The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1955-03-18
TRENTON
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\SOIlIlluCO 41Oith age OnCJ
to command every type of vessel
suitable to navigate the shallow
inland waters along the North
Carolina coast, Capt. Johnson re-
calls that on the day he first
went to sea" as a young deck
hand on the old "Lew Willis" that
there were only six small frame
dwellings, in what is now the town
of Manteo, and that almost all of
the business there was done in Joe
Etheridge's general merchandise
store on the waterfront.
Having gotten his "sea legs" on
board the Lew Willis" Capt.
Johnson served on the sloop
Laura" the sharpe mamie
Carlis," and by 1911 was in COM
mand on the bugeye Hattie
Greet" a 55-foot shallow-draft
vessel on which Orville and Will
bur Wright made one of their
trips from Elizabeth City to
Manteo at the time the two pio-
neers in airplane flight were ex-
perimenting with gliders on the
sand dues near Kitty Hawk.
For the next 10 or IL years
Capt. Johnson commanded vessels
of increasingly large tonnage, in
Guiding the 6S-foot steamer,
"John H. Small" an SO-horse-
power vessel built at Manteo in
1906 which carried crew of five
men, and the much larger "Hamil-
ton," a 90 horsepower steamer
131 feet long which took a crew
of eight to work her.
Early in 1915 he took charge of
the 92-foot Trenton, a vessel of
IS tons gross powered by an IS
horse power engine which had
been built in Philadelphia in 1884
and which had already had a long
and useful career on the waters of
Chesapeake Bay and it's tributar-
les. From then on until the COM
pletion of highways and bridges
opened up Dare County to the au-
tomobile Capt Johnson and his
steamer, the Trenton" were
familiar sight at Elizabeth City,
Manteo and Mays Head.
Three long deep-throated blasts
of the "Trenton's" steam whistle
at 1870 pm. daily from her dock
at the foot of Burgess Street in
Elizabeth City announced the de-
parture of Capt. Johnson, his pas
sengers, freight and mail for Mays
Head and Manteo. Something like
four and a half hours later, de-
pending largely on the weather,
the Trenton" tied up at the end
of the long pier at Mays Head
where after seeing beach-bound
passengers and freight safely
ashore, he turned the Trenton"
in the direction of Manteo, across
the sound, where he arrived every
night about suppertime.
Early Start
Long before sunrise the next
morning John Hayman, of Man
teo, was on board the Trenton"
and had breakfast well underway
when the vessel left at $50 am.
on the return trip up Albemarle
Sound to Elizabeth City. Another
brief stop was made at the pier at
Mays Head to take on fresh fish
and a few sleepy passengers and
by 1890 am. the Trenton" was
steaming up the Pasquotank River
to her dock at Elizabeth City.
There was a pleasant intimacy
about the little vessel and break
fast on board the Trenton" was
worthy of the best traditions of
steamboat days. In the wheel
house Capt. Johnson usually had
several old friends to chat with as
he turned the big-spoke wheel
over and back.
For many years this was a
daily routine that never failed ex-
cept on rare occasions, as in the
bitterly cold winter of 1918
when the Pasquotank River and
large part of Albemarle Sound