Albemarle Tradewinds July 2017 Web Final

Northeast North Carolina Family History
The opening of the new water park in Currituck
reminded me of my husband’s summer adventures
off a wharf in Waterlily that stretched into
the Currituck Sound. For him and his friends,
swimming at Penn’s wharf was their version of
a water park. Admission was free. For refreshment,
they ran down the road and ate green
apples off an old tree nearby.
There were a variety of “rides” in their “park”
which included diving off the end of the dock,
swimming in between the barnacles on the
pilings (which resulted in scraped hands, knees
and feet), and playing tag in the murky water
while trying to stay submerged as long as possible.
Girls sitting on the wharf were a favorite
target of a really good cannonball.
On occasion, milfoil, an aquatic plant similar
to seaweed, would die and create mats a foot
or more thick fl oating around the wharf and
the shoreline. But not allowing this to dampen
their summer fun, they played hide and seek,
popping up through it. This was not a simple
task as they had to claw their way through it,
which he admits was sometimes scary. (My
what strange fun things those young Currituck
boys called fun…)
Getting to their “water park” was its own
adventure. Riding their bikes on US 158 which
at the time was a busy two lane road without a
paved shoulder, he and his friends left Coinjock,
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By: Irene Hampton - nencfamilyhistory@gmail.com
crossed the old Coinjock drawbridge, turned left
onto Waterlily Road and after turning a curve
faced a straight stretch of road across a vast
marsh which he swears seemed ten miles long.
In reality, it might be two… But in the summer,
the heat waves shimmering over the road hid
the far end. The reward of arriving at “their”
wharf made all the effort worthwhile.
Learning to swim did not require formal lessons.
A brief demonstration of how to kick and
paddle and then off to playing and sputtering
became eventual reasonably acceptable swimming.
All that is left of their favorite swimming
hole today, are a few weathered stobs of wood
sticking out of the water.
Just down the shoreline, sixty years earlier,
my husband’s grandfather, Osborne David
Hampton, was a small boy playing on his
father’s wharf. This was a working wharf, and
cart with a mast and sail was used to bring
goods from boats to his father, William Henry
Hampton’s store. In the early 1900’s, National
Geographic had an article about how the wind
was used to assist in work along the coast of
North Carolina. This article featured a picture
of O. D. Hampton and his sister on their father’s
wharf. He was in front of the cart while his sister
is almost hidden seated on the cart. I have
the picture and the article – somewhere. (We
are in the midst of moving so there are a few
too many boxes to look through.)
My summer water stories pale in comparison.
I learned to swim from a certifi ed Red Cross
instructor with a class of students in a regular
swimming pool. The pool was part of the Cave
and Basin situated next to the sulfur cave that
sparked the creation of Banff National Park.
Sadly the strongest memory I have of the lessons
is that I turned 12 on Friday the 13th of the
month I was taking classes and I thought how
cool it would have been if I was a year older to
have turned 13 on Friday the 13th!
I do recall riding out to a local lake with a
girlfriend on our ten-speeds to fl oat around
one summer afternoon. One does not swim in
mountain lakes if you are planning on having
fun – they generally don’t warm above seriously
cold. On occasion my family would go
to Sylvan Lake in central Alberta to a relative’s
summer cottage, but it was so shallow for so far
that I don’t remember any of us ever swimming.
So what are your water memories? Are you
going to create new ones this summer? Share
your old ones. Write them down, old or new.
While discussing our memories, my husband
and I were sad at how much detail we could no
longer remember and these were fun memories
we would enjoy sharing with our children. Start
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Irene Hampton earned a certifi
cate in Genealogy from
Brigham Young University and
worked as the Genealogical/
Local history Researcher for the
Pasquotank-Camden Library
for over 12 years. She has
also abstracted and published
“Widow’s Years Provisions,
1881-1899, Pasquotank County,
North Carolina”; “1840 Currituck,
North Carolina Federal Census”
and “Record of Marriages, Book
A (1851-1867) Currituck County,
North Carolina”.
You may contact her at
nencfamilyhistory@gmail.com.
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