Currituck Inlet 

 and cut off the 

 sound's source 

 of salt water. 

 Every few 

 minutes, he 

 heard "the deep 

 booming of 

 guns" as 

 hunters shot 

 great flocks of 

 ducks, geese 

 and swans. 



After a 

 night at 



Currituck, Bishop paddled south to 

 Nags Head. He dismissed the village, 

 with its tiny fishermen's huts and a 

 boarded-up hotel, as "a forlorn place." 

 The next day, he dragged the Santa 

 Theresa across the shoals by Bodie 

 Island. Chilled and exhausted, he found 

 asylum that night at the two-year-old 

 Bodie Island Lighthouse. The keeper, 

 William Hatzel, sat his guest before a 

 roaring fireplace and regaled him with 

 warm food and good stories while they 

 listened to the soft cackle of the snow 

 geese outside. 



Now wary of Outer Banks shoals, 

 Bishop passed north Chicamacomico — 

 at present-day Rodanthe — spying 

 only the remote village's windmill 

 and "a high, bald sand-beach" that was 

 gradually smothering a maritime forest. 

 He stayed that night with Abraham 

 Hooper's family at a landmark then 

 known as Kitty Midget's Hammock. 

 The old fisherman put his guest before 

 a great hearth where the timbers of a 

 wrecked ship warmed the cottage. The 

 next day Bishop joined the Hoopers 

 hauling nets for bluefish. 



At sea again. Bishop accepted a 

 tow from a "cooner" commanded by a 

 Hatteras lad named Lorenzo Burnett. 



JHE ykBORIGlNAL JYPE (jCAYAK.) 



Jhe ^Improved Jype (^VIaria Jheresa Panoe). 



An old-fashioned craft by 1 870s 

 standards, a cooner was a long cypress 

 dugout commonly rigged with a 

 mainsail and jib. Although outdated, 

 cooners had certain advantages 

 compared to plank-built boats. Easily 

 constructed, these seamless boats stood 

 up well to the unavoidable collisions 

 with the shoals of Pamlico Sound. 



Arriving at Cape Hatteras, Bishop 

 found "a low range of hills ... heavily 

 wooded with live-oaks, yellow pines, 

 yaupons, cedars and bayonet-plants." 

 He observed that "the fishermen and 

 wreckers live in rudely constructed 

 houses, sheltered by this thicket." 



At Hatteras, Bishop strolled 

 beaches that were crowded with "the 

 gravestones of departed ships." Then, 

 on Ocracoke, he found sanctuary in 

 a shad fisherman's abandoned hut. 

 (The shad fishery, the state's most 

 profitable, opened in spring.) He had 

 already learned enough from Carolina 

 fishermen to know how to make 

 himself at home. Bishop repaired the 

 hut with sedges and dug a freshwater 

 well in the sand with a clam shell. He 

 slept tranquilly amid wild ponies and 

 wandering sheep. 



Bishop soon paddled into Ocra- 



coke village. 

 The local 

 women, he 

 wrote, "can 

 pull a pretty 

 good stroke 

 and frequently 

 assist their 

 husbands with 

 the fisheries." 

 The Ocracokers' 

 impression 

 of Bishop's 

 seafaring was 

 more dubious. 

 Eyeing his paper canoe, one older 

 women remarked: "I reckon I wouldn't 

 risk my life acrossing a creek in her." 

 A worried oysterman even offered to 

 ferry Bishop and his boat across 

 Ocracoke Inlet. 



Navigating the inlet safely, the 

 Santa Theresa cruised by Portsmouth 

 Island. The local cemetery had been 

 rift by storms, and the old seaport's 

 fatal decline had begun. Bishop next 

 side-stepped the shoals at Whalebone 

 Inlet and passed into Core Sound. 

 Paddling 16 uninhabited miles along 

 Core Banks, he reached the solitary 

 cottage of a schooner captain named 

 James Mason. Mason's family gave 

 him lodging and a hearty supper and 

 treated him "like old friends." 



Steering across Core Sound the 

 next day, Bishop arrived at an 

 oysterman' s village called Hunting 

 Quarters, known today as Atlantic. 

 "The houses were very small," he 

 wrote, "but the hearts of the poor folks 

 were very large." The villagers lifted 

 his canoe ashore and gave him a bed. 

 Having just returned home for Christ- 

 mas, the local sailors invited him to 

 three weddings that evening. Fearful of 

 intruding, Bishop was reluctant to join 



14 JANUAR Y/FEBR VARY 1996 



