Save the date! Our fall membership meeting will be held at 10 AM on Saturday, September 16, 2023 at the Sanitary Restaurant in Morehead City. We encourage all to stay for a Dutch Treat lunch after the meeting to help support the Sanitary Restaurant. Stay tuned for more meeting details and plan to join us! As always, our meetings are open to the public and we welcome all who wish to know more about Friends of Portsmouth Island.
Coming June 10th!
Those of you who were at our September 2022 meeting saw Heather Walker give her presentation on the Middle Passage and Portsmouth. We hope you will plan to attend this event if you are in the area. It will take place at Shell Point, adjacent to Harkers Island Visitor Center. In the event of inclement weather, the event will be held indoors at the nearby Core Sound Waterfowl Museum, located at 1785 Harkers Island Road, Harkers Island. A marker will be placed in the village at a later date to commemorate this important part of Portsmouth history.
SPRING MEETING REMINDER
Don’t forget our spring membership meeting at Ocracoke on Saturday, May 20! We will meet at NCCAT at 10:00 am. Meeting details are in our previous post, so scroll down for more info. If you are on Ocracoke that day, come and join us – you do not have to be a member to attend. If you are a walk-on from the ferry, NCCAT is located right at the ferry terminal on Silver Lake. See you there!
HOMECOMING 2024 – APRIL 27
We are pleased to announce that Portsmouth Homecoming will be held on Saturday, April 27, 2024. We’re giving you the date now to put on your calendars so you can talk to friends and family and plan to come! All are welcome and you do not have to be a member or even a descendant to join us on this special day, but we hope you will come! We will provide updates as they become available, but do start planning to attend this very special event in 2024!
The 2024 Homecoming will be focused on the Lifesaving Station – stayed tuned for updates and announcements!
Spring Meeting – May 20
Our spring membership meeting will be held at the NCCAT building on Ocracoke on Saturday, May 20, at 10:00 AM. NCCAT is located right off the Silver Lake ferry dock. You do not need to be a member to attend and all are welcome.
Our guest speaker will be Margaret Miller Growe. Ms. Growe is the Executive Director of The Tamassee Group, which was founded in 2016 to promote cultural and environmental education via the conservation and preservation of significant natural and historical resources. Those of you who attended our 2022 Portsmouth Homecoming may have seen crew members who were filming at that time, working on a documentary of the history and the culture of the Outer Banks.
If you plan to attend the meeting, please make any needed lodging and ferry reservations ASAP, since there are a number of events taking place on Ocracoke at or around that time. We hope to see you there!
Rest In Peace
James “Jim” Edward White III
April 24, 1949 – February 11, 2023
We regret to announce the sudden passing of board member Jim White. Many of you will remember Jim from the Portsmouth books he has written or Portsmouth homecomings he has emceed. Jim was an author, historian, educator, and a proud Portsmouth descendent. He and his wife Nancy have both been active in FPI activities over the years, whether it be work days at Portsmouth, meetings, or hauling around FPI supplies in Jim’s big truck. Jim’s arrangements are through Daniels-Sadler Funeral Home and the funeral service will be held on Saturday, January 18, at 11:00 am at Bethany Christian Church of Jasper, NC. Our thoughts and prayers are with Nancy and their family and friends during this very sad time.
Happy New Year 2023!
Photo courtesy of Ricky Daniels
You Can Help!
We are very happy to report that FPI has been given a great opportunity to raise money for continued restoration work in Portsmouth Village. A generous donor has offered to match DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR any donations we receive between now and December 31, 2022, up to a maximum of $25,000. We have notified our members and would like to give anyone who loves Portsmouth as much as we do a chance to contribute, member or not. All donors will receive a confirmation letter for tax purposes. If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity to make a donation and have it matched dollar for dollar, you may send to it to FPI at P.O. Box 2303, Morehead City, NC 28557. All donations will be earmarked for restoration work only, and we will provide updates on this at our September meeting, in our newsletter to members, and also in posts to this page and our website after December 31. Thank you for your consideration! An example of restoration work in the village is shown here with the McWilliams-Dixon House in photos of the post-restoration house and the way it looked before restoration. Quite a difference!
Fall Meeting – September 17, 2022
Our fall membership meeting will be held on Saturday, September 17, at 10:00 am at the History Center in Morehead City. Our guest speaker will be Heather Walker, director of the Eastern Carolina Foundation for Equity and Equality, who will speak on the “Middle Passage Presentation.” Jeff West, Superintendent of Cape Lookout National Seashore, will also speak. We will hold our election of officers for the next two-year term as well. This will be our first meeting in three years since pre-Covid, so please plan to join us! The public is always invited to attend, but members only may vote in the election. See you there!
Portsmouth Homecoming 2022
Photo by Ann Ehringhaus