Merry Christmas to everyone from Friends of Portsmouth Island! Here’s hoping for a better 2021 so we can all get back to our special place! Wishing you good health and happiness in the coming year.
Fall Meeting Cancelled
We regret that the September membership meeting will be cancelled due to the current Covid crisis. Our governor is keeping the state in Phase 2 for the next 5 weeks. We do not want to endanger any attendees by having this meeting and reluctantly will cancel.
FOR OUR MEMBERS: Since elections were to be held at the September meeting, we will have to do this a different way, probably by mail ballots. All members will receive information on this in the next few weeks.
We are sorry to miss you all and will concentrate on plans for our spring meeting at Ocracoke on May 15, 2021. Hope to see you there!
Fall Meeting Recap
Thanks to all who came out for our September 21 membership meeting in Morehead City. We counted 55 in attendance and gained 11 new members. Welcome!
Our thanks to Steve Anderson of the Carteret County Historical Society for his presentation highlighting the Carteret County and Portsmouth soldiers who fought in WWI.
We were pleased to announce that Friends of Portsmouth Island will establish a scholarship in honor of Richard Meissner, a past president of FPI and former Volunteer Coordinator for CALO. Dallas Spruill, lifetime member of FPI, presented Richard with the award. More information will be available on the scholarship after the first of the year and we plan for it to be available for the Fall 2020 school year.
Jeff West, Superintendent of Cape Lookout, gave a slide presentation showing the damage to Portsmouth Village from Hurricane Dorian. He detailed each of the affected buildings and explained the clean up process that started immediately after the hurricane. Crews from several national parks worked for the past two weeks removing and burning downed trees, cleaning out the mud and debris from houses and buildings and pressure washing them down, repairing floors and blown out walls, and repairing and resetting broken headstones. The damage was great and we are indebted to all the crews who came out to work in the mud, water, heat and mosquitos to help in our time of need. Way to go NPS!
We would like to thank everyone who came out and all our volunteers who helped with the meeting. Thanks to Jan Tugwell, Suzanne McWilliams, Jeanne Robertson, Richard Meissner, Ann Shipstedt, and our great board members. Special thanks to the History Place, Steve Anderson, and Jeff West, and to Frances Eubanks for the photographs.
FPI Fall Meeting Update – September 21
Please come if you can to our meeting on Saturday, September 21, for an important post-Dorian update regarding Portsmouth Village and the whole Seashore from Jeff West, CALO Superintendent. We meet at 10:00 am at the History Place in Morehead City. Scroll down to see more about the meeting or click on our “Events” tab at the right. See you there!
Fall Meeting – September 21
Please join us Saturday, September 21, at the History Place in Morehead City (1008 Arendell Street) for our fall membership meeting. We will meet at 10:00 a.m.
Steve Anderson, Director of the Carteret County Historical Society, will present “In Our Country’s Service, the Men and Women of Carteret County In World War I.” We will have our regular business meeting and also hear from Jeff West, Superintendent of Cape Lookout National Seashore.
Portsmouth t-shirts, notecards and books will be available for purchase. The public is invited to attend and we hope to see you there!
Spring Meeting Recap
We had a great spring meeting at Ocracoke on Saturday, May 18. We counted 54 in attendance and 22 people accompanied Jeff West on a tour of Portsmouth after the meeting. Thanks to all who attended, and make plans to join us on September 21 in Morehead City for our fall meeting. This will be our last get together before Homecoming in 2020!
Homecoming 2020
Mark your calendars! Homecoming 2020 will be held on Saturday, April 25, 2020. Check back for details and start making your plans! Information is in the current edition of the Doctor’s Creek Journal which should be in members’ mailboxes now.
Doctor’s Creek Journal
We hope all members received their Doctor’s Creek Journal in January and were as pleased with it as we were! Thanks to our editor, Ray McAllister, for another great issue full of Portsmouth news and photos – 28 pages worth! If you are not a member of FPI and would like to start receiving our newsletter, click on the Membership link above to join. We’d love to have you!
Spring Meeting Date – May 18, 2019
Please plan to join us at Ocracoke on Saturday, May 18, for our spring meeting. We regret we had to cancel our fall meeting due to Hurricane Florence, but we are excited to be able to catch up in May! We will meet at the Ocracoke school at 10:00 a.m. and will hold our regular business meeting and elections which were postponed from the fall meeting. You do not have to be a member to attend but we hope you will join us!
Weather permitting, we are planning to offer a trip to Portsmouth after the meeting led by Jeff West, Superintendent of Cape Lookout National Seashore. Don’t miss this opportunity to tour the village with Jeff. The cost for the boat ride to Portsmouth is $20 per person round trip, and those wanting to go will sign up at the start of the meeting. Snacks and water will be available for those going on the trip.
Further details will be available to all members in the Doctor’s Creek Journal in late December. See you at Ocracoke!
Portsmouth Village is Open!
We are happy to report that Portsmouth Village is open and suffered only minimal damage from Hurricane Florence. Work still needs to be done, but the village is safe for visitors. We understand that the church painting will be starting up again this week.