Formerly Ihe pumping plant at New Holland, this building has been
converted into a hotel and is patronized largely by sportsmen during
the hunting season.
Geese Returning
To Mattamuskeet
Lake Mattamuskeet; how it was
given to the birds by the Tire god
and twice kidnapped, twice re¬
stored again by man.
For hundreds of years the birds
had been wintering here — not only
geese, but ducks, egrets, herons,
swans, terns, grebes, cormorants,
bitterns, eagles, ospreys, and quail.
Wild grass and grain thrived in
the wet, black soil, and it was
mighty fat living. The water was
full of bass and perch, and on the
shore was an abundance of deer
and bear.
But a stock company in 1913
conceived the idea of pumping the
lake (7 miles by 18 miles) to get
to the fabulously rich soil beneath
it. So. on its south shore was
erected under direction of D. N.
Graves, the greatest pump ever
built up to that time, with a capaci¬
ty of 1,250,000 gallons of water per
minute.
Л
canal 7 miles long was
dug and the water pumped from
the lake over into this canal,
whence it flowed by gravity into
Pamlico Sound.
An«l very few of (lie hiinlers who
will star! banging away on lleceni-
ber 8 are aware of (he fact (ha(
(hey are having (heir sport on a
SI 7.000.000 playground.
»;/
KILL SHARP I!
NEW HOLLAND. N.
С,—
The
big honkers are arriving
daily at Lake Mattamuskett,
and just as soon as the law allows,
which will be December 8 in this
zone, they will be followed by gun¬
ners, whose migration south is just
as inexorable as that of the geese.
Few hunters in blinds, chaffing
cold hands, and moaning piteous¬
ly over the slim limit and short sea¬
son, realize that they are having
their sport on a $17,000,000 play¬
ground. nor that beneath the
webbed feet of the birds riding on
the 50.000-acre lake was once the
richest and one of the largest farms
in the world. Nor that the waters
now cover the bed of the only rail¬
way ever built into this region, nor
that beneath the geese blinds was
a substantial and prosperous vil¬
lage. promising to be the capital of
a New Goshen.
And on pleasant December after¬
noons, when the birds gather safe¬
ly out in the middle of the lake to
pull at eel grass and other tid-bits,
one of the old timers among the
honkers can be prevailed upon to
tell fledglings the amazing story of
Town Built
Meantime, a modern hotel was
erected, a pretty little town ( New
Holland) sprang up on the lake-
bed. and a railway even was laid
to the new plantation. Landscape
architects came and beautified the
30-acre village. The fish were de¬
stroyed and the bewildered water-
fowl sought other sanctuary. The
agricultural promoters were not
wrong — bumper crops of corn. rice,
soybeans and vegetables were pro¬
duced. But the high cost of keep¬
ing the water out forced the com¬
pany to close down, and part of the
The Ganders Know
But the patriarchal ganders,
some of them 50 years old. know Hunting geese is no job for a sissy. It’s strenuous work, sitting in a blind
all about it. This is. they quack, all day long and then having to wade through water and drag the geese
the damndest lake that ever was. hack home.
6
THE State. Novcmder 15. 1947
