We’d like to thank all who attended our meeting on Saturday; there were 39 in attendance. Here is our newly-elected board who will serve a 2-year term beginning in January 2025. From left to right: Kathy McNeilly (Immediate Past President), Barbara Gaskins-Eugene (Director), Julius Coronel (Treasurer), Frances Eubanks (Director), Emily Summey (Secretary – peeking up in the back), Jean Webber (Director), Connie Mason (President), Rosanne Penley (Director), Glenn Dunn (Director), Rudy Austin (Director), David Brown (Vice President).
Thanks to the Sanitary Restaurant for letting us host our meeting there, to our speakers, and those who helped with arrangements, set up and clean up. Several people stayed after the meeting to enjoy some good seafood. It was good to see everyone and we look forward to our spring meeting at Ocracoke on May 17, 2025.
Our Fall Meeting is less than 4 weeks away! It will be at the Sanitary Restaurant in Morehead City at 10:00 on Saturday, September 21; all are welcome, whether or not you’re a member. Election of officers and board of directors will be held, and we’ll be having two guest speakers! Members of Erin Seekamp’s team from the NC State Coastal Resilience and Sustainability Initiative will speak about the results of the Research Request Survey for Cape Lookout National Seashore. Our second speaker will be Walter Steele Jr., president of Carteret County Historical Society’s Board of Trustees, who will be speaking about ancestry connections and available resources at the county museum. Immediately following the meeting, there will be a Dutch Treat lunch at the restaurant. We hope everyone will stay for that! T- shirts, sweatshirts and books will also be available.
Those of you who have been to Portsmouth recently – at Homecoming or otherwise – undoubtedly noticed what terrible shape the Harry and Lida Dixon House is in. Work has begun! This photo of the Park maintenance crew working on the roof was taken June 27 by current Park volunteer Ted Summey. Thank you, maintenance staff!! And thanks, Ted, for taking and sending us this photo.
Below are earlier pictures of the progress as they got started. CALO’s maintenance crew is the best! Ted took these photos also.
Homecoming 2024 was a huge success! Look at this crowd, and this was not everyone. We are so thankful for the great weather we had and that so many could gather again. There were a lot of first timers and we hope they come back! Many thanks to the FPI volunteers, the Cape Lookout National Seashore staff under the leadership of Superintendent Jeff West, and all attendees who made the trip. We are indebted to the Austins, who somehow seem to get everyone there and back for the day. We were happy to see lots of folks who came on their own boats as well.
The winners of the two raffle items were Suzanne Williams (antique coverlet) and Marshall Hamrick (framed original drawing of the Portsmouth Lifesaving Station by Bruce Tarkington). Congratulations to these winners, and thank you to Jeanne Robertson and Bruce Tarkington for these incredible donations.
We’ll have more to come, but enjoy the group picture above taken by Ann Ehringhaus of Ocracoke.
Don’t forget to make your ferry reservations to Portsmouth with the Austins! Also, be sure to get your ferry reservations to Ocracoke now if you are coming via Swan Quarter or Cedar Island – ferries are filling up fast! If coming from Hatteras, plan to be on the earliest one you can to get over in time to be with us. Be sure to stop by the sign in table to pick up your Homecoming 2024 pin!
All descendants are invited to bring family photographs, scrapbooks, displays, etc. to the McWilliams-Dixon house (next to the church). Your items will be safely displayed and can be picked up on your way back to the boat at the end of this fabulous day.
The Austins are now taking reservations for their ferry to Portsmouth from Ocracoke for our April 27th Homecoming! The fare is $25 round trip per person. Please give them a call at 252-928-4361 to reserve your spot. We look forward to seeing everyone!
MEMBERS – your raffle tickets are in the mail! If you haven’t received them yet, you should be getting them soon. Read the instructions on your flyer, fill out the appropriate part of each ticket that you wish to purchase, and send those and a check for your payment in the enclosed envelope. Tickets will also be available for purchase at Homecoming for all who attend, of course! We have a couple of wonderful prizes this year!! Below are photos and descriptions of these prizes.
Thanks to Jeff West for providing us with pictures of rehab work in the village! These pictures of the Theodore and Annie Salter house (Visitor Center) were taken in late January. Scroll down for more pictures!
These pictures of the Community Cemetery rehab were taken last month during the rehab work. Maintenance crews applied slow acting cleaner and planted grass seed.
This picture is from last week. The school house has had lots of termite damage and the crew is making great progress on this!
We are excited about the rehab work going on in the village and thank Jeff and the maintenance crew for all the work they are doing. If we get more updates we will post here. We can’t wait to see the continued progress in the village at Homecoming!
Please click on the Homecoming 2024 tab above for all the information you need to attend the big day on April 27. All are invited to attend and bring a covered dish as we celebrate the families of Portsmouth and the Lifesaving Station. This is a public event.
Remember to make lodging reservations ASAP, as well as ferry reservations the day before if coming from Cedar Island or Swan Quarter. You can make those reservations now. If arriving from the Hatteras ferry, be sure to take the earliest one you can to account for the longer ferry time and the drive into Ocracoke. Boat reservations with the Austins will be available in early April as noted on the Homecoming information under the tab. We look forward to seeing everyone!
Thanks to all of you who attended Saturday’s meeting at the Sanitary Restaurant in Morehead City. We had a good turnout of 39 people, and everyone enjoyed Dr. Stanley Rule’s fascinating and well-researched presentation on the hunting & fishing clubs, also known as the “cabin culture”, of Eastern North Carolina. If you weren’t able to attend the meeting – or if you were there and would like some more information – check out the website cabinculturesobx.com.
During the meeting, FPI also presented its first-ever scholarship! The scholarship was awarded to Mason Anderson, daughter of Tom and Crystal Anderson. Mason is a freshman at East Carolina University majoring in art education, hoping to become an art teacher – and following in the footsteps of her great grandmother, Lucy Gilgo, who taught school in Portsmouth Village. Congratulations Mason!
Our fall Membership meeting is less than two weeks away now, on Saturday, September 16. Join us at the Sanitary Restaurant at 501 Evans St, Morehead City, at 10:00 AM. Our guest speaker will be Dr. Stanley Rule, speaking about the hunt clubs of Portsmouth and the surrounding area. You don’t need to be a member to attend. Stay after the meeting for a Dutch treat lunch. We hope to see you there!
REMINDER: Our FPI fall membership meeting is only a little over 6 weeks away! It will be held at the Sanitary Restaurant in Morehead City at 10:00 AM on Saturday, September 16, and our guest speaker will be Dr. Stanley Rule who will be speaking about the hunt clubs of Portsmouth and the surrounding area. Dr. Rule is a well-known Morehead City pediatrician, but he also enjoys boating, kayaking, water bird photography and carving, and studying nature. He is active in the Core Sound Decoy Carvers Guild and is a volunteer for the Rachel Carson Reserve in Beaufort. Dr. Rule is very knowledgeable about the history of the hunt clubs in the area, and we are looking forward to his presentation! You do not have to be a member to attend and the public is cordially invited. A Dutch treat lunch at the Sanitary will immediately follow the meeting. See you there!
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.
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.
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!
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!
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!
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.
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!
The McWilliams-Dixon before and after restoration by the Park with help from FPI members.
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!
For those of you who are planning to go to Homecoming on April 23, you may now make your ferry reservations from Ocracoke to Portsmouth! Call the Austins at 252-928-4361. The round-trip fare is $25. See you there!
Due to increasing gas prices, the ferry from Ocracoke to Portsmouth with Rudy Austin/Portsmouth Island Boat Tours is being increased to $25 round trip per person.
FOR MEMBERS: You should have received – or will soon be receiving – your Homecoming Notice and raffle tickets. If you wish to purchase these tickets, please return them in the envelope provided, along with your check for the tickets – $1/ticket. This is a major fundraiser for us! The Homecoming flyer that all members receive will state $20 round trip, but the price was changed after our mailing went out. It is now $25 per person round trip.
Plan to join us this year for homecoming at Portsmouth – April 23, 2022! Our theme will be PORTSMOUTH RISES – a fitting theme for Portsmouth’s survival of Hurricane Dorian and the cancellation of Homecoming 2020 due to Covid. WE ARE BACK IN 2022! Jim White, Portsmouth descendant, author and historian, has agreed to emcee our program again. As per custom, the first 500 attendees will receive our special pin, and new “Portsmouth Rises” t-shirts will be available along with our regular shirts, sweatshirts, notecards, etc. Bring your special covered dish to the picnic on the grounds and enjoy meeting old and new friends. This Homecoming will be a great opportunity to see for yourself what the National Park Service, Cape Lookout National Seashore, and Friends of Portsmouth Island have done to save this village after the devastation of Hurricane Dorian.
We urge you to start looking at lodging far in advance as you will want to stay on the island at least Friday night and possibly Saturday night if you are not from Down East or the upper banks. Ferries and lodging will both fill up early.
All members should have received the latest issue of the Doctor’s Creek Journal (end of year winter issue). We say goodbye to our outgoing editor, Ray McAllister, and welcome to Peter Vankevich effective 2022. Be sure to check out the feature story about the Oscar Rue family and their special connection to Portsmouth, as well as current member news. Homecoming and raffle information will be mailed to all members in the early part of 2022. Happy New Year!
Although our membership meeting, which had been scheduled for last Saturday, was once again canceled due to Covid, our board did meet. We finally managed to have the raffle drawing that was supposed to have taken place at our 2020 Homecoming! The winners are:David Mickey was the winner of “Flight Over Fish Hunt” (The Hog Island Club) by Jack Saylor, donated by Kathi and Glenn Dunn of Marshallberg, NC. Framed 14” X 24” print.Rebecca Gupton was the winner of the double bed size antique quilt from the Whitley Plantation, Martin County, NC, donated by Jeanne Robertson of Oriental, NC.Sam Corlis was the winner of the quilted duck wall hanging made by the Ocracoke Needle and Thread club.Congratulations to all of the winners! The winning tickets were drawn by Cape Lookout National Seashore superintendent Jeff West, and the items will be sent to the winners.
We regret to announce that the September 18 meeting at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum has been cancelled. We made this decision because of the high Covid numbers currently being reported in Carteret County. All FPI members will receive a cancellation notice in the mail. If you know of anyone who was planning to attend, please help us pass the word along so they may change their travel plans in plenty of time. This meeting will not be rescheduled and our next event will be Homecoming on April 23, 2022. We hope to see everyone then!
Reminder that our fall membership meeting on September 18 will be at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum on Harkers Island. Our special program will be “Portsmouth Hunting Camps – Generations of Memories”, a panel discussion with Portsmouth waterfowling families. Jeff West, Superintendent of Cape Lookout National Seashore, will also speak and we will draw the names of the lucky winners of the Homecoming 2020 raffle. Join us at 10:00 am and plan to tour the museum after the meeting. We look forward to seeing everyone again!
FOR OUR MEMBERS: Your spring/summer issue of the DCJ is in the mail! We haven’t been able to meet or to hold Homecoming anytime during the past year and longer due to Dorian and Covid, so this issue focuses on what’s been happening in the village during that time period. There are updates and photos of the church, the George Dixon house project, the Babb house, Henry’s, lots of news, and some Down East folks who have been a big help to us. If you’re not a member and would like to join and receive our Doctor’s Creek Journals, we’d love to have you join us!
FPI has taken on an urgent project of helping the Park pay for a new roof for the George Dixon house. Once scheduled for demolition after Hurricane Dorian, the Park maintenance crew got it stabilized, braced and upright, and now it desperately needs a roof. FPI has committed to $15,000 for the roof but we need much, much more to get the roof on before hurricane season is upon us again. All donors will receive a confirmation letter for tax purposes and will be recognized in our Doctor’s Creek Journal newsletter. If you can help, you may send a check to Friends of Portsmouth Island, P.O. Box 2303, Morehead City, NC 28557. Please note “George Dixon House roof” on your check. No amount is too small. Thank you!
We are pleased to announce our fall membership meeting will be held at Core Sound Waterfowl Museum at Harkers Island on Saturday, September 18. The meeting will begin at 10:00 am. The meeting is open to the public and you do not have to be a member to attend. We can’t wait to see the museum since its reopening and hope you will join us to do the same. Stay tuned to this page for further meeting details as we get them. We will be glad to see you!
After much thought and input, we have decided to cancel our spring meeting at Ocracoke, which was to be held on May 15. However, we are confident that we can hold our fall meeting on September 18. We feel that most people will either be vaccinated and/or comfortable traveling by then. Please stay tuned to this website and our Facebook page for details on the Fall Meeting, which will be held in the Down East area on Saturday, September 18. It’s time to get back together folks!
We are pleased to announce that Homecoming at Portsmouth will be April 23, 2022. Mark this on your calendar so you will have a year to plan your trip. Stay tuned to our website and our Facebook page for updates as we get them.
We are still unsure as to whether we will hold the May 15, 2021 membership meeting at Ocracoke, but will notify all members and post here and on our Facebook page when a decision has been made.
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.
We at Friends of Portsmouth Island want to wish you all a happy and safe Thanksgiving with your families and friends! For our members, be on the lookout for your winter issue of the Doctor’s Creek Journal within the next two weeks!
We are happy to report there was no damage at Portsmouth Village after Hurricane Isaias. Our neighbor island, Ocracoke, was also unscathed. We are very grateful!
We are so sorry and incredibly sad that we had to cancel Homecoming 2020 in April due to the Coronavirus. The next Portsmouth Homecoming will be scheduled in April 2022 – two years from now. We felt this was best to keep it on the regular schedule of every two years which is also in keeping with our by-laws. We will hold the Homecoming raffle at our September 19 meeting at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum for those who already purchased their tickets. You do not have to be present to win but we hope you will come! Stayed tuned to this website and to our Facebook page for further details. Thank you!
We regret to inform you that Homecoming 2020 has been cancelled due to the new government mandates regarding events for 50+ people. If you have purchased raffle tickets, we will hold the raffle at a later date after we get all this sorted out. Stay tuned to this website and our Facebook page for any future details. This was a most difficult decision but we had no choice. Thank you!
Homecoming is Saturday, April 25 – and we have a new theme! Thanks – or no thanks – to Hurricane Dorian, we have chosen the theme “Portsmouth Rises” to replace the hunt club theme. Special t-shirts will be offered for this homecoming and will be available on a first come first serve basis. And as usual, all attendees will receive the traditional homecoming pin at sign-in.
We encourage you to make lodging accommodations at Ocracoke now as we hear the motels (fewer this year) are booking up. You don’t want to miss seeing why we chose “Portsmouth Rises” as our theme this year.
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.
Steve Anderson. Photo by Frances Eubanks.
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.
Dallas Spruill, left, presents scholarship award to Richard Meissner. Photo by Frances Eubanks.
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!
Jeff West, CALO Superintendent, speaks to the crowd.
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.
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!
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!
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!
Check out the work the maintenance crew at Cape Lookout National Seashore has done on the Harry & Lida Dixon/Dennis Mason House in the village! The roof has been completed! The crew is working on the rotting floors inside the house as they are waiting to get some new siding in for the outside. If you happen to be visiting the village this year and see our great CALO crew working, go say hello and thank them for all they do. Thanks to Ricky Daniels for these photos.
