Jones County (N.C.) towns have diverse backgrounds

Imagine the day when “peace-and-quiet” Trenton, the county seat of Jones County, N.C., had not one but two saloons.

Jones County Courthouse

 

Historian Jerry Dale “J.D.” Lewis of Little River, S.C., creator of the Carolana database, knows these things. 

Lewis reported that in 1880, one of the popular Trenton watering holes was owned by Charles C. Green, who was also a local druggist. The proprietor of the other tavern was a chap identified as W.H. Cox.

Located on the banks of the Trent River, Trenton was formed in 1784, and Abner Nash was among its “founding fathers.” Nash had served as North Carolina’s second governor in 1780-81.

 

Today, Jones County has just two other incorporated towns, Pollocksville and Maysville. 

Pollocksville was originally formed as Trent Bridge in the early 1800s. The name of the place was changed to Pollocksville in 1834, as a tribute to George Pollock, a large landowner in the area.

 

He was a descendant of Thomas Pollock of Glasgow, Scotland, who served twice as an acting royal governor of the North Carolina province (1712-14 and 1722). Obviously, his family put down roots in Jones County. 

Maysville started out as Young’s Crossroads, taking its name from John Young, a prominent resident who lived along the White Oak River. After Young’s children moved away, the community became known simply as Cross Roads in the 1820s. 

The community eventually took the name of Maysville to honor John D. May, who was a teacher and helped to establish an elementary school in town. The Maysville post office opened for business in 1875.

 

Maysville was a logical location to establish a train depot on a new railroad line that was being built in 1893 by tycoon Henry Walters of Wilmington. His plan was to extend the Wilmington, Onslow and East Carolina Railroad from Jacksonville to New Bern, a distance of about 35 miles. 

The arrival of the railroad boosted the spirits of the Maysville townspeople, as Jacksonville and New Bern, were “two of North Carolina’s largest cities and strongest markets at the time,” wrote Megan Funk, a railway historian. 

“Not only would residents of Maysville gain quick rail transportation to both cities, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (as it came to be known) would provide a huge benefit to Jones County’s agricultural economy,” Funk said.

 

“By 1950, the dominance of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad had been overshadowed by the Seaboard Air Line Railway, and in 1967 the two railroad companies merged as the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad,” she said. 

Around 1984, the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad discontinued rail service between Jacksonville and New Bern and removed the tracks. Land was returned to the heirs of the original owners. 

In 2020, a 2.5-mile section of the rail bed located just north of Maysville, running through the Croatan National Forest, was evaluated by the U.S. Forest Service and the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources for possible inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. 

The Historic Structure Survey Report prepared by Commonwealth Heritage Group, Inc., of Tarboro, concluded, however, that the rail site did not meet the qualifications for such designation. 

The trains are gone but not the planes. Today, Jones County is “military friendly” in every sense and is home to Marine Corps Outlying Landing Field Oak Grove, located near Pollocksville. The facility was constructed in 1942 as a training field for Marine Corps aviators. It is a unit of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

 

Jones County was site of Civil War ‘activities’ by Union forces

Have you heard about the Civil War Battle of Trenton that occurred on Dec. 6, 1863, in Jones County? 

Writing for the NCPedia website in 2006, Thomas J. Farnham said the “Battle of Trenton” was really “more of a skirmish.” It occurred on the banks of Chinquapin Creek, about six miles west of Trenton. 

“The Union’s Capt. C. H. Roche left New Bern to retrieve…three Confederate deserters who subsequently joined a regiment fighting for the Union,” Farnham said. “Roche sent a force of 23 men to Trenton to get two of the men and their families.” 

The Union soldiers “crossed the Trent River and rescued the two families without encountering Confederate troops,” Farnham wrote. 

“Roche took his remaining 50 men farther up the Trent Road to remove the third family. On their way to the area known as Chinquapin Chapel, where the family lived, the Union troops confronted a dozen Confederate cavalry.” 

“The Confederates removed the planks from the bridge spanning Beaver Dam Creek, hoping to prevent Roche’s advance. The numerically superior Union force drove the enemy back, repaired the bridge and continued its march,” Farnham said. 

But at Chinquapin Creek, Confederates had destroyed the bridge and were waiting for Roche on the opposite side. Farnham said that Roche “dispersed the Confederates with his howitzer (small cannon) but did not cross the creek for fear he would encounter a substantial Confederate force.” 

“Roche and his men abandoned their efforts to retrieve the third family and returned to New Bern,” Farnham said. 

There were a few casualties at Chinquapin Creek, he said. The Union troops suffered one death and one injury, while three Confederate soldiers were wounded. 

Perhaps the bigger Civil War story in Jones County was when Union arsonists burned down the courthouse in Trenton in 1862. Important documents went up in flames. 

Among the “hall of fame of all-time community leaders” in Jones County is Annie Koonce Jenkins of Maysville. Our State magazine reported that she was the first woman to be elected mayor in North Carolina, winning her seat in 1925. 

Mayor Jenkins served for six years, and she was responsible for planting the oak trees that still line the streets of Maysville today.

 

Another Jones County hero is Alfred K. Flowers, 74, a retired U.S. Air Force major general who served in many roles, culminating as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget. He was born in 1947 near Phillips Crossroads off N.C. Route 58 west of Trenton. 

At the age of 10, Alfred started working in the fields with his grandparents who were sharecroppers. He graduated from Jones High School in 1965 and joined the Air Force. Because he was only 17, his grandmother had to sign a release allowing him to enlist. 

At the time of his retirement in January 2012, Flowers had served more than 46 years on active duty, making him the longest-serving airman in Air Force history and the longest serving African American in the history of the U.S. Department of Defense. 

Flowers and his wife, Ida M. Flowers, also an Air Force veteran, now reside in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of an autobiography “Reflections of a Servant Leader.” 

The couple has one son, Brig. Gen. Alfred K. Flowers Jr., who is Chief of the Medical Service Corps in the Office of the Air Force Surgeon General, based in Falls Church, Va.

Jones County, N.C., wears its rural heritage badge proudly

Jones County, N.C. is a place with a lot of elbow room and wide-open spaces. Breathe in, enjoy and appreciate.

 

With fewer than 9,000 human inhabitants spread over an area of 467 square miles, Jones has a scant density of 18.92 persons per square mile. This contrasts with its favorite neighbor, Carteret County, which has a density score of 137.44. 

Indeed, Jones has plenty of “nature,” which contributes to the “quality of outdoor life” that its residents savor. The Trent River meanders through the county from west to east; it’s a major tributary of the Neuse River. The White Oak River flows along the extreme southern edge of Jones County. 

The Croatan National Forest occupies a good chunk of eastern Jones, and the famous 79,000-acre Hofmann Forest straddles Onslow and Jones counties to the south. (This is America’s largest “laboratory forest,” once a unit of North Carolina State University.)

 

Woodlands cover about 65% of Jones County. Forests provide excellent environments for a rich variety of wildlife. Hunting is one of the most popular activities. Primary game are quail, dove, duck, goose, rabbit, squirrel, raccoon, otter, muskrat, deer and bear. 

In 1886, a fellow named Jonathan Haven promoted Jones as “a land inhabited by kind, hospitable and intelligent people. Land was cheap and fruitful. Tickle it with a plow and it will laugh with a harvest.” 

Jones is about as “rural” as it gets – still basically an agricultural county deriving most of its income from farming and timber activities.

 

Trenton, situated on the Trent River, became the seat of government of Jones County in 1784 by a decree of the state legislature. A few people were already living and working there. A grist mill, owned by brothers Lemuel and Anthony Hatch, began operating as early as 1758. (It’s now known as Brock’s Mill.)

 

During the colonial days, steamboats would travel regularly up the twisty Trent River from New Bern transporting people, crops and supplies. 

Jones County is one of the few places that can truthfully claim: “George Washington slept here.” It was April 22, 1791. 

One historian described the action: “As the first president of the new United States of America, Washington embarked on a tour of the southern states – a product of his desire to visit every state during his term of office.”

 

“He resolved to tour the country to observe the political climate and culture, to thank his supporters and to instill a sense of unity in the new country.” 

“Proceeding from Mount Vernon, Va., via Fredericksburg and Richmond into North Carolina, Washington crossed the Roanoke River into Halifax.” The president’s carriage tour took him to Tarboro, Greenville and New Bern. 

“Washington departed New Bern, after two full days of dining and dancing, headed toward Wilmington. He stopped in Trenton (on April 22) for a meal and then lodged” at a country inn owned by Col. James F. Shine located about 10 miles down the road from Trenton. 

“Upon rising the next morning, the president was asked how he slept. He remarked, “I slept in comfort.” The settlement that grew up around the inn was thereafter named “Comfort.” 

The second U.S. president to visit Comfort was James Monroe in 1819. He and Secretary of War John Calhoun were hosted by Col. Shine’s nephew, James Bryan Shine, at the Shine home. They were on a southern tour of the nation’s harbors and defenses.

 

Each presidential visit to Jones County has been worthy of a commemorative sign from the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker program.

Taylor boys went to Cuba…but never really left N.C.

Diversification was a strategy that the Taylor brothers of Sea Level, N.C., employed with great success after World War II. 

The Taylors – Dan, William, Alfred and Leslie – created the West India Fruit and Steamship (WIF&SS) Company in 1946 as a railcar ferry service between the Port of Palm Beach, Fla., and Havana, Cuba. 

WIF&SS Co. offered the “superior all-rail route to Cuba,” as “freight from anywhere in North America could be routed to Cuban consignees” without leaving its original railcar. 

The very first vessel acquired for the WIF&SS fleet was the Grand Haven, a former Grand Trunk Railway rail ship that once ferried train cars regularly across Lake Michigan between Milwaukee, Wis., and Grand Haven, Mich.

The Grand Haven had been relieved of service in 1931, but the Taylor brothers were delighted to find her in 1946. 

Built in 1903 by Craig Shipbuilding Co. of Toledo, Ohio, the Grand Haven was still sturdy and strong enough to carry 26 railcars brimming with freight. 

The Taylors “also dabbled a bit” in travel and tourism in Florida, according to historian Rodney Kemp of Morehead City, N.C. He tells the story: 

“One of the Taylor brothers was in Palm Beach working on his boat one day in 1950, and at the end of the day, he looked like he’d been working on his boat all day,” Kemp said.

Rodney Kemp

 

“The front desk clerk at the swanky 550-room Palm Beach Biltmore Hotel denied Mr. Taylor’s request to book a room in the hotel. Mr. Taylor said he’d be back later…as soon as he bought the place.”

“Paid $1.7 million…cash on the barrelhead,” Kemp said. “And yes, of course, the clerk was dismissed.”

 

The Taylors had been quick to envision Cuba as an emerging tourism destination for U.S. travelers. After World War II, they also purchased the City of Havana, a surplus U.S. warship.

The Taylors had the vessel transformed into an air-conditioned luxury liner, with spacious and comfortable lounges and cafes, capable of transporting 500 passengers. Their personal vehicles were loaded on the lower decks.

 

The City of Havana could safely make the 90-mile journey from Key West, Fla., to Havana in seven hours. 

U.S. tourism traffic evaporated in 1959 after dictator Fidel Castro seized control of the Cuban government. Methodically, the Taylor brothers began to very quietly implement their Cuban exit strategy. 

Looking back, “those Sea Level boys made lots of $MONEY out of Cuba,” said Thom Styron, a Carteret County businessman. Yet, it was like the Taylor brothers never left the place they grew up. 

Everyone in the entire county was giddy in 1957 when news broke that the Taylor brothers paid $350,000 to purchase the 106-room Bogue Sound Club in Morehead City. They renamed the posh, four-story hotel as the Morehead Biltmore.

 

The resort villa had been built in 1928 by William Benjamin Blades Jr., a wealthy real estate developer from New Bern. His family made a fortune in the timber and lumber industries. 

The Taylors promptly named the hotel’s formal ballroom as the “Sea Level Room” in honor of their hometown in Down East Carteret County. Life was good.

 

At some point, the Taylors sold their shares to Winton Fountain of Goldsboro. Ownership was transferred in early 1969 to Frank Roger Page Jr. of Winston-Salem. The property was unoccupied and undergoing renovation…when fire broke out early on Nov. 12, 1969. 

The entire building was quickly consumed with flames. Only the hotel swimming pool survived. It was repurposed for a time as a neighborhood skateboard training site. 

Much of the old hotel property, overlooking Bogue Sound at the end of Mansfield Parkway, is now developed as The Bluffs, a condominium complex.

Pender County turtle hospital earns reputation for excellence

Pender County, N.C., is the proud home of a nationally acclaimed turtle hospital known as the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center.

 On one visit, Elizabeth Hudson, editor of Our State magazine, remarked: “The turtles are here because something bad happened to them” in the ocean. “Boat strikes. Net entanglement. Cuts. Stunned by cold.” 

(A growing number of turtle patients are admitted because they attempted to eat plastic materials that were discarded in coastal waters by humans.) 

Elizabeth Hudson

Hudson added: “The turtles are here because something good happened to them.” They were rescued by good people with a heart. The turtles are fortunate to receive tender care from passionate volunteers who nurse the turtles back to health.

 

Jean Beasley

Turtle hospital founder Jean Beasley is a national hero. She retired in 2021 at age 86. It’s a great story, and Jean wrote it for Guideposts magazine in 2007. 

Chapter One: 

“My brother, Richard, saw it first. ‘Jean!’ he shouted, running up toward our little vacation beach house. ‘There’s something huge coming out of the ocean!’ The moon wasn’t quite full that summer night on Topsail Island back in 1970. But it was pretty close.” 

“My husband, Fred, and I had fallen in love with the beaches of Topsail Island…on our honeymoon,” Jean wrote. “We’d vacationed there ever since and had recently bought this beach house. I squinted (and saw) an animal the size of a truck engine…making its way up the beach, right for our house.” 

“It was past midnight, but I ran inside and woke up the kids.” 

“‘What is it, Mom?’ Karen asked. Eight that summer, she was my youngest and every bit the nature lover I’d been at that age.” 

“‘It’s a turtle,’ I said. ‘A sea turtle.’ Sea turtles were a threatened species. The females lumbered ashore to lay their eggs.” 

“She came to a halt right at our porch steps and began digging with her back flippers. Sand flew through the air, smacking against the porch.” 

Jean and Karen Beasley sat quietly wrapped in blankets to observe the entire process that lasted until 2 a.m., “when the turtle finally finished her task and crawled back into the thundering waves.” 

That event began a quest. The mother-daughter team read everything they could about “their turtle.” 

“Sea turtles live their entire lives in the ocean, except for when the females, traveling hundreds, or even thousands of miles, somehow return to the exact beaches where they hatched decades earlier to lay eggs of their own,” Jean said. 

The hatchlings face an “against all odds” survival challenge – perhaps “just one turtle in 10,000 makes it to adulthood.” 

“Summer by summer, we learned more about the turtles – and about how to help them,” Jean said. “We swept over the trenches left by mothers so their nests would be undisturbed. When hatching time came, we dug roads in the sand that the babies could follow down to the surf.” 

“Sometimes we found stragglers from a nighttime hatching. We’d put them into the water and say a prayer for them as they paddled their way out toward deeper water,” Jean wrote. 

“Word spread about this strange mother-daughter turtle-finding team. We got calls about injured turtles that washed up on Topsail Island’s 26 miles of beach.” 

Chapter Two: 

Jean and Fred Beasley officially transitioned in 1990 from seasonal to permanent residents of Topsail Island. That meant Jean could devote more time to her growing fascination with sea turtles. 

Their daughter, Karen, 29, a graduate of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem had recently taken a position with a Charlotte-based public relations firm.

 

Karen Beasley

“But then something terrible happened,” Jean wrote. “Like so many terrible things, it started out small...just a nagging cough. Karen saw our family doctor. She had leukemia.” 

“Karen gave up her job and moved into the beach house with Fred and me.” 

“It was the height of the nesting season. Mother turtles were laying eggs up and down the beach. ‘That’s the third call we’ve gotten this morning about the same turtle nest,’ Karen said one morning, exasperated. ‘Mom, we need to get this thing more organized.’” 

That was the day that the “thing” – the Topsail Island Turtle Project – was officially born.

 

“Karen lectured at schools and libraries, explaining the vital role that sea turtles play in the ocean’s ecosystem. Turtles are a bellwether species. Their disappearance means more than just no more turtles. It means our oceans are dying.” 

“‘How,’ Karen asked, ‘could we sit back and let these animals slip into nonexistence before our eyes?’” 

“Extinction is a full stop,” Jean said. “There’s no coming back. It’s permanent, irreversible. It takes courage to imagine something that large – that terrible. But Karen had that courage. She knew what it meant to face up to endings, even if I was still struggling to accept her worsening illness.” 

“‘Mom,’ she said to me one day…‘I don’t want my illness to be the center of my life. I want the turtles to be the center of it. If I don’t make it, I want you to use (my life insurance) money for them.’” 

“‘Okay, Karen,’ I said. ‘I promise.’” 

Shortly after that conversation, late one evening, the mother-daughter turtle team was alerted that a jumbo-sized female had come ashore just a few miles down the beach from their cottage. 

“Nesting can be the most dangerous moment in a mama turtle’s life,” Jean said. “It was 2 a.m. before the turtle had laid the last of her eggs and slipped back into the sea. Karen went home and slept in. The next day, she felt too ill to go out. ‘No, God, no,’ I prayed. ‘I’m not ready to lose Karen.’” 

“Two days later, Karen slipped away peacefully, just a few months before her 30th birthday,” Jean wrote. 

“I plunged into helping the turtles with more energy than ever….Karen was gone – at least from Earth. But her work on behalf of the earthly creatures she cared for most went on.” 

Jean’s “turtle involvement” evolved into helping injured turtles recuperate. 

One of the first “patients” of the Topsail Island Turtle Project in 1995 was a 40-pound juvenile loggerhead that had washed ashore with severe gashes, likely caused by a boat propeller. Jean named it “Lucky.” 

Dr. Greg Lewbart, professor of aquatic, wildlife and zoological medicine at North Carolina State University, was summoned by the Jean and the project team. Dr. Lewbart put “Lucky” back together.

 

“Lucky” underwent an 18-month “rehabilitation assignment,” living within a surplus “turtle tank” that was handed down by the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. 

“I had seen plenty of turtles by then, but…‘Lucky’ was the first Topsail sea turtle I really got to know personally,” Jean wrote. “There’s something uniquely painful and uniquely rewarding about taking in a wild creature, caring for it, coming to know it as an individual and setting it free again.” 

Some volunteers carried the turtle down to the sea. “So long, ‘Lucky,’” Jean said. He or she slowly flapped out to sea. “May the Lord watch over you.”

 

“You put so much love and worry into the animal...and then you place it right back in harm’s way,” Jean said. 

Chapter Three: 

“After ‘Lucky’ left us,” Jean said, “I couldn’t get Karen’s words out of my mind: ‘Help the turtles.’ To really help them I needed – the turtles needed – a turtle hospital.” 

“The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center opened its doors in the fall of 1997.”

 

Dr. Hans Westermeyer, a veterinary ophthalmologist at the N.C. State College of Veterinary Medicine, Jean Beasley and Dr. Craig Harms, who is based at the N.C.State n Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST) in Morehead City.

Jean Beasley said the volunteer-run turtle hospital has rehabilitated and released a thousand or so rescued sea turtles “post-Lucky.” She said that some turtles stay “for just a few days. Others spend months, even years here.” 

“But for all of these animals, there eventually comes a moment when I have to tell them goodbye. When I have to give them back to the ocean, and back to God.” 

“It’s never easy. But there’s no time that I feel closer to God – or to Karen – than when I place one of these turtles in the waves and watch it swim off….” 

In 2013, the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center moved into a new 13,000-square-foot facility in Surf City on the Pender County mainland. The well-equipped turtle hospital operates as a nonprofit organization. 

The KBSTRRC, as the locals refer to it, exists to: “Conserve and protect all species of marine turtles, both in the water and on the beach; rescue, rehabilitate and release sick and injured sea turtles; inform and educate the public regarding the plight of all sea turtles and the threat of their extinction; and provide an experiential learning site for students of biology, wildlife conservation and/or veterinary medicine from around the world.” 

Jean Beasley told Matt Born of the Wilmington StarNews that sea turtles “are very charismatic, they look you in the eye, they communicate with you in a subtle way….” 

Carl Turnage is one the many volunteers who has been helping out at the center for several years. “Once you get in here, you’d run through a brick wall for these turtles,” he said. 

“They all have different personalities, and when we do finally release them, tears are shed because we do get attached to them. To see them being released is a real joy.” 

Chapter Four: 

On “Turtle Release Day,” a thousand people or more may show up on Topsail Island just to watch – and cheer on – the turtles as they are discharged from the turtle hospital and re-enter the Atlantic Ocean to begin their journey out to sea.

 

It can be quite an emotional experience for people of all ages, wrote Tift Merritt, a correspondent for Our State magazine. It’s especially tough on Jean Beasley. 

“Each of the turtles takes a piece of me,” Jean said. 

While the objective of the Beasley center is to help each patient admitted to the turtle hospital recover from its injuries and ailments, two turtles have taken on roles as “ambassadors” at the center. Both are incapable of surviving in the ocean. 

“Snooki” is a female Loggerhead who was admitted in 2016 after being stranded along the beach in Avalon, N.J. Although she weighs about 310 pounds, she has “positive buoyancy syndrome” that prevents her from staying submerged. Because sea turtles need to feed and sleep on the bottom, she cannot be released. 

“Snooki” is said to be a bit of an extrovert. When people tour the center, she specializes in antics that “attract a crowd.” 

Visitors are also introduced to “Lennie,” a rare Kemp’s ridley that was found tangled in a fish net and rescued near Beaufort in 2006 by Leonard Goodwin of Carteret County. The female turtle suffered “blunt force trauma to the head,” which caused permanent blindness. “Lennie” weighs about 88 pounds. 

Dr. Craig A. Harms checks on “Snooki” and “Lennie” when he makes his rounds at the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center (KBSTRRC). He is the director of the Marine Health Program at North Carolina State University’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST) in Morehead City.

 

Dr. Harms has been caring for his patients at KBSTRRC since 2000. He also delivers veterinary services and support for the North Carolina Aquariums, marine mammal and sea turtle stranding networks, area research aquaculture facilities and the Morehead City/Beaufort area marine laboratories. 

June 12, 2021, was “Jean Beasley Day” in Pender County, marking the official retirement of Jean Beasley as head of the KBSTRRC. The volunteers playfully dubbed it “Jean’s Release Day.” 

Someone associated with the center reported on the event for the Pender County government website. The scribe wrote: “We were about to end the outdoor ceremony when, oops, Jean asked if she could say a few words. Not that we forgot she was there, but she was hidden behind the large stack of awards in front of her on the table!”

 

“Jean she said it’s always been and will continue to be about the turtles. She thanked us for making her and her daughter Karen’s dream of ‘doing something to help the turtles’ come true.” 

At age 86, Jean Beasley said it was time to let someone else have a turn. 

Kathy Zagzebski started as the center’s new executive director in February 2022. She formerly served as the head of the National Marine Life Center in Bourne, Mass., on Buzzards Bay, the gateway to Cape Cod.

 

Zagzebski said “If you save turtles, then you save the world for humans and animals alike. Turtles are a keystone species.”