"Portsmouth is more of a state of 

 mind. It's the love the poeple have 

 for the village that really keeps it go- 

 ing." 



—Margaret Willis 



though she's living on the mainland now with the lux- 

 ury of electricity, Babb still refuses to give up her 

 kerosene lamps. 



Once a month, a minister came from Ocracoke to 

 preach in the little church next to Babb's house. Even 

 the mail came to the island until the post office closed 

 in the 1950s. Then, it was up to the island's last male 

 resident, Henry Pigott, to row out into the channel to 

 pick up the mail. 



The Portsmouth residents were a mail order 

 society, says Bob Patton, interpretive specialist with 

 the National Park Service. The islanders placed or- 

 ders, then waited weeks for their goods to arrive. 

 Local lore has it that Henry Pigott ordered paint, in a 

 buff color, from the Sears catalog. When it arrived 

 weeks later, the package contained pink paint instead. 

 Rather than returning it, then waiting for it to arrive 

 again, Pigott settled for pink. And that was the color 

 his house stayed until the Park Service restored it to 

 its original buff color several years ago. 



Charles McNeill, Director of the Hampton 

 Mariners Museum, likes to tell a story about his 

 friend Henry Pigott. It seems that a magazine repor- 

 ter from New York was writing a story about Ports- 

 mouth. McNeill showed her around the island and in- 

 troduced her to Pigott. 



The reporter began to criticize Pigott's lifestyle on 

 the island, telling him he was crazy to live among all 

 the mosquitoes, with no electricity and no running 

 water. 



Pigott thought for a moment, then replied that he 

 had done some traveling. He had even been to New 

 York. And, he had seen all the modern innovations. 

 Then, says McNeill, Pigott paused and added, "And, 

 I'm not sure which one of us is crazy." Such is the at- 

 titude of a true Portsmouth villager. 



Babb says the mainlanders are soft. "It can get aw- 

 ful hot and the mosquitoes are bad. But they're bad 

 here, too (in Beaufort). I never put a bit of bug spray 

 on me. Those park rangers — well, I tell them they're 

 timid," she says. 



Babb scoffs at those who want to know what it was 

 like to live on Portsmouth during Hurricane Hazel. 

 "Storms — well, I was there through most all of them 

 we had. 1944 was the worst one. It was a hurricane 

 and I mean a bad one. There were ten-and-a-half in- 

 ches of water in the house. But everybody wants to 

 know about Hazel. It wasn't bad at all." 



With the death of Henry Pigott, Babb and her aunt 

 were alone on the island. When they decided to pack 

 up and leave in 1971, Portsmouth was a village 

 without a population. 



But then Margaret Willis adopted the village as her 

 home. From 1974 to 1977, she was the lone inhabitant 

 of the village. Her home — the one-room schoolhouse. 

 Her only companion — a dog. 



Margaret likes to tell a story of how she enjoyed all 

 the niceties of home at Portsmouth. She had coal for 

 her stove, an inside toilet, a tub, and water in the 

 cistern. Tiring of being alone, she left to visit her 

 parents in Ocracoke. She arrived about the same time 

 as a snow and ice storm. "There I was with no heat, no 

 lights. I had left all the luxuries of Portsmouth 

 behind." 



Margaret was married on Portsmouth Island and 

 her daughter, Caroline, was baptized there. These 

 days, she's living in Sea Level, but she still holds a 

 lease on a house in the village. 



Margaret describes the allure of Portsmouth 

 Village: "It's the peace, not necessarily being alone," 

 she says. She was frightened only once in her three 

 years on the island. She opened the door of the 

 schoolhouse one night to let her dog outside. "It was 

 like looking into a black hole. There was no moon, no 

 stars. I couldn't see anything. I felt like I was in the 

 middle of a void. I closed the door and for the very 

 first time, I locked it." 



While Margaret lived on the island, the Park Ser- 

 vice paid her $2.50 a day for serving as a volunteer. 

 She watched for vandals and mowed the grass at 

 about half the village houses. 



Money wasn't important on Portsmouth, says 

 Willis. "It's amazing how little you need." She es- 

 timates it took her about $150 a month to live. And, if 

 she were a seafood lover, her cost of living would have 

 been considerably less, she adds. 



Folks with ties to Portsmouth are sensitive to the 

 labels that have been attached to the village. "People 

 can call it abandoned or deserted, but it's not dead un- 

 til it's forgotten. Portsmouth is more of a state of 

 mind. It's the love the people have for the village that 

 really keeps it going. The Park Service can paint the 

 buildings and restore as much as they can. But, it's 

 the love of the descendents that will hold it together," 

 says Willis. 



— Nancy Davis 



