The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter., 1960-08-12
ONETO
Continued from Page One)

WnfSkeFS IN the OpftngItme
In the Spring of the year, his
whiskers grow long and black and
his guitar is strummed nightly in
Raleigh, in Richmond, in Wash
ington as he and his band of pi-
rates spread word of the annual
pirate jamboree in Dare.
In the summertime, his face
again clean shaven, Julian greets
hiss guests warmly and always by
name if they have ever visited
at the Carolinian before. His
knack for recalling a name is fabu-
lous. And at night his voice is lift
ed in song among the gay groups
which congregrate before and aft
er the supper hour.
He isn't yet 43. He was born
December %, 1917, in Carson Hill,
California, gold mining town $50
miles east of San Francisco in the
foothills of the Sierras. Carson
Hill, he comedies, is better known
for the fact that the worlds larg-
est gold nugget, 1876 pounds, was
found there.
Father Owned the Town.
His father, James j. Oneto,
owned the entire town of Carson
Hill, all ID buildings. A childhood
memory is of the scales which sat
on the counter of his fathers mer-
camille store for the purpose of
weighing gold dust.
"There were cowpokes in town
who wore six shooters on their
lhips," Julian remembers, "but no
one ever got killed"
Eventually, the gold mines play
ed out and Julian was in grave
danger of becoming the sole own
er of a ghost town by inheritance
until his father, a short time be-
fore his death year ago, found
ia buyer and disposed of the en-
tire town. So
Julian grew up in the little min
ing town, attending elementary
school there and, on graduation,
going over to Bret Harte High
School in Angels Camp four miles
away. Angels Camp was made
famous by Mark Twain in his well
known story of "The Celebrated
Jumping Frog of Calaveras." For
several years after he took up resi-
dence at Nags Head, Julian ar
ranged for Dare County to enter
a frog in the annual frog-jump-
| ing contests at Angels Camp. No
Dare frog ever won, but the en-
trants reaped a golden harvest of
publicity.
From Angels Camp.
From there, the next step was
business college in Sacramento fol-
lowed by jobs with the Better
Business Bureau in Sacramento
and with the Department of Motor
Vehicles as a hearing officer for
license revocations in the !Sacra-
mento area. But the trail to North
Carolina really began in Angels
Camp.
There, Julian met Sam Johnston
of Washington, N. c., and became
aa saxaphone player in a miners
band organized by Johnston. eve
wore Lewis and red shirts and
miners caps with carbide lamps
on them," Julian says. Playing in
the band helped him through busi-
ness college and to supplement his
income later.
Then came 1889 and the New
York Worlds Fair. Johnston
bought a new Ford and proposed
a trip across the country to Wash
Iington. Julian agreed, but stipu-
lated that they come by way of
the Worlds Fair. "We made it to
New York in three and a half days,
driving day and night" he says.
Johnston's wife, Blanche had
come on ahead to her. home in
Greenville. When Sam and Julian
arrived, she had a welcoming party
all arranged and among the guests
was Lima Sermons of Washington,
then student at East Carolina
Teachers (the Teachers was in the
name them College.
| Romance With History.
1--WE were very interested in
leach other before I left" is the way
Julian puts it. Their first date was
a trip to Roanoke Island for per-
formance of The Lost Colony, and
for the first time Julian looked
upon Dare County. He found the
sight pleasing.
/ Within a year he and Lima were
married - in Angels Camp - ano
for five years they lived in Sacra-
mento. Then, the East Coast called
and in 1916 the Onetos moved to
Norfolk, Va, to help Lima's sis
1