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Joseph Allen Farrow would become the man most closely associated with the Farrow Shipyard for over half a century, spanning the Civil War, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, and the beginning of the 20th century.

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,

Political poster for North Carolina's prohibition. Photo credit: NCPedia. In 1908, North Carolina was the first Southern state to pass statewide prohibition, 62% to 38%, after having been the first Southern state to fail the attempt in 1881. The law made it illegal to manufacture, transport, or sell alcohol in the state. It didn’t make it illegal to buy it. There is probably no other law in North Carolina’s history that has been more often broken by its citizens and ignored b

2 of 3 on Prohibition In 1832, Washington, NC, resident and physician William Shaw delivered a series of lectures to the Washington Temperance Society where he indicted intemperance as a “source of disease” and a “national evil.” The consumption of alcohol “fills prisons with dishonest, weak, and wicked criminals…fills alms houses with paupers…makes tens of thousands of men poor and wretched, and leaves their widows indigent and destitute [and throws] on the charity of this c

1 of 3 on Prohibition North Carolina has had a long, contentious relationship with liquor, a relationship muddled by religion and politics, rural culture, women’s suffrage, and racism. Early in the Republic, “American whiskey was usually 50 percent alcohol; not aged; colorless; cheaper than coffee, tea, milk, or beer; and safer than water, since alcohol killed germs.” [1] Scotch-Irish immigrants were already experienced distilling small batches of whiskey and brandy when they

It was rumor that ignited North Carolina’s oyster war, rumor that spread as fast and fierce as a prairie fire. “…the Virginia men are down here and have taken entire possession of all the oyster grounds; their boats are much larger than those here, and when these are at work the Virginians will run down upon them and tear them up,” Sam Whitehurst wrote on January 5, 1891, “ and when they try to retaliate it is useless, for they are armed to the teeth with Winchester rifles an

The rubble left on Water Street after the 1900 fire. Annie Blackwell Jarvis was born March 25, 1876, daughter of Oliver Jarvis (1828-1883) and Jane Sparrow Jarvis (1849-1911). She died at the Beaufort County Nursing Home on October 4, 1972. She was 96 years old, never married, and is buried in Oakdale Cemetery. In the early 1900’s, Annie served as a teacher at Washington’s primary school. She was also a substitute librarian at Washington Public Library during the Depression.

Office of the Moss Planing Mill. Milled lumber broadcast by the storm lays scattered on the shore. Partially obscured by the mill office, a steamboat is hard aground. In the background, remnants of the building on Castle Island can be seen. Source: Source: Washington Progress , September 11, 1913. Late in August 1913, a tropical depression formed halfway between Bermuda and the Bahamas. The wind began to swirl toward it like water around a drain. At 7:00 am Eastern Standard T

Looking across a debris field from Water Street following the September1900 fire. Commercial buildings in the background are believed to...

Before 1890, the oyster fishery of North Carolina was largely a cottage industry. When J. S. Farren’s cannery came to Washington on the banks of the Pamlico in 1890, the North Carolina oyster fishery had dramatically changed.