Little
Cities by the Sea
Old towns and new’ thrive in the new’ awak¬
ening of eastern North Carolina; port de¬
velopment brings hope, but fishing is still
the thing.
By PAUL PLEASANTS
The Yacht Basin, and a section of Morchcad City.
A century ago this year, John Mot¬
ley Morchead upset an applecart in
an effort to make a million. He
didn't make the million, but he did
start Morchcad City.
When it seemed that the statc-spon-
sored railway at last was to reach to
the sea, a town called Carolina City
was laid out in Carteret County, just
west of the present site of Morchcad.
But Morchcad. industrialist and pro¬
moter. determined that the railway
should extend on down to Shepard's
Point, obviously a better place to
transfer cargoes. He bought 6(H) acres
of land of this peninsular plantation
in 1853. laid out a town, and in 1857
sold off lots. Carolina City collapsed.
The new town was barely getting
started when the Civil War came on.
Carteret was overrun, and recon¬
struction set in. The modest terminal
deteriorated, and the dreams lan¬
guished. But the railway was still there
and so were the fish. The old Atlantic
& E. C. hauled out so much sea food
that it became "The Mullet Line," a
nickname which has long survived
its utility.
For a time. Morchcad was paced by
the commercial fishing industry which
had always determined Carteret's
course. But over the years, diversity
and progress came. The menhaden in¬
dustry, the inland waterway: boat
works: later a sizable garment factory,
a roofing plant and other enterprises.
Highways and bridges brought tour¬
ists and sport fishermen, and a new
business sprang up around them. The
short line to Beaufort connected at
Morchcad with the Mullet Line, and
truck farming developed.
It became the headquarters for the
Fisheries Division of the Department
of Conservation & Development, ac¬
quired a U. S. marine biological sta¬
tion. summer schools of Duke and
WCUNC. With World War II came
military installations and a beach
boom. Bit by bit the town pushed up¬
ward on a multitude of small fronts.
But it never could rid itself of the
dream to become a port city. The ef¬
fort of the Morrison administration to
revive the program was voted down
in a bond election.
Led by Stanley Woodland, a group
of persistent Carteret business and pro¬
fessional men kept pushing until they
got action in Washington and Raleigh.
A modern port terminal was com¬
menced under an RFD Loan.
During the Cherry administration, a
ports authority was created and in the
Scott administration, a $7, 500, 000
bond issue for port development was
voted by the state, so that further im¬
provement in facilities were made.
Now, Morchcad's rejuvenated port is
ready, looking for traffic, and getting
some of it. though not nearly enough.
In the past ten years Morchcad has
had its greatest growth, increasing
from 3.695 to 5.144 permanent popu¬
lation. This growth, plus the large
transient population of tourists and
families of nearby Camps Lcjcunc and
Cherry Point, has led to substantial
residential developments.
Population figures arc deceptive.
Morchcad has a sizable community of
summer residents; one of its prettiest
sections is comprised of the homes of
these people on Bogue Sound facing
Atlantic Beach. It is the shopping
center, too. for the thousands who oc¬
cupy beach cottages, for military fam¬
ilies. as well as thousands of sportsmen.
The town is headquarters for the
state's largest single sport fishing fleet,
and there are not many weeks in
the year that it docs not go out through
Beaufort Inlet for game fish.
Morchead is located on a peninsula
and is a long, long town, narrowed by
the confining waters. Down its broad
main street arc the tracks of the A&EC
(Mullet Line), and just one block
south is the bustling waterfront, lined
with eating places, fish houses, boat
docks and miscellany.
Stretching west of Morchcad's busi¬
ness section and lying adjacent to the
handsome sound-side summer homes
is The Promised Land, a residential
section of modest homes of fishermen.
Many of them are from families who
abandoned the ghost town of Dia¬
mond City on Shackleford Banks.
In an area which appears to be
nostalgic and close to traditions,
Morchcad by contrast is a bustling,
modern town of the future. Little of the
aura of the past is noticeable.
Beaufort
When you head your car across
the bridges and causeway east of Morc¬
head City, you enter the county scat
of Beaufort, and another world. For
over 200 years, the inhabitants of this
picturesque and distinctive little city
1 2
THE STATE, JUNE 27, 1953
