Top: Until early this century, barrels of tar were a common sight on wharves in the 

 lower Cape Fear region, which led the world in the production of naval stores. 



Middle: The great pine barrens between Fayetteville and Wilmington yielded tar, 

 pitch and turpentine, mainstays of maritime maintenance and coastal life. 



Bottom: The state's largest city for 70 years, Wilmington was a hub of trans-oceanic 

 shipping, sending naval stores and lumber as far away as England. 



Plititoi coiiriesy rif tlie Cape Fiw Musetiiii 



I 



The odd bird, almost ghoulish in 

 aspect, is a fitting welcome to the 2,757- 

 acre Roan Island, an isolated, wild tract of 

 swamp with just a fringe of high ground on 

 its northwestern margin. The woods are an 

 alternating tapestry: soaring cypress 

 swamp choked with vine, dark and 

 brooding, then stands of straight-barked 

 gum, like the hair on a mad dog's back. On 

 the high ground yellow wildflowers blaze. 

 We turn upstream into the Black River, 

 where sunlight streams onto marsh grasses 

 a mile away, lighting them like distant 

 groundfire. 



Those marshes are a testament to one 

 of the early industries of the lower Cape 

 Fear: rice. Along the Roan Island stretch of 

 river, gaps in the interior forest canopy hint 

 at rice fields of yore; further downstream, 

 marshes cover huge swaths of old rice 

 fields, where the 1 8th-century planter 

 Robert Schaw had nearly 900 acres of land 

 diked for rice cultivation. But rice culture 

 in the Cape Fear never rivaled that of the 

 South Carolina low country. Instead, it was 

 a natural byproduct of the lower Cape Fear, 

 not a cultivated one, that defined the region 

 for the first few hundred years of European 

 settlement. 



From 1720 until the Civil War, the 

 lower Cape Fear region led the world in the 

 production of turpentine, tar and pitch, 

 collectively known as naval stores. North 

 Carolina's interior coastal plain was 

 swathed in part of the nation's finest pine 

 forest. 



One early traveler described the pine 

 savannahs between Fayetteville and 

 Wilmington with breathless ardor: "These 

 pines ... grow on an even plain, clear of 

 underwood, so that you may see a cow a 

 mile distant. This, with the symmetry of 

 the trees, and a kind of broom-grass, 

 which was just peeping out, resembling a 

 smooth shorn meadow, gave a beautiful 

 appearance. If you can imagine a number 

 of lofty, straight columns, with a rich green 

 drapery thrown on each, standing on a 

 green velvet carpet, you may form some 

 idea of these barrens. Not a sprig, shrub or 

 brier interrupts the view, as far as the eye 

 can see." 



