Monday, July 16, 2012

Federal Point, North Carolina-- Part 1

From the Arcadia Book "Carolina Beach" by Elaine Blackman Henson.

Federal Point is a peninsula south of Wilmington, North Carolina, searating the Atlantic Ocean and the Cape Fear River.  When Snow's Cut was dug in 1931 at the northern end for the Intercoastal Waterway it became an island now referred to as Pleasure Island.

By 1817, the federal government built a lighthouse at the southern end.  The 1860 census listed 72 households living there.  During the Civil War, the name was changed to Confederate Point.

In 1879, the Army Corps of Engineers completed the closing of New Inlet from Fort Fisher's Battery Bucahanan across to Zeek's Island after several years and tghousaands of man-hours.  New Inlet, which was the favored waterway of blockade-runners during the Civil War (and why Fort Fisher was built), was formed by a particularly nasty hurricane in 1761.  Shifting sands through it made navigation on the Cape Fear River dangerous.

More to Come.  --Cooter

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