Originally published in July, 2004

“Scarborough used his sailing schooner and carried his pelts to Washington, North Carolina, and bartered trades with the merchants in that city, and brought back to Scarborough Town, Porto Rico molasses, spices, black pepper, salt, and medical supplies…”

The Kinnakeeter by Charles T. Williams, II

I recently took a three day trip back home to Avon from Currituck, our new home.  My homesickness has pretty much subsided and I am putting out tentative roots here. But driving into the old village of Avon, also known as Kinnakeet, made my heart hurt once again. It is such a strange feeling to drive through the streets as a visitor and not a resident. But I am adjusting, as we all do, to new situations and I could not have asked for a more beautiful place to live in or nicer people to get to know.

While in Avon I visited L.P. O’Neal, who had told me over the winter that he wanted to show me some model boats he was building. LP’s home is tucked away in the village of Avon, far away from the maddening crowd. His yard is quite lush, surrounded by shrubbery and trees, and he has a large garden that is fenced in and nicely laid out. He took me to the shed in his front yard to show me the model he is now working on.

LP’s father LP O’Neal, Sr., hauled freight by boat for a living. LP is recreating the boats his father owned in the form of models that are about 3 to 4 feet long. He is building them from memory as he has no pictures to go by.

The models that he is building are all sailboats because that is what was used to haul freight in his father’s business. The first boat he showed me was a model of one his father named Missouri. It was a sharpie, a type of sailboat that had a flat bottom in order to navigate the shallow sound waters. The Missouri was built in 1901 and was 56 feet long with a 16 foot beam. It drew 3 feet of water. LP will be finished with this model by fall. He is building it just as one would a boat, plank by plank, making the rigging from scratch with whatever methods and materials he thinks will work best.

He has two more models in his home. One is a 28 foot sharpie that was unnamed. It has one sail because that is the way his father rigged it, although it originally had two masts. His father only used it to haul decoys and “chase up geese” during commercial hunting days. The other model is of a skiff that was 17 feet long. It was unnamed and was kept for personal use. LP said that a lot of people had sharpies that they used for fishing. These were built by their owners most of the time.

As he showed me the models, we talked about the days of the sailing boats. I also read about that period of history in a couple of books. In the mid 19th century, the population of Kinnakeet was 318. This number does not include those living in what were called Big Kinnakeet and little Kinnakeet. Including those two villages the population was about 500.

These other two villages were located to the North and South of the main village and were established along with the life saving stations by the same names. There was also an area called Scarborough town in those days. Kinnakeet was settled in the 1700s.

The village’s name was changed from Kinnakeet to Avon after the establishment of the post office in 1873. The main occupations were commercial fishing and oystering. It was a hard and isolated life. The historical records of Hatteras Island are incomplete. Much local documentation including family records and pictures have been lost to hurricane flooding. According to what I have read there was a forest of Live Oak and cedar to the North and South of Avon in the early 1800s that was harvested for timber. The men of Avon used this timber to build their own boats and became known as master boat builders. They built fleets of two masted schooners.

By 1890 the trees had been depleted by boat building. The main occupation turned to fishing because transporting lumber to continue building boats was too costly. Freight houses were built on stilts off Avon in the Pamlico Sound near the deep-water channel.

Large boats took fresh or salted fish out and freight was brought to the freight houses then taken to the village by small boats able to get through the shallow water. The islanders used their fish and oysters to barter for staples on the mainland. Horse drawn carts were used to unload the boats. By the time LP’s father was in the freight hauling business trucks were used as well. LP Sr. ran freight between Avon and Elizabeth City and had two trucks to enable him to serve the whole island. He stopped at Rodanthe to unload at their docks before coming into Kinnakeet. LP remembers playing on his father’s boat until he was 10 years old. His mother often went along on trips and brought LP and his sister. The Missouri had two sails and was not equipped with an engine until 1839. It took two people to work it.

The Missouri’s kitchen was up front, and the living quarters were in the rear. LP remembers the menu quite well because it was always beef hash. His father had the first Coca-Cola franchise on Hatteras Island. Villagers often caught a ride to Elizabeth City on his father’s boat. Everyone stayed at Hattie Miller’s big home in the city when they visited there. A few students lived at her house to attend high school in Elizabeth City.

The Missouri sailed once a week. It could sleep three to four in the back and two to three people in the front. LP remembers that his father got a case of tomatoes for $1.33 at Elizabeth City and delivered it to Frisco by truck for $0.10 freight. Most men made 25 to 50 cents per day. LP said that he likes to talk to the older folks and learn about local history. He can only imagine what the harbor off Avon looked like in the days of the sailing vessels. I have heard people say there were so many sailboats anchored offshore that it looked like a forest of masts.

Avon has changed from those days. The rich heritage of Avon has been glossed over and its ruggedness torn away. What remains are small enclaves of traditional homes with a few men and women persevering in lifestyles such as commercial fishing that have been all but forgotten.
(L. P. O’Neal was born on 8/15/1934. He passed away on 6/2/2021. His parents were Ida Mae Meekins and Loran P. O’Neal. His wife was Wanda Gray O’Neal. He served in the US Coast Guard for 20 years right out of high school. He then became a commercial fisherman and model boat builder. )