The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. [volume] (Manteo, N.C.) 1959-1973, 1961-03-31

master mariner, and is noted fol
his practical commonsense ant
business shrewdness.
Captain Woodhouse had left
home as a youngster, sailing OF
the small boats that piled out Of
the N. C. sound and river ports
His first job was sailing with the
late Captain Jim Evans, a Man
teo man, who was halflbrother Of
Mrs. James Vannote, and of Ivey
and Albert Evans of Manteo. The
small schooner, the Ella Greet
butt by the father of and named
for the late wife of Carson w
Davis of Manteo, ran to Elizabeth
City with freight, and sometimes
passengers. She was small
schooner, built on Roanoke, Island
about 60 years ago. Young jim
Woodhouse was sailor before the
mast; he steered the boat and
swabbed the decks.
In the nearly 90 years since
Capt. Woodhouse took to the wat
er ne has had a varied experience,
sailing to all the principal ports
of the world. He has carried car
goes through the Panama Canal
to the West Coast AMI the South
Pacific; traded between the United
States and Australia, Europe, Asia,
Africa and South America. But in
his early twenties, when he first
went to Norfolk to go steamboat
ing he piled the sounds and bays
of Tidewater Virginia first, and
then to Philadelphia, New York
and Boston on larger and larger
ships, until sometimes he COM
manded vessels up to 600 feet long.
When he is at leisure in the
lobby of the Fort Raleigh Hotel,
which is family-owned, and where
he lives when at home, his clear
mind flows with a wealth of rec
objection of the old days of steam
boating out of Norfolk harbor. Up
to 80 years ago, there was a great
fleet of steamers which carried
the bulk Of passengers and freight
about the whole area. The Old Do
minion Steamship Co. operated the
large passenger steamers Brandon
and Berkeley as night boats, stimuli
taneously between Norfolk and
Richmond. There was the steamer
Virginia Dare on a regular run to
Hampton. The Mobjack served the
Mobjack Bay area, the Smithfeld
ran to Smithfeld, and other boats
ran to Suffolk and North Carolina
points daily. Some so years ago
when the Norfolk-Southern bridged
Albemarle Sound near Edenton, a
continuous train service was es-
tablished on this run, the Old Do
minion SIS Co. then abandoned it's
boat service between Elizabeth
City and New Bern, then Skyco,
on Roanoke Island was an impor-
tant shipping point. The handsome
white steamers Neuse, New Bern,
and Ocracoke, left Croatan Sound
forever, and went on to runs out
of Norfolk Harbor. All, all are
now gone, and bridges and roads
and tunnels have made these great
steamboat runs useless forever.
Captain Woodhouse recalls when
the Old Dominion ships made reg
ular runs between Norfolk and
New York; and the Merchant and
Miners between Norfolk, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, Providence and Bos-
ton, and southwark to Charleston,
Savannah and Jacksonville. Some
of these ships between Norfolk
and New York operated as late as
II years ago, palatial hotels afoat,
where one slept and ate in style.
More recently, a regular steamer
carried passengers from Norfolk
to Cape Charles to serve the Penn
sylvania train to New York via
the Delmarva peninsula.
Captain Woodhouse remembers
all the changes that have taken
place, when sails in the beginning
of his career motivated the ships
on which he had jobs. Sails gave
way to steam power and steam has
given way to diesel power, and