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SAIL AND STEAM
NAVIGATION OF
EASTERN CAROLINA
.
by F. ROY JOHNSON
.
Line Drawing by EUGENIA JOHNSON
Photographs Largely
by E. FRANK STEPHENSON, JR.
and MARINERS' MUSEUM
.
Published by
JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY
Murfreesooro, N. C. 27855-0217
.
* 1 *
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Copyright 1986
by Johnson Publishing Company
Murfreesooro, N. C. 27855-0217
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* 2 *
CONTENTS
* 3 - 4 *
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ILLUSTRATIONS
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
(Back of Book)
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* 5 *
Part I
* 6 *
As early as 1653 one finds sailing craft, a sloop, visiting the Albemarle Sound. Francis Yardley of Lynnhaven Parish, Lower Norfolk County, Virginia, wrote a friend of a young man's "ample discovery of South Virginia or Carolina:
"In Septembr last, a young man, a trader for beavers, being bound out to the adjacent parts to trade, by being gone to Roanoke, (the Albemarle Sound region) hired a small boat, and with one of his company left with him came to crave my license to go look after his sloop and sought some relief provisions of me, the which granting, he set forth with three more in company, one being of my family, the others were my neighbors. They entered at Caratoke (Currituck Inlet), ten leagues to the southward of Cape Henry, and so went to Roanoke Island. . ."
Several days were spent "going to and fro in the country" visiting the Indians who were persuaded "to come in and make peace with the English."
During the Chowanoke War, in 1677, Captain Zacharias Gilliam and his ship Carolina, "a pretty vessel of some force," arrived in the Albemarle with a plentiful supply of arms and ammunition which enabled the Carolinians to quickly terminate the Chowanoke War.
By 1703 one finds William Gale plying Carolina coastal waters trading with the Indians.
In 1709 John Lawson gave this description of Carolina between Currituck and Cape Fear:
"This part of Carolina is faced with a Chain of Sand Banks which defends it from the Violence and Insults of the Atlantic Ocean; by which Barrier a vast Sound is hemmed in, which fronts the Mouths of the Navigable and Pleasant Rivers of this Fertile Country, and into which they disgorge themselves. Through the same are Inlets of several Depths of Water. Some of their Channels admit only of Sloops, Brigantines, and small Barks and Ketches; and such are at Currituck, Roanoke and up the Sound above Hatteras;
* 9 *
Iron-hull screw steamer Newberne,
built in 1895 for the Old Dominion Line.
Photo courtesy of the Mariner's Museum.
Map of Northeast North Carolina
Whilst others can receive Ships of Burden, as Ocacock, Topsail Inlet, and Cape Fair. . ."
While a visitor to the Carolina coast may have been impressed by "the great network of sizable rivers and creeks" which flowed into the large sounds he would have been astonished when told that these waters were both shallow and cut off from the ocean by a stretch of shallow and hazardous sand reefs.
Navigation of the Sounds
Although North Carolina was handicapped by a dangerous seacoast and lack of safe, deep, harbors most vessels of the eighteenth century would have been able to put in her waters. Such were the sloop, the schooner, the brig or brigantine, the snow and the ship.
The two mast schooner was a fast vessel and the most popular. The average tonnage of schooners clearing from Port Roanoke (Edenton) during the three months ending September 9, 1788, was only twenty-three, the largest registering sixty-one tons, the smallest six tons. The average tonnage for sloops was forty-two, the largest registering one hundred and twenty-four tons, the smallest ten tons. Such small vessels were utilized in the coastal trade, almost never attempting an Atlantic crossing.
Especially small were those vessels plying between the Albemarle Sound and regions to the north. On September 9, 1788 five schooners of an average of nineteen tons sailed from Port Roanoke for Virginia. At the same time five sloops of an average size of forty-four tons left for Maryland. Fifteen schooners averaging twelve tons left for Philadelphia.
Small crews were needed to sail the small craft. Seldom were there more than four, and one small sloop put out with only one.
* 10 *
John Lawson tells us that pereaugers and canoes were used chiefly to pass over the rivers, creeks and bays. These scooped out of the large cypress tree were used to transport lumber from one river to another. Some were capable of carrying thirty barrels. Others were split down the bottom and a piece added thereto and made capable of carrying eighty or an hundred barrels. Several had gone out of the inlets on the ocean to Virginia laden with pork and other produce of the country. Others had been made into pleasure craft. Lawson tells of these vessels:
The brig, usually larger than the schooner or sloop, was a two-masted vessel. The averabe size clearing from Port Roanoke, June 10 to September 9, 1788 was ninety-two tons, the largest being one hundred and forty-five tons and the smallest, sixty-four tons. These larger ships were commonly used for voyages to the West Indies or to the British Isles.
The snow had two masts and the ship, three. These two vessels carried larger cargoes than those of schooners, sloops and brigs.
A Foolish Man
"Some years ago," says John Lawson," a foolish Man in Albemarle and his Son had got one of these Canoes decked. She, as I take it, carried 16 Barrel, but the Officer took him for a Man who had lost his Senses, and argued the Danger and Impossibility of performing such a Voyage in a hollow Tree, but the Fellow would hearken to no Advice of that kind, 'till the Gentleman told him that if he did not value his own life, he valued his Reputation and Honesty, and so flatly refused clearing him, upon which the canoe was sold, "and, I think remains in being still."
* 11 *
The Foolish Man of Albemarle
Line Drawing by Eugenia Johnson
* 12 *
Indian Raises Wind in Sail
Line Drawing by Eugenia Johnson
* 13 *
An Indian Raises a Good Wind
De Graffenreid tells of how his pilot encountered a second hazard upon the sounds. He attested that "as crossing the sound (a great sea in N. Carolina) in a boat, there was such a dead calm that they could not move. An Indian, who happened to be there told him that if he wanted him to do it, he could in a short time raise a good wind. The pilot, who wished for nothing better told him that, since he had none too much provisions, allowed him to act as he pleased, and all at once arose such a strong wind, and they sailed at such a rate, that they were frightened, but had to go, as there was no means of stopping. And so they arrived, nearly in a little while, at the place for which they were bound, not without great risk of a shipwreck; the Pilot told me that in his life he would not use such kind of help again."
In 1768 the Pallatine and Lord Proprietors passed an act to encourage owners of vessels living in Albemarle County: "That all persons whatsoever living in this county having vessels trading to and from the same shall pay but fifty pounds of tobacco for entering and clearing such vessels of what burthen soever if decked at each turn he shall so enter and clear. But those who trade in open boats of what content soever to pay nothing but the certifying the authority of the place of their coming and going.
* 14 *
By Permission of Mrs. F. Roy (Margaret) Johnson
Oct. 19, 2005
Prepared by John McGowan and Other Descendants of Carolina Watermen
Copyright 
2005
Carolina Work Boats Project