Newport, N.C., motto emphasizes ‘old-fashioned courtesy’

Newport, N.C., grew up as a railroad town, blossoming with the opening of the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad in 1858, connecting the port at Morehead City to Goldsboro.

Today, the tracks continue to pass “through the heart of Newport.” Newport was officially chartered in 1866. 

The community’s history, however, dates to the early 1700s, when a crossroads settlement was known as Bell’s Corner and later as Bell’s Landing. Early Carteret County census rolls listed several Bell families.

The community was also known for a short time as Shepardsville. David Shepard and his family members were also prominent landowners in the region.

Long before U.S. Route 70 came to Newport, the Newport River, which weaves through Carteret County and empties into the Beaufort Inlet, served as the “highway over which early settlers traveled” to and from the coast.

Newport officials say the town was called “New Port” to distinguish it from the “Old Port” of Beaufort. Others believe an early influx of Quakers from Rhode Island name the town “Newport” in honor of their native Newport, R.I.

Regardless, Newport professes to be “the town with old-fashioned courtesy,” welcoming visitors, guests and newcomers.

 

The town saw action early in the Civil War, when Union troops took possession in 1862 of the Confederacy’s Newport Barracks and Fort Benjamin, a large earthwork garrison to guard a railroad bridge over the Newport River.

In January 1864, Confederate Gen. James Green Martin of Elizabeth City, N.C. (shown below), was tapped to lead a force of almost 2,000 soldiers from Wilmington, N.C., to support an expedition to drive Union troops out of New Bern.

 

At Newport Barracks, Martin encountered Union soldiers under the command of Lt. Col. Valentine Goodrich Barney of Swanton, Vt. (shown below), on Feb. 2, 1864. After a brief battle, Barney’s men abandoned the fort, retreating to Beaufort. Each side had five fatalities.

When Martin learned that the Confederate troops invading from Kinston had failed in their attempt to retake New Bern on the previous day (Feb. 1), he ordered his men to return to Wilmington, taking valuable supplies and equipment from the barracks with them.

The Newport Historical Museum, housed in “The Teacherage,” provides a wealth of additional information. In 1926-27, the North Carolina school system decided to build a “teacherage” for the single, female schoolteachers employed by the Newport Consolidated School.

 

The large, two-story structure accommodated 16 teachers in a dormitory-style facility with a common kitchen and dining room.

A full-time matron was hired to cook and help with cleaning. Teachers had rent deducted from their monthly paychecks. In the early 1940s, the building was converted into apartments for married couples. The facility was eventually sold at auction in 1981.

The teacherage became a museum in 2012, operated by the Newport Consolidated Alumni Association. (Newport’s high school had closed in 1964, as students began attending the new West Carteret High School in Morehead City.)

Looking to protect its future in 2014, the Newport town government enacted a model tall structure ordinance to ensure that wind turbines do not encroach on the air space used by pilots during their training at nearby Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

 

John Droz Jr., an active opponent of wind energy, said that Cherry Point is a “bastion of national defense and the major employer in eastern North Carolina. If the airspace surrounding Cherry Point became endangered by wind turbines, it could make the base a likely candidate for base closure.”

“The nation’s national defense notwithstanding, at an annual loss of $2 billion in wages and salaries, eastern North Carolina would be devastated,” Droz said.