Monday, April 23, 2012

Portsmouth Homecoming

Don't forget Homecoming on Portsmouth Island this coming Saturday!

Portsmouth was a thriving port village in the late eighteenth and early nineteeth century. Because of its proximity to Ocracoke Inlet, Portsmouth was the center of piloting and lightering in North Carolina. In 1842 over 1,400 vessels and two-thirds of North Carolina's exports passed through Ocracoke Inlet. With the opening of Hatteras Inlet in 1846 Portsmouth's population began a steady decline. When the island's last male resident, Henry Pigott, died in 1971, the remaining two residents left. The island has had no permanent residents since then.

For more information about Homecoming please visit the Friends of Portsmouth Island web site (http://friendsofportsmouthisland.org/fopi/), or call Richard Meissner (252-728-2250, ext. 3008).

You can read a brief history of Portsmouth here: http://www.nps.gov/calo/historyculture/portsmouth.htm.

Our latest Ocracoke Newsletter is the story of Project Nutmeg, and how Ocracoke almost became a site for testing nuclear weapons. You can read it here: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news042112.htm.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:17 AM

    I heard today is the 458th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. Did you not mention awhile back about being in a play by the Bard? How did it go? Oh Happy Homecoming.

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  2. Last year Charles Temple and his school class (plus a number of community members) delighted us with "A Midsummer Night's Dream." This year (May 16-19) they will be doing "Macbeth" Look for a blog with more information sometime in the next few weeks.

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