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Please see the November 6, 2000 entry in Flat Teddy's Journal.

Twenty years before Jamestown, England attempted to place the first British settlers on New World soil. It was here on Roanoke Island, between what is now mainland North Carolina and the Outer Banks that the colony was founded in 1587 and named Virginia, in honor of Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen. The mound of earth you see in the picture is a reconstruction of the fort the colonists built. Archeologists think that the houses would have been built outside the fort, close to the fort entrance, which is in the center of the picture. It was here in this village that the first English child was born in the New World. She was named Virginia Dare.

Virginia's grandfather, John White, was the governor of the colony. He had been to Roanoke Island on a military expedition two years earlier, serving as the artist for that exploratory visit. His drawings of the Native Americans they encountered and of the flora and fauna that were different from any seen in Europe were preserved and today give us many important details that we wouldn't have known otherwise about that early culture. It was only about a week after little Virginia was born that her grandfather, the governor, had to return to England for badly needed supplies. As he arrived in England, his ship was pressed into service to help defend the country's navy against the Spanish Armada. He couldn't return to Roanoke for three years. At last, he found passage on a privateering voyage.

When White and his party finally stepped ashore at the colony they found it abandoned. There was armor lying on the ground and rusting, giving a clue that his family and friends had been gone for some time. The word "CROATOAN" was carved on a post of the fort. That was the name of a nearby island, and Governor White hoped that that was where the colony had relocated. He was prevented from going there on this trip because the captain of the ship he was sailing on had encountered several problems and needed to return to England immediately instead of searching for the missing people. White made several attempts to find his people between 1590 and 1602, but no trace of them was ever found. It is one of the enduring mysteries in the story of our country.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is in a new location, having been moved inland 2,900 feet (883.9 meters) in the last year. When it was built in 1870 it stood 1,500 feet (457.2 meters) from the edge of the sea. The Outer Banks are continually eroded on the ocean side by waves and storms, and over the years the sea has approached nearer and nearer to the base of the lighthouse. A few years ago scientists determined that it was going to have to be moved in order to preserve it, so they began studying how to do this without damaging the old building. Please visit the link above to see pictures and learn how this huge feat was accomplished.

There is an ocean current just off the Outer Banks which ships have made good use of through the centuries. However, there are also submerged sandbars here, stretching more than ten miles (16.1 kilometers) out from the Cape, that constantly shift position in the currents. The sandbars off Cape Hatteras have proven especially deadly. They are called Diamond Shoals, and they have been the cause of over 500 shipwrecks, earning them the reputation as the " graveyard of the Atlantic." Cape Hatteras Light provided a warning to ships that the shoals were nearby and saved countless other ships from grounding and breaking up on the sandbars or sinking in deeper waters. (During World War II the area earned a second nickname, "Torpedo Junction." German submarines sank many Allied tankers and cargo ships in these waters.)

This tower is the tallest lighthouse in the United States, standing 208 feet (63.4 meters) from the bottom of the foundation to the peak of the roof. The light is reached by climbing up 268 steps inside the tower. The black and white striping provided a dramatic landmark easily visible in the daytime and also turned the ordinary tower into one of the most beautiful on the Atlantic Coast.

The little brown speck you see in the middle of this picture is a small Spanish pony descended from ponies that appeared on the islands of the Outer Banks as early as the late 1500s. These on Ocracoke are thought to have been brought here by way of a Caribbean island. There are records on one of the islands in the Caribbean that tell of an English captain buying horses and cows and other animals to take to the English settlers at Roanoke. His ship was grounded and damaged on one of the infamous submerged sandbars off Ocracoke, and the ponies were put ashore while the ship was repaired. It isn't known if some of the ponies were later rounded up and returned to the ship or if they were all left on the island. Members of a Spanish pony association have ascertained that these ponies fit all the qualifications that would establish their identity as belonging to that group of horses.

The ponies used to roam free on the island, but now they are kept in a very large enclosure that extends for over a mile (1.6 kilometers). This enclosure provides them a steady diet and also a safe home away from the cars on the highway. You are seeing one of eight ponies that I saw in the enclosure, and there may be more. The others were so far away up at the end of the long pasture, they were even smaller specks than this one was. I wasn't allowed to get any closer to them so that I could take a better picture for you.

Here on Ocracoke Island I had the rare opportunity to visit a school that had students from kindergarten all the way up through twelfth grade. There are only 70 students in the entire school--on the entire island!--and they have a lovely setting in which to study every day. I saw at least two buildings connected by covered walkways, and all around the grounds are beautiful plants and cedar, oak and pine trees. The first thing I noticed about the school as I walked in the front door was the wonderful smell of cedar. The walls are lined with it, and it smells so sweet and so pungent. I visited with the principal, Mr. Larry Thompson, and with two very friendly, helpful women in the front office, Regina O'Neal and Stephanie Thompson.

Mr. Thompson showed me the student roster for the school: 6 students in the kindergarten room, 16 students in the first-second grade room, 11 students in the third-fourth grade room, 12 students in the fifth-sixth grade room, 12 students in the seventh-eighth grade room, and 12 students in the high school classes. The broad high school curriculum contains all the required English, math, science, social studies, physical education, art education, foreign language, and computer classes that students need to graduate from high school. There are three languages that the students can choose from to study: French, Spanish, and Latin. I thought to myself, what a great place to be a kid--or a teacher!

The two seniors in the picture agreed to a picture and an interview so that you could learn more about life in their school and on their island. Here is my conversation with Shane Mason and Mark O'Neal, held after school in the social studies classroom:

Mrs. Pearson	I understand you've both been in this same school all your life. What are some of the good things about going to school in a building where there are kindergartners all the way up through high school seniors?
Mark and Shane	You know everybody. It's easier to get help. Classes are so small that teachers can spend more time with you.
M.P.	What are the disadvantages of this arrangement?
M&S	The little kids get on your nerves.
M.P.	Do you have to help them?
M&S	Sometimes. It's not expected of us, but we do help them sometimes. Had to read to them once. We had an assignment to read to kindergartners.
M.P.	Do you have competitive sports?
M&S	Just basketball. Just for the boys. There's not enough girls for a team.
M.P.	Do all the high school boys feel like they have to participate in basketball?
M&S	They all play. I guess there wouldn't be any pressure to play; it's just that everybody that's here right now wants to play.
M.P.	Where do you eat lunch on school days?
M&S	Home. We drive, or parents pick us up.
M.P.	Do many of the kids have cars?
M&S	Two.
M.P.	And how many high school students are there?
M&S	Twelve.
M.P.	Wow! Only two have cars. But I suppose if you had a car, there wouldn't be many places to drive it.
M&S	Just around in circles.
M.P.	And up and down the island?
M&S	Yeah.
M.P.	You two have been here for thirteen years now. Are there teachers who have also been here that long?
M&S	Jim Cornette; he teaches lower grades. Joyce [O'Neal - classroom assistant] has been here a long time. Our high school science teacher taught us preschool, too.
M.P.	How does it feel to have all the teachers of all the grades right here in the building with you? Do they discipline you if they catch you messing around?
M&S	Any teachers can work with any of the kids.
M.P.	Are your teachers mostly local people who grew up on the island? Or did they move here from other places?
M&S	Alton's local. Everyone else moved in. Mr. Cornette moved in from the mountains. We don't know where the others are from.
M.P.	What are your plans for next year?
Mark	Go to school again--I thought I was going to Raleigh [North Carolina State University], but maybe now I'm going to Wilmington [University of North Carolina at Wilmington].
M.P.	What will your major be?
M	I don't know.
M.P.	Shane?
Shane	I'll probably go to Wilmington or Cape Fear Community College.
M.P.	And your major?
S	Undecided.
M.P.	Do you have after-school or summer jobs?
S	A summer job -- I make snow balls for the tourists.
M.P.	Snowballs? What are they? I mean, I know what they are in Colorado. What are they in Ocracoke?
S	Cracked ice with flavored syrup poured over them.
M.P.	Oh, snowballs! And Mark?
M	I bus tables at a restaurant.
M.P.	So it's easy to find a job here?
M&S	Yeah, there's plenty of money if you want to work--good money.
M.P.	How often do you go off the island?
M&S	It depends; maybe a couple of times a month.
M.P.	And what do you go for?
M&S	Things like to see the orthodontist or to get things we need. Especially to go surfing.
M.P.	Where do you go for that?
M&S	Up north, anywhere up to Nags Head.
M.P.	What's the best thing about living on Ocracoke?
M&S	The beach.
M.P.	The worst thing about it?
M&S	All the tourists.
M.P.	But the island depends on the tourists for income?
M&S	Yeah.
M.P.	Do you miss fast-food places like McDonald's?
M&S	No, places around here are just as good and just as quick.
M.P.	Is the sea an important place for you?
M&S	Not really.
M.P.	So fishing and boats arent your thing?
M&S	No.
M.P.	How about your families? Do they like fishing?
Mark	My dad fishes some.
M.P.	For pleasure or for an income?
M	He makes money at it, but it's not his job.
M.P.	What does he do, if I may ask?
M	He works for the light plant.
M.P.	Shane, do your parents fish?
Shane	My mom has waited tables for 26 years at Captain Ben's Restaurant. My dad used to work on the ferries. He doesn't work there any more. He fishes now. But gill nets are about to be outlawed, and that's the way most people around here make their living. I don't know what will happen then.
M.P.	Where will you live when you're finished with your education?
M&S	Probably come back to Ocracoke.
M.P.	Do both of you want to come back?
M&S	Yeah, sure.
M.P.	Do you have any desire to see the rest of the country? The world?
Mark	No. I've seen all the rest of the world I want to.
M.P.	Where have you been?
Mark	I went to Italy with the school. My family went to Mexico on a cruise two or three years ago.
M.P.	Shane?
Shane	I want to see more places. But then come back to Ocracoke.
M.P.	Thank you, gentlemen. You've been very patient answering all these questions.

After the interview with the senior boys, I talked for awhile with Leslie Miller, the social studies teacher. She told me that in the five years she's been there at the school, she has organized several summer trips so that the students can get off the island and see some of the rest of the world. She organized a trip to Italy last summer. The summer before that, they all went to Washington, D.C. She's hoping to take the students to England this coming summer.

In the mid-1880s George Washington Vanderbilt, grandson of "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, visited Asheville, North Carolina, in the Great Smoky Mountains. Out on a horseback ride in the country one day he spotted a place that he believed was the finest view he'd ever seen. He bought that land and added to the original purchase until he owned 125,000 acres, including Mt. Pisgah.

Mr. Vanderbilt was a student of architecture, among many of his interests, and he determined to build a palatial home on the very piece of land on which he'd seen the fine view. He chose the period of the great 16th century French chateaux and hired Richard Morris Hunt to be his architect for the huge project. Hunt also designed the base of the Statue of Liberty, many palatial homes in Newport and New York, and buildings at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Frederick Law Olmsted was chosen to be the landscape architect; another of his great works was designing Central Park in New York City.

Construction on the house began in 1890 and spanned the next five years. Hundreds of workers were brought in to work on the project, and they lived near Asheville in houses built for them, surrounding the Biltmore train station. A three-mile railroad spur was built just to bring materials from the Biltmore station to the construction site. All the bricks and roof tiles were made right on the estate. As the building progressed, Mr. Vanderbilt and Richard Hunt went to Europe to choose thousands of art treasures for the house.

The name Biltmore was derived from "Bildt," the name of the Dutch town from which the family's ancestors came (van der Bildt), and "more," an old English word for rolling, upland country. In 1895 the house was formally opened with a celebration on Christmas Eve. In the picture maybe you can see the Christmas greens hanging from the Lodge Gate. I was visiting on November 13, and already the Christmas decorations were being put up to make the estate as festive as it was on the night of that first wonderful party.

The house has 250 rooms, making it the largest home in America. There are 34 family and guest bedrooms, 45 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens, and an indoor swimming pool. The house contained the most modern technology of the time: central heating, plumbing, refrigeration, elevator and dumbwaiter systems, and sophisticated electrical engineering. Some of Edison's first filament bulbs were used in the house. There were 80 servants in the house, itself. The stables held 40 horses. The grounds include a 100,000-acre forest, a 250-acre wooded park, six pleasure gardens, and thirty miles (48 kilometers) of paved roadways.

Biltmore was meant to be a profitable, self-supporting business, just as Shelburne Farm in Vermont was. It was Mr. Vanderbilt's sister Lila who with her husband built Shelburne Farm.

There is no picture of the mansion because right after I took the picture at the Lodge Gate those gray clouds started pouring down rain. There was no further opportunity to stand outside taking pictures. Maybe you can click on one of the links to see the big house on a nicer day.

A friend of mine who lives not far from this paper mill told me this story: In the town of Canton, North Carolina, on the east side of the Great Smoky Mountains is this huge paper mill you see in the picture. It's a huge factory for turning trees into paper. There was a time not too long ago that the smoke you'd have seen belching out those smokestacks was quite black. It made the air around Canton unhealthy for people to breathe. The Pigeon River below the mill flowed black with all the waste pumped into it from the mill. People downriver in Tennessee complained that fish were dying in their part of the Pigeon River from all the pollution in the water. There were lawsuits filed. The original owner of the mill was a company by the name of Champion. They began a big clean-up of the air and the water, changing the way they made the paper. Then they offered their company for sale. The employees of the mill all went together to buy the mill, and now they work in it and also own it. The air around Canton is clear, the water in the Pigeon River is clean, and this is a happy ending--for everyone but the trees that have to be cut down to make all that paper.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park spans the state line between North Carolina and Tennessee and covers 520,000 acres (21,043 hectares). It was created to be a national park in the 1920s and 1930s from formerly privately-owned land. Sixteen mountains in the park are over 6,000 feet (1828.8 meters) high. The Appalachian Trail runs along the ridge of the Smokies, which is also the state line between North Carolina and Tennessee. There was almost always a blue haze that hung over the peaks, even back before European settlers began to move into the area, and the Cherokee Indians, who are native to this area, called the mountains "Shaconage," meaning the place of blue smoke. Nowadays, sadly, some of the pall in the air over the Smokies is from air pollution.

A valley in the Great Smokies was called a cove by the early European settlers. Some of the mountains were called balds and others were called domes because they are clear of trees on the top. Passes through the mountains were called gaps. So you have picturesque names in the park like Gregory Bald, Silers Bald, Clingmans Dome, Cades Cove, Black Camp Gap, and Newfound Gap. Older names given by the Cherokee include Oconaluftee and Cataloochee.

The National Park Service left original buildings wherever possible to preserve the mountains the way they'd been when the people lived up in them. As a result, this park contains one of the nation's largest collections of log structures.

In the first picture you are seeing the Smokies on a morning after wind had been blowing in the night. The wind had cleared out the haze and air pollution, and you don't get the usual effect of the receding ridge lines, each being slightly hazier than the one in front of it. The second picture is of a beautiful cove with a farm spread out across part of it; that farm was left for us in this day and age to see how life was lived before this area became a national park.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (the Oconaluftee) are the descendents of the Cherokee who managed to avoid the Trail of Tears, along which their ancestors were marched all the way to Oklahoma. These Cherokee today live on or near Qualla Reservation next to the park, and there one can visit museums and see programs on Indian culture and traditions.

Look at some of the links to learn about the great biodiversity that exists in this region. Now that hunting is not allowed in these mountains, the previously scarce animals of this habitat are increasing their numbers to become stable populations. Deer are once again sighted frequently, as are American black bears, ruffed grouse, and wild turkeys.