to sailors. The sick and dying were left
quarantined on the island’s beaches. The hospital was built to
meet their need.
After the Civil War, the island’s population dwindled. Storms
opened the inlet between Hatteras and Ocracoke, making the deeper
waters of the Pamlico more accessible to larger ships. Additionally,
the railroad system had been established on the mainland. The island
had lost its usefulness.
Portsmouth has been a ghost town for more than 35 years. The school
closed in 1942, and Post Office followed about 10 years later. No
bridge was ever built to connect Portsmouth with Ocracoke. The shifting
sands of time consumed the deeper waters and the only way to get to
Portsmouth was by flat-bottomed boat.
Friends of Portsmouth Island and the Cape Lookout National Seashore
sponsored the 2008 Portsmouth Homecoming. This year’s event was
dedicated to honoring the life-savers. Saturday’s festivities
took place under a large white tent located near the base of the newly
refurbished Portsmouth Life-Saving Station.
Boats carrying the homecoming’s participants starting arriving at
7:30 a.m. from Ocracoke. The Post Office opened a short time later for
business and letters could actually be mailed on this one day. The Post
Office used to double as the general store, and the shelves were lined
with products that were sold back when the village was inhabited. There
was storytelling on the porch of the Visitors’ Center
and hymns were sung inside the quaint church. Most of the
island’s buildings were opened to the public.
At 11 a.m. the official program began. Rev. Joyce Reynolds from the
United Methodist Church on Ocracoke delivered the invocation, and Ed
Burgess, President of the Friends of Portsmouth, welcomed the guests
and recognized the special guests. There were six people in attendance
that grew up on Portsmouth Island. The largest family in attendance was
the Willis family with 43 members present. There was a Portsmouth
descendant who traveled from his home in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, to
be a part of Saturday’s homecoming. The descendants wore name
tags.
Miss Dot Willis briefly spoke to the gathering. She is the last living
person born on Portsmouth. At 87, traveling home for the celebration
was difficult due to an illness. Over the screeching voices of
seagulls, she told the crowd how hard it was to leave her island home
but she said she "couldn’t stay here alone."
Frances Eubanks, granddaughter of island residents, read the history of
Portsmouth over 255 years. In 1753, the North Carolina Colonial
Assembly passed an act to establish Portsmouth as protector of Ocracoke
Inlet and to provide port of entry. It was a maritime town, "liable to
the depredation of an enemy in time of war and insults from pirates and
other rude people in time of peace."
Connie Mason sang a song she had composed for the occasion, and James
Carter read scripture from resident Henry Pigott’s Bible. The
superintendent of the Cape Lookout National Seashore, Russ Wilson,
spoke on the island’s preservation. Lt.Cdr. David J. Obermeir of
the U. S. Coast Guard offered remarks about the Life-Saving Service,
now the modern day Coast Guard, and the island, which are forever
linked in history.
A moment of silence was observed to honor the families of Portsmouth
and the Life-Saving Service while the tolling of the church bell was
heard in the distance.
After Amazing Grace was sung and a closing prayer was delivered by Rev.
Reynolds, all in attendance held hands and sang the psalm, "God be with
you ‘til we meet again." A feeling of oneness descended on the
gathering.
A potluck-style dinner was offered to the attendees. All the food was
made by the sponsors and brought over by boat in plastic containers and
coolers. One of the volunteers noted how difficult it is when the
island has no amenities such as water or electricity.
The afternoon belonged to the Coast Guard. The newly renovated
Life-Saving Station was on display. The strong smell of oil was still
present in the equipment room. People wandered through the old
building, which became operational in 1894. This station was
decommissioned in 1937 but was reactivated after Pearl Harbor in 1945
for war-time coastal observation. During World War II, the Portsmouth
beaches were patrolled by Coast Guardsmen on horseback.
The Coast Guard permanently closed the station in 1945. For a while, it
was used as a private clubhouse for a rod and gun club but was
eventually incorporated into the Cape Lookout National Seashore in
1977. The maintenance division of the Park Service restored this
historic Life-Saving Station.
To celebrate the return of the U. S. Coast Guard to Portsmouth Island,
a historical re-enactment of a breeches buoy was performed by the USCG
Motor Life Boat Station Hatteras Inlet and narrated by James Charlet,
site manager of the Chicamacomico Historical Site in Rodanthe.
Dressed in period garb, Charlet set the scene for the onlookers.
"The average American has never heard of the Life-Saving Service," he
began in a strong voice. "They were peaceful heroes who helped those in
the hour of greatest need. The name has disappeared and so has its
history."
Records show that during the reign of the Life-Saving Service, about
178,000 rescues were made of people whose lives were in peril from the
sea. Amazingly, more than 177,000 lives were saved.
"Rescues always happened in climatic conditions -- storms,
hurricane-force winds, blowing sand and usually at night," Charlet
continued. "What these guys did routinely was unbelievable. They were
the elite of the elite."
The crowd learned that it takes the team about 10-15 minutes to
complete this drill. Once in record time, they did it eight minutes. In
the old days, the lifesavers routinely did it five minutes.
Under the leadership of Chief Boatswain Mate Erik J. Watson, his
nine-person team performed the drill that the Life-Saving Service used
to practice twice weekly and at night once every three months. He shot
a 20-pound projectile over a simulated ship’s mast using a black
powder Lyle gun, the only gun ever designed to save lives.
Through an organized and methodical series of moving heavy ropes, the
team demonstrated how people could be moved one at a time from a
distressed ship to the shore. During a breeches buoy rescue, no crewman
left the shore.
"After all, the last thing you want to do is put another boat into the water during a storm," said Charlet.
This was the first time the breeches buoy drill was performed on Portsmouth Island since 1937.
After the conclusion of the drill, a Coast Guard C-130 flew low over
the crowd in demonstration of the technological advances that
lifesaving has taken over time.
People quickly disbursed, since everyone needed to clear to island
before sunset, and the small boats could only transport a handful of
people on each boat ride. Travel time one-way averaged 20 minutes.
The day had been a glorious one. It was a warm, sunny day that sneaked
into weeks of cool and rainy days. Even the mosquitoes, which are
notorious on Portsmouth, took the day off.
The words of Miss Marian Gray Babb, one of the last inhabitants to leave the village more than 35 years ago, hung in the air.
"There’s hardly a day goes by that I don’t miss that
place....It’s the peace and quiet that’s there, and
it’s home."
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