David Yeomans places a wreath on Shackleford Banks. Cape Lookout is in the background. 



"It was very emotional," says 

 Yeomans. "It was homecoming and about 

 my people." 



Throughout 



the day, descendants also swap stories 

 about whaler Billy Hancock and other 

 Bankers. 



Hancock's great-great-grandson, 

 Jonathan Willis, loves to tell a story about 

 his ancestor's whale dream. 



During the last part of the season, a 

 whale appeared near his great-great- 

 grandfather's fishing camp. 



"They sent the crew to harpoon the 

 whale," says Willis. "That night, my great- 

 great-grandfather had a dream that the 

 whale washed ashore at Cape Lookout point, 

 10 miles from where he lived. He got up in 

 the middle of the night and woke his crew. 

 Then he took off to find the whale. By the 

 time they got to the point, the whale had 

 washed ashore." 



Fortunately, his crew had followed 

 and saved the whale from floating away, 

 adds Willis. After it was over, they came 

 back to Diamond City for a big square dance. 



The whaling industry thrived in the 

 1850s on Shackleford Banks, known for 

 its well-organized whaling camps. 



"It was shore-based whaling," says 



Sea Grant researcher and East Carolina 

 University anthropologist David Griffith. 

 "It was never pelagic whaling like in 

 Moby Dick, where they followed the 

 whale around the world. At the end of the 

 season, they moved on to mullet fishing 

 and clamming, gigging flounder, 

 crabbing and farming." 



Griffith says one fascinating 

 characteristic of North Carolina whalers 

 was naming the mammals. 



"Whales were named for their 

 captors (Lee Whale, Tom Martin Whale), 

 for the weather (Cold Sunday, a day so 

 cold, it was said waterfowl froze in flight), 

 or for unique circumstances surrounding 

 their capture," writes Griffith in his new 

 book, The Estuary 's Gift: An Atlantic 

 Coastal Cultural Biography. "They were 

 able to name each whale because they 

 caught only a few each spring, and each 

 landing had something memorable about 

 it, something unique." 



These whalers had a unique identity 

 and language, "spawning the distinctive 

 Tidewater English dialects reminiscent of 

 Elizabethan England," he says. The 

 descendants have a distinct speaking 

 style, using "pizer" for "porch" and 

 "ca'm" for "calm water." 



Most of the whaling took place at 

 Diamond City, which had one distin- 



Karen Willis Amspacher 



guishing feature — a large sand dune 

 called "Yellow Hill." The last whale was 

 killed in 1909, writes David Stick in The 

 North Carolina Outer Banks: 1584-1958. 



Several other communities dotted 

 the island. Just to the west of Diamond 

 City was Bell's Island, known for its 

 large and bountiful wild persimmon trees. 

 The westernmost part of the Banks was 

 known as Wade's Shore, the most 

 densely wooded part of the island. 



East of Diamond City, across the 

 small "Drain" that eventually became 

 Barden's Inlet, was the small settlement 

 of Cape Lookout, also called Cape Hill. 



Life centered around the large 

 lighthouse. "I remember going to the 

 lighthouse when I was 5," says Yeomans. 



"The light shined through the 

 window. Back then, you could see all the 

 way from Shackleford to Morehead City." 



The wrath of 



two storms in 1896 and 1899 ravaged 

 the island. The last storm did the most 

 damage to Shackleford. 



"There was water over everything, 

 with just few of the bigger sand hills 

 sticking their tops out, and the houses 

 mostly looking like houseboats, 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 9 



