14/11/2023
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Wash Woods isn't the only town on the northern Outer Banks to be taken back by nature. In fact, Wash Woods Life Saving Station was briefly known as "Deals". It was located where Carova is presently situated.
This is a map of Currituck County by Rand McNally, Circa 1911. Note that Duck and Kitty Hawk were not annexed to Dare County until 1919. Notice that between Deals and Corolla was the town of "Seagull". It has a very interesting history, now recollected in local legends which we felt compelled to share with you for the sake of posterity.
Jockey's Ridge at Nags Head is the largest dune on the East Coast. It eased itself over top of the first hotel on the Outer Banks, built around 1838. In later years, clerks offered discounts to visitors who didn't mind digging their way into the two-story structure. Currently, a castle turret protrudes from the dune's flank, all that is left of a miniature golf course swallowed more recently by migrating sand.
Such, too, was the fate of Seagull. "Lewark's Hill ate up Seagull. That's what it amounts to." Tomi Bowden was born on the Outer Banks. His father attended a private school in Seagull. His mother was born in 1908, the year that the post office opened there. "There were a couple of deep creeks in there. I think that's why the village of Seagull was established: to ship goods in packet boats," Bowden said. "Of course, the New Currituck Inlet opened up in the early 1800s, so that was another deepwater access. Anything that had deep water that went to the sound became a center of commerce."
The village clustered around the creeks, so folks wouldn't have to walk far from the boats they relied on. The circuit preacher came by boat as well, and nobody wanted to slog a long way through swarms of mosquitoes to reach a covered dish dinner, Bowden said. His brother Ernie, a Currituck County commissioner, said Seagull was once a center of fishing and commercial duck hunting.
Then came federal legislation in 1918 that stifled the hunting, and later the fishing. The post office closed in 1924. "Some few people converted to a private duck hunting business, where they entertained sportsmen who would pay for the services of a good guide," Ernie Bowden said. "My father commercial fished until he enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1923. Lots of residents did. That contributed to the demise of the community." Some moved to Hampton Roads to work in the defense industry.
By the late '20s, there was no point in leaving, because there was no work elsewhere. The residents of Seagull turned to bartering for survival. Farmers from the mainland would trade corn for salted fish, and the residents of Seagull raised livestock.
The beginning of World War II prompted more families to move for work. During the war, perhaps three families remained, he said. And somewhere along the way, people started calling the Seagull area Old Inlet. Ernie Bowden's birth certificate says he was born in Old Inlet. His brother remembers seeing perhaps the last house engulfed by the dune. "I was on a horse, driving the cattle, and we were up on the hill looking down at the house," he said. It was a two-story house, owned by friends of the family. "I suppose in the early '50s it would have been completely taken by the hill."
Many people speak of Penny's Hill as the dune that swallowed Seagull. The giant mound of sand lay a little to the north of town, just past New Currituck Inlet. At some point it split in two, and Penny's Hill was largely decimated by the Ash Wednesday storm of 1962, which used the sand to finish filling in New Currituck Inlet.
Lewark's Hill lay farther south, named for the family of one of Seagull's last residents. John Lewark put his house on rollers in an attempt to outrace the dune. "They moved that house twice, to my knowledge," said Ernie Bowden, "and each time the dune continued to move down on it and inundate it. "A cousin of the Bowdens, Joe Lewark, has a keyring medallion owned by his grandfather. On the oblong of metal is stamped: "If found, return to L.L. Lewark, Seagull, N.C." "It's the only physical evidence that I know of that absolutely points to Seagull as existing," Ernie Bowden said.
Until now. The scouring wind recently uncovered part of a graveyard, and the chimney of a buried house emerged as the dune crept past it. But the town remains hard to find. Low, scrubby sea oaks, briers and sea oats stand between the dune line and Currituck Sound. They conceal wild horses, wild boars, red foxes, deer, raccoon, bobcats and the occasional reputed black panther.
Ernie Bowden said he saw the chimney. Another long-time resident said he knows where the graveyard is. Trabue, despite hours of searching, couldn't find either. From the top of Lewark's Hill, he pointed out the fox tracks, the wildlife refuge and the sharp drop-off where windblown sand skitters over the top of the dune and plunges into the pond below. He pointed to bare branches that reached knee-high up his leg."Those are the tops of trees," he said. "The dune is migrating over them. The whole thing here is just cascading over itself and moving on into this pond." To his left stood three luxury houses, newly built near the edge of the sea. Farther up the beach were two more, standing in the dune break that used to be the inlet.
SUVs scurried up and down the beach, ferrying new residents to and from their homes. One new subdivision is even named Seagull. Its namesake is gone. "There is a town up here that was buried," Trabue said. "It's a non-urban legend, but it's out here."
Corolla historian Norris Austin spoke about life in Seagull. "Up north of Corolla, there was a settlement right there by Lewark's Hill. It was named for the Lewark family. Lewark's Hill, when I was growing up, was quite a place that people would come to for the thrills. They'd drive up the hill and down the steep side. Every weekend it would be just solid with the hot-rodders from Virginia Beach.
In the 50's and 60's that was a big thing. We had a dog, Ivan, who stayed home with us Sunday night through Friday, but Friday afternoon he'd leave and go up to the hill. And he'd always hitch rides. He really did. People would say he'd just come right up and hop in their cars. He loved to ride that hill.
I did it some for a while. I was riding with a friend and we had an accident with two vehicles. We spun and hit one. The car I was in rolled over about six times. We weren't either one hurt but I decided that was enough.
Penny's Hill was another hill north of Corolla. The name Penny's Hill had something to do with the old Currituck Inlet. There's some legend about the old captains throwing pennies at the hill when they passed through the inlet, which closed long ago. Penny's Hill went down and covered up the old Seagull community in the woods. They had a right good-sized community. They had a Methodist Church and a cemetery. Then Penny's Hill spread all over it.
I remember some parts of the community. A lot of people had to move their houses, or just give it up to the sand. The sand would just pack up to the back of their house and they just had to get out.
We had children in our school from Seagull. It was probably in the late '40's and early '50's when the sand started coming in bad. I understand there were some big houses there. Old farm-type houses like there are in Corolla Village."
Norris told another fun, and spooky story about the area to Suzanne Tate in the book "Whalehead, Tales of Corolla, N.C.". He speaks of the Currituck Inlets, stating that there was an inlet on the stateline boundary between Virginia and North Carolina called Old Currituck Inlet from 1657-1730, and another one called New Currituck Inlet from 1730 to 1828.
In the book, Mr. Austin relates how two local fishermen were fishing near the now sand-covered ghost town of Seagull (covered by the remnants of the dune "Penny's Hill"), which had a small creek; a vestige of the great inlet of long before. It was a "slick cam" (calm) moonlight night, and they looked up to see a full-rigged sailing ship under full sail gliding past them up the creek as if the inlet were still there. They thought it was an eerie sight and high-tailed it out of there as quick as possible.
