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The steam yacht Thetis moored at the Washington waterfront. Charles Fuller, second from right, seems to be languidly fishing. In January 1909, a man strolled past the skating rink in Washington, N.C., and paused at the exhibits being prepared for Corn Judging Day. It was the annual Agricultural Fair sponsored by the Norfolk and Southern Railroad. Farmers from throughout Beaufort County competed. It was obvious that there were too few volunteers for the work to be done, puttin

The Buoy Yard was a landmark on Washington’s waterfront for generations. Crowds gathered on the wharves when the Holly and Jessamine , 156-foot-long sidewheel steamers, maneuvered in the stream, their wheels churning the dark water, approaching or departing government dock. There’s now nothing to mark the yard’s existence, not even one of the massive iron buoys thrown about by the 1913 hurricane. US Lighthouse Service Tender Jessamine , 1885. Photo credit: United States Light

Since the Civil War, the strident whine of massive saws and the smell of sawdust dominated Washington’s waterfront. Steam whistles echoed between the riverbanks as tugs towed rafts of logs to the mills or hauled barges with milled lumber from the wharves. The mill whistles kept cadence with the workday. Men shouted to each other as they balanced on floating logs, herding them toward the steam hoist that would drag them into the mill. It was a loud, bustling, boisterous waterf

In 1875, a Connecticut businessman named George Ives moved to Morehead City, North Carolina, to open a wholesale fish and oyster business. Ives owned an oyster keg and barrel factory in New Haven. The Ives family had a long history in New England’s oyster fishery, but by 1876, the natural oyster reefs of Long Island Sound and Great South Bay had been seriously depleted. Before Ives left Connecticut, he had two Long Island sharpies built and shipped by schooner to Washington,