Ten Years in Rented Store Fronts
By Jane Wolff
EDITOR’S NOTE: Jane WolfFis the public information officer for the North Carolina Maritime
Museum at Beaufort. She is editor of The Waterline, the museum’s quarterly newsletter. She also
serves as coordinator of the one hundred volunteers who help keep the museum running. A native
of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and a graduate of Inunaculata Junior College in Washington, D.C., she
has been with the Maritime Museum since 1975, when she stopped by the Hampton Marine
Museum and asked Charles R. McNeill if he needed any help.
While the thirtieth anniversary of a museum may not seem like a major milestone in
terms of number of years, thirty years of service is nearly half a lifetime to some of the staff
at the North Carolina Maritime Museum. Aspects of the museum’s origins can be traced
to the early twentieth century, but 1975 is the year that curator/ director Charles R.
McNeill established the course and standards for the North Carolina Maritime Museum
that continue to this day.
With the backing of the late former commissioner James A. Graham and the North
Carolina Department of Agriculture, McNeill and his small staff transformed what had been
a “collection” of items housed in rented storefronts into a legitimate museum. McNeill’s
maritime expertise, the funding of the Beaufort waterfront urban renewal project, the enthu¬
siasm of museum supporters, the assistance of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sci¬
ences in Raleigh, and the varied expertise of the staff, all seemed to mesh.
The museum was first called the Hampton Marine Museum, later the Hampton Mari¬
ners Museum, in honor of W. Roy Hampton, longtime member and chairman of the
Board of Conservation and Development, who took an active interest in the commercial
fisheries of the state.
None of the early staff had any “museum training” like the college-level courses avail¬
able today. Of the first four female staff members, two were marine-science teachers and
innovators in conducting field courses; one had degrees in botany and science; and one
had secretarial skills and tourism experience. The first male employee had an accounting
and business background.
This staff continued to do what they knew how best to do. They conducted field trips
for the public, a fairly new concept in the mid-1970s, as well as for school and other
groups. There was little money, but the coastal habitats were readily available for the
growing number of people who were interested in this hands-on approach. There weren’t
any vehicles other than those owned by the staff so the ancient purple pickup truck
belonging to McNeill could be seen headed to the salt marsh with participants gleefully
riding in the back. The education staff also wrote publications, conducted workshops,
trained other educators, conducted outreach to coastal communities and organizations, and
networked with museums and museum-related organizations.
The administrative staff' handled the money (what little there was), business, public
relations, and hospitality. Staff members set up, maintained, and collected for the aquari¬
ums, operated the museum store, repaired the building and items on exhibit, raised funds,
and performed whatever daily chores came their way.
The “rented storefronts” that were home to the museum for ten years were always in
need of repairs. During heavy rains the sewers would back up, and the toilets overflow
and run into the compact area that was an office for three staff members, storage for the
small museum store, and large cabinets for navigation charts. Once, during dry weather, a
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