A HISTORIAN'S COAST 



Henry Ansell's 

 Recollections of Knotts Island 



By David Cecelski • Photos by Tommy Lewark 



A 



Hunt clubs have grown up around the area's abundance of waterfowl. 

 These clubs are on Swan Island between Knotts Island and Currituck Banks. 



nor'easter blew an icy mist 

 across Currituck Sound when I visited 

 Knotts Island recently. I walked along 

 Great Marsh for hours and never saw 

 another soul. Even the tundra swans and 

 snow geese had retreated into thickets; I 

 heard only a solitary marsh rail beckon- 

 ing somewhere far off. A real tempest 

 was blowing, but I hardly noticed: I had 

 come to this remote peninsula between 

 North Landing River and Currituck 

 Sound, just south of Virginia, to mark 

 the anniversary of a far worse storm that 

 hit Knotts Island many, many years ago. 



On March 6, 1 846 — more than 

 150 years before my visit — the most 

 wicked nor'easter of modern times hit 

 Knotts Island. Descending from the 

 North Atlantic in bone-chilling fury, the 

 storm drove snowy gray breakers across 

 Currituck Banks and into Knotts Island. 



Creeds 



El 



Back 9 Virginia 

 Bay Am Beach 



Fish camps and gunners' homes 

 disappeared under the waves. Dunes 

 and forests vanished overnight. Mari- 

 ners caught at sea could only be pitied 

 and, later, mourned. 



A storm like that bears remember- 

 ing. And, in truth, I had wanted to visit 

 Knotts Island since I first read about the 

 nor'easter of 1846 in Henry Beasley 

 Ansell's Recollections of a Life Time and 

 More. Born on Knotts Island in 1832, 

 Ansell spent most of his life there and in 

 Coinjock, on the mainland of Currituck 

 County. Sometime around 1907, after he 

 had retired as county surveyor and clerk 

 of court, "the panorama of his birthplace 

 passed ... before him," and he began to 

 write the story of his boyhood years. 

 Never published, his recollections are 

 now preserved in the Southern Historical 

 Collection of the University of North 

 Carolina at Chapel Hill. 



Before the hurricane of 1828 closed 

 New Currituck Inlet, Knotts Island had 

 been a busy maritime community, one 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 23 



