Josiah Pender’s ‘Harbor Guards’ prepare for a civil war

On April 13, 1861, a group of Carteret County secessionists formed a volunteer militia called the Beaufort Harbor Guards with Josiah Solomon Pender as its captain. 

This was just one day after the U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., was surrendered to the Confederate rebels. (This event on April 12, 1861, would become known as the dawn of the War Between the States.)

 

Josiah Pender

Pender, 42, was a wealthy and influential entrepreneur. He owned a steamship company as well as the grand and luxurious 100-room Atlantic Hotel in Beaufort. 

On April 14, 1861, Pender led his unit – more than 50 men – over to Fort Macon on Bogue Banks to capture the five-sided garrison for the Confederate cause. 

The Beaufort Harbor Guards didn’t have to storm the fort…or fire a shot. They walked right in through an open front gate and were received courteously by U.S. Army Sgt. William Alexander, the sole caretaker, who had no weapon. 

Sgt. Alexander handed over the keys, and “Fort Macon was seized without bloodshed,” reported historian Paul Branch, a veteran park ranger at Fort Macon State Park. 

Unharmed, Sgt. Alexander and his wife, Ann L. Livesay Alexander of Morehead City, were transported to Beaufort. 

The first order of business inside the fort for the Beaufort Harbor Guards was replacing the Stars and Stripes with “an improvised flag showing a green pine tree with a coiled rattlesnake at its foot,” Branch said. 

On April 15, 1861, North Carolina Gov. John Willis Ellis responded to a “demand” he had received from U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. The president directed North Carolina to “furnish two regiments” to help subdue the Southern rebellion.

 

 President Lincoln

Fat chance. Gov. Ellis told President Lincoln in no uncertain terms that he would “get no troops from North Carolina.” Instead, Gov. Ellis declared that his state would fight along with its Southern brethren to repel any invasion by Union troops, according to Branch.

 

Gov. Ellis

Also on April 15, Gov. Ellis directed Capt. Marshall Craton of the “Goldsboro Rifles,” a well-trained and experienced militia group, to take charge of Fort Macon. 

Pender stayed on at the fort for a time, but he was released from military duty in December 1861. He immersed himself in a new pursuit based in Hamilton, Bermuda. From there, Pender’s steamships served as Confederate blockade runners, smuggling goods into the Port of Wilmington. 

Indeed, the Civil War would eventually come to Carteret County, brought this direction by Union Gen. Ambrose Everett Burnside, who won major victories at Roanoke Island in February 1862 and at New Bern in March 1862.

 

Gen. Burnside’s next target was Fort Macon and to conquer Beaufort Harbor and the settlements in Beaufort and Morehead City. Union troops, led by Gen. John Grubb Parke, would use the newly established Atlantic & North Carolina Railroad to transport heavy artillery down from New Bern. 

However, a band of Confederate soldiers from Fort Macon was sent out to burn down the railroad bridge at Newport. It took one regiment of Union soldiers about a week to rebuild the trestle and bridge.

Gen. Parke

 

Gen. Parke pressed on to establish a Union encampment at Carolina City (near the present location of Carteret Community College). From there, Union soldiers moved on to peacefully occupy Morehead City on March 23 and take control of Beaufort on March 26. 

Two young, intrepid Union Signal Corps officers observed that Josiah Pender’s majestic, three-story Atlantic Hotel, located between Marsh and Pollock streets in Beaufort overlooking Taylors Creek, offered an unobstructed view of Fort Macon. Hmmm.

 

 

Civil War comes to Carteret County April 25, 1862

Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s master plan to capture Fort Macon involved a combined Army-Navy assault. Four gunboats stationed offshore would shell the fort, while four batteries of artillery would fire from the sand dunes on Bogue Banks. 

The ground forces – about 1,500 men – were commanded by Union Gen. John Parke. He gave the order to begin bombardment at dawn on April 25, 1862, after Confederate Col. Moses James White, the commander at Fort Macon, had declined offers to surrender on three separate occasions.

 

Col. White

Col. White only had 403 soldiers at Fort Macon, but illness within the ranks reduced the fighting force to fewer than 300, according to historian Paul Branch. 

The Union Navy, led by Commodore Samuel Lockwood, was ineffective, Branch said. Seas were choppy that day, disrupting gunners’ aim. Shots from Fort Macon’s cannons damaged two ships. The Union fleet withdrew after about 90 minutes of action.

 

The initial bombardment from Gen. Parke’s batteries had limited success during the morning. Most of the Union shells missed the mark, with some splashing harmlessly into Beaufort Inlet. 

The turning point in the battle, according to Branch, was the work of two Union Signal Corps officers who perched on a third floor porch at the Atlantic Hotel in Beaufort. They were Lt. William S. Andrews and Lt. Marvin Wait. Using signal flags, they gave instructions. 

Later, Lt. Andrews wrote that the 10-inch shells were falling more than 300 yards beyond the fort, while the 8-inch shells were falling short. The signalmen kept messaging the officers in charge until the correct range was obtained. The battery of Parrott guns was too elevated. That was corrected as well. 

From about noon on, Lt. Andrews said: “Every shot fired from our batteries fell in or on the fort.” 

Branch concurred. “The fort was hit 560 times by artillery fire,” he said, knocking out 17 of Fort Macon’s cannons. The fort’s walls began to crumble, and Col. White observed a 12-foot crack, which threatened to breach the main magazine where 10,000 pounds of gunpowder was stored. 

Rather than be blown up by their own gunpowder, the garrison had little choice but to surrender. At 4:30 p.m., a white flag appeared over Fort Macon’s parapet. The 11-hour battle came to an end. 

Surely, Lt. Andrews and Lt. Wait saw the white flag and took pride in their work.

 

The distance from the hotel in Beaufort to Fort Macon was less than 2 miles. The Union’s “Manual of Signals” said the “4-foot x 4-foot flags on a 12-foot staff” that were commonly used by the Signal Corps can be “easily read at a distance of 8 miles.”

 

The inventor of the flag signaling system used by the Union troops during the Civil War was Dr. Albert James Myer of Newburgh, N.Y., who was a U.S. Army surgeon in the 1850s. While stationed at Fort Duncan on the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, he developed a system of signals, using flags.

Dr. Myer

 

To the untrained observer, the flagman appears to be merely waving a flag back and forth, but the movements were coded communications. Dr. Myer referred to his system as aerial telegraphy, but soldiers called it “wig wag.” 

Casualties at Fort Macon were remarkably low. Branch said seven Confederate soldiers died in the fighting and 18 were wounded. The Union troops lost one man and had three injured.

Fort Macon and the Civil War: Setting the stage

Fort Macon was built after the War of 1812 to protect the United States from British invasion. Yet, the uniquely shaped five-sided garrison is most closely associated with the Civil War. 

Local historian Paul Branch, who is a park ranger at Fort Macon State Park, provided insights about the old fort recently during a lunchtime lecture presentation at the History Museum of Carteret County in downtown Morehead City, N.C. 

He explained that Fort Macon, on the eastern tip of Bogue Banks, was one of 38 forts to be authorized for construction by the U.S. government to guard strategic coastal harbors along the eastern and southern shorelines. Credit President James Madison for getting this ball rolling in 1816. Fort Macon was built between 1826-34.

 

Branch said visitors frequently ask about the name. He tells them the fort was named after North Carolina’s eminent statesman of the period, Nathaniel Macon of Warrenton. 

Nathaniel Macon represented North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1791-1815. He moved up to serve in the U.S. Senate from 1815-28.

 

Nathaniel Macon

“Everyone wants to know how many bricks are in Fort Macon?” Branch remarked. The correct answer is 9,233,412 bricks. 

Branch said he didn’t go around and count them all, but he has read the construction plan documents. A lot of the bricks aren’t visible. The exterior walls are 4.5-feet thick.

 

Paul Branch

A young U.S. Army engineer was given the assignment of doing a routine inspection of Fort Macon in 1840. He was Capt. Robert E. Lee, son of Revolutionary War Gen. Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, who became governor of Virginia. 

Capt. Lee found Fort Macon to be in a scrape – beach erosion was threatening the structure. “It was imperative that the erosion be arrested as soon as possible, so that Fort Macon would not wash,” Branch said. 

Capt. Lee studied the dynamics of the wind, the sea and the sea’s currents as they acted upon Bogue Point. Branch said that Lee’s recommendation in 1841 to preserve and protect Fort Macon required “manmade stabilization efforts” – the construction of two permanent stone jetties. 

Branch said: “The recommendations were adopted, and four other jetties were even added to provide additional protection. They stabilized the fort site for years.” 

Other suggestions by Capt. Lee for repairs and alterations to the fort, including ventilation and drainage, were carried out during the 1841-46 period, bringing Fort Macon “to a pinnacle of top military condition and readiness,” Branch said.

Robert E. Lee as a West Point cadet.

 

Yet, nothing much happened at Fort Macon. During the fort’s early years, it was patrolled by just one unarmed man. 

U.S. Army Sgt. William Alexander was assigned to Fort Macon in April 1859 as caretaker. Born in Scotland, he had moved to America as a young man. He enlisted in the Army in 1831 and served in the Mexican-American War (1846-47). 

Sgt. Alexander was 50 years old when he arrived at Fort Macon, according to Branch. Here, Sgt. Alexander married Ann Livesay of Morehead City. They lived a peaceful and quiet life inside the fort. 

“Secession fever,” as Branch referred to it, began heating up all across the South. Sgt. Alexander sent a letter April 2, 1861, to his commanding officer in Washington, D.C., requesting that a revolver be issued to him. 

Sgt. Anderson received notification on April 12 that “there were no revolvers on hand.” 

That very same day, Confederate forces started the Civil War by opening fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C.

 

Fort Sumter under fire.

Fort Macon would be the next fort to fall…but without a single gunshot.

‘The Light at the End Is a Tunnell’

Frank Timberlake is president of R F Timberlake & Company, Inc., Marketing Communications Consultants, based in Wake County near Zebulon. He is a motivational speaker who has delivered presentations at several John Tunnell family and Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant events over the years.

John Tunnell started working at the Sanitary in Morehead City, N.C., in 1945. Frank Timberlake was 10 years old when he met John Tunnell about 60 years ago. You might say “they bonded.”

Frank Timberlake wrote this poem for John Tunnell’s surprise 85th birthday party at the Sanitary in 2015.

 

John Tunnell (center) with Frank Timberlake (right)

The light at the end is a Tunnell, and his name is John,

And to see what he’s become, look to where he’s from.

“Pamlico County,” he’s always and quickly quipped,

Proudly exclaiming, “Been workin’ hard since I’s a little nip.”

 

A high tider with his own characteristic Southern English brogue,

The demeanor of a captain, a teacher, sometimes even a rogue.

Captains Tony and Ted knew and appreciated his measure and his wit,

To run the Sanitary and to greet the folks, they knew that John was a fit.

 

For season after season, the tourist families to the Sanitary would come and go,

John greeted each one and before they left, their family, home and each name he’d know.

“You’re from Edgecombe County and you’re Uncle Delmus’ son” to one he’d say,

“And I’ve known your mama since she come down here to the shore to play.”

 

Some call him the Memory Man because he holds each name and person as treasure,

Oft times sitting around with customers and friends, looking back and taking measure.

With unmatchable recall, he pulls stories of Morehead, Down East and areas vast,

God made John’s recorder very well for it to store so much of our past.

 

Memories of Sanitary workers, beachcombing families, watermen and old pals,

John’s been storing them all up for years and sharing with the new dit-dot guys and gals.

From 16th Street he’d walk to work and ponder on things of Morehead and life,

He would think about his family and smile to think of Faye, his wife.

 

He knows us all so very well and prides himself on knowing us each and every one,

He’s seen us at our best, our worst and Lord knows he’s seen us eat a ton!

John’s transcended being the man in the restaurant, who knows who we are,

The memories, the smile of him and all of it has gone so way beyond, so very far.

 

John Tunnell is a light and he shines this very day, for us he’s a brilliant burn,

No matter where I go, no matter who I see, John’s already been before I can return.

He is in all our families, a part of our lives from which we’ll never depart,

John lives in Morehead City, North Carolina but moreover he lives in our hearts.

 

John Tunnell is a standard, a constant in the confusion of life’s complex funnel,

For me, and for so many others, the light at the end is John Tunnell.

 

Sanitary Fish Market brand has quite a following

 “The Queen of Clean Goes Sanitary” is the title of an essay written by Malinda Dunlap Fillingim and published by the North Carolina Folklife Institute in 2014. 

Fillingim said: “We never ate out…primarily because of my mother’s life motto that cleanliness was next to godliness, and no kitchen except hers was clean enough to meet her sanitary standards.” 

“She was the ‘Queen of Clean,’ and because of her reign, we ate out only if necessary and necessary came about once a year. She was terrified that one of us would get sick from food poorly cooked or unsanitary cooking conditions. 

“When we traveled, she packed a shoe box with biscuits, crackers and peanut butter, Mason jars of tea and tomatoes she’d slice and place on white bread, sans mayonnaise.” 

The car drove past gas stations that sold boiled peanuts, roadside hot dog stands and barbeque joints. “Mother reminded us no place was immune to some sort of food poisoning, disgusting flies or unwashed workers’ hands.” 

“Once, when my aunt let her cats roam in her kitchen while cooking, mother grabbed us kids, and we left, hungry. Germs were mother’s enemy, and the enemy was lurking behind every crumb outside her culinary domain.” 

The author’s stepfather Carl was a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune in Onslow County. She wrote: “His life took him many different places, and he’d recount all the wondrous foods he enjoyed, leaving me hungry for variety outside of my mother’s kitchen.” 

“While mother attended nursing school at night, he and I ventured to restaurants around Jacksonville, Swansboro and Morehead City, all within close proximity of our Camp Jejeune home.” 

“We’d dirty up dishes to cover our eating escapades, tricking her into thinking we had eaten at home. Those were fun meals with Carl until mother became suspicious and discovered our outings.” 

“Somehow, Carl convinced her to try a restaurant he knew she’d like, one with a perfect name for the ‘Queen of Clean.’” 

“We drove to Morehead City one spring Saturday. After much cajoling, she agreed to eat at the restaurant perfectly named for her, the Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant. She inspected everything with her extraordinary eyes, calculating if it was clean enough for us to consume its foods.” 

“She noted the clean glasses, the hairnets on the cooks, the clean hands of the servers and the spotless floors and tables. She agreed that any restaurant with such a wholesome name was worthy of her patronage.” 

“We ate that day free from worry and enjoyed laughing at her zealous quest for germ-free gastronomy. She ate fish, shrimp and especially hushpuppies like there was no tomorrow. At the end of the meal, Carl estimated that mother ate about 20 hushpuppies.”

 “She blushed and said they were better than anything she’d ever eaten before. After that day, we went to the Sanitary frequently, and still to this day, when I eat there, I think about the hushpuppies that hushed up the ‘Queen of Clean’ one large bite at a time.” 

John Tunnell ‘birthday parade’ caused traffic tie-up

When John Tunnell observed his 90th birthday in December 2020, his family and friends chose to forgo the traditional social gathering, due largely to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Instead, they organized a drive-by birthday celebration parade for folks to motor by the Tunnell house in the Promise Land’ section of Morehead City, N.C., and wish John a “happy birthday” from their vehicles.

 Annabel Morris, a granddaughter, contacted longtime family friend Frank Timberlake, who lives near Zebulon in Wake County, to ask for his assistance and participation. “Do you think we can do it, get enough cars?” she asked. 

“Yeah, we can make it work,” he replied. “The day came, and we had a traffic jam. Cars were backed up for several blocks, all the way from 17th Street to 23rd, where the high-rise bridge goes over to Atlantic Beach. We stopped counting after 150 vehicles.”

 

At the time, Timberlake told The Carteret News-Times: “People could fill an arena to pay tribute to John Tunnell.” 

Yes indeed. John Tunnell is a rock star within Carteret County.

John Tunnell (left) and Frank Timberlake

 

Frank Timberlake’s “connection” to John Tunnell is classic. 

Their relationship began about 60 years ago when Frank was a 10-year-old boy spending a summer vacation week with his family at the Oceanana Family Motel in Atlantic Beach, their first ever visit to the Crystal Coast. They came over to Morehead City to enjoy a meal one evening. 

“I volunteered to ‘scout out’ the restaurants and found the Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant,” Frank said. “I walked in, and what did my eyes behold? This man was kissing babies, shaking people’s hands, passing out menus, directing waitresses…and laughter was all about. It was awesome. I thought he must be the most important man in the world.” 

“I walked up to him and I asked: ‘Is this a nice place to eat, with good, fresh seafood? Can we have a table by the water?’” 

“Why yes, young man, this is a great place to eat…fresh, delicious seafood is our specialty. I am pleased to meet you, my friend,” replied John Tunnell. 

Frank waved the family in to meet “his new best friend,” Mr. John Tunnell. 

“This man befriends a 10-year-old boy. Think about that. It just doesn’t happen very often, and I have clung to John’s friendship, nurturing it all these years,” Frank said, adding, “John is one of the most important people in my life. We both agree that money is not wealth; we believe that people are our riches.”

 

“He’s been like a father figure, but even larger, if that makes sense. It’s hard to explain the impact this man has had on my life. I cannot thank him enough. It’s because of John that I have come to treasure the Garners and ‘my Sanitary family,’” Frank said. 

“Every person John meets shares the experience of his instant friendship,” Frank said. “He is so humble, I don’t think he realizes how much he has altered people’s lives.” 

“Or maybe he has…and he’s quietly showing us to strive to be more like John Tunnell.” 

 

Author shares his comments about John Tunnell

Writing John Tunnell’s biography was a “dream project” for author Kenneth Humphrey. What started out in Humphrey’s mind as being a little, 60-page booklet turned out to be a fairly chunky book with four times the page count. 

Interviews may have been like pulling taffy in the beginning, but as John Tunnell warmed up, the stories just kept on flowing. 

In fact, Humphrey had difficulty in getting his manuscript into the barn, so to speak. “Just one more story,” John would say. 

“Having grown up in Morehead City, I lived through many of those stories,” remarked Humphrey, who is “about 10 years John Tunnell’s junior.”

 

Ken Humphrey, a fisher of fish and and fisher of men, women and children.

“John is a most incredible man,” Humphrey said. “He can list his ‘dear friends’...in the THOUSANDS!” 

Humphrey, who considered himself a “regular” at the Sanitary, would alternate visits between “dinner at noon and early supper in the late afternoon. We Southerners don’t do lunch.” 

“Day after day, I observed that people did not go so much to the Sanitary just to ‘eat.’ They went to see, visit with and enjoy John Tunnell,” he said. “Sometimes, John would sit and talk for 30 minutes while the families ate.” 

Humphrey said his research revealed that “70% of the visitors thought John Tunnell owned the place.” 

Bottom line, Humphrey said, is that John Tunnell is “a man for all time…one of the kindest, most wonderful of all people I have ever met or known. 

“I love his statement: ‘I have always been able to find some good, something nice, about every person I ever met.’ The man means it!” 

 

John Tunnell had a ‘system’ to start a conversation

Just like John Tunnell, Lisa Garner started working at the Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant in Morehead City when she was 15. Each has made the Sanitary “his/her” chosen career…investing one’s heart, body and soul into the business. 

It’s important to point out that John and Lisa are separated in age by a few decades. John, who’s now 92, started at the Sanitary in 1945, working for owners Capt. Ted Garner Sr. and then Ted Garner Jr. These men are Lisa’s grandfather and father, respectively.

 

(Ted Jr. is now 80 and continues to preside over the business, but he has ceded operational control of the restaurant to his children, Lisa and Jeff Garner.) 

Lisa started working at the restaurant as a hostess, prior to going off to college. She recalls having observed John Tunnell “work the crowd,” while functioning as the Sanitary’s maître d’. Lisa studied his style and technique. 

“What a great asset John Tunnell has been to our Garner family business,” Lisa stated. “He has a gift from God to talk to people.” 

“Watching John talk to people is better than anything on television. I often thought I should just pull up a recliner and pop up some popcorn…and just watch and enjoy.” 

“He is our ‘Memory Man,’ and we love him for that. I learned that he has a ‘system.’ John would greet someone by asking: ‘Have you eaten with us before?’ The follow-up was: ‘Where are y’all from?” 

“‘Outside Raleigh’ was never good enough,” Lisa said. “John probed for more specifics. The people might say, ‘Oh, you’ve never heard of the place – Lizard Lick.’” 

“John’s not only been to Lizard Lick, he can tell you how many stoplights they have and who all he’s related to or friends with there.” 

He made North Carolina geography a priority. John and his son, Jonathan, who’s a cook at the Sanitary, had every Monday off. Lisa said Jonathan would drive his father on day trips as “they gallivanted the back roads” of eastern and Piedmont North Carolina. John was continuously building his memory database. 

On more than one occasion, Lisa said she accompanied John Tunnell on an “excursion.” They went to meet John’s kinfolk in Pamlico County, and they’ve walked together through Bayview Cemetery in Morehead City. “He knew about everybody buried there,” she said. 

“That’s not surprising for Morehead City’s ‘Memory Man’ who has never met a stranger,” Lisa Garner said.

John Tunnell was reared in Morehead City by grandparents

John Lawrence Tunnell was born in 1930 in the small waterfront community of Whortonsville in Pamlico County, N.C., the seventh child of Mack Lester Tunnell and Effie Mae Lawrence Tunnell. 

Effie Mae was still a young woman when she died two years later during childbirth in 1932. Her baby died, too. 

Mack Tunnell was a hard-working commercial fisherman, reported Kenneth Humphrey, Tunnell’s biographer. 

Mack Tunnell was faced with “a daunting task, having to raise seven children” as a widower, Humphrey wrote. “The only solution” was to take 16-month-old John to Morehead City in Carteret County to be cared for by grandparents John Roe Lawrence and Mattie Frances Gillikin Lawrence. 

John grew up fishing and oystering, just like all the other kids in the section of town known as “Promise’ Land.” 

He got a real job at age 13, going to work for Alfred Braswell (A.B.) Cooper at the Idle Hour Amusement Center in Atlantic Beach in 1943. John would set up duck pins in the bowling alley there. He’d earn a penny and a half per game. That usually worked out to about a dollar a night. 

This was during World War II, and there were military personnel stationed at Fort Macon and all along Bogue Banks, because of the German U-boats that were right offshore in the Atlantic Ocean. The servicemen proved to be good customers at Idle Hour, coming when off duty to relax, bowl, listen to the jukebox and down a few soft drinks. 

John Tunnell found a new job when he was 15. He was hired as a cook at the Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant in Morehead City. He reported for his first day – July 15, 1945 –wearing bib overalls and work boots. Co-owner Capt. Ted Garner looked him up and down and said, “Come with me boy.” 

They went straight to Webb’s, a local department store, “where Capt. Ted bought John a pair of dress slacks, a white shirt and tie and a pair of dress shoes,” Humphrey wrote. 

Everybody who worked at the Sanitary had to look sharp. That was all part of the “cleanliness image” that was so important to the restaurant’s reputation. 

Co-owner Capt. Tony Seamon had a gift for marketing. He boasted: Our fish “slept in the ocean last night.” 

Another promotional message was: “From our boats to your platter.” 

Customers were invited to select a fish from the fish market counter, and it would be especially prepared just for them. 

Or they could order off the menu that listed 15 items. The “famous deluxe shoreline dinner” was the featured entrée, priced at $2.50. It came with a few courses, John Tunnell recalled. The cold plate offerings included oysters, clams, shrimp salad and boiled shrimp. Next came soft-shell crab, mullet, bluefish, fried shrimp and fried oysters with helpings of hush puppies. 

John Tunnell said Capt. Tony had a story about the fellow who invented hush puppies. Capt. Tony got the recipe and the scoop during a trip to Louisiana. It’s included in Humphrey’s book. 

“A fisherman had come ashore down in the bayou and began to fry up some balls of cornbread in a pot of oil over the campfire, Cajun style. His dogs were tied up to a nearby tree, and as they smelled the aroma of the crispy cornbread balls, the dogs began barking loudly, wanting to share in the bounty.” 

“The fisherman would pick up two or three morsels and throw them to the dogs, calling out: “HUSH puppies.”

 

^^^

 In 1951, in the midst of the Korean War, a 21-year-old John Tunnell took a leave of absence from the Sanitary to enlist in the Marine Corps. Pvt. Tunnell did his basic training at Camp Parris Island in South Carolina, but he wasn’t sent overseas. 

When his sergeant major found out he could cook, Pvt. Tunnell was assigned to manage the mess hall at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Havelock. That worked out great. Havelock is just west of Carteret County. It meant John could keep on working about every other night and weekends at the Sanitary. This went on for about two years.

 

^^^

 

Gov. W. Kerr Scott

During this time period, North Carolina Gov. W. Kerr Scott consulted with his old fishing buddy Capt. Tony at the Sanitary about where to spend some road building funds that had become available for use in Carteret County. (This story is also captured within Humphrey’s book.) 

Capt. Tony happened to mention to Gov. Scott that the Seamon family home was up near Conchs Point on Calico Bay, and that road was unpaved. “Done,” the governor replied. 

Then, Capt. Tony let it be known that the man who supplies the Sanitary with soft-shell crabs lived up in the Merrimon-South River area. He had to travel a dirt road coming down to Beaufort. “Done.” 

^^^ 

John Tunnell was 28 years old in 1958 when he caught the 28th blue marlin to be landed on the dock at Morehead City. The fish weighed more than 259 pounds and is mounted on a wall at the Sanitary for restaurant patrons to view. This catch added to the newfound interest in fishing for billfish offshore from the Crystal Coast.

 

A group known as the Fabulous Fishing Club had formed about a year earlier in 1957, meeting regularly at “Table 15” in the Sanitary, John Tunnell said.

 

Club members had come up with a plan to pay a cash prize to the first person who could reel in a blue marlin and bring it to the Morehead City dock. (This led to the growth and development of the annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament.) 

On Sept. 14, 1957, Raleigh angler Jimmy Croy, fishing with Capt. K.W. “Bill’’ Olsen, hooked and reeled in a 143-pound blue marlin. According to the Big Rock archives, here’s what happened next: 

“Capt. Olsen radioed Bump Styron, who owned the Morehead City Yacht Basin, to report the historic catch. Styron, in turn, notified Bob Campbell of WMBL Radio…and he got the word out to the public. A crowd of about 100 gathered at the yacht basin to await the arrival of the big fish.”

 

“Capt. Tony Seamon (of the Sanitary) and his son, Tony Jr., went to First Citizens Bank where bank president Jim Bob Sanders kept a sealed sack of silver dollars. Tony Jr. poured the coins (250 or more) into a little red wagon, donated by the manager at Rose’s department store.” 

“Then, amid police sirens, car horns and as much vocal ruckus as could be mustered, the red wagon was pulled through the streets of Morehead City to the place where the fish would arrive.” 

In 1958, Capt. George Bedsworth of Morehead City earned $325 for a blue marlin that weighed more than 428 pounds, one of five he caught that season.

 

John Tunnell married Gloria Faye Warren of Belhaven in 1962. The couple raised three children who followed in their father’s footsteps. All found jobs at the Sanitary and are still on the payroll. Renee Morris is the bookkeeper, Jonathan Tunnell is a cook and Rochelle Turner is a member of the wait staff.

John said that he and Gloria have lived in the same house in Morehead City’s Promise’ Land neighborhood since 1967. 

^^^

 John Tunnell was friends with some of Morehead City’s legendary boat captains and community leaders. Humphrey’s book delves into relationships that John Tunnell had with the likes of Capt. Ottis Purifoy, Capt. Woo-Woo Harker, Capt. Leroy Gould, Capt. Bill Williams, Velton Jones (V.J.) “Puck” O’Neal, John Purcell Jones, Hugh Salter and Fred Tillery. 

John Tunnell has rubbed elbows with some of North Carolina’s most esteemed movers and shakers. One was Harlan E. Boyles, who served 24 years as North Carolina elected state treasurer before retiring in 2001. 

Humphrey’s book contains a copy of a note that Boyles penned in 1995, addressed to “Sir John Tunnell,” whom he labeled the “best restaurant manager in North Carolina.”

 

N.C. Treasurer Harlan Boyles

 

In 2010, John Tunnell’s coworkers and many of his fans teamed up to nominate him for an “Outrageous Customer Service Award,” presented by the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce. 

The effort was sanctioned by the Sanitary’s third generation of Garners, siblings Jeff and Lisa Garner, who now head up the restaurant’s leadership team, in an effort to show their gratitude to John Tunnell, a dedicated and loyal associate and colleague. 

John’s selection was a slam dunk. Two memorable nomination letters collected by Humphrey were published in his book. 

JoAn and Kenneth Putnam of Morehead City wrote: “We know of no one who deserves to be honored any more than John. To know him is to love him because of his dedication to people from all walks of life. He is known for his kindness and gentleness of spirit, and we are truly blessed to have him as part of our lives.” 

A humorous letter came from a fellow named Crotty, who would frequently gather up a group of folks from Rocky Mount and drive down to Morehead City just “to eat with John Tunnell, the man who knows everybody’s name.” 

“We never could remember the name of the restaurant,” Crotty wrote in jest.

To be continued.