Contents
Story
Decoys
Credits
🟡 LIMITED RESEARCH VOLUME
OWNERS
Mike Mason
Date 1970s
OTHER ASSOCIATIONS
Beth and Marshall Saunders
LOCATION
North Core Banks, sound side of Drum Inlet
Story
DUMP ISLAND—sitting across from Atlantic- has an A-frame structure built there by Mike Mason and Louise. It is still there. Their daughter, Pauline Smith of Beaufort, married to Fred Smith, and brother Andy Mason of Wilmington (who later owned it)—are relatives of John Sewell.
do you know more? contact me.
Mike Mason camp on Dump Island
(from CALO interview–Elaine Gaskill/ Connie Mason)
CM: Do you know how Dump Island got its name?
EG: Yeah, it was when they did some dredging here around Drum Inlet. See, Drum Inlet was cut when a storm in 1944.
CM: It’s really what opened it up.
EG: Opened it up, right, see all this area in here. It washed through. Then they came here and dredged a channel from the main channel, the main channel somewhere in here and put, threw the sand up here and they called it Dump Island. Actually a guy named Mack Mason owned that.
CM: Oh really?
EG: Yeah, Mack Mason. He used to have the camps, I mean, not the camps, the places where Seagate is.
CM: Deerfield Shores?
EG: No, Seagate um, Core Creek. CM: Ok.
EG: Core Creek. Mack Mason had the camps there, owned this island. His son still owns it. He lives in Wilmington. His name is Andy, Andy Mason, owns that. I’ve seen him a couple of times this summer.
CM: How about that. That’s not part of the Park Service then.
EG: No, it’s not
———————————
Beth (Simpson) Saunders and Marshall Saunders (first cousin of Clay Fulcher)—interview with Beth–
Beth was daughter of Reva (Morris) and Maxwell Simpson.
Her dad was Ira Morris and her brother was Don Morris.
Ira Morris started the Morris Camps across from Atlantic.
Marshall Saunders’s mother was from the Mason family who were caretakers of the Pilentery Hunting Club.
Beth and Marshall Saunders had a houseboat–1986 to 2008—and they
would go over Friday and Sat.—clamming–signing clams/ mulleting–
setting nets–
we just “pleasured”—a complete way of living there—now, it’s “all destroyed over there”.
Morris Marine Cabins–Ira Morris started them. Hurricane Florence under-washed the cabins–destroyed the generator, water and sewer —NPS does not plan to rebuild the camps (recently, the NPS did establish plans to rebuild).
Dump Island was near Old Drum Inlet–a little island—we kept our houseboat there, there were 4 more house boats there also— We had driven pilings to help with anchoring there–left the houseboat there and ran out to it. There was a camp on it–Mike Mason had it, Andy Mason (of Wilmington) later had it—called “Bird Island”–gulls nested there, as did terns and others.”
Ira Morris started the camps which were simple shacks—
stuck stuff together to build the camps, anything they could find. Beth
went there as a kid , 7-10 yo . After hurricane tides over-washed, their
families went into camps and had to clean them out—kids tagged along
and helped clear the sand–shoveled sand off the mattresses and hauled
them out into the sun to dry.
Back then, there were the “hills–the dunes–lots of sand hills”
Credits
- NPS files and archives
- CALO (Cape Lookout) Interview series–Connie Mason
- Other references within text