Those who have known us for awhile may recall that we have spent a lot of time in far western North Carolina, specifically around the town of Murphy. Murphy is known as the end (or the start) of a ride that takes you from one end of the state to the other (both driving or hiking if desired) with the end point (or start point) being the town of Manteo located on the outer banks. We have seen little of the rest of the state of North Carolina so we decided to take a two-month trip to explore the whole state and this is the first part of that journey. We’ve been so busy exploring and connecting with friends along the way, it’s taken awhile to find some down time to catch up on the blog so follow along to see what we’ve been up to.
Our plan was to start in the far eastern part of the state and work our way west (thus the title of this post). But to get there, we’d have to make a long run which included passing thru South Carolina. Since we’re retired and in no rush, we decided to break it up by stopping for a couple of nights at a state park in South Carolina. We pulled out of the Atlanta area on April 25th with plans to return at the end of June. Our first stop, Lake Wateree State Park near the small town of Winnsboro. It’s a beautiful park along the lake and was not busy at all when we visited.
We hadn’t planned to do anything for the one day and two nights we were at the park, just relax before our final push to the coast. However, after posting our planned itinerary on Facebook, we discovered we’d be very close to some very good friends from our whitewater paddling days, Fritz and Gwen Drescher. We were able to connect, hang out at the campground for awhile, and then had a wonderful dinner at a little restaurant run by folks from Moldova.
After two nights of peaceful camping in the countryside, another 6 hour drive got us to Wilmington, NC. This town has a lot of history to explore and we had a pretty packed schedule for the week. For this visit, we selected a KOA that was pretty nice and we had a site with some shade!
Our first day of exploring took us to the historic section of town where we walked amongst homes built as far back as the 1700’s.
We took a tour of one home in particular that has a long history in Wilmington. The Burgwin-Wright House was originally constructed in 1770, prior to the Revolutionary War. Built on the original walls of a former city jail, circa 1744, the house retains many vestiges of its previous incarnation such as outdoor and sub-basement jail cells and a freestanding kitchen house with a massive hearth. The sub-basement still is shown as it was when it was a dungeon while outside you can see where lessor criminals were held in open areas where local citizens could come and insult and throw food and dirt at them.
The home was built for merchant, planter and government official John Burgwin. But Burgwin’s family lived outside the city at their plantation and he also owned a townhouse where he stayed while visiting on business. The house was actually used for doing business and entertaining while he was in town. The two bedrooms were used for business partners while visiting Burgwin.
When Burgwin decided to sell the house in 1799 Joshua Grainger Wright purchased the structure for 3,500 Spanish milled dollars. He moved in with his wife Susan Bradly, whom he had married in 1791. Wright became a prominent lawyer and orator, member of the Legislature from 1792 until 1800 when he was elected Speaker of the House. He was elected the first President of the Bank of Cape Fear when it was founded in 1809. He lived in the house with his wife and children until he died in 1811. Wright’s name is still prominent in the area. While some may think it was named for the Wright Brothers (more about them later), the beach town of Wrightsville is actually named for Joshua Wright.
Clockwise from top left: Main room for holding business meetings, office, separate building used as kitchen (was jailor’s home before house was built), potty training seat (they would strap the child in until they went), and upstairs bedroom,
The next day we took some time to explore the riverside area which included a boardwalk but we had to say we were less impressed with this and moved on to lunch pretty quickly.
The next day Dan made a solo trip out to Fort Fisher, an earthen fort built to protect the approaches to Wilmington and the Cape Fear River during the Civil War. It was actually one of the last forts along the coast to fall to Federal Forces, not surrendering until January 1865. Only some hills remain to indicate where the fort once stood.
Another day took us to Arlie Gardens, a 67 acre public garden. It was created in 1886 as a private garden for the Pembroke Jones family by Mrs. Jones. The name ‘Airlie’ was derived from the Jones’ family home in Scotland. It was designed as a lush, flowing, naturalistic Southern garden, with thousands of azaleas, camellias, magnolias, palms, and wisteria. One of it’s features is the Airlie Oak, a 500-year-old southern live oak located on the grounds of Airlie Gardens. In 2007, Airlie Oak was 128 feet tall, had a trunk circumference exceeding 21 feet and a crown spread of 104 feet when measured by North Carolina Forest Service employees. At that time, it was designated the largest live oak in North Carolina.
Another highlight is the Bottle House which was created by a local artist, Virginia Wright-Frierson in 2004. It is officially named the “Minnie Evans Sculpture Garden Bottle House” after an artist/gatekeeper that worked at Airlie for many years. This bottle house is also referred to as the “chapel”. Frierson used bottles of all shapes and sizes as well as cement and chicken wire in its creation. At the center of the house is a tree sculpture complete with birds and nests.
We missed some of the large blooming season but still managed to find a lot of beauty in the garden as well as the butterfly house.
The next outing was just for Dan as he travelled down to the river to visit the USS North Carolina Battleship. The ship was laid down in 1937 and completed in April 1941, while the United States was still neutral during World War II.
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December, North Carolina mobilized for war and was initially sent to counter a possible sortie by the German battleship Tirpitz, though this did not materialize and North Carolina was promptly transferred to the Pacific to strengthen Allied forces during the Guadalcanal campaign. There, she screened aircraft carriers engaged in the campaign and took part in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons on 24–25 August 1942, where she shot down several Japanese aircraft. The next month, she was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine but was not seriously damaged. After repairs, she returned to the campaign and continued to screen carriers during the campaigns across the central Pacific in 1943 and 1944, including the Gilberts and Marshall Islands and the Mariana and Palau Islands, where she saw action during the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
The ship was undergoing a refit during the invasion of the Philippines but took part in the later stages of the Philippines campaign and was present when the fleet was damaged by Typhoon Cobra. She took part in offensive operations in support of the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945, including numerous attacks on Japan. Following the surrender of Japan in August, she carried American personnel home during Operation Magic Carpet. North Carolina operated briefly off the east coast of the United States in 1946 before being decommissioned the next year and placed in reserve. Stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 1960, the ship was saved from the breaker’s yard by a campaign to preserve the vessel as a museum ship in her namesake state. In 1962, the North Carolina museum was opened in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Much of the below decks area were available to be toured. This included areas of the engine room, various electrical spaces, radio operations, radar and plotting, weapons storage (including projectiles and powder magazines), several mess areas, bunk spaces, dentist and operating rooms, and officers’ quarters. You could also access one of the 16 inch turrets and then entire main deck which included views of one of the ship’s anchors and a Kingfisher seaplane mounted on the stern. Unfortunately, due to repairs and maintenance to some areas of the upper decks, there was no access to the bridge.
Our last big outing of the week was to drive down the peninsula that included Fort Fisher to visit a small aquarium (not much to mention on this), take a car ferry across Cape Fear River over to the town of Southport where we did a little bit of window shopping, and enjoyed a nice seafood lunch on the water.
But before we could load up and depart, we had a special visitor to our campground on our last day in the area. A former colleague of Dan’s from his time at IHG, John Bowden, lived in the area and stopped by to say hello and hang out for lunch. It was great catching up with John and as you can see, retirement looks good on John!
Next stop was up the coast to a small town called Emerald Isle where we planned to spend a week right on the coast. Originally the plan was to do a blog update for half of our trip thru North Carolina but given how far behind we are, figured we go ahead and publish this first leg to whet your whistle and get you ready for the 2nd leg. So be looking for another update very soon (since we are currently sitting in 90+ degree heat and have no plans to go out for the next week while sitting in the NC Mountains!).
Looks like fun, Yall! That’s a lot of history for me… But Bob Garrett is loving it, I’m sure, being the history buff that he is. Yall keep enjoying the scenery. We’re holding a place for you here at the Garrett Manor.