But these men also added a dose of 

 cheer to river life. To combat their 

 loneliness and to break the tedium of 

 their downstream travel, runners would 

 sing, whistle and holler, their voices 

 echoing for miles through the river 

 forests. 



People, too, used the Black River 

 for travel. Southeastern North Carolina 

 was sparsely populated and roads were 

 few and rough during Colonial times. 

 The river provided an easy avenue for 

 travel among plantations and the ports 

 of Brunswick and Wilmington. 



People not only traveled the river's 

 length, but its width too. Several 

 wooden-raft ferries were established to 

 convey people across the Black River. 

 The longest running and most famous 

 was Corbett's Ferry, near present-day 

 Ivanhoe. Only a matter of luck and 

 some British reconnaissance prevented 

 the Revolutionary War Battle of 

 Moore's Creek from being the Battle 

 of Corbett's Ferry. 



Patriot forces under the command 

 of Col. Richard Caswell took posses- 

 sion of Corbett's Ferry, awaiting the 

 arrival of British soldiers commanded 

 by Brig. Gen. Donald McDonald. The 



British bypassed the Patriots by cross- 

 ing the Black River five miles above 

 Corbett's Ferry on a makeshift bridge 

 fashioned from a sunken flat. The To- 

 ries then proceeded to Moore's Creek 

 for the now famous battle that ended 

 British dominance in the area. 



After the Revolutionary War, 

 settlement along the Black River in- 

 creased and the town of Lisbon (also 

 spelled Lisburn and Lisborne) was built 

 in 1785 at the head of the Black River 

 where the Coharie and Six Runs rivers 

 converge. Lisbon developed as a center 

 for raft and pole boat activity and as a 

 trading outlet for people who lived 

 upriver. 



With more settlement came in- 

 creased use of the Black River for con- 

 veying goods, still mostly naval stores, 



timber and lumber. Canoes, rafts, 

 periaugers and pole boats remained the 

 primary means of conveyance until 

 after the Civil War. 



The first bridge, called Beatty's 

 Bridge after its builder, was constructed 

 in 1794. It spanned the Black River just 

 below the intersection of the Black and 

 South rivers. Other bridges were soon 

 built. 



Along the riverbanks, the construc- 

 tion of sawmills and gristmills, tan- 

 yards, naval store facilities and ship- 

 yards increased. The river hummed 

 with activity during the early 19th cen- 

 tury, but it didn't whistle. 



The whistling steamboats that 

 plied the nearby Cape Fear River as 

 early as 1818 were too wide and heavy 

 to navigate the more shallow, winding 



The steamboats that plied 

 the Black Rit>er were double- 

 deckers. The top deck was desig- 

 nated [for passengers. Cargo — 

 turpentine, tar, corn, wheat, 

 cotton, cattle, turkeys or other 

 marketable itenu — wad loaded 

 on the lower deck. The upper 

 deck had separate passenger 

 rooms and a dining area for 

 meals. The cook, usually a 

 woman, worked below in a 

 kitchen, and a young boy was 

 hired to haul food from the 

 kitchen to the saving area. To 

 supplement meab, captain and 

 crew sometimes fabed and 

 hunted for game from the decks 

 of the steamboats. 



1 2 MARC HI APRIL 1994 



