In Memory of Monica Regina Ireland

Monica Regina Ireland of Hobucken died January 12, 2014. She was born November 2, 1959.

She was the daughter of the late Bertie Sadler Ireland.  I do not have an official obituary notice at this time but wanted to share of her recent passing.

The James Potter, Jr. Bible

     From 2002 to 2011, I worked with the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources in Manteo, N.C.  During my tenure with the Department, I had the opportunity to work directly with the State Library in Raleigh as well as the Outer Banks History Center in Manteo.  Within the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources is the State Archives.  The State Archives collects, preserves, and utilizes the state's historic resources so present and future residents may better understand their history.
     The James Potter, Jr. Family Bible is among those items collected within the State Archives.  I do not know when the Bible was taken to Raleigh to be preserved among it's collections or who the family member was who saw the need to preserve their family history.

    James Potter, Jr. married Julia Whitford Daniels in Lowland on January 23, 1878.  Births, marriages and deaths are recorded in the family Bible as well as an extended genealogical family tree of Potters, Williamsons, and many other Island families.  Below, is the scanned originals from the James Potter, Jr. Family Bible that is within the N.C Family Records Online Collection. To view the extended genealogical family tree pages of present day Potters, and to access additional family Bibles and other online collections, go to http://familyrecords.ncdcr.gov. , browse by family name, and select Potter.  There are 17 pages total.

     Nearly 1500 Bible Records (listing births, marriages, and death information written in family bibles) from various donated family bibles are held by the State Archives of North Carolina.  Most scans that you will find online were photocopied or photostat that were created up to 80 years earlier when families brought their Bibles to Raleigh to be copied and stored within the State Archives.
     Many records are quite beautiful, showing 18th and 19th century handwriting, photographs and hand drawn family trees.  You can sometimes trace how the literacy levels in families changed from generation to generation.
     The State Library has provided service to North Carolina and her people since 1812.  Among its services, it boasts one of the largest North Carolina specific genealogical collections in the state.  To visit the State Library or to inquire about possibly preserving your family history, you can call 919-807-7310 or visit at 109 East Jones Street in Raleigh. 

The Hobucken Way

Courtesy of Shawn Walsh, owner of Pate Boatyard Hobucken

Photo by Shawn Walsh. November 2006.

Down here they say "there's a right way, a wrong way and the Hobucken way" and even though this is down in Lowland, it's definitely a good example of the Hobucken way. Undaunted by the lack of a railway, the skipper of this vessel (an old navy utility boat), has lifted the stern with a log loader secured to the deck of a 50' barge, so he can re-weld a new keel shoe that protects and supports the wheel and rudder. The resourcefulness of folks down here is truly remarkable and likely the result of spending so many years with nothing to work with but what was at hand. "Making do" is an art form that is quickly being lost in an increasingly disposable world, but fortunately is still thriving on Goose Creek Island.

Podunk Pete's Island Adventure with Mitchie Ray Midgett

     As we all know, there are a great many characters who live and have lived on the Island over the course of Island history. Below is an excerpt from Peter C. Zimmerman's book Podunk.  Peter spent a few days on Goose Creek Island with Mitchie Ray Midgett and others in the 1990's and wrote a narrative in his book about his stay.  With his permission and those Islanders who are mentioned, I have reprinted his excerpt.  Mr. Zimmerman's account of his visit on the Island and those folks mentioned reflect the attitudes and perspectives of his visit.  It is by no means intended to offend or stereotype any of us from the Island.  

    For those of you who may be interested in purchasing his PDF booklet, you may purchase it for $3.00 by going to his website at www.podunkthebook.com.  Thank you Peter for allowing me to reprint your story on my blog and hope you venture back to Goose Creek Island one day. 

 

GOOSE CREEK ISLAND

          History shows that small, isolated communities, such as the people of remote islands, are prone to be hostile to strangers….

                    – Mark Twain, “A Curious Pleasure Excursion”

Mitchie Ray Midgett. Photo by Peter C. Zimmerman.

     “Hoo-AH! Drunk!” thundered Mitchie Ray Midgett, of Goose Creek Island, North Carolina, puffing on a Honduran cigar and draining yet another triple Dickel whiskey. He looked like Franz Hals’ painting of the Jolly Toper, only clad in mismatched fatigues and ball cap.
    “We’ll give you a picture, we’ll give you a show, before you leave,” he promised me. “Ain’t nobody gonna bother you. All you gotta do is holler. I’m gonna take care of you.”
     I had just presented him with a hindquarter – what the islanders call a half-gallon – as well as an enormous German knife which I had picked up at a yard sale that seemed perfect for cutting watermelons and I’m not sure what else. Evidently the bribe worked – Mitchie Ray would be covering my back for the next four or five days.
     We had met through a mutual friend, Gene Price, publisher of the Goldsboro News-Argus, who has kept a one-room fishing “camp” on the island for many years.
     I had just arrived at Goose Creek Island after a ten-day detour down the eastern shores of Maryland and Virginia, stopping in Annapolis at the grave of Admiral Arleigh “31-Knot” Burke, spending a day or two in the crabbing communities of Crisfield and Hoopersville, and rapping with Dickey “Rambling Man” Betts’ third cousin O’Day, whom I happened to meet at a convenience store in Elizabeth City in the wee, wee hours.
     Goose Creek Island, separated from the mainland by a mile-long concrete bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway, juts out into the Pamlico Sound, which is actually an estuary fed by the Pamlico and Neuse rivers. As late as the early 19th century, a wooden ferry was the only way to get to Goose Creek. As the pelicans fly, it lies some 35 miles due east, “inside” of the Outer Banks.
     There are two towns, Lowland and Hobucken, with a total population of 656 residents. The island is 99 percent white and one part “part-Hispanic," according to the 2010 U.S. Census. There used to be a sign at the old ferry landing, “Nigger, don’t let the sun set on your heels.” These days, a few blacks commute to work in the island’s several seafood processing plants.
     Moving right along, Gene Price told me that I could probably find Mitchie Ray in the late afternoon, hanging out at Zool Ireland’s crab packing plant, where the fishermen meet to drink and talk – and more than occasionally razz each other.
     By the time I pulled into Zool’s driveway, I felt dirty, frazzled, and generally plum tuckered out. It was with some degree of trepidation that I opened the door where the Men of Goose Creek Island had convened and were sitting around a Formica table, each with his own giant bottle of whiskey or vodka. On the island, they drink their booze neat. Ice is for wimps.
     There was a handful of reasons why I was nervous.
     First of all, Gene Price was no longer around to smooth things over like he was the first time I visited the island 15 years prior.
     Secondly, the sun was setting, and I didn’t have a place to stay. The nearest motel was 25 miles away, in Bayboro, the Pamlico County seat. I decided to take my chances. If necessary, I could always sleep in my truck; it wouldn’t be the first time.
     Third, it’s hard to understand what they’re saying, particularly the older generation. They speak with a Middle English “hoi toide” brogue – sounds like they’ve got marbles in their mouths – handed down from their ancestors, many of whom survived shipwrecks off the N.C. coast, decided that they liked the area and put down roots; we’re talking early 1700s, back in the days of marauding pirates and privateers. (Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is a prime example of Middle English which spans the 11th to 15th centuries.)
     Fourth, the islanders are notoriously suspicious of outsiders. Prior to the trip, I had read in one guidebook that on Goose Creek Island it can take “a while – sometimes years [italics mine] – for newcomers to gain social acceptance.” They’ve been burned before both by Fish & Wildlife, for poaching, and the DEA, for dope smuggling. “The boy’s alright,” Mitchie Ray said while I was out back, pissing on a shellpile, with my tape recorder rolling inside. “He’d better be,” replied Gail Popperwill, another attendee.
     This reminded me of what I had read in a book by William Warner about the so-called watermen in the Chesapeake Bay area in which one of them was quoted as saying, "If they like you down in Guinea, ain't nothing they wouldn't do for you.  But brother, if they don't, you better be long gone."
     Last but not least, I'm just about the worst imaginable kind of "dingbatter," their word for a non-native or recreational boater - and a college-educated Yankee from New York to boot.
     Hell, they probably don't understand me either.
     Before crossing the concrete bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway that separates the island from the mainland, I stopped at the Coast Guard station and asked Robert Brady if he had any advice about getting along with the islanders. Play it straight, he said. They might not be educated, but they’re smart, and “they know when you’re not being upfront.” As befitting the state motto, namely, to be rather than to seem….

     Zool: What are you doing here, Porky?
     Marc “Porky” Ross: I’m doin’ any gol-damned thing I want to.
     Zool: Are you sure?
     Porky: That’s right.
     Zool: You want me to kick your ass, don’t you?
     Porky: If you want to kick it, I’d rather have it kicked by nobody but you. All you gotta do is stand up   and promise you won’t hurt me.
     Zool (turning to me): I tell you what, you’ve been fed something tonight…
     Mitchie Ray: He wanted a story, didn’t he?
     Porky: I’ll drink his likker… I’ll have me a few more of these triple Dickels, and if you’re wantin’ to go to my house to stay, man, I got four bedrooms… Now that’s a lie, I only got three, but I can pull one out.
     Gail: You’re welcome to the camper if you want.
     Benny Ireland (Zool’s brother): I tell you one damn thing, I wouldn’t go with him [Porky]….

     It was a good thing that Gene had called ahead. Everyone at Zool’s treated me like a king.
     By sundown, we were all good and sloshed.
     That first night – at least for half the night – I ended up sleeping in Gail Popperwill’s mother Audrey’s vacant trailer. Not long after I drifted off to sleep there was a knock on the door. It was Porky.
     Apparently Mrs. Popperwill was worried what the neighbors of this close-knit community might think of a stranger sleeping in her trailer (she lived in the adjacent house).
     So I ended up going over to Porky’s, where we binged on “hog meat” and  strawberries. Porky had to work the next day so he took a nap while I stayed up doing laundry; his daughter got up early to work on the computer.

     Thus, he lives for the river, from the river, by the river and on the river, a life as semi-aquatic the bank-vole’s, as buoyant on the water as the tufted duck’s and up and down the river, though further than, the kingfisher’s.  – H.J. Massingham

      As a boy, Mitchie Ray would often stay up all night pulling net and roasting salt mullets on the beach. He dropped out of school in the eighth grade to become a fulltime waterman, following in his father’s footsteps. In island speak, he’s a progger, in the John Barth sense of anyone who picks and pokes about, scrounging and scavenging and doing whatever’s necessary to make a living. Depending on the season, that means a combination of crabbing, fishing, trapping, and hunting. For instance, over the past three years he has bagged some 25,000 pounds’ worth of snapping turtle, which gets shipped up north and made into soup at fancy restaurants such as Hausner’s in Baltimore and New York’s 21 Club.
     Islanders agree that no one knows the island’s 70 miles of shoreline better than Mitchie Ray, known as the Snake Doctor, because he puts cottonmouths out of their misery, using a metal pipe or whatever’s handy. He knows how to navigate his 17-foot Atlantic skiff through the many canals, ditches, creeks, and guts, somehow avoiding the same snags and stumps where others have torn out their engines.
     In the words of Zool’s son Ivan, “Mitchie Ray’s got sense, but it’s not book, you know? As far as catching fish, catching shrimp, catching crab, you ain’t gonna find many around here that’ll beat him.” And that’s not even counting hunting duck and deer, or trapping muskrat, otter, and nutria, a giant water rat of South American origin.
     He and his partner Arthur E. “Scooter” Leary, whose hands look like they’ve been soaked in diesel and dredged in sand, went their separate ways when Scooter rededicated his life to Christ and swore off all those triple Dickels.
     Now in his sixties, Mitchie Ray has left the island only twice in his life, once (unsuccessfully) shrimping in Florida, the other time on a family vacation in the mountains of North Carolina, where he missed the boats, as it were.

          He was an old boating-man, crazy on the subject of boats, and was always either in, or on, or by the water. He must have been born in a boat, and probably he will die in one, some day, while taking a last outing. – Guy de Maupassant

      His ancestors are the “mighty Midgetts of Chicamacomico,” legendary lighthouse keepers who have earned more Gold Lifesaving Medals of Honor – comparable in that line of work to a Nobel Prize or Grammy – than any other family. The area off Cape Hatteras is among the most treacherous shorelines in the world. Between 1526 and 1939, more than 300 vessels were “totally lost,” claiming 800 lives, according to David Stick’s definitive Graveyard of the Atlantic; the appendix, listing all the wrecks, takes up no fewer than 14 single-lined pages.
     For his part, Mitchie Ray prefers the comparatively gentler waters of the Sound, tramping around the marshlands, and tooling around the island in his black 1987 3/4-ton 4WD Chevy, a 30-30 Winchester mounted in the rear window. While driving around he dips Peachey tobacco, for which he uses a giant can of Hanover Blue Lake Cut Green Beans as a spittoon. He’s unapologetically “redneck” – not in the pejorative, Jeff Foxworthy sense of putting peanuts in his Coke and getting into fights he doesn’t have to, but rather, someone who works outside all day and literally gets a red neck, much the same as the historical Scottish red-shanks, who were too poor to afford long pants.
     For four days straight, he certainly made good on his promise to show me around these watery boondocks, where even the graveyards are often submerged. We visited a giant shell mound left by Indians, a former lighthouse now crumbled into the surf, and a Civil War cemetery deep in the woods where the horse flies, yellow jackets, and mosquitoes had a field day with me. We hiked around the marsh a bit – also buggy. I noticed that Mitchie Ray didn’t even bother brushing them away. And we dropped in on Bert Robinson, in his seventies, who sleeps in the same room in which he was born. (“Thank God for the mosquitoes,” Bert told me, winking, “they repel the tourists.”)
     Of course, Mitchie Ray still managed to get a little work done, heading out at the crack of dawn (with no breakfast), hauling up 700 crab pots and a thousand yards of gillnet. Meanwhile, I lay on the deck, badly hung over, taking pictures of the gulls soaring overhead.
     I had a fun time with him and the other islanders. There was only one close call. While we were shooting pool, a notorious sucker-puncher named Raymond (who happens to be Ivan’s uncle) started giving me the hairy eyeball, possibly on account of my Yankee accent. Fortunately I happened to be hanging out with Chris Ballance, whose biceps are larger than my hamstrings.
     By the end of my trip, I’d had more than my fill of triple Dickels. So I went back to Zool's, packed my bags, and headed back "off-island."
 

Scooter Leary. Photo by James Perry Walker

Mural that was at the Hobucken Marina in the 1990's. Photo by Peter C. Zimmerman.

Gene Price of the Goldsboro News Argus with unidentified Islanders. Photo by Peter C. Zimmerman

Virgil Lupton - Proud to Call Goose Creek Island Home

ON BOTH SIDES OF THE RIVER is an anthology of the late Nancy Winfrey's human interest stories that she wrote as a correspondent for the Pamlico News, a local paper in Pamlico County, North Carolina that she owned and published. Published in 1995, Nancy interviewed Mr. Virgil Lupton of Hobucken, and recounted his story in her book.  Below is excerpt of his story.

Reprinted with permission of The Pamlico News. Photos courtesy Nancy Winfrey (C)

  

Virgil Morris Lupton, February 27, 1900 - August 9, 1998

      "I've done very little traveling," said Virgil Morris Lupton of Hobucken, "and Virginia is about as far as I have ever been."  And, he added he hasn't missed it one bit.  "Goose Creek Island is 'Home Sweet Home' to me...there's no place like it and I'm not satisfied anywhere else but here," he said with a very assuring tone in his voice.
     He is a "true-blue" born and raised Goose Creek Island, as were his parents and grandparents before him.  Mr. Lupton was born February 27, 1900, son of Josiah "Jo-Sire" S. Lupton and Lodenea Spencer.
     Virgil was one of two sons and two daughters.

Good Life But Not Always Easy

     Living in Hobucken, Mr. Lupton's father farmed and fished.  "When I was a boy growing up, everybody pitched in to help...you're doggone right they did," he said.  "Papa did all his farming with only one team and you had to walk that mule every day and my daddy also tended about twenty acres like that.  When we were old enough, we helped out," commented Mr. Virgil.

     He also said that his father cleared land and built their house and, "I reckon he got he logs for his house off his land."

     When his parents built their home, there were no fireplaces and the house was heated with a woodstove, a source of heat Mr. Lupton prefers even today.  "My mother," said Virgil, "cooked on a woodstove.  We ate a lot of cornbread in those days.  There were mills nearby where we would take the corn we raised and have it ground.  We never went hungry, ever.  It may not have been exactly what you wanted, but it was good for us."

     Mr. Virgil told of how his mother would make soap in a large pot out in the yard.  As he shook his head from side to side, he said, "Boy, that was some soap.  You couldn't hardly get it to lather to save your life!"

     Those were also days of the wonderful feather beds.  As a child, the Lupton family all slept on feather mattresses or ticks, as they were often called.  "To get the feathers to make the mattresses, my mother raised her own geese and would pick the soft down from them...she wouldn't have the stiff feathers because they would poke through the covering," he explained.  "When Violet and I were married, our parents gave us a feather mattress," he noted.

     There was no such thing as boredom in those days because there was very little spare time.  He said his mother made all the clothes for the family.  "Back then," he continued, "you didn't throw anything away 'cause it was too hard to come by.  When we would wear out clothes, we would use them for wash cloths and things like that."

     Since work days were long, he said that what little socializing there was, was centered mostly around church activities.  They did have nice Christmases, he added, spending that day with family.  "We would go into the woods and cut a big cedar tree...and I'm still doing that."  Continuing, Mr. Lupton said, "We would hang our stockings up but never got much but an orange or apple and a little piece of candy, but we were excited as we could be...it was Christmas just the same."

     Life wasn't always easy before paved roads, cars, telephones or other modern inventions.  Since weather forecasting was non-existent, great storms struck with little or no warning.  "I know of one storm that came early one morning," said Virgil, "and we left our house and went to stay with grandmother.  Water was all over the place."  He said that when it did look like bad weather was brewing up, they would "just keep a close eye on the tide and keep checking and that's about all you could do."

     He told of how lucky he and his family were to escape a bad flu epidemic that wiped out a lot of people on the Island when he was a youngster.  "We were really lucky," he sighed.

Accidents Did Happen

     Mr. Lupton said when he was growing up he had a couple of bad experiences.  "I got my hand almost ground-up when I was about 12 years old and had to go to Mesic to stay with my aunt to be closer to the doctor," he recollected.  "I got my hand caught between the cog and chain when I was thrashing field peas and wasn't looking at what I was doing.  I was watching some children play and slapped my hand right in there!  It almost cut one of my fingers right off and broke another one."

     Then, Virgil told of another stroke of bad luck when he was 15 years old.  "This time," he said, "I got my leg broken when I was riding a horse and the horse fell on my leg...It really started swelling up and I still remember that it happened on a Saturday.  It was Monday before the doctor was able to come from Bayboro.  Dr. Dees what his name.  Sure enough, I had broken my leg and he had to set it and I was flat on my back for a while."

First Horse

     When Virgil was quite young, he got the first horse he ever owned.  As he told the story, he said, "It was given to me by an old man.  The horse was sick all the time and would, without any warning, lie down on the ground and refuse to get up," he said.  One day, Virgil said the man was harnessing the horse up and he looked at me and asked if I wanted the animal.  "I went home and asked Papa if I could have it and he said yes."  Virgil said he took the horse home and fed him and looked after him real good.  "Then," Lupton continued, "the horse got down on the ground and wouldn't get up."  He said he went and asked the old man if he could help him get the horse up.  The man told him that he had gotten rid of the horse when he had given it to him, but that he would help him this one time.

     Virgil said his father decided to harness the horse up one day and "I worked him hard in the fields all day long," said Lupton,  "and then took him back and fed him."  From that time on, he said he didn't have any more trouble with that horse.

     "Shortly after that, a neighbor's mule died," he said, "and the man needed a team to finish his crop.  I traded him the horse for a cotton patch.  I picked the cotton and sold it and got enough money to buy my first bicycle...it had a little red and yellow on it and I was a proud somebody over that thing!"

     Mr. Virgil said a freight boat would leave Goose Creek Island every week and he gave the money to the captain and asked him to buy a bicycle for him when he reached Washington.

     Virgil's eyes lit up when he began talking about seeing a car for the very first time.  "I had not even heard tell of them."  One day, he said, a Model-T was chugging along and that's when he and couple of his friends first saw a car bumping down the road.  He said they were so alarmed that they darted into the woods.  "That was a funny looking sight coming down the road making a loud noise like chugga, chugga, chugga.  It stopped at a store just down the road and we went there to look it over real good," he commented.

Early Marriage

     When Virgil and Violet were married on December 25, 1927, his new bride was only sixteen years old and Virgil was a young 21.  Violet Mae Leary was born and raised on Goose Creek Island.

     Mr. Lupton said when he and Violet were first married, they lived in a small bungalow just a short way from where they later settled.  "When we first started out, we were given a few things to help us furnish our small house."

Those Island Mosquitoes!

     Virgil said his and Violet's bungalow had no screens in the windows or doors, so at night time they had to put tobacco cloth over the bed in order to sleep.  "And," he said smiling, "you just hoped you didn't have a mosquito inside with you.  If you did, you couldn't sleep at all."

     "I've seen so many mosquitoes you had to beat them off the mules to keep them working and to keep them from lying down on the ground and rolling over," he said.

     "When I was growing up," he remarked, "I used to hear talk that the mosquitoes got so thick that when they got between you and the sun, they would block it out.  I've never seen that myself, but I have heard talk about it."

     Trying to battle mosquitoes was an ongoing challenge.  "We used to make a fire in a wash pot and smother it so it would smolder and smoke.  We did this late in the evening and then placed the smoldering pot near the door to our house."  Laughing," Mr. Virgil said, "It would smoke your eyes right out of your head near about."  While working in the fields, he said they would mostly just 'swat a lot.'

Breaking Ground

     Three years after Virgil and Violet were married, he began clearing a thick wooded are where would build their home.  "I also began breaking out some land to farm.  It was thick as could be," he said, " I cleared lots of land around where the house was to be built, enough to also build a smoke house and barn."

     "My father-in-law gave me seven big pine trees growing on his land to help build my house if I'd go cut them."  Virgil said that with the help of his uncle, Roger Spencer, they downed the huge trees by using a lot of muscle and a cross-cut saw and then hauled them out on a mule drawn cart.  After that, they carried the trees to have them sawed.  "Then," told Virgil, "we racked the boards up to dry."

     "It took a long time to clear that land 'cause I didn't have anything to work with but an ax, saw and shovel...no power saw and those things," he noted.  "I also did all the ditching around the farm and house by hand...covering an area of 21 acres, all having to be ditched.  But not like my daddy did, he did a lot his ditching by the light of a lantern during night time."

     Mr Virgil said they lived in their small house until  they had their home far enough along to move into it and ended up with eight rooms.

Waterway and Alligators

     In the latter part of the 1920's, work was ongoing cutting a waterway through, which would become part of the Intracoastal Waterway.  Virgil well remembers the waterway being dug.  He said he went to work helping when they first stated.  Prior to that time, he said that could just walk through the woods where the waterway is now.  "They had a bunch of people working on that job," he commented.  The canal was dredged out with a dredging machine and "I worked on the pipe line.  The pipes were large enough for a person to crawl through."

     Virgil was the rejects were carried through the big pipes and deposited in the marsh.  "We had to move the pipes on ahead as the dredging continued."  He noted that when the pipes became loose, they had to be tightened.  "You could hear the oyster and clam shells and other stuff, along with big rocks, hitting and clanking as they went through," he spoke.  He said that oftentimes big stumps would get jammed up in them.  And, he noted, "it even spit alligators out of the pipe into the marsh."

     "When I was growing up, there used to be lots of alligators in the boggy, marshy areas here," he recalled.  "I have, a time or two, found some alligator nests.  Some of the alligators were good size too, about 16-feet long, but I haven't seen any in a long, long time though."

Predictions Come True

     When Virgil was a young child, he would often be treated to a few "words of wisdom" by his grandfather...words he never forgot.

     Mr. Lupton said that numerous times his grandfather would tell him that "there would come a day when people would be about to fly through the air like and bird and you will see a waterway cut through this area."

     He said his grandfather told him he wouldn't live long enough to see it happen, "but you children will!"  Virgil added that his grandfather also told him some tales when they were young that would scare them to death.

Wells Cisterns and Ice

     Today, we take an ice cube out of our freezers and don't give it a second thought.  Well, as Mr. Virgil would attest, there was a day when ice was hard to come by.

     "We didn't have ice when I was a boy, except for what you could find around when it got cold enough to freeze," he said.

     And before the days of ice boxes, Mr. Lupton said they would drop their milk down into the well to keep it cool.

     Speaking of wells, he said he dug his own well.  "The well opening was level with the ground," he explained, "and was just a deep hole in the earth.  I kept a cover over the top to help keep insects and things like that out," he added.

     He also told of an interesting and popular gathering place called a Savannah well, a well that was dug there before his time.  Mr. Virgil said the well was just east of his home.  "People used to come from all over Goose Creek Island to wash their clothes here," he recollected.  "It was a gathering place and people used to even fill a barrel and load it in the wagon to take home with them," he added.  "Someone did some digging, because it was really a big well," he spoke.  As a young boy, Lupton said he remembered drinking from the well and that it was really good water.  Like other wells in that area, the Savannah well was ground level and people would just lower their buckets down to fill them.

     Soon many wells were replaced by cisterns.  A while after he and Violet were married and well settled into their home, he built a cistern.  Later, he was able to put a pump in the kitchen to pull the water in from the cistern.  Before, the water had to be brought from the well in the yard up to the house.

     "It was a good while after we were married before we could get ice, though," Lupton noted.  "A truck would come around about once a week and you could get a big chunk for a quarter."

     He also said he made a wooden box where the ice and food, milk, etc. were placed to keep it cold.

     Mr. Lupton celebrated his 90th birthday February 27, 1990.  He is a gentleman who wears kind face and he said, "There's been a lot of water under the bridge since I was a boy," and "I've seen it all."

 

In Memory of Hope Watson Rowe

Hope Rowe Watson, 95, of Lowland died Thursday, January 2, 2014 at Grantsbrook Nursing & Rehab Center. 

She was a member of Lowland Church of Christ.

She is survived by one daughter, Evelyn “Hope” Watson Barker of Morehead; three sons, A.E. Watson, Jr. of Lowland, Bruce Watson of Washington and Rodney Watson of Reelsboro; twelve grandchildren; and several great and great-great grandchildren.

Her funeral will be held 2:00 p.m., Sunday, January 5 at Lowland Church of Christ with H. Norman Miller officiating. Interment will be in Watson Cemetery, Lowland.