Clay Fulcher told me more than once–If you want to tell the story of the Banks, you have to include the story of how the Diamondback Terrapin and other turtles impacted the locals. I now see he was right, as I suspected then.
When I gather with other carvers at the Core Sound Decoy Carvers Guild and mention harvesting and eating turtle, I am surprised how many jump to talk of their favorite type and stories of their family use of turtle for sustenance and delicacy. Like the Loon, though now outlawed to kill, the turtles still are occasionally brought to the dinner table.
As wood shavings drop to the floor, the carver’s storytelling begins.
Interviews, articles and books depicting earlier times and Downeast cultural history often include memories of the part turtles played in sustenance and the fishermen’s harvests for supplemental income. Some excerpts follow:
Those who lived on the Banks in the mid and late 1800s were “proggers”–harvesting what was in season for sustenance, and adaptable in harvesting what was available to them–day to day. This was a very functional flexibility, especially on the Banks where little was available other than what you yourself could bring to table. Terrapin and other turtles were one of the local marsh resources. Terrapin became a marketable resource when northern restaurants made terrapin soup a popular offering.
Frederick True, 1884, described loggerhead, hawks-bill and green turtles being harvested for food during summer months from local sounds and shallow inlets in this vicinity. True described capture of loggerhead and hawks-bill by diving upon them (Joshua Lewis of Morehead City credited to conceive of this method first) and green turtles being caught in drag-nets and seines. (The Turtle and Terrapin Fisheries, p495, The Fisheries and Fisheries Industry of the United States, Goode, G. Brown, 1884)
Though the article is from 1884, early colonists and settlers had learned from Native Americans the methods of harvest and preparation of terrapin and other turtles.
Loggerhead turtles– sea turtles were hunted for their meat and eggs, but also, their fat–which was used for cosmetics and medicines. Loggerhead turtles faced a renewed threat during WWII rationing of foodstuffs…. “…fresh red meat which requires no ration points”. (1945, News & Observer)
Diamondback Dinners–(excerpted from Clay Fulcher interview)
Turtles and terrapin were a favorite for family meals on the banks. Though they are “getting gone” due to crab pot entrapment and “kill off” from long-term toxin build up in the marsh habitat over the years, they were once plentiful. Diamondback terrapin could be found in the shallows at the head of the creek, in the shallows, near the Fulcher camp where the terrapin backed into the mud and made a distinctive horseshoe mound visible through undisturbed waters. Poking the mud with a sharpened stick and hitting the hard shell was another method of location.
Clay Fulcher describes these cabin family scenes as likely gathered around a stew-pot of terrapin (his mother’s favorite) or “swamp turtle” (snapping turtle), which was Clay’s favorite.
After capture, they would be kept two weeks without feeding, allowing them to “clean out”. The head was cut off to allow the terrapin to “bleed out”. The claws would be cut off and cutting around the bottom edge of the shell allowed the meat to be cut out, the shoulder and neck meat was white. Cutting the meat into chunks preceded stewing slowly with salt and pepper for seasoning. Clay described the flavor as not being “strong, but just rich:. Stewed tomatoes and biscuits or corn bread were preferred side dishes.
Sea turtles or loggerheads were different flavor, with little green turtles being milder.
Sam Bland writes : “Terrapin is an Algonquin word meaning little edible turtle……Early colonists learned from the natives that the terrapin was an important source of food…..During the 1700’s, terrapin were so plentiful and cheap that they were the dominant food that the coastal plantation owners fed their slaves and servants.” “During the 1800’s , the humble food once fit only for slaves was now the bon vivant of the elite…..Terrapin soup and stew was the gastronomic hit”, “Terrapins were harvested by the thousands, by any means possible..dogs were trained to sniff them out…With demand high, terrapin population began to tumble..”
( Coastal Review On-line–Sam’s Field Notes: Diamondback Terrapin)
In the Downeast in communities of Atlantic, Davis, Sea Level and others, terrapin continued to be caught, penned up and sold…and even after the market had collapsed, were kept for local consumption. Pens consisted of wooden walls to keep terrapin within but connected to tidal flow of a water source–terrapin need brackish water. Remnants of one pen still exists in Davis alongside Hwy 70 and the Sea Level site remains but with no remnant of a pen. (identified by Clay Fulcher)
Prior to 1845, no terrapins were shipped from the Banks of North Carolina and terrapin usually were caught by hand. William Midgett, of Roanoke, invented a “terrapin drag”, similar to an oyster dredge, to harvest Diamondbacks chiefly in winter when the terrapin were dormant in the mud and less likely to escape. Small vessels and large canoes were employed. (thus method was adopted by some local fishermen)
By the time of F. True’s article, in 1884, extensive trade in terrapin had sprung up in our regional marshes. Terrapin were caught by dredges in winter, nests were tracked by dogs in breeding season, and shallow water harvest with dip nets were used. “A method peculiar to this locality is that of burning the grass in the swamps in winter…..the terrapin are deluded into the notion that spring has arrived, and come out in considrable number..immediately captured….. Several pounds have aslso been constructed.” Diving on turtles was a method originated locally, In 1860, the terrapin fishery was at its height—to re-emerge after the Civil War.
The news of success spread quickly. No sale of terrapins is documented before the mid-1840s but many fishermen joined in the emerging business—including those on Core Banks. Most terrapin had been gathered and eaten by farmers and fishermen and only a small number sent to market before this time.
The catch of terrapin soon exceeded the sustainability of the species numbers. “In view of the rapid depletion of numbers …the Bureau of Fisheries , in 1902, began investigations ..to determine the adaptability of diamondback to artificial propogation. About the same time, the State of North Carolina, in co-operation with the U. S. Fisheries Station in Beaufort began studies into the habits and life history of the species and the terrapin industry. Suspended in 1903 and re-instituted in 1909, Beaufort became the premier of terrapin research and propagation.
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Markets for terrapin collapsed with the economic depression, WWI, and enactment of prohibition—which limited access both to sherry ( a key ingredient in the terrapin soup) and also the alcoholic drinks imbibed as sides for the dish).
Helen Beacham was interviewed by Connie Mason (April 17, 2011) as part of the Cape Lookout (CALO) interview series:
CM–Did you learn to pole a skiff as a girl?
HB–Yes, I could pole. I would go with my grandfather Tom at night…He had, I guess, you would call it a terrapin pen…His brother..Gordy…lived down on the shoreline in a camp…Shore-side of Sea Level…There was a canal that run up by his camp there..He and granddaddy fixed a pen sort of thing in there. Put wood across it and of course it filled with water from the sound.
My grandfather would go out nights and he’d catch these terrapins and throw them in the bottom of his boat and we’d take them and put them in that pen up there. Then at the end of the week or the month or whatever he got a chance, he’d sell them to Tilman Taylor. Tilman would ship them to New York. It was a delicacy.
I can remember hearing those things scratch the bottom of that skiff and it just scared the life out of you.
CM–Did you ever eat turtle?
HB–“Oh yeah, most of the time loggerhead. Now, that’s what I loved. ….I loved loggerheads turtle, yes, sir, that I did. My grandmother could fix it to die for. She would clean it and cut it up and put it in the pot along with fat meat and potatoes and onions and stew it down, you know. Talk about good. Melt in your mouth.”
My daddy would make a call every once in a while, cause it was not legal at he time. He’d call down to one of the fishhouses and say: ‘I need some turtle.” (Laughter) And he had somebody down there fix it cause my mother couldn’t fix it. But somebody fixed it for him and he was so happy when he got his turtle soup.”
HB–Both my grandmothers could cook real good turtle and minced fish.
(from Mabel Smith/James Willis interview-Alicia Rouverol-8/5/00)
“Turkle”
“Now, there’s something else they like, and my husband liked it–my family did, all of them–was turtle….called “turkle”… I love them, you know. But Alicia, you can take you a mouthful ands chew for a solid week.”..You have to chew and chew and chew–Sea turtle.”—”It’s according to how big they were. I mean, sometimes you should have fried it and made like country-style steak. And believe me, it would be better than country-style steak. But people, the way they did it–a turtle didn’t have very big pieces of lean meat, but you had little pieces–but you take a saucer or heavy plate and beat it like that.–not as tough as conch–But–you fried it and made gravy–onion, lots of onions in it. And man, it’s good..”
James Willis added–”I remember my aunt Lissie, she loved turkle, and somebody carried her a mess there. And they said, “Aunt Lissie, did you enjoy your turkle?” She said, “My Lord, yes that I did.” But said, “My jaws is so tired. I had to rest up a solid week.”
Terrapin hunts to obtain turtles for the northern markets were carried out in the late 1800s (F. True article mentioned above), dredging them out of local marshes—
“A method peculiar to (Carteret County) is that of burning the grass in the swamps in winter. The terrapins which have hid themselves for the winter, feeling the warmth, are deluded into the notion that spring has arrived, and come out in considerable number.”
Roy Willis of Stacy was interviewed by Connie Mason in December, 2010:
CM–You can’t do it today, but did you ever do any turtling? Did you ever eat turtles?
RW–I tried turtle two or three times, but I didn’t like it. There are some people who would swear on it. But I never did…It’s too gooey for me! (laughter) I didn’t like it.
My grandfather, especially my grandfather, he would like to catch these diamond backed terrapins. When I was growing up, you could sell those. He sold those by the length of the bottom shell. A five inch one, on the bottom, would bring 50cents, the five and half inch would bring 75cents and the 6 inch one would bring a dollar. You could set nets across a creek or something like that’d go up the creek and beat on the boat, the side of the boat and everything. Sometimes you catch fish, sometimes you catch terrapin, He got Mr. Mitchell Fulcher, another well-known carver, he got him to make him measuring stick, for to measure those terrapin. And I still have it.
CM–I also heard they used to burn the marshes to run the turtles out of it.
RW–“No, I haven’t heard that.”….”.We would go up in some little ponds and things like that in the marsh and take a stick and go along beside it an stick it in there up under the bank. That’s where the terrapins would get. You could catch them like that. It would sound a right hollow sound when you hit one with a stick.”
There apparently were superstitions–
The Hepburn files ( at the CSWM) include an interview with Jack Rose: “Asked about the turtle fishery, Jack said there were some places over on the Banks that had a lot of terrapins and that get caught in the intertidal marsh ponds and can be plucked up along the edges of these ponds. Jack said that he had never heard of any superstitions regarding the diamondback terrapin.” (the interviewer, however, apparently was aware of the existence of superstitions)
Superstitons existed regarding Diamondback terrapin..expressed in a Jeff Klinkenberg article (News & Observer, Raleigh)….quoting Leon Crum and Jack Rudloe— “Sure as hell, if you put one of those hard-luck cooters in the boat ( after seeing terrapins sunning on the spoil bank), the wind will blow and we’ll have bad luck…” They did go ahead and captured some and bad luck weather and frustrating events ensued. (“The Turtle Hex: After a time, it’s no coincidence”–Klinkenberg)
The catch of terrapin soon exceeded the sustainability of the species numbers. “In view of the rapid depletion of numbers …the Bureau of Fisheries , in 1902, began investigations ..to determine the adaptability of diamondback to artificial propogation. About the same time. the State of North Carolina in co-operation with the U. S. Fisheries Station in Beaufort began studies into the habits and life history of the species and the terrapin industry. Suspended in 1903 and re-instituted in 1909, Beasufort became the premier of terrapin research and propogation.
In 1913, a company was established in Beaufort to develop a nursery for raising and marketing of terrapin. Approaching the first World War, production reached 15,000 to 20,000 yearly. With the war, prohibition and increased labor costs, the company was virtually abandoned in 1918.
Beginning in 1909, experiments with terrapin began at the U.S. Fisheries Biological Station in Beaufort and continued till 1949. Dr. Samuel F. Hildebrand led research with the supervision of the project by Captain Charles Hatsell. When the hatchery closed in 1949, they had raised and released 249,313 diamondback terrapin. History of the Duke Marine Lab outlines much of their work.
(excerpt, Barbara Garrity-Blake/ James Sabella–2009 Ethnohistorical Description of Four Communities Associated with Cape Lookout National Seashore)
Selected articles by station scientist Dr. Hildebrand speaks to the history and science of these terrapin projects in Beaufort. The Beaufort Station was the world’s largest terrapin farm or hatchery…providing turtles for restocking of coastal areas.
Staying connected to local culture, the Methodist women included recipes for turtle within their cookbook.
Other related resources include:
Clarence Robinson’s book–The Core Sounder
William mason’s book–The Masons of Cartetret County–“The Party Boat-Bessie M.”
Barbara Garrity-Blake–Garrity-Blake/ James Sabella–2009 Ethnohistorical Description of Four Communities Associated with Cape Lookout National Seashore
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