The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1958-01-10
By EARL DEAN

Il
to Asheville to get a glimpse of
this curious little book. It's so
rare the librarian at Pack Memo
rial Public Library wouldn't take
her eye off me while / was paging
through it.
"Itss SO valuable" she said, "it's
almost priceless. There are only
two copies of it, one in the Pea
body Institute Library, at Balti-
more, Nd, and the other under
lock and key in the University of
North Carolina library at Chapel
Hill.
It really isn't what you might
call novel being merely a journal
kept by schoolmaster during a
two months stay on the beach near
Mays Head during the summer of
1S40. But it is said to be the first
book ever published about what is
now known as the Dare County
coast, and as a book collectors
item It would probably fetch a
fancy price on the rare book mar
ket.
The story opens on a pleasant
day in July, 1s49 on the Perqui-
mans River at Hartford, where the
author and his friends are prepar-
ing for an overnight trip down
Albemarle Sound to the sand banks
known as Mays Head. In prepare
ton for the journey, schooner is
being loaded with all the many
necessities for the summer-long
visit there of a wealthy BERTHE
County planter and his family. The
cargo consists of furniture. lug
gage, baskets, axes, beds, bedding,
CARTS parasols, ducks, hens, cow,
three horses, two dogs and 20 peo-
pie of the household including half
a dozen Negro servants and the
schoolmaster.
The planter is moving his FAM
lily to the ocean side to escape, he
says "the malaria and fevers and
heat Of BERTHE County," and, of
course, along go the children with
their schoolmaster. When the load
ed schooner arrives at its destina-
ton it anchors half a mile off
shore and sends its passengers and
provisions ashore in yawls or
scows. After long walk through
deep sand the vacationists reach
a story and a half cottage, "shing-
led and weatherboarded, and sur
rounded by a dwarfish growth of
live oaks" On it's eastern side it
has comfortable piazza where
the family gather of an evening
for a social chat and for the en-
joyment of the sea breeze. 1t COM
mands a wide view of the ocean;
and there is scarcely an hour of
the day when you cannot see one
or more vessels sailing by.
To the author ("Gregory Sea-
worthy" was his pen-name) pecu-
liar feature of this summer resort
was the fact that a very large
proportion of the visitors were
actual residents in private resi-
dents owned by the planters, mer-
chants and professional men from
the mainland. Nearby the hotel
which was located "three miles
from the Fresh Ponds" was pa
tronized mainly by the unmarried.
Close to the hotel was a little
chapel at which clergymen from
Elizabeth City and Hartford Off
ciated.
Evidently the summer colony
was quite large at the time of
Seaworthy's visit for he heard
some of the old-timers moan for
the days of old Mays Head "as it
used to be (D" when only
three or four families had summer
cottages there, and it was respect
able to be seen in homespun." He
visits the original settlement (of
Mays Head) and finds it abandon
ed. Alas for the old-timers! Even
in the late 1840's Mays Head had
become fashionable.
The average vacationist went
bathing to occupy the time until
breakfast" There was a bowling
alley where the boarders from the
hotel and the residents from the
hill Tor ''up-guoines" as the local
residents called the sand dunes)
met at nine or ten o'clock in the
forenoon and remained until the
dinner hour.
Perhaps instead of bowling the
vacationists in 1849 went fishing,
riding, walking, or visiting. Din
ner and siesta always occupied the
afternoon, followed by another
swim and tea and dressing for the
evening. If young, the summer
resident would then take walk
on the beach with a fair form, a
bright eye." On to the hotel he
went where, at length, sometimes
as early as eight o'clock, but often
er at a later hour, the musicians
made their appearance. The twang
of the strings, even as they tuned
the fiddles, was enough to call the
young folks around him; and it
was not long before the. ladies