State

fro m MURPH4 к MAlMTEC Witt* Bill Sharps /vv>> -и MAIL BAG Some good news from Mrs. Arizona Hughes, up at Spears, in the Toe River Valley. After completing 57 years of teaching, many of those years in the pioneer days of education, Mrs. Hughes is writing her memoirs. She's about half through the job. she says in a recent letter. The keen eye of S. T. Henry was quick to see the item here that New¬ found Ciap probably was the highest "through" gap in the state. It is, he writes. Carver's Gap, where the high¬ way crosses the Roan into Tennessee. Here the road reaches 5,552 feet —nearly 500 feet higher than the gap at Newfound. A Winston-Salem doctor, who says he travels with an altimeter in his car. also championed Carver's. FRUITY AND USEFUL Orton Lake — or pond, as it is called — is a pretty thing. You see it on the right on the River Road below Wilmington, just after passing the plantation entrance. In fact, the road runs right over the little dam which backs the water up several miles. Its surface usually is wrinkled into a lively chop by the breeze, and it is edged by cypress trees. The Sunny Point easement rights come up to the pond but do not engulf it. Besides its eye appeal. Orton is an important pond, because it furnishes the water for the network of canals and lagoons of the plantation, and once it was the key equipment for rice cul¬ tivation. Wandering about Orton with Ken¬ neth Sprunt this spring. I wondered aloud why rice cultivation, once so im¬ portant along the Cape Fear, dis¬ appeared abruptly. The answer lies in those canals and the cost of maintaining them. Their banks would crumble and fill with silt. Slaves kept them clear by laboriously hand-dredging them out with special scoops. The new Lcfler-Newsome History quotes a traveler in 1775 as observing "The labor required for the cultivation (of rice) is fit only for slaves, and I think the hardest work I have seen them engaged in.” Rice planting moved to the south and southwest, where it was possible to flood the fields through water sys¬ tems not requiring this labor, and when labor costs rose everywhere. North Carolina fields could not com¬ pete. The last commercial planting of rice in this state went out about the turn of the century. The old rice fields fill the 500 yards between the bluff (on which the house is built) and the Cape Fear. About 1,000 acres have been set aside as a migratory waterfowl refuge and planted to millet and other feed crops. This past season some 5,000 ducks discovered this cafeteria and wintered there. A few geese and one lone swan joined thent. Kenneth expects the num¬ ber to increase next year because un¬ doubtedly some of these visitors talked about Orton when they got back to Canada this spring. You know how birds will brag. DURANTS NECK It is easy now to trod the first piece of real estate for which a deed was recorded in North Carolina. East of Hertford a paved road leaves U.S. 17 and turns down Durants Neck, named for George Durant, who in 1662 bought the lower six miles of it from the king of the Yeopim tribe of In¬ dians. The deed is in the courthouse at Hertford. The King. Kilcocanen, is also in Hertford, and a sidewalk now crosses over his grave. It was good alluvial land then and it still is. The tract stretched from the Perquimans River to Little River; the neck tapers gracefully, ending in a point washed by the two rivers and Al¬ bemarle Sound. Three hundred years of cultivation does not appear to have diminished its productivity . . . large fields, mostly devoted to com and soy¬ beans, arc under cultivation. It seems a relatively prosperous area. The abun¬ dance of water tempts the farmers to fish a lot, a temptation they do not try to resist. There are numerous land¬ ings on both sides of the neck. Edmund Ruffin, a Virginia agricul¬ tural expert, visited Durants Neck before the Civil War, and said the first fishery on Albemarle Sound was es¬ tablished at the end of the neck (Stev¬ enson’s Point). He was astonished at the magnitude of the fishing operation, reporting seines as long as 2,700 yards and 18 feet deep. Down there they pronounce George’s name as if it were durance — like in duranccvile. There is a post office named Durants Neck, but it is located in New Hope, and S. T. Perry, the postmaster, wishes they'd name the township Durants Neck. too. since he gets a lot of mail addressed to New Hope, a post office in Iredell County. CAPITALIZATION We pay $1200 of your bills less I he first $ 50.00 NORTH AMERICA ASSURANCE SOCIETY OF VIRGINIA. INC. Поте Office • RiehmonJ, Га. Mri. A. Z. Trovii, DiU. Mgr. Chorlet 6. Todd. Dill. Mor. Min t.o Wall, Dill. Mgr. 2240 Colony Hood 201 Nol l Bonk & Commerce Bldg. 41 1 fonyih Si. Chorlolle, N. С. Tel. 3-4393 Goitonio, N. C. Tel. 5 4621 Win.ion Solem, N. С. Tel. 2-0465 Optuimn for Age nil, either full or fort tune. CohIJiI Diiteiet Manager ueareil jou. 22 THE STATE, JULY 17. 1954