N.C. coastal region once supported 4 ports of entry

For most of the colonial period, there were essentially four working ports of entry to serve maritime traffic within the territory that became North Carolina.

Operating under the authority of the Lords Proprietors, Gov. Charles Eden decreed Port Bath as the first official port in 1716. 

Located on Bath Creek, a tributary of the Pamlico River, in present-day Beaufort County, Bath is North Carolina’s oldest town, having formed in 1705. 

Initially, Port Bath served as a primary gateway for ships navigating through the Ocracoke Inlet.

Port Roanoke was located at Edenton in Chowan County near the western end of Albemarle Sound, near the confluence of the Roanoke and Chowan rivers. 

Interestingly, the settlement was originally known as “the Towne on Queen Anne’s Creek,” but was renamed as Edenton in 1722 as a tribute to Gov. Eden shortly after his death.

 

Port Beaufort in Carteret County was strategically located near Cape Lookout with ocean access through present-day Beaufort Inlet.

 

The fourth North Carolina port was established in 1726 and located on the lower Cape Fear River in Brunswick Town. In short order, Brunswick Town became the busiest of the four North Carolina ports.

 

When Wilmington was incorporated in 1739, the port facilities and customs collection office were moved there, about 10 miles upriver from Brunswick Town.

 

In the spring of 1776, a British raiding party burned Brunswick Town to the ground during the American Revolutionary War. The town was never rebuilt.

Combined, these four ports “were essential elements in the development of commerce in North Carolina,” wrote historians John Hairr and the late David Stick, coauthors of a 2006 essay titled “Ports and Harbors” published by NCPedia.

Although Beaufort was a vibrant community with maritime significance, former Gov. John Motley Morehead envisioned the establishment of a new port, one built from the ground up for industrial-scale shipping.

 In the 1850s, he selected Shepard’s Point on the Carteret County mainland as the preferred location, because it offered a better, deeper and wider channel to accommodate large ships.

A major factor was the construction of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad from Goldsboro to the coast, an extension of the North Carolina Railroad from Charlotte. 

It was here, at the end of the rail line, where a “bustling commerce center specifically designed for shipping” would blossom, Morehead proclaimed.

 Morehead and others purchased 600 acres and formed the Shepard Point Land Company. A town was laid out, and lots were sold in 1857, specifically to coincide with the arrival of the railroad in 1858. The settlement was chartered in 1861 and named Morehead City, in honor of John Motley Morehead.

Author Herbert W. Stanford III said the Civil War years, followed by the hurricane of 1879, “hampered development of the Morehead City port.” 

It was now obvious, Stanford said, that Morehead City was not going to meet the expectations of former Gov. Morehead and grow into the “New York City of the South.”

Stanford said the port facilities at Morehead City “fell into disrepair and disuse by the end of the 19th century. The port was closed to shipping in 1904.”

However, to Morehead City’s benefit, a movement for state-owned ports began to gain momentum in the state legislature during the 1920s, Stanford wrote.

Gov. Cameron A. Morrison established the State Ship and Water Transportation Commission (SSWTC) in 1923. Its purpose was to “study the possibility of establishing docks, wharves, terminals and other facilities to promote waterborne commerce.”

 

The SSWTC affirmed that localities lacked the resources to build the infrastructure, concluding that any initiative had to be state-driven and state-funded.

A look inside the N.C. Railroad board room:

Stockholders of the new North Carolina Railroad Company (NCRR) met in Salisbury in Rowan County on July 11, 1850, for the purpose of electing a board of directors.

Among those chosen to serve as directors were former North Carolina governors John Motley Morehead (shown above) of Greensboro in Guilford County and William Alexander Graham (shown below), who was born at Vesuvius Furnace near Lincolnton in Lincoln County.

 

Two of the newly elected directors were prominent local business leaders in Salisbury – John Isaac Shaver and John Bradley Lord (shown below). 

Also elected was Francis Levin Fries (shown below) of Winston-Salem in Forsyth County, an industrialist and building contractor there.

 

Two of the men who worked most closely with Morehead, touring the state to raise $1 million in private stock subscriptions, also became directors of the company. They were well-known politicians: Congressman John Adams Gilmer (shown above) of Greensboro and Judge Romulus Mitchell Saunders (shown below), who was born near Milton in Caswell County.

 

Eastern North Carolina was represented by directors Alonzo Thomas Jerkins of New Bern in Craven County and Dr. Armand John (A.J.) De Rosset of Wilmington in New Hanover County.

Jerkins, the son of a sea captain, began sailing commercial vessels between New Bern and the West Indies. He later turned his attention to land-based ventures and became a prosperous businessman. He was an incorporator of the Bank of Commerce in New Bern and became its president.

He also represented Craven County in the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Jerkins was instrumental in helping develop water transportation facilities. Besides having an interest in the Trent River Transportation Company, which ran a regular line of freight and passenger boats from the river’s mouth up to Trenton. He also held stock in the Neuse River Navigation Company, which owned and operated a steamship that ran between New Bern and Smithfield.

De Rosset graduated from Princeton University and completed his medical education at the University of Pennsylvania. At age 23, he opened a physician’s office in Wilmington.

 

Dr. De Rosset was a director of the Bank of Cape Fear for 37 years. He was also a major investor in both The Rockfish Manufacturing Company, a successful cotton mill established in Cumberland County, and the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad.

Rounding out the 10-member NCRR board was John Warwick Thomas, founder of Thomasville in Davidson County. (More on him later.)

The directors elected John Motley Morehead as NCRR’s first president.

The company hired Walter Gwynn (shown below) as chief engineer. A native of Jefferson County, W.Va., in the Shenandoah Valley, Gwynn graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and was assigned to help survey the route for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O).

 

After completing his military service in 1832, Gwynn worked as chief engineer in charge of the construction of the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad. 

He specialized in conducting surveys for railroad and canal projects in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.

Gwynn’s qualifications and accomplishments enabled him to establish “an international reputation” as the premier railroad engineer of his time.

The NCRR’s authorizing legislation specified that the railroad would connect Charlotte to Salisbury in the west and also connect Goldsboro to Raleigh in the east. 

But the location of the track between Salisbury and Raleigh, a distance of some 100 miles, was flexible – giving Gwynn’s survey teams some leeway.

A direct line from Salisbury to Raleigh runs through Randolph and Chatham counties (Asheboro, Siler City and Pittsboro).

 

Transportation historian Michael Sheehan of Chapel Hill reported: “Gwynn’s engineering survey showed that the Uwharrie and Caraway mountains near Asheboro would present a technical challenge that would be expensive to overcome.”

“These remnants of ancient coastal mountains reached a not-insubstantial elevation of 1,800 feet above sea level (compared to 315 feet at Raleigh), and the topography around them undulated dramatically. It was difficult terrain for railroad tracks.”

“From an engineering standpoint, a slightly longer route located farther north was a better choice. In general, the northern route presented less undulation in the terrain, and the river valleys there, closer to their headwaters, tended to be narrower and shallower.”

Historian J. D. Lewis of Little River, S.C., said that Gwynn’s survey teams determined that best alternative was “to go through Alamance and Orange counties to avoid the difficult terrain farther to the south.”

So, the path would have “a bulge” as it swung north passing through Lexington in Davidson County and Greensboro in Guilford County before leveling off and entering Alamance and Orange, Lewis commented.

 

A rail station was established at the highest point along the North Carolina Railroad, with an elevation of 939 feet avbove sea level. 

This was also the intersection of the rail line with the “Great Plank Road” – the Fayetteville and Western Plank Road – that stretched 129 miles from Fayetteville in Cumberland County to Bethania near Salem in Forsyth County.

The community that grew up here in Guilford County took the name High Point. 

Lewis also noted that the original survey called for a station to be built at a small village called Prattsburg, southeast of Hillsborough in Orange County. 

But, William N. Pratt, the local landowner, asked such an exorbitant price for his land that it was prudent to relocate the railroad two miles west” on land owned by Dr. Bartlett Leonidas Snipes Durham (shown below). Dr. Durham agreed to donate 4 acres of his property to NCRR.

 

“Durham’s Station became the nucleus of the later city and county seat,” Lewis said.

Local Durham historians say that Pratt owned a notorious pit stop on the Hillsborough-to-Raleigh Road at Prattsburg. It was a “disorderly house” where “evil-disposed persons” would gather for “drinking, tippling, playing at cards and other unlawful games, cursing, screaming, quarreling and otherwise misbehaving themselves.”

But Pratt was a shrewd businessman. When he had been approached by the railroad company, Pratt was fearful that the trains would frighten his customers’ horses. So, he set a high price. Too high of a price.

Prattsburg soon faded from the maps. The railroad allowed transport of tobacco, sparking Durham’s boom and contributing to the growth of the town. Durham’s Station was incorporated in 1869 as the City of Durham.

As for John Warwick Thomas, he was in the right place at the right time. His primary occupation was prospecting. He mined precious metals near Silver Hill in Davidson County.

Thomas entered local politics in 1831 and was elected to the state senate in 1842. He was instrumental in the passage of a bill in 1849 to build the North Carolina Railroad.

As the final route was determined to pass three miles north of his house, he subsequently bought property directly along the rail line. 

Thomas built a railroad depot as well as a general store and a gristmill. His son Lewis opened a hotel directly across from the depot, and Thomas put up cabins for workmen.

“Thomas’s little community became known as Thomas Depot,” reported the archivist at the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (DNCR).

“The Town of Thomasville claims 1852 as its founding date. The Thomasville post office opened in 1853, and in 1857 the town was incorporated by the General Assembly.”

“Several new businesses moved into the town, including two shoemaking firms from Bush Hill in Randolph County. Thomas purchased the charter of Glen Anna Female Seminary, renamed it Thomas Female College, and moved the academy from its position near Lexington to a three-story brick building near his home in Thomasville in 1857,” the DNCR spokesperson said.

“Thomas also lured furniture manufacturers into the area, principally the Westmoreland and Whitehall families. The individuals provided the foundation for what later became Thomasville Furniture Industries.”

 

A Thomasville landmark is “the world’s largest Duncan Phyfe chair.” Sometimes called simply the “Big Chair,” it’s a 30-foot replica of an original design by the famous American designer Duncan Phyfe. 

Born near Loch Fannich, Scotland, he immigrated with his family to Albany, N.Y. New York, in 1784 and served as a cabinetmaker’s apprentice. Duncan Phyfe opened his own shop in New York City in 1791.

The old railroad depot in Thomasville is now a visitors center.

1849 North Carolina Railroad bill ‘saved the state’

“Even the granite Capitol in Raleigh seemed to shake with joy” on Jan. 27, 1849, when North Carolina Sen. Calvin Graves cast the deciding vote to approve funding for the North Carolina Railroad (NCRR).

 

This assessment was provided by veteran legislator Rufus Clay Barringer of Concord. 

He said that he had experienced many outbreaks of public applause in the halls of state government…but “none compared to the reaction that erupted when Sen. Graves broke the tie to ‘save the state’ and pass the railroad bill.”

Dr. Christopher Crittenden, former director of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History, reflected that in 1849 the country lacked electronic, instantaneous communications capability, “but immediately, every man and woman, every boy and girl, became a sort of message carrier. News was hastened in every possible way to every nook and corner of the state.”

 

Former Gov. John Motley Morehead, who helped champion the advantages of having a major east-west rail line from Charlotte to Goldsborough, was known to have had lobbied legislators on this issue, including Sen. Graves, but there was no evidence of any “political skullduggery.”

Sen. Graves, as senate speaker, cast the vote that broke a tie. He was loudly criticized by his constituents in Caswell County for abandoning an alternate plan to build a rail line through his home district, connecting Charlotte to Danville, Va.

 

Calvin Graves’ vote on the North Carolina Railroad bill cost him his job in the General Assembly.

He quietly exited politics…and accepted an offer from former Gov. Morehead to join the “team” being assembled to travel about the state making public appearances to raise the private capital required to match the state appropriated funds that would make the NCRR a reality.

Judge Romulus M. Saunders (shown above) and John Adams Gilmer (shown below)  were other members of Morehead’s “inner circle.”

 

Judge Saunders was a former U.S. Congressman and state superior court judge. He enjoyed enormous popularity as a “rough-and-tumble stump orator.”

Gilmer was an attorney who represented Greensboro in the state senate. He gained a reputation for “his eloquence as a public speaker.”

Transportation historian Michael Sheehan suggested that Gilmer’s influence may also have had a little something to do with the arc in the North Carolina Railroad route “so it would pass through Greensboro,” in close proximity to the Blandwood estate of former Gov. Morehead…to enable him to enjoy watching the trains go by.

This team of heavy hitters proved to be just the right combination of incredible fundraisers. Investors were eager to jump onboard.

Gov. Charles Manly (shown below) later appointed Calvin Graves as a commissioner on the N.C. Board of Internal Improvements, the body responsible for coordinating public investment in transportation projects such as roads, railroads, canals, harbors and river navigation.

 

When the formal groundbreaking for the NCRR occurred on July 11, 1851, in Greensboro, it was Calvin Graves who was given the honor of turning the first spade of soil. Thousands attended, giving Graves a hero’s ovation.

After all the speechifying and ritualistic gestures, “the assembled crowd got down to the real business of celebration – North Carolina style – by dining on barbecue,” according to Sheehan.

The construction project was finally completed in January 1856, establishing a railroad line that extended 223 miles, linking Charlotte to Goldsborough.

Dr. Crittenden interviewed Robert Lindsay Morehead of Winston-Salem, great-great grandson of form Gov. Morehead. “I think North Carolina today would be like Arkansas and Mississippi, underdeveloped, if Graves hadn’t voted as he did,” Robert Morehead said.

“The railroad really changed the whole demographics of the state and cleared the way for all that has come later,” Robert Morehead said.

Meet the legislator who made the N.C. Railroad a reality

While former Gov. John Motley Morehead was identified as the primary figure in the development of the North Carolina Railroad (NCRR) in the early 1850s, there’s another fellow who needs a turn in the limelight.

He is North Carolina Sen. Calvin Graves of Yanceyville in Caswell County, who served as the state senate speaker.

 

It was left up to Sen. Graves to cast the deciding vote on Jan. 27, 1849, to determine whether to pass the bill in favor of building the 223-mile rail line from Charlotte to Goldsborough (as it was known then).

Writing for NCPedia, the late Dr. John L. Humber (shown below) set the stage: “Plagued from its very beginning by conflicting geographic features and political boundaries, North Carolina found it difficult to reconcile the resulting economic differences…between the eastern and western sections of the state.”

 

Railroads presented an opportunity, beginning in the 1840s, to tie the state together both economically and politically, Humber reported.

North Carolina’s first railroad in 1840 connected the port city of Wilmington to Weldon in Halifax County near the Virginia border. At 161 miles, it was the longest railroad line in the world at the time, taking on the name of the Wilmington and Weldon.

 

The new railroad passed within about a mile of the community of Waynesborough in Wayne County on the Neuse River. 

Wayne County was named in memory of U.S. Army Gen. Anthony Wayne, who a daring, aggressive military leader during the American Revolutionary War. 

Nicknamed “Mad Anthony” for his fiery temper and audacity on the battlefield, he was a trusted commander under George Washington and instrumental in securing the Northwest Territory.

Essentially, a new town formed along the railroad tracks.

The settlement was named “Goldsborough’s Junction,” honoring Maj. Matthew Tilghman Goldsborough, assistant chief engineer with the railroad line. 

(The town was incorporated in 1847 as “Goldsborough” and shortened to “Goldsboro” in 1869.)

 North Carolina’s second railroad – the Raleigh and Gaston – began operation later in 1840, running about 100 miles from Raleigh to Gaston in Northampton County, also near the Virginia boundary.

 

Both of these early railroads had a north-south orientation. They connected eastern North Carolina traders with the bountiful Roanoke River Valley and with Virginia railroads that served Norfolk and northern markets.

Storyteller Michael Sheehan (shown below) of Chapel Hill said: “Western interests felt left out of the railroad boom. If a new railroad were to run from Charlotte to Goldsborough and connect there with the Wilmington and Weldon, western products could be routed to the state’s principal seaport at Wilmington.”

 

Legislation to build the NCRR on the Charlotte to Goldsborough route was sponsored by Sen. William Shepperd Ashe of New Hanover County.

 

“On Jan. 18, 1849, the measure came to a vote in the N.C. House of Commons,” Sheehan said. “It passed on a vote of 60 in favor and 52 against; the bill moved over to a polarized senate.”

When the senate vote was called on Jan. 27, the tally revealed a 22-22 deadlock.

“All eyes turned to the front of the chamber, where on the dais sat Calvin Graves,” Sheehan said. The senate speaker “would cast the tie-breaking vote on a bill that…would define the state of North Carolina for decades to come.”

Sen. Graves’ Caswell County district bordered Virginia and sat just below Danville. 

His constituents wanted to the rail line to run from Charlotte to Danville, passing directly through Caswell County, bringing economic prosperity to the district. In Danville, the new railroad would connect with the Richmond and Danville Railroad. 

 

“Yet, Sen. Graves believed that the east-west North Carolina Railroad would bring prosperity and economic unity to the state” in a way a Charlotte-Danville railroad could not, Sheehan said.

“Without hesitation, Sen. Graves cast his tie-breaking vote in favor of the North Carolina Railroad bill,” Sheehan said. “He had weighed loyalty to his district and…his own political future…against what he saw as best for all of North Carolina.”

In the end, Sen. Graves chose “conviction over constituents,” one historian said.