Miss Annie Morton

"On July 5, 1893 in Beaufort, North Carolina, in a house on Front Street, a school teacher was born. She was given the name Ann Leone. Her parents were David William and Minnie Stanton Morton. She had two older brothers, William Simmons Morton and James Austin Morton. The name Ann Leone gave way to Annie Lee, but the teacher was known as Miss Annie.
 
"Since there was no public school in Beaufort at that time, Annie was taught by her mother, who had been a schoolteacher. Later she attended Beaufort school, and on May 9, 1911, she was one of four in the first class to graduate after Beaufort High School became public. (The other three members of the class were Lessie Arrington, Gladys Chadwick and Sally Duncan.) Annie Morton graduated from North Carolina College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina and she also took courses in education at Columbia University in New York.

"Her first teaching was at Newport, NC. Then she came back to Beaufort where she taught second grade until 1925. That year the principal of Beaufort High School, C.W.E. Pittman, took a position in Marion, NC. Miss Morton decided to teach in Marion also. A short time after her move to Marion she was asked by Mr. Wright, president of East Carolina Teachers College in Greenville, NC, to be Dean of Women at that institution. She accepted and remained in that office twenty-five years. Following her retirement from ECTC in 1950, she returned to Beaufort and continued to teach, this time fourth grade, for another ten years.

"After her retirement, Miss Morton continued to live in her house on Orange Street, where she kept up a voluminous correspondence with friends and maintained an active interest in the schools. She remembered all of her pupils and was always interested in what they were doing with their lives. She was an active member of The Friends of the Library. She had been instrumental in helping to establish the very first public library in the town of Beaufort.

"Although Miss Morton spent many years of her career in an institution of higher learning, her first love was young children and second grade. She didn’t give her students long homework assignments. Her belief was that short assignments, representative of the work the class was doing, would be sufficient to indicate if the student had grasped the method.

Annie L. Morton died February 3, 1976, a few hours after suffering a stroke, at the age of 82. She was buried in the Morton family plot in Ocean View Cemetery in Beaufort.

"I have written about my second grade teacher. She was my cousin, her mother being my father’s sister. She would talk to me about our grandmother Stanton, whom I never knew. One of her happy memories was that of receiving a treat of brown sugar each time she visited our grandmother’s house (the little house in which I grew up). The brown sugar was kept on hand in a special container, always in the same place. Those were the days before candy became a household staple." - Minnie Stanton Simpson

Miss Annie Morton's pet was a Boston Terrier named Beans. Miss Elizabeth Merwin, who designed the Beaufort plaque, lived around the corner on Ann Street. She created this coat of arms for Miss Annie. Miss Merwin's home was then known as the Jennie Bell House- now the Guy Buckman House. Photo shows Beans at 9 weeks.

A special site has been created for Miss Annie Morton

Charlie & the Terrapins

Local boy Charles Ives "Charlie" Hatsell, born in Beaufort in 1878, became an authority on diamondback terrapins. In 1898 Hatsell became an assistant to Henry Van Peters Wilson, professor and chairman of zoology at the University of North Carolina. Hatsell gained full-time employment by the U.S. Fish Commission, as one of the first “apprentice fish culturists.”

Hatsell assisted Professor Wilson during the summers of 1898 to 1901. Wilson, in 1902, established a Federal Laboratory at Beaufort and was its first director in 1899 renting the Gibbs House on the eastern end of Beaufort. Shortly afterward a lab was constructed on Piver’s Island.

In A History of the Federal Biological Laboratory at Beaufort, North Carolina, Grave’s annual report of 1905 reported that Hatsell, one of the few permanent employees, lived on Orange Street in Beaufort and was in charge of the equipment for collecting and general field work. Graves wrote, “He is an excellent collector and is thoroughly familiar with the animals of the region and the methods by which they may best be collected. Those carrying on scientific work consulted him concerning the material needed and he either directed how, when and where the collecting should be done or, if necessary, collected and brought the material to the tables.”

In 1910, preparations were made at the lab to enlarge the scope of the terrapin work through construction of a new 10,000-gallon tank and two additional concrete ponds. The concern for operations on a larger scale was the lack of a fish and terrapin culturist who could devote himself unhampered by other duties. 

In 1913, however, the problem was resolved when “the opportunities for engaging in propagation work were advanced by the addition of the position of fish-culturist.” Of course, it was none other than "Charlie" Hatsell, “who showed a great deal of natural ability in carrying out the cultural experiments with the diamondback terrapins,” who filled this new position.

In 1923, in a Bureau of Fisheries resident agent’s report, R.L. Barney reported his analyses of “unorganized notes” of past investigators, but noted “the systematic observations carried on under their supervision by Charles Hatsell, the terrapin culturist stationed at Beaufort, N.C., since the experimental work was begun.” Barney praised Hatsell and gave him “the large share of credit for the continuity and the accuracy of the observations of the entire experimental terrapin propagation project” as a result of “his exceptionally careful, energetic and faithful work.”

 

With these excellent commendations from all his associates, Hatsell was made Acting Superintendent of the Beaufort Biological Station in 1921, a post he held until 1925. According to R.E. Coker, Hatsell “had to serve, by special arrangements with the Civil Service Administration, as Director.”

Marie Clawson Franck recalled in The Heritage of Carteret County, that Charlie “rowed to work across Beaufort Channel every day, prior to the building of the bridge, until his retirement, due to failing health. He had personally supervised the raising of 226,000* young terrapins which were released in salt marshes from Maryland to Louisiana. Several shipments were also made to Cuba, Guam and the Pacific Coast.”

"Charlie" Hatsell was the son of Julia Ellen Mace Hatsell and George Andrew Hatsell. He married Marie Ella Clawson, born in 1876, daughter of Mary and Charles Clawson of Clawson’s Grocery.

"Charlie" retired in 1947, after 45 years of service, and several months later was presented with a citation and bronze plaque from the Department of the Interior for his “long faithful and highly distinguished service.”

Beaufort's Connection to the Octagon House

The Hill-Jones House circa 1855 - Cedar Point, NC

The 150-year-old "Octagon House" sits on property that was originally granted by King George III to Thomas Lee in 1713. This land was once an Indian camping ground - evidenced by shell beds and pottery found along the banks of the sound. In 1765, William Hill, from Lunenberg County, Virginia, purchased what had become known as the Cedar Point Plantation – hundreds and hundreds of acres on the White Oak River near Swansboro, then part of Carteret County.

In 1778, William's son Isaac Hill (c.1750-1814) married Elizabeth Hatch (ca.1758-1819) daughter of Revolutionary War Lt. Col. Lemuel Hatch and Mary Fonville. Besides being a mariner, Captain Hill also operated a sawmill and saltworks.

One of Isaac and Elizabeth's sons, John Hatch Hill, born in 1778, grew up on the plantation. On April 17, 1806, he married Hannah Fuller. Hannah died in April of 1823. John then married Hannah’s sister, Catherine Dudley, in August of the same year. Catherine died in October, making Hill a widower twice in the same year. In January 1825, John married his third wife, Abigail Ward.

James Noe House circa 1828

 

John Hatch Hill became a colonel while serving in the Carteret Militia. Col. Hill was a member of the General Assembly (1814-1815) and served as sheriff, coroner and clerk of court of Carteret County. In 1837, Col. Hill purchased the house at 112 Moore Street in Beaufort (now plaqued James Noe House circa 1828, at public auction for only $500). Col. Hill died the same year and was buried in the Old Burying Ground in Beaufort. His last will and testament lists children Catherine, Gaston, Edward and Cicero Ward Hill.

Their son Cicero Ward Hill became a physician and practiced in Beaufort—perhaps using the 112 Moore Street house as his office. 

Col. Hill’s son Edward returned to Cedar Point in 1855 and built the octagonal house on the old family property. The house, possibly built by shipwrights* before the Civil War, was never finished to include a wrap-around porch.

The Hill-Jones House was handed down to it's last owner, John S. Jones who inherited it from his mother Mary Hill Jones , daughter of Edward Hill - the builder.

Even though in disrepair before it's 2001-2004 restoration, the house was built to endure. When built, timbers were cut from choice trees, while copper nails were dipped in oil to rustproof them. The two-story house, built on a brick foundation, is topped with a large cupola which serves to light the upper landing between staircases.

The wide halls still divide the house, both up and down - with staircases going up from both the front and back entrances. There are still six rooms on each floor - some square, some triangular, with four large chimneys arranged so that each room has a fireplace.

In the Hill family for so many generations, the house was donated to the Masons in 1999 and meticulously restored to retain the character of this 1855 structure. A house that was built by slave labor and witnessed the Civil War will now be used as the centerpiece of a retirement community and summer camp.

The above information was gathered from The Heritage of Carteret County, censuses and other online sources.

*Several years ago, when visiting the house and inspecting builder workmanship, Bill Kay was delighted to find a unique “shipwright” touch on one of the large stair rails. He discovered a device known as a "stop water”--one of the workers had put into place something essential for a keel or stem underwater, but not needed for dry land woodwork.

Capt. Matthew Gooding & The Nashville

The Rebel Steamer Nashville
Running the Blockade at Beaufort, NC
Harper's Weekly April 1862
 

Captain Matthew R. Gooding, born in 1830 to Jonathan and Rachel Harker Gooding, was reported to be one of the best-remembered figures of the local Civil War patriots. Gooding and the Nashville ran the Federal blockade of Beaufort harbor and helped destroy Yankee commerce ships at sea. Painted the color of a Hatteras fog and burning smokeless anthracite coal, the long, low-converted sidewheeler was nearly invisible against a wooded shoreline. Captain Gooding died in January of 1863, leaving his wife Rebecca Harker Gooding and four-year-old son Herbert in Beaufort. He is buried in the Old Burial Ground on Ann Street in Beaufort. Information gathered from: Beaufort’s Old Burial Ground by Diane Hardy, Mamré Wilson and Marilyn Collins

Appleton Oaksmith 1825-1887

Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1806-1893) was a poet, fiction writer, editor, lecturer, and women’s rights activist whose career spanned six decades, from the 1830s to the 1880s. She was married at the age of sixteen to a thirty year-old magazine editor and later humorist, Seba Smith, best known for his “Jack Downing” series. They had six sons. When two of the Smith brothers joined in a publishing business in New York City, they named it Oaksmith Publishing Company, joining their father’s last name and their mother’s middle name. The name stuck and became their surname.

Appleton Oaksmith, born February 12, 1825, in Portland, Maine, became one of the most colorful characters of mainland Carteret County. Before the Civil War, Appleton ventured into the shipping business, eventually purchasing several ships of his own.

At the beginning of the Civil War he was indicted for equipping a slave ship. He was jailed, only to escape. Oaksmith was hidden for nine months by his grandmother, Sophia Prince. It was while he was with his grandmother in Portland that he met his second wife Augusta Mason (portrait to right). Oaksmith’s mother spent years trying to procure her son’s innocence finally resulting in a Presidential pardon. Oaksmith then brought his family to Carteret County and was a blockade runner during the Civil War.

In the 1870s, the dreamer, schemer and entrepreneur proposed dredging Neuse River and Beaufort Harbor, building dry docks in Morehead City and developing the nearby beaches into a resort. He bought hundreds of acres on Bogue Banks—an area now comprised by Atlantic Beach and part of east Pine Knoll Shores. Below is an old map that represents some of his holdings.

Oaksmith acquired title to all of his property in the names of his wife, Augusta, and her sister, Ellen Mason. At that time the area was generally referred to as Beaufort, visited by Appleton Oaksmith’s widowed mother, often spending months at a time. Oaksmith was a representative in the NC Legislature in 1874.

On July 4, 1879 Oaksmith decided to take his children on a small sailboat to visit friends. Half way between Beaufort and Fort Macon, the boat accidentally capsized. He lost four of his daughters and also the will to fulfill his dream. It is said that he sat brooding for hours with his lost children's belongings. He died on October 29, 1887 in a New York hospital - his mental condition complicated by paralysis.

(Information gathered from several sources, including Heritage of Carteret County.)

Norcom Family Roots & The 1851 House

In 1851, Edmund Halsey Norcom built his home at 128 Craven Street. In 1984, the house was purchased and moved, to save it from demolition. Divided into four large sections, the structure was moved to the west end of Ann Street, facing Gallants Channel.

Edmund Halsey Norcom's North Carolina roots go back to his 5th Great-Grandfather Thomas Norcom born 1650 in Perquimans, North Carolina - Perquimans was formed by 1668 as a precinct of Albemarle.

Edmund's ancestor John Norcom's name was included in the rare 1715 document below. In 1712, to raise provisions for the Tuscarora war, the government of North Carolina imposed a levy of corn on every tithable in the colony. Tallies of the bushels supplied by the colonists in Perquimans and elsewhere survive as "corn lists”. The top of the document reads:

A Lest of Corne brought in for the youse of the Contry upon the Sowswest 

Side of Pequimens as followeth this 16th of the 12 mo: 1715 and sence When Edmund Halsey Norcom was born to Joseph and Nancy Halsey Norcom in 1824, the Norcom family made their home on Queen Anne’s Creek - below Edenton in Chowan County, North Carolina. At that time Joseph Norcom's plantation was valued at $7,500 and personal property was valued at $29,215.

 
Edmund Halsey Norcom attended the University of North Carolina where he was a member of the UNC Dialectic Society in 1844. He received an A.B. degree in 1847. The Dialectic Society Hall contained many old portraits.

Edmund evidently met Laura Ann Dusenbery while he was a student in Chapel Hill and she was studying in Greensboro. They were married on October 20, 1847—the same year that Edmund graduated.

Laura Ann Dusenbery (c.1826-c.1880) was the daughter of Lydia Davis (1797-1857) and Henry Rounsaville Dusenbery (1794-1852). She was educated in Greensboro, NC, probably at the Greensboro Female Academy.

Laura Ann and Edmund made their way to Beaufort, North Carolina, where they built the main two-story home in 1851. It was built about midway on the first block of Craven Street and was constructed using many structural timbers salvaged from pre-Civil War ships. Edmund became a merchant and ship's chandler.

Edmund and Laura Ann were parents of three sons and three daughters: Alice L. (1849-1864), Henry Dusenbery (1855-1928), Annie Laura (b.1858), Joseph Dusenbery (b.1861), Laura (1864-1865), and Edmund Halsey (1866-1954).

In 1860, Edmund’s real estate value was listed as $8,600 with $18,000 in personal property. 

After Norcom's death, Laura continued to manage the family business with her sons and ran a boarding house. By 1880 she had married Hezekiah Willis (1836-1911), a Beaufort, NC, dry goods merchant. She is buried next to Edmund Norcom under an unmarked slab in the Norcom family plot in the Old Burying Ground, Beaufort, NC.

In 2004 it was discovered that part of one of the largest collections of surviving correspondences from Unionists inside the confederacy was actually written from the Norcom House. These letters were compiled and edited by Michael Smith and Judkin Browning in 2001 in Letters from a North Carolina Unionist. Most of the 1861-1865 Beaufort letters are to Benjamin S. Hedrick from his brother John A. Hedrick, a Unionist and abolitionist who was a United States Treasury Department customs collector in Beaufort, N.C., during the Civil War. John wrote about life in occupied Beaufort, North Carolina politics, war news, and actions of northern soldiers, black recruits, and southern Unionists. He also chronicled day-to-day life including births, deaths, epidemics, celebrations, and fascinating details about life in the Norcom household.

Edmund Halsey Norcom died in 1867. The grave sites of the first generation of Norcom family members in Beaufort can be found in the Old Burying Ground on Ann Street, less than one block from the original site of the family home. The Norcom family owned the home an astonishingly long time, from 1851 until 1984 - 133 years.

*Much of the above information was originally researched by Dr. Erika Lindemann, Professor of English at UNC, Chapel Hill.