When the Outer Banks was Utopia.

     On a recent trip to his former home on the Outer Banks of North Carolina Uncle Jack retrieved from his garage a  box of old papers that he hadn't looked at for many years.  It turned out to be a collection of odd printed material that he has never been able to throw away and after sorting through it he has decided that he will just have to hang on to it a bit longer.  One of the gems in this strange assortment of stuff was an excerpt from a novel entitled "Roanoke: or Where is Utopia" by C.H. Wiley, published in Sartain's Union Magazine of Literature and Art, Vol. 4 No. 3, March 1849.  
     Calvin Henderson Wiley, the author, was born in Guilford County, N.C. in 1819 and graduated from the University of N.C. in 1840.  He was editor of the Oxford, S.C. Mercury for a few years, served in the N.C. legislature, and was a licensed Presbyterian minister. He was the author of several books in addition to Roanoke. He remained a bachelor until the age of  43 but made up for lost time by fathering seven children.
     Where he got his information about the denizens of the Outer Banks nearly two centuries ago is a mystery to Uncle Jack but if he is correct they were a remarkable group indeed. Some of their salient characteristics have survived through the generations and are quite noticeable in more than a few of today's "Bankers" as you will see.  There is food for thought in this piece, and not just in the section on wife-swapping. 


                                                                  Chapter II


                                                      The Arabs of North Carolina


     The sand bar which stretches along the coast of North Carolina separates the ocean from a succession of sounds, the largest and most beautiful of which are those well known by the names of Albermarle, Pamlico and Currituck.  East of these inland seas is the bar, a waste and barren region, in some places bleak and wild as the deserts of Africa, and strangely in keeping with the majesty of that mighty deep whose awful grandeur is enhanced by the silence and desolation that reign along its borders.
     Even here, in this dreary, naked and sterile region, are the haunts and homes of men, a race who have never been classified by science, and who, though sometimes called Arabs, belong neither to the savage nor civilized state of society.  They are generally a motley collection of idle, roving, harmless creatures, leading an easy, indolent life, free alike from the cruel, murderous and plundering propensities of barbarians and the more christian vices of polished communities.  In the curious and beautiful little lakes of clear fresh water that gleam like mirrors in their arid and wild domain, myriads of fish abound; wild ducks, wild geese, and other sea fowls in countless thousands cover the waters, and on these, which are easily taken, they chiefly live.
     In former times, however, they had another source of subsistence;  a source from which they drew their main supplies of money, goods and groceries. They followed the occupation of wreckers; a business whose prosperity was attested by the long dark line of keels, hulks and dismantled vessels that covered the shore. It would seem that this fraternity would have found sufficient employment in the unavoidable casualties of the winds ad waves on this disastrous and melancholy coast; but population and competition increased, and the cunning of man was sometimes employed to add to the natural horrors of the dreaded region.
     The public were not concerned in these wicked tricks, and rude as it was, it would not have countenanced them; but those who used them were secret in their operations, and as it happens in all communities, would often be respected for wealth which they had obtained by disreputable means.  Thefts, of course, were common, and stranded cargoes rapidly diminished from the time they were landed on the beach, till the time of sale; still the crews were always saved and treated with a kindness and attention that often attached them to the Bankers.
     Neither their goods nor their wives were held altogether in common by those people, but while they were profusely generous  and hospitable, they entertained peculiar notions upon the subject of matrimony and the virtues it inculcates.  Polygamy was not allowed, but in its stead there was a prevalent custom much more convenient to the Bankers and better suited to the changing tastes of men.  The women were treated kindly as equals, but every man was considered as having the right to sell or swap his wife whenever he chose, and in this business there was a constant and lively trade.
     Modern improvements, arts and wants have found their way among the Bankers; and it is not to be supposed that the description herein given would at present suit them.  There was a time, however, a period not remote, when unfettered by the fluctuations of trade, the rise and fall of dynasties and the irregularity of the seasons, they led a careless, indolent and happy life, strangers alike to the sweltering hosts of summer and the snows of winter.  Without fear of pride, malice or ambition, abundantly and easily supplied with food and caring little for clothing, their existence had many charms for them and would not be without its attractions in the view of a certain class of philosophers and philanthropists.  Some of these had cast their eyes upon this country in former times, and from them it received the appellation of Utopia; a name which perhaps it merited as well as did the the famous island of Sir Thomas More.


Editor's note:  And then they built the bridge.