Tracing Cape Fear 

 Legend and Lore 



By Carta B. Burgess 



Nearly two centuries of Cape Fear 

 history sleep beneath the canopy of 

 oaks, dogwood and Spanish moss in 

 Wilmington's Oakdale Cemetery. The 

 tiny lamb that shelters 6-year-old 

 "Annie," the mausoleums as big as 

 houses and the mass grave of Confed- 

 erate soldiers tell the story of this river 

 town. 



Just west, the river and its main 

 tributary from the northeast converge 

 and begin a 30-mile southern journey 

 to the Atlantic Ocean. 



In the days when rivers were 

 highways, the 200-mile Cape Fear 

 connected New Hanover to a family of 

 inland counties and their commercial 

 offspring. In 1853. it was said to be the 

 outlet for the products of more than 28 

 North Carolina counties. Through its 

 mouth at the Atlantic breathed vital 

 trade between the West Indies, Spain 

 and other ports of call. 



As the wind whips around granite 

 crosses and white stone angels in 

 Oakdale's 160 acres, one can almost 

 hear voices whispering the Cape Fear 

 legend. Wilmington owes its existence 

 to the river, whose waters carved this 

 high, dry outpost for early settlers and 

 their ancestors. 



The river put New Hanover County 

 on the map and in the history books. 



In Oakdale lies Rose Greenhow, a 

 rebellious woman and Confederate spy 

 who drowned while attempting to run 



the federal blockade at Fort Fisher, 18 

 miles south of Wilmington. When 

 President Lincoln ordered his navy to 

 block all Southern ports, the inlet there 

 provided vital access for blockade run- 

 ners bringing supplies through the 

 town, the last major Southern port to 

 fall. 



Through this breach, swift, 

 shallow-draft vessels with such names 

 as Beauregard, Banshee, Spunkie and 

 Night Hawk fueled General Lee's 

 Richmond army and the ire of federal 

 officials. 



One night in 1863, another woman 

 who desperately wanted to visit her 

 son in England boarded the blockade 

 runner Advance leaving Wilmington for 

 Nassau. Anna Matilda McNeill Whistler 

 was born in Wilmington, where she 

 lived much of her childhood. A widow, 

 she had just visited her other son, a 

 Confederate army surgeon in Rich- 

 mond. 



Mrs. Whistler's journey was safe. 

 Her son "Jamie," an artist, took her in 

 to his London home and later immortal- 

 ized her in a painting he called "Ar- 

 rangement in Gray and Black." Most of 

 us know it as "Whistler's Mother." 



War and commercial traffic 

 benefited from New Inlet, which was 

 cut by a hurricane in 1761. But al- 

 though this second mouth made 

 Wilmington more accessible, it let in 

 sand and silt with every change of the 

 tide. The river's channel was barely 9 



feet deep under the most favorable 

 conditions. 



After the war, talk of closing the 

 inlet resumed. 



Henry Bacon, whose grave marker 

 can also be seen in Oakdale, supervised 

 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' late- 

 19th-century construction of the 

 "Rocks," a rubble stone dam across 

 New Inlet and nearby swashes. More 

 than 181,000 cubic yards of stone were 

 used in the New Inlet dam, equivalent 

 to a wall 8 feet high, 4 feet thick and 

 100 miles long. 



To date, Bacon's enterprise is 

 considered the most outstanding Corps 

 project in the South Atlantic. Bacon's 

 son, Henry, buried nearby, is also 

 credited with a memorable structure. 

 He was the architect of the Lincoln 

 Memorial in Washington, D.C. 



Other graves reveal less celebrated 

 names, but famous stories. The tugboat 

 captain who lost his life fighting a fire at 

 Front and Dock streets, buried with his 

 dog who tried to rescue him. A young 

 girl who died at sea, preserved for 

 burial in a cask of rum and whiskey, 

 seated in a chair. 



A Confederate soldier cast in 

 bronze guards the grassy repose of his 

 comrades near Oakdale's front gates. 

 Outside, the ghost of Cape Fear past 

 dances about olden streets and the 

 wrecks of wooden ships beyond the 

 river's bank.* 



Engineer Henjy Bacon Sr. (in white 

 beard and long coat) supervises the 

 construction of "The Rocks" below 

 Fort Fisher. 



Reproduced Courtesy of the New Hanover County Museum of the Lower Cape Fear 



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