A HISTORIAN'S COAST 



The Last Daughter of Davis Ridge 



By David Cecelski 



When I pass the old 

 clam house between Smyrna 

 and Williston, I always 

 glance east across Jarrett Bay 

 to Davis Ridge. You have 

 been that way if you have 

 ever driven Highway 70 to 

 catch the Ocracoke ferry at 

 Cedar Island. Few passers-by 

 know that this secluded 

 hammock was once the site 

 of an extraordinary fishing 

 community founded by 

 liberated slaves. Nobody has 

 lived at "the Ridge" since 

 1933, yet legends of those 

 black fishermen, whalers and 

 boatbuilders still echo 

 through this "Downeast" 

 section of Carteret County. 



I have searched for the 

 history of those black Downeasterners 

 and once assumed it had been lost. I 

 found no trace of Davis Ridge in history 

 books. Exploring the ridge by boat and 

 on foot, I uncovered only an old cem- 

 etery, standing silent amid live oaks and 

 salt marsh. All the dusty documents in 

 North Carolina's libraries yielded only 

 tantalizing clues. Then, as I was about 

 to give up, I discovered a tape-recorded 

 interview with Nannie Davis Ward at 

 the North Carolina Maritime Museum 

 in Beaufort. 



When interviewed by folklorists 

 Michael and Debbie Luster in 1988, 

 Ward was the last living soul to have 

 grown up at Davis Ridge. A retired 

 seamstress and cook, she was born at 

 the ridge in 1911. She spoke with the 

 Lusters as part of the North Carolina 

 Coastal Folklife Project, which tape- 

 recorded the recollections of dozens of 

 Carteret County's oldest residents. 

 Though blind by then, Ward had a 



Jarrett Bay 



strong memory and firm, eloquent voice 

 that resurrected an unforgettable vision 

 of her childhood home. 



When Ward was a child, Davis 

 Ridge was an all-black community on a 

 wooded knoll, or small island, on the 

 eastern shore of Jarrett Bay, not far 

 from Core Sound and Cape Lookout. 

 A great salt marsh separated the ridge 

 from "Davis Shore," the mainland to 

 the north. Davis Island was just to the 

 south. A hurricane later cut a channel 

 between the two, but you could walk 

 from the ridge to Davis Island in her 

 grandparents' day. 



According to Ward, the founders 

 of Davis Ridge had been among many 

 slave watermen at Core Sound before the 

 Civil War. They labored in bondage as 

 pilots, sailors, fishermen and stevedores. 

 The 1860 census, in fact, lists 117 slaves 

 just at Portsmouth, the northern tip of 

 Core Banks. Many descended from black 

 mariners who sailed to North Carolina 



from the English, French, 

 Spanish, Dutch and Danish 

 colonies in the Caribbean. 



It was Sutton Davis, 

 Ward's paternal grandfather, 

 who first settled Davis 

 Ridge. As a slave, he had 

 been a master boatbuilder 

 and carpenter at Davis 

 Island. He had learned the 

 boatbuilding trade at a 

 Wilmington shipyard. 



When Union troops 

 captured Beaufort and New 

 Bern in 1862, Sutton Davis 

 led the Davis Island slaves to 

 freedom. They rowed a small 

 boat across Jarrett Bay to the 

 fishing village of Smyrna, 

 then fled to Union-held 

 territory. Some of the former 

 slaves founded the North River commu- 

 nity near Beaufort, but Sutton Davis 

 bought 4 acres at Davis Ridge in 1865. 

 He and his children eventually acquired 

 220 more acres there. 



The number of black Downeast- 

 erners declined sharply after the Civil 

 War, but Davis Ridge remained a 

 stronghold of the African-American 

 maritime culture that had thrived along 

 Core Sound. Nearly all of Nannie Davis 

 Ward's relatives worked on the water. 

 Her grandfather Sutton, of course, was 

 a fisherman and boatbuilder. Her 

 mother's father, Samuel Windsor, was 

 a legendary fisherman and whaler born 

 at Shackleford Banks. (Sam Windsor's 

 Lump is still a Shackleford landmark.) 

 Her father, Elijah, owned a fish house. 

 Her great-uncle Palmer was a seafarer 

 and sharpie captain. Many other kinsmen 

 became stalwarts in the Beaufort menha- 

 den fleet, including the industry's first 

 black captains. 



18 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1996 



