And they are right. Few firsthand 

 stories can be told of the old market 

 hunting days, and few are as resonant as 

 those of Saunders, entombed in dead fowl 

 and thrilling to a chorus of goose music, 

 wind whining through marsh grass and 

 gun-thunder rolling across the sound. 



It would be difficult to imagine a 

 place more providential for waterfowl than 

 Currituck Sound. About 30 miles long, the 

 shallow sound lies north to south, from just 

 across the Virginia state line to the tip of 

 the peninsula that hems in Albemarle 

 Sound. Bounded by the North Carolina 

 mainland to the west and the Outer Banks 

 to the east, it is rarely greater than four 

 miles across. Long ago an inlet cut through 

 the Currituck Outer Banks, and the sound's 

 waters were brine. But drifting sands 

 closed the inlet in 1 828. Cut off from direct 

 ocean access, the sound's waters fresh- 

 ened. Oyster beds disappeared, and 

 saltwater fish were wiped out. 



In their place, however, came 

 enormous numbers of perch, bass, eels and 

 underwater plains of freshwater plants 



relished by waterfowl. The Currituck 

 Sound bottom, reported Alexander Hunter 

 in 1 892, was "one mass of wild celery." 

 Untold numbers of wintering ducks, geese 

 and swans piled into the shallow waters — 

 black ducks, pintails, widgeon and teal 

 packing into open marsh ponds, while 

 diving ducks such as canvasbacks, 

 redheads and scaup rafted up by the 

 thousands on the windswept open waters. 

 Stories of duck flocks that darkened the 

 sky are not uncommon, nor far off the 

 mark. Even today, ducks can be so 

 numerous in Currituck Sound that they 

 appear as islands, thin dark smudges 

 against the slate-gray water, until they take 

 wing in cyclonic swarms. 



It didn't take long for Currituck 

 farmers to turn to this supply of game for 

 cash money. Edmund Ruffin, a Virginia 

 editor who traveled extensively in the 

 Currituck region in the 19th century, wrote 

 of an Edgar Burroughs who owned a large 

 farm just across the Virginia line. In the 

 mid- to late 1850s, Burroughs hired 30 

 gunners to hunt from his farm. He sold 



Norris Austin, whose grandfather was the last keeper of the Currituck light, shares family tales. 



ammunition to the hunters and paid a fixed 

 price for every duck, goose and swan they 

 delivered. 



In a single winter his hunters went 

 through 1 ton of gunpowder, 4 tons of lead 

 shot and 46,000 percussion caps. "From 

 this expenditure, along the shore of one 

 large farm only," Ruffin figured, "there 

 may be some faint conception of the 

 immensity of the operations, and the 

 results, along shores extending for full one 

 hundred and fifty miles, and on all of 

 which the same business is regularly 

 pursued." 



When the Chesapeake and Albemarle 

 Canal was completed from Currituck 

 Sound to Norfolk in 1 859, Currituck 

 gunners gained direct and swift access to 

 Northern markets. Steamers made thrice- 

 weekly runs to formerly remote outposts 

 such as Knotts Island, Poplar Branch and 

 Church Island. By 1861, Ruffin wrote, "the 

 killing of wild water-fowl [in Currituck 

 Sound was] a branch of industry of 

 considerable importance for its amount of 

 profit. Its extent is scarcely known by any 

 person out of this region." 



In its infancy, gunning 

 for market in Currituck was 

 a simple affair. "Ducks was 

 shot sitting and at the rise," 

 Henry B. Ansell wrote in his 

 unpublished manuscript 

 Tales of Knotts Island, a 

 recounting of sound life 

 from the 1830s to 1907. 

 "The crawling practice was 

 in vogue. Go into the marsh 

 with noiseless care; look 

 over the coves, creeks and 

 ponds; see if any of the 

 feathered tribe have 

 ventured near enough to 

 shore for a shot; if so, down 

 on hands and knees, often in 

 mud and water; crawl to the 

 water's edge; peep through 

 the marginal marsh or galls; 

 see where ducks were 

 thickest. Ready — aim — 

 bang. Fuss and feathers. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 9 



