clothing and building supplies. The village 

 also sheltered passengers and crew rescued 

 from doomed vessels. Two sea captains 

 who died in the early 1 800s are buried on 

 the beach side of the village. 



Portsmouth once shared North Core 

 Banks, also called Portsmouth Island, with 

 two other nearby communities. Overgrown 

 foundations and lost gravestones are all 

 that remain of Middle Community and 

 Sheep Island. 



Accessible only by boat through 

 treacherous waters, on an untamed, 

 uninhabited barrier island, Portsmouth now 

 is an easily overlooked nook of North 

 Carolina. For the first century after its 1753 

 founding, however, Portsmouth was 

 among the largest and most important 

 Outer Banks settlements. Ocracoke Inlet 

 was the only access through the island 

 chain to the colonial ports of Bath, New 

 Bern and Washington. 



The ships of the day — traveling 

 inbound with sugar and spices and fabric, 

 laden with lumber and pitch outbound — 

 drew more water than Ocracoke Inlet and 



Pamlico Sound provided. Portsmouth and 

 nearby Shell Castle Island evolved as a 

 "lightering" station. Using slave labor, cargo 

 was transferred to and from lighter, shallow 

 draft boats for the journeys beyond. 



Two-thirds of North Carolina's exports 

 in the early 1 800s passed through Ocracoke 

 Inlet. Traffic was heavy enough to merit a 

 mariners' hospital at Portsmouth to care for 

 sick and injured seafarers. Its rainwater 

 cistern — the sky is Portsmouth's only 

 source of fresh water — still remains. In 

 1 860, the population reached a high of 

 nearly 700 people, including 1 17 slaves, and 

 the town boasted more than 100 buildings 

 — homes, warehouses and stores. 



The sea, though, already had begun to 

 forsake Portsmouth. Ocracoke Inlet shifted 

 and shoaled. Shell Castle Island, composed 

 of oyster shells, eroded away. An 1 846 

 storm sliced new inlets — and new trade 

 routes — through Hatteras Island to the 

 north. 



Other events also conspired against 

 Portsmouth. Railroads began to displace 

 ships as a means of moving goods. The 



approach of Northern troops during the 

 Civil War in 1861 drove most residents off 

 the island, and many never returned. 



The population was 320 in 1 870. A 

 decade later, it had fallen to 220. With 

 shipping commerce gone, fishing and 

 shellfishing became economic mainstays 

 for residents. Lodges to house those 

 hunting the abundant waterfowl appeared 

 in the early 1900s. 



The post office, established in 1840, 



occupied one corner of the general store 



and a prominent place in the far-flung 



village's daily life. Everything from 



letters to mail-order furniture to 



visitors arrived via the mailboat 



The establishment of a U.S. Life 

 Saving Service station in 1894 brought a 

 new mission to the village. The rescue 

 service, later incorporated into the present- 

 day U.S. Coast Guard, recruited local men 

 for its ranks, and was an important 

 presence, philosophically and economi- 

 cally, for 43 years. The "surf soldiers" 

 drilled rigorously for dangerous sea 

 rescues, and the station commander was a 

 community leader. 



When the station was decommis- 

 sioned in 1937, Portsmouth's final spiral 

 downward began. The station's reactiva- 

 tion during World War II only forestalled 

 the village's demise. From the 1930 census 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 9 



