Sunday, November 6, 2011

The Hawthornes Visit Island Farm In Manteo, North Carolina.

On Thursday, the Hawthornes headed to Manteo to visit Island Farm, a living history site, "Roanoke Island's newest historic site," and the Etheridge family farmstead circa 1847. I got the "newest historic site" from their website. Newest historic. Heh. Adam Etheridge built a house on this land which had been farmed by his family since 1757, since his grandfather Jessie Etheridge acquired the 150-acre tract from Joseph Mann. Etheridge purchased another 150 acres in 1787, giving him access to Roanoke Sound and it is believed that it was on this property he built his home. In the 1980s, the Etheridge family donated the original farm house, the "oldest restoration of a house on Roanoke Island," (from Island Farm website) and 1/2 acre of land to Outer Banks Conservationists. For more information on the Etheridge family, you owe it to yourself to read a publication printed by the Outer Banks Conservationists in 2001 - Etheridge Homeplace: A History by Penne Smith A very interesting read. One can visit the house and numerous structures on site - reconstructed slave quarters, cookhouse, barns, woodshed, smokehouse, dairy, and outhouse, to name a few. One can experience island life on a Roanoke Island farm as it was over 150 years ago, watching and talking to interpreters dressed in period attire. And you're in luck, because Rosie is going to take you there. This is the view when you first walk onto the property, after going through a visitor center first. Admission is $6. Children 5 and under are free. Cash or check only. Hours: Open April 21 - November 26, 2011 10am - 4pm Thursday - Saturday in April, May, and November Wednesday - Saturday, June - October
The windmill across Highway 64. Sorry. I wasn't going to cross the highway to get the picture without the wires. This windmill has a history. Don't they all? This windmill is the windmill from Windmill Point restaurant and that would be the same Windmill Point restaurant that I shot pictures of in March 2011 when Nags Head used the building for a controlled burn to train local fire crews. See here for my post of the burn. Here's the history of the windmill from the Outer Banks Voice.
First, the Hawthornes made a stop in the visitors' center. More history of Roanoke Island.
The Freedmen's Colony on Roanoke Island In February, 1862, daily life for Roanoke Islanders was abruptly interrupted. Union forces bombarded hastily erected Confederate sand forts, and troops under the command of General Ambrose Burnside swept across the island. Roanoke Island and the Outer Banks remained under Union control for the duration of the Civil War. The appearance of Union forces on Roanoke Island drew runaway slaves like a magnet. Thousands left the mainland and made their way across the sound into Union lines looking for freedom and support. The Union dubbed them "contraband," meaning they were captured Confederate property, and organized the former slaves into camps. Union commanders were caught off-guard by the numbers that engulfed the camps. Suddenly, they were responsible for thousands of freed men, women and children to feed, clothe, shelter and manage. Thus began the construction of a huge government-sanctioned encampment and social experiment, a freedmen's colony of ultimately 591 houses sheltering more than 3000 people. The colony occupied the northern end of the island. The freedmen called it "California." The freed slaves set about raising crops, fishing and logging to help build the houses of California. They built a church and what may have been the first public school for blacks in North Carolina. They also initiated some industrial operations, particularly a steam-powered saw mill. Beginning in 1863 in a log cabin, missionaries and school teachers from New England came to the colony to evangelize and to teach, and hoped to guide the recently freed people into responsible work and meaningful lives. Seven missionaries later taught classes in a school built by freed slaves from lumber cut by the colony's saw mill. When the war was over, the U.S. Army pulled out of Roanoke Island and left 3500 freed people to fend for themselves. Most returned to the mainland where they had spent their lives as slaves, where they knew people and where they hoped to find work. Of the freed slaves who had sought safety and new life on Roanoke Island, only 300 remained. The "New Social Order" for freedmen came to an abrupt halt. In December 2009, Rosie posted about the Freedmen's Colony. And here's my update from January 2010.
African Americans on Roanoke Island Little is known about exactly how the people who made up the enslaved population of Roanoke Island came to be here prior to the Civil War. The very nature of withholding an individual's rights, such as the teaching of reading and writing, makes personal records scarce. What is known is that in 1860 there were 31 slave houses on the island and 168 enslaved individuals. Most did the chores of the farm: washing, ironing, cleaning, carrying water, plowing and planting fields, tending crops and farm animals. But because fishing was such a significant aspect of island life, the slaves on Roanoke Island had a wider variety of work options such as boat pilots, sailors, deck hands, fishermen and boat builders. A few African-Americans were free and made a living as laborers. Given today's understanding of the inequalities of slavery, it is consoling to speculate that on the small farms and fisheries of Roanoke Island, where owners and slaves worked side by side, relations between the two populations were better than on large plantations where slaves were unlikely to be known as individuals. Evidence of this recognition of the individual is noted in the following observations of George Seaworthy in 1850: Old Jack, a deck hand on the mail packet Fox, was described as a "rough, honest old sailor, possessing as he did, more intelligence than his brethren, that won for him not merely good treatment but hearty regard and respect. The old sailor was an oracle in all matters pertaining to the packets, the navigation of the sound, and the history of Nag's Head from its earliest settlement." Jack asked Mr. Seaworthy if he'd seen "old man Adam Etheridge when he went to Roanoke Island." When Mr. Seaworthy replied, no, Jack said, "Well you ought as well not have gone." Isaac is described as "intelligent and clever and an excellent waiter for those he liked." He was a 14-year old mulatto. Aunt Titia was a washerwoman and the dominant personality in her household. She maintained order, kept other slaves from mischief, disciplined children of blacks and whites and generally kept the peace. Thomas Robinson, a slave of Joseph Daniels, was a ship's carpenter who knew the island and its waterways. When the Union Navy and Army invaded Roanoke Island in 1862, Robinson guided the invaders to safe harbors, showed them the sound channels and located Confederate camps. Bill, "a twenty-year old house servant, played the fife, wore rings in his ears and was deemed a lady killer." Old Jeff was a short, squatty man in his late 30s, of irascible temperament. He was fond of white lightning and corn liquor.
A Shared Heritage Richard Etheridge (1842 - 1900) He was a fortunate man, although he was born into slavery. He was the illegitimate son of John B. Etheridge, a white man of influence and means. John's brother, Adam Etheridge IV, operated this farm. Richard, despite his status, was favored and well-treated by his father. Unlike most African-Americans in the South, Richard was literate at a time when even large numbers of whites could not read or write. He also became an expert waterman familiar with the sounds and waterways around Roanoke Island. John B. and Adam Etheridge IV were allowed to keep their property when they both signed the oath of allegiance with the Union Army after it captured the island in 1862. In 1863, President Lincoln decreed slaves free and later called for them to join the Union Army. Richard Etheridge enlisted with a freedmen's brigade on Roanoke Island. The former slave was assigned to the Thirty-Sixth United States Colored Troop and saw battle in Virginia in 1864 before his transfer to the West as a Buffalo Soldier. He was discharged from the service in 1866 in Texas, with the rank of sergeant. Richard returned home to marry and built a home on the North End. He farmed 27 acres of Etheridge land and fished for a living. In 1875, he signed on as a surfman in the U.S. Life-Saving Service at Bodie Island Station. In 1880, he was appointed head keeper of Pea Island Life-Saving Station, the first African-American to lead a life-saving crew. His courage and character drew praise from the government and from his peers. Richard Etheridge shared a career in the Life-Saving Service with Adam Etheridge, Jesse B. Etheridge, and another African-American from the Etheridge farm, William Bowser. Christiana (Crissy) Bowser (c. 1820-1914) Christiana Bowser was born on the Etheridge farm in 1820. It is likely she was born free and never enslaved. She was likely kin to Williams and Vicy Bowser, servants in Adam Etheridge III's household on Island Farm. William and Vicy appear in the 1850 census as 14 and 16 years old and as the only free blacks in the household. In 1845, Adam III and his wife, Margaret, sent a 25-year-old servant to their son Adam IV and his wife, Fanny, who were setting up their household in the newly constructed "mansion house" that survives today. That servant may have been Crissy. Serving the Etheridges for nearly 70 years, Crissy Bowser spent most of her life on Island Farm. Sometime after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, she built her own cabin where she lived along under the spreading limbs of a 200-year-old oak tree just a few hundred yards behind the main house. In the 1880 census she is listed as a housekeeper working a two-acre field for cash rental. She raised no crops but kept one pig and four chickens. Continuing to cook for the family into the 20th century, she was in her 90s when she died in her cabin. "Aunt Crissy" is buried beneath the limbs of the Crissy Oak, a tree protected as her memorial by family members through deed restrictions.
How They Lived "Altogether, they seem to be a peculiar people... . They look very jealously upon strangers; but they are clannish, and therefore honest and social among themselves." Roanoke Islanders worked hard - and not just the men. "The women here can pull a pretty good oar stroke, and frequently assist their husbands in the fisheries."
Nathaniel Bishop Islanders had a variety of outlets for recreation. There were outings on the Banks for picnics, often at the Fresh Ponds near Nags Head. There was a new resort there as well, built in the 1840's, a hotel with a dance hall and a bowling alley. Bowling was a very popular pastime with the locals as were trips to Bodie Island Lighthouse. Deer hunting and fox hunting with hounds were popular as well; so was hunting waterfowl and fishing.
The locals danced, listened to fiddlers, attended weddings and revivals, raced their boats and swam in the sounds and the sea. They feasted on fish, oysters and soft crabs. For breakfast there were pancakes, bacon, fried herring and buttermilk. There were also spirits, especially wine and brandy made from the local Scuppernong grapes. The women on Roanoke Island "wash, sew, weave, card, spin and fashion the homely clothes... they rear the poultry ... serve the food ... and are devout, humble, constant, industrious and obedient. It is worth while to be born a boy in that part of North Carolina."
George Seaworthy, 1850.
Bankers and the folks on Roanoke Island were fond of their home remedies while professional doctors, of which Roanoke had one, relied on opium, morphine and quinine. One visitor opined that "a Carolinian thinks himself slighted if he hasn't a touch of the billious (chills and fever) once a year... . Many of them have most singular prejudices concerning medicine.
George Seaworthy, 1850 The Etheridge family helped establish the Roanoke Island Baptist Church (also called the North End Baptist Church) in 1808. It was the only place of worship available to those beginning to settle on the island. Union soldiers burned down the church during the Civil War. "Islanders dressed rough and could be rough in their manners. They were generally unschooled. Their communication and their outlook was toward the rivers and sounds. It was respectable to be seen in home spun." Anonymous, 1863
American Indians Traces of Roanoke Island's first residents were to be found in mid 19th century islanders' speech, food, beverages, transportation and customs. What Islanders Said From the name of the island, roanoak, to the name of the grapes that still grow here, scuppernong, the words of American Indians were used by the Etheridge family and continue to be used to this day. Manteo, Wanchese, yaupon and hominy are Indian in origin. What Islanders Drank Indians used the leaf of the yaupon to make a strong tea that with other herbs made an emetic, or purgative, to purge their bodies in a cleansing ceremony. William Byrd found the plant in use when he surveyed the Dividing Line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1728. "This substitute for tea of China is a holly (ilex), and is called by the natives yaupon. It is a handsome shrub ... with alternate, perennial, shining leaves and bearing small scarlet berries... . The leaves and twigs are dried by the women, and when ready for market are sold at one dollar per bushel," wrote Nathaniel Bishop in 1878. Yaupon is an evergreen holly native to the coastal plains of southeastern America. Is is the only natural source of caffeine in North America and has been used as a tea since the 16th century. The plant is high in antioxidants. It grows in abundance on Roanoke Island and along the Banks. What Islanders Ate The noted English captains Amadas and Barlow were served hominy by the Indians on Roanoke Island in 1584. According to tradition, roanoke hominy, commonly called 'big hominy," is made by boiling and cracking kernels of white corn. The Etheridge family likely cooked the hominy in a large iron pot over the fire for many hours. How Islanders Traveled John White recorded the types of boats Indians used in 1585. It is easy to see the influence the simple vessels had on the boats that islanders would depend on 250 years later. In the mid-1800s the most common boat was called a kunner. It was a canoe made from split cypress logs that were hollowed and joined by a keep board. It made a rounded, flat-bottom boat that worked well in the shallow sounds and tributaries around Roanoke Island. The boats ranged from 14 to 28 feet in length. They were rowed, poled, and fitted with sails and were much sturdier than plank-built craft. The kunner became the Outer Banks' primary water craft for well into the 19th century. A larger version of the kunner was the periauger, a sailing vessel also crafted from hollowed logs, usually cypress, but with an additional board or two between the curved sides to expand the width of the boat. These were rigged with one or two sails and served as freighters carrying many tons of goods in the coastwide trade, traveling to Norfolk and even Baltimore and the Caribbean. They often were 30 to 40 feet in length and were likely the forerunner of the famous Roanoke Island shad boat. Roanoke Islanders, like all coastal people, traveled about mostly by boat. Every family owned a skiff that would carry them from one end of the island to the other and across the sound to Nags Head and Bodie Island. How Islanders Smoked The Indian use of the native tobacco plant was popularized in England by Sir Walter Raleigh's English colonists. Indians used pipes they made of clay to smoke the tobacco. Similar pipes continued to be used by islanders and soldiers through the time of the Civil War. The Algonquin Indian word for tobacco is uppowac.
By the Fruits of Their Labor The residents of Roanoke Island formed "a simple, industrious community, alternated their agricultural labors with fishing in the adjacent waters, sometimes navigating their small vessels to neighboring ports." Frederick Kidder, 1862 Occupations on Roanoke Island (U.S. Census, 1850) Fishermen Shoemaker Farmers Watermen Merchant Progger Laborers Domestics Carpenters Seamen Clergyman Blacksmith Lighthouse Keeper Rosie here: Anyone know what a progger is? According to the 1850 U.S. census, there were more farmers and fishermen on the island than any other laborers, though carpenters, probably boat builders, ran a distant third. There were also a clergy, a shoemaker and a blacksmith. "Wrecking" was the business of gathering cargo that washed ashore from wrecked ships. Usually the freight recovered was held for action by the ship's owners. At other times, the salvaged goods found their way to the homes of islanders. Folks on Roanoke Island lived off the products of their labor. The worked dawn to dark, through heat and cold, sick or well. They worked by the sun and the season. Crops were planted and harvested by lunar phases and fishing was ruled by the annual runs of shad and herring, porpoise and trout, mullet and blues. These fish were caught in great numbers by seine fishing. A seine is a large net that hangs vertically in the water by attaching weights along the bottom edge and floats along the top. Seine nets are usually long, flat nets that encircle a school of fish like a fence. Fishing and farming were supplemented by logging and boatbuilding and whale harvesting. The Island was crisscrossed by sandy cart roads and cattle paths. People walked and occasionally rode a horse or on drawn carts, but their preference was to travel by boat. At work hauling nets, at play in Nags Head, even traveling from the North End to Wanchese, islanders moved by boat. Slaves accounted for about a third of the population. They worked primarily in long haul fishing along the sounds, catching shad, mullet and bluefish. On the larger farms, they kept up the house and farmed to feed the family and the animals. Everyone, slave and free, worked in harvesting the waters and fields. Every family had at least a small boat for travel and many had a larger one for working the waters.
The Farm In 1757, the first Adam Etheridge on Roanoke Island leased 1500 acres of land on the North End of the island for three pounds sterling annually. Etheridge ownership began in 1783, when Jesse Etheridge bought 150 acres that make up the core of this property. This land remained in Etheridge ownership through the 20th century. Adam Etheridge IV was deeded 20 acres of his father's land to begin his own farm. He married Fanny Baum and built the present house about 1845. By the end of the decade he owned 400 acres with a landing east of the house on Roanoke Sound. In addition, he owned 176 acres on Bodie Island where he kept cattle, a skiff and fishing gear, including oyster tongs and nets. In 1850 he raised enough crops on 15 acres to feed his family, his slaves and his livestock. He harvested 20 bushels of Irish potatoes, 50 bushels of peas. 100 bushels of sweet potatoes and 200 bushels of corn using the power of horse and oxen. His farm eventually included 400 more untilled acres on which his livestock foraged. He also herded cattle, pigs and sheep from which he produced beef, milk, pork and wool for home consumption. The wool fibers were twisted into yarn and woven into cloth for clothing. Some of the milk would have been churned into butter. The buildings at Island Farm tell much about the way people lived in the mid-1800s. A privy takes the place of an indoor bathroom with running water. The Etheridges grew corn to feed the livestock and stored it in a corn crib because there was no feed store on the island. A slave cabin was built because there was a harsh divide between free and enslaved people at the time. A chicken coop meant there was a supply of fresh eggs and poultry in the absence of a grocery store. A small structure called a dairy kept milk and butter clean and cool before modern refrigerators. A smokehouse made it possible for the Etheridges to preserve hams and fish for future meals. It allowed them to have bacon during the summer when it would have been too hot, with too many insects, to butcher and consume an entire hog. Like all residents of Roanoke Island, Adam Etheridge IV was as much a fisherman as a farmer. He fished commercially for blue fish, trout, and mullet and seined the sounds for shad. These catches were packed in kegs and hogsheads and sent by sail to Elizabeth City and to Norfolk. In 1860, Mr. Etheridge was worth $4700 according to the U.S. census, a "significant" value for the time and place. It is likely that Adam's use of both the land and water resources of the island allowed him to prosper financially. The House Adam Etheridge built the two-story dwelling on brick foundations. Called his "mansion house," it was one of the better structures on the island in the mid-19th century. Built of heart pine and sheathed with juniper boards, the walls have no interior lathing or plaster. Much of the timber framing is exposed. Some interior rooms are whitewashed. Archeology performed on the site in 2001 unearthed pottery shards and personal items such as a ring and a locket. But it did not reveal foundations of the original outbuildings. As was the custom, some buildings probably sat on large chunks of cypress, which have rotted away. The house was altered and updated over the years b succeeding generations to reflect changes in taste and style. A two-story rear ell was added in the late 19th century and a one-story rear porch was enclosed about 1900. Inside, ceilings were finished and beaded-board sheathing was added to the walls. Stoves were fitted to the fireplaces. The "mansion house" and its grounds were restored during the first decade of the 21st century. The farm is owned by Outer Banks Conservationists, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The house is original while the cookhouse, smokehouse, slave cabin, privy, dairy, corn crib and barn are reconstructions. The livestock barn dates to the 1820s and was moved to this site in 2003.
Roanoke Island Roanoke Island was the cradle of English colonization in the New World, the destination of Sir Walter Raleigh's expeditions, site of the so-called Lost Colony and birthplace of the first English child in America, Virginia Dare. As an English Royal Colony, Roanoke Island was in the hands of absentee landowners who used the island and the Outer Banks to grow tobacco and to graze cattle. The isolation of the Banks saved the owners from having to pay a royal duty on their goods. The island was mostly leased land when the Etheridges and other early English families established themselves in the 18th century. Adam Etheridge leased 1500 acres in 1757 on the northern end of the island for three pounds sterling annually. Jess Etheridge then purchased 150 acres in 1783 that became the core acreage of Island Farm. The Etheridge family had described themselves as "farmers" for generations. Most farms on the island were 10 to 20 acres - ample land to produce crops for work. The islanders who owned more acreage, like the Etheridges, were able to graze cattle, pigs and sheep on it. But beyond subsistence farming, some Roanoke Island farmers earned their cash money by supplying fish to other markets. Even in the 18th century, settlers on Roanoke Island fished commercially for shad most of which was shipped north to Elizabeth City, Norfolk and Baltimore. By the 19th century, market hunting for ducks, geese and swan joined fishing as a viable commercial enterprise. The area occupied by the Etheridge, Meekins, Dough and Baum families was called the North End and included the site of the first English settlement in America. In 1850 there were 88 families living on Roanoke Island; that amounted to 442 citizens. There also were 168 slaves and a number of servants. There was one preacher, one doctor, one teacher and two merchants. Mail boats arrived weekly from Elizabeth City. Only three of the white citizen listed in the census were born off the island. Roanoke Island was a close-knit community.
Windmills On Roanoke Island "Everything on the Banks seems to be devoid of paint - dwellings, barns and windmills, of which there are a greater number than I supposed were in existence in the whole country." Charles Johnson, Hawkins Zouaves, 1862 Roanoke Island and the Outer Banks in general, were festooned with windmills in the 19th century. There were windmills on Ocracoke, Hatteras and Bodie Island. On Roanoke Island, windmills operated in Wanchese, Manteo and on the North End. By mid-century, there were some 150 mills dotting the eastern seaboard of North Carolina; all used wind power rather than water power to grind meal and do other work. North Carolina mills were called "post mills," rectangular frame shed built atop a single huge post on which the structure revolved. A long tail post stretched from the building to a wheel on the ground some seventy feet away by which the whole edifice was turned to catch the prevailing winds. The huge fans of these windmills consisted of four framed blades with canvas sails to cover their surfaces. The sails were furled to adjust to varying wind speeds in much the same way that sails are used on boats. Rotation of the fan turned a large, but simple, assembly of wooden gears inside the mill. Thus the power of the wind was transferred to a shaft which rotated one millstone against another. The grain, which was often dried kernels of corn, was poured between the two stones that crushed it into a fine meal. The windmill located here at Island Farm today is representative of the mill that stood on this farm from the mid-1800s until the early 20th century. National Park Service employee Lynanne Wescott extensively researched local windmills and hired craftsmen to reconstruct this operational structure in the 1970s. Traditional building techniques were used and the interior details were hand carved. Like earlier mills built to be easily moved from one location to another, this one was moved from Nags Head to the farm in 2010. As shown on an 1851 map, the site of the original farm windmill is near the present-day Elizabethan Gardens. Most of the windmills along the Outer Banks were used to grind grain, especially corn. But in other eastern North Carolina counties they have been used to pump water, saw timber, and even manufacture salt by pumping sea water into shallow evaporating reservoirs. Today wind energy is being capture to produce electricity throughout the world.
Here's the timetable and you can click to enlarge it to read. I'm tired of typing. Let's take the Rosie Hawthorne Pretty Picture Tour: The Etheridge home with a fenced garden off to the side. Outbuildings surround on the left and back.
Immediately off to the left is the cornfield. I heard the corn crop sucked this year.
Coming back towards the house, here's a freshly tilled bed and a line of fig trees.
Oyster shells are mounded around the base of the figs for calcium. I'll have to try that little trick. I'm sure the birds that ATE ALL MY FIGS this year will appreciate a little calcium in their diet.
The first structure we came across was this shed.
Brother Hawthorne, don't you have something similar?
Gourds growing on the garden fence. I purchased some heirloom gourd seeds there - a dipper gourd and a bottle gourd. $3 a packet.
Here's the enclosed garden. That's a bee skep in the center, although they don't make honey here due to liability issues what with kids sticking their hands in the hives and getting stung. Also, I was told that this type of hive is illegal.
Peppers, beans, asparagus patch, herbs, greens, cabbage.
Everything is very neatly tended.
Here's the barn and chicken coop. A general storage facility for the farm, this housed fishing nets, tools, harnesses, and grain.
Log barn used to shelter livestock. The Etheridges owned horses, oxen, pigs, cows, and sheep.
Back of the Etheridge house with garden on the right. Here's the cookhouse. Kitchens were often separated from the main house due to the risk of fire and the heat during the summer months.
Side of cookhouse. Water conservation in the 1800s.
Let's go inside the kitchen.
I love a walk-in fireplace. Check out the irons. Mr. Hawthorne has his grandmother's iron, very similar to these.
Sweet potatoes, grown on the farmstead.
The cook slept in a loft above the kitchen.
We found out that today is laundry day. The laundress had left for lunch and this gentleman was keeping the fire going for her.
Original cauldron.
I liked the wafting smoke through the light.
Here's the outhouse.
It's a THREE-SEATER! And not just any three-seater. It's three different sizes for different-sized butts. That, my friends, is luxury.
Cleaning materials. Yes. Those are corn cobs. This is the smokehouse, a very important building on the farm, since the only way to keep meat was by salting and smoking.
Smokehouse with hanging hams, needed to keep the family through the winter. All the other buildings are raised off the ground - not the smokehouse. It has a fireproof brick foundation and floor.
Back of the farmhouse.
Wood shed.
This is the slave cabin. The Etheridges were known to have had five slaves in 1860.
This is looking in the door on the left.
The fireplace was in the middle..
Here's looking in the door on the right.
If you notice on the table in the back right, the Etheridges were kind enough to supply their slaves with one of those digital photo frames.
Slave quarters.
Wood shed. We're on our way to the Etheridge Family Cemetery.
Right before the cemetery, there is an intoxicating smell and the sound of buzzing. It's from this Russian Olive in bloom and it's filled with honey bees. I planted Russian Olives around my pool and I've yet to get any whiff from them. Maybe they need to get more mature.
Etheridge family cemetery.
At old cemeteries, you always find a lot of children's graves
That's the Russian Olive on the right.
This is the dairy house, used to keep milk and butter cool under the shade of a tree. There were lots of pecan trees here, but not too many pecans thanks to the squirrels and Irene.
The laundress returns from lunch.
On the back porch of the house. Porches became an extension of the living area.
Rain barrel and garden from back porch.
Slave cabin in the back right. Smokehouse in the back left.
Looking off back porch of house, from right to left, smokehouse, outhouse, dairy, and cookhouse.
From left to right, cookhouse, dairy, outhouse.
Barn, chicken coop, and corn crib. The open design of the corn crib allowed the corn to dry, curbing mold or rot. Black snakes would have been welcome to catch mice in here.
There are two rooms downstairs. An eating area on one side and a living room on the other, with two bedrooms on either side of the living room. There's a long hallway from the front to back dividing the dining area from the living area. This is looking out the eating area door into the garden.
Dining area.
This is the living area, shot from the hallway. Living room.
Bedroom off to one side.
Another bedroom off the other side.
Fresh herbs in a vase on the mantel were a nice touch.
Medicines. From the open journal: In 1850, 1 doctor on Island. Home health care was only option for many people. Some doctors had little or no training. Came from other doctors and family members. Treatments for common ailments were handed down as family heirlooms. Usually involved medicinal herbs and plants in 1800. ... unreadable ... self reliance. Doctors were constantly charged to find new remedies as new infections and epidemics struck amongst the community. Southern Medicine Home Medical treatments in coastal North Carolina and Virginia have changed a great deal since the 19th century. But no matter how strange or impractical the cases may seem, the intention was still the same. To care for the sick. Heal the wounded. Comfort those in pain. Epsom salt - purgative to cleanse the system. Quinine - used in the treatment of fevers. Mustard seed - emetic and used in hot poultices. Cayenne pepper - diuretic and used to raise the temperature of the body as an enema.
A set of stairs leads upstairs to two more rooms. This one has a huge loom and a bed.
This is the other bedroom upstairs.
Front of the Etheridge home.
As you can see, the hallway runs through the middle. The dining area is on the left. The living room and bedrooms are on the right.
Buh bahhhhh!
I highly recommend a visit to Island Farm. We both enjoyed our time-trip.

7 comments:

Lori K said...

On my "to-do" list when we are down!!

Rosie Hawthorne said...

Don't forget the Elizabethan Gardens.
And the Aquarium.
And Fort Raleigh.
And the Freedmen's Colony.
And Manteo.
And the Wright Brothers' Memorial.
And Jennette's Pier.
And me!

Anonymous said...

Thanks Rosie, I learned something new today!

Lori K said...

Oh Rosie,
You are on the top of the list!!!

Rosie Hawthorne said...

wHOOT, lORI!

Marilyn said...

Thank you, Rosie, for letting us tag along with you on your tour.

Catherine said...

Dear Rosie, It looks like a great day. Blessings, Catherine xo