Carrie Davis’ Store

Story
Decoys
Credits

🟡 LIMITED RESEARCH VOLUME

OWNERS

Carrie Arendalle Davis

1930’s–1955

OTHER ASSOCIATIONS

Ms. Harker’s Store, “Bull” Harker’s Store

Lewis-Arrendell House

Royer Family Collection–WWII

LOCATION
Cape Lookout Bight–at shore’s edge

Story

Carrie’s Store remains alongside and toward shore from the Barden cottage.

do you know more? contact me.

Carrie Davis’ Store and Lewis-Davis House

It is not clear exactly when Lewis sold the house at Cape Lookout to Carrie Davis, but it probably occurred in 1932. Carrie Davis was born Carrie F. Arrendale on October 6, 1875, the daughter of Thomas Arendale and Martha Oglesby, in Newport, N. C. Very little of her early life has been documented beyond her marriage to Henry G. Pierce on May 17, 1893. How long they remained married has not been documented, nor is it known if any children were born of that marriage. By 1915, Pierce was either dead or they had divorced, and she had remarried. Her new husband, who had also been previously married, was Frederick S. Davis, a native New Yorker born about 1863. Their only child, a daughter named Edith, was born about 1915, and although the family has not been located in the 1920 census, they are shown in the 1930 census living on Arrendale Street, perhaps in her parents’ old house, in Morehead City.

In December 1932, Sterling Davis sold Carrie Davis (no family relationship has been documented) a 50’ by 100’ lot “fronting the shore” of Cape Lookout Bight.22 It is not clear if the three buildings photographed on the site during World War II were there when Carrie Davis bought the property in 1932 or if she had them built. In one of the buildings, Davis operated a small general store, and next door to it was a large, hipped- roof, screened pavilion that was a popular dance hall. In addition, by World War II, Davis had apparently built a house for herself next to the store and dance hall and rented the smaller Lewis- Davis House near the Coast Guard Station that she had bought from Jimmy Lewis. Her husband had apparently died between 1930 and 1932 and she may have moved to Cape Lookout for financial reasons.

For additional history, see Park Service info about the Carie Davis house at:

tps://www.nps.gov › calo › lewis_davis_house_hsr

Recent research has shown that the cook at the Coast Guard Station lived in the Lewis- Davis house through most of World War II. According to family members, the cook, Willard “Bill” Royer, was posted to Cape Lookout in October 1941, and in February 1942, his wife and two daughters moved from Sturgeon Bay, Wiscosin, to join him. Until the war’s end and his re- assignment to another duty station, Royer and his family lived in Carrie Davis’ small house near the Coast Guard Station.

View of porch of Carrie Davis’ store, October 1942. The dance hall is at left rear and her shingled house at center rear. (CALO Coll., Royer photographs)

The Army base closed at the end of World War II, and the Cape quickly returned to the somnolent place it had been before the war. Carrie Davis turned 70 in October 1945, and advancing years more than anything else may have caused her to sell her house, store, and dance hall on the Bight to James B. and Gladys Harper in 1947. All three buildings were eventually burned or demolished, and nothing remains on the site today. Although she sold the property on the Bight, Davis retained title to her house near the Coast Guard Station. When she died at Newport, N. C., on March 15, 1955, her daughter- Edith Davis Darnell- inherited the house. Ms. Darnell retained a lease on her mother’s old house when it was incorporated into the National Seashore in 1978.

This photo from the NPS Historic Structure Report mentions “Bull” Hunter, relation to post-WW II Hunter’s is not yet established.

Mr. Hunter’s Store–according to Emma Rose Guthrie interview about the Cape (2021)—

“Mr Hunter later or /also had a store nearby the current Harkers Island school site. He was called “Bull” Hunter, likely due to his large size–Emma Rose Guthrie says his grave site is wider than normal and that he had to be buried in a piano case (as told between islanders)–he employed island women to make basketball nets from materials from China. Buried alone, without family–in the “Virgie May Cemetery”