Pleasure Island (North Carolina)


Pleasure Island is a coastal barrier island in Southeastern North Carolina, USA just south of the City of Wilmington. Pleasure Island is located within Federal Point Township, in New Hanover County. The coastal resort towns of Carolina Beach and Kure Beach, as well as the annexed communities of Wilmington Beach and Hanby Beach are located on the island. The southern end of Pleasure Island was separated from Bald Head Island by Corncake Inlet until the inlet was shoaled and closed in 1998 by Hurricane Bonnie; thus Pleasure Island and Bald Head Island are no longer separate islands.
The combined island now stretches from Carolina Beach Inlet in the north, the Cape Fear River to the west, Onslow Bay to the east and Long Bay to the south. It is 17 miles long, 2 miles wide in the far north, 3 miles wide at the far south and about ½ mile wide in the middle. Pleasure Island refers to the northern half of the combined island and Bald Head Island refers to the southern half of the combined island.
Prior to the 1931 completion of a man-made canal called Snows Cut, the land that now forms Pleasure Island was part of a peninsula known as Federal Point; a long narrow strip of sandy ground that stretched from Myrtle Grove to Fort Fisher. The Federal Point Light once stood at southern end of the peninsula at the edge of New Inlet.
U.S. Highway 421 provides the only bridge access to Pleasure Island. A ferry at the southern terminus of Route 421 at Fort Fisher connects Pleasure Island to Southport, NC at. A separate ferry from Southport brings travelers and supplies to Bald Head Island to the south. There are no roads between the two halves of the combined island, but park ranger vehicles, bike riders and pedestrians can traverse the beach strand to make the connection from Fort Fisher to Bald Head Island as needed.
Pleasure Island is home to an unusual 11-acre fresh water lake that was once the headwater of Myrtle Grove Sound. It is spring fed and less than 200 yards from the salty waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The lake was formerly known as "The Freshwater Lake" but is now called "Carolina Beach Lake".
The name "Pleasure Island" was the product of a marketing effort by the local Chambers of Commerce back in 1972. They thought Pleasure Island was a positive way to refer to the coastal resources of the area.
Pleasure Island is now part of a 20-mile, unbroken strand of sandy beach stretching from Carolina Beach Inlet, 7 miles south to New Hanover/Brunswick County line, then 10 more miles south to the Cape and then 3 miles west to the mouth of the Cape Fear River. NOAA published a PDF chart of the area.http://www.charts.noaa.gov/PDFs/11539.pdf

History

Geography

The area that is now Pleasure Island has gone through a variety of changes over the last few hundred years to end up with its current shape, extending from the Carolina Beach Inlet to Cape Fear.
The "island" started out as the lower tip of the Federal Point Peninsula which was originally bounded in the south at a break in the barrier islands called New Inlet. This inlet was “new” in that it opened up as a result of a massive storm in September, 1761. For the decades that followed, New Inlet was actually the preferred entrance to the Cape Fear River for ships bound for the port of Wilmington, as it offered a deeper, shorter, and less treacherous route compared to the Bald Head/Old Inlet Channel, at the mouth of the Cape Fear. During the Civil War, blockade runners routinely took the New Inlet route, which led to the building of Confederate Fort Fisher at this location. There are still dozens of sunken blockade runners in this region of North Carolina.
After the Civil War, reduced water flow in the river threatened the main shipping channel that led up from the mouth of the Cape Fear River to Wilmington. To protect access to the port, the United States Army Corps of Engineers built a 1-mile long stone dam, eventually known as “The Rocks”, between Zekes Island and the southern tip of Federal Point. The work took place between 1870 and 1881, and eventually closed off New Inlet’s direct access to the Cape Fear River. The enclosed area behind the dam is now known as "The Basin". A second dam, known then as “The Swash Defense”, extended "The Rocks" from Zeke’s Island south for another 2 miles. These were massive rock moving and engineering efforts, costing over $1M in 1880's money. After the building of the two rock dams, only smaller boats and skiffs could travel from the ocean into the meandering creeks behind Smith Island to access the Cape Fear River. However, for all intents and purposes, the inlet was closed.New Inlet was then allowed to fill in naturally and soon Gold Leaf Inlet just to the south, was the only major division between Federal Point and Smith Island. Maps from the time also show Corncake Inlet, an inlet that opened between the ocean and Buzzards Bay further to the south. In 1933 Corncake Inlet silted over and maps from 1944 began to show Gold Leaf Inlet renamed to the old name of Corncake Inlet. By the 1960s the inlet was once again renamed to New Inlet. Regardless of name, these shallower inlets could still be used by smaller vessels as a way to slip out from the creeks into the sea. This "new" New Inlet made up the southern boundary of Federal Point for many years.
In 1930, Snows Cut was dug out connecting the Cape Fear River to Myrtle Grove Sound and officially turning the tip of the Federal Point peninsula into a barrier island. The man-made canal, 1.75 miles long, and originally 100 feet wide and 12 feet deep, was named after Major William A. Snow. Snow was the district engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who supervised the $5 million dredging work. Snows Cut was, and still is, an important part of the Intracoastal Waterway as it allows boats to avoid the treacherous Frying Pan Shoals, which extend some 30 miles into the ocean off Cape Fear. Cars could originally cross over Snows Cut via a small wooden bridge until a swing bridge was added. This remained in use until the present-day concrete high-rise bridge opened in 1962.
Prior to 1950s, the north end of Carolina Beach was connected to what is now the south end of Masonboro Island. This meant that the closest navigable inlet for boats moored at the Carolina Beach docks was Masonboro, some 10 miles to the north. In 1952, a group of influential local businessmen got together and hired a dredge to dig out what is now Carolina Beach Inlet. Local captain Skippy Winner piloted the first commercial vessel to pass through the inlet.
The shape of the island remained relatively constant for the next 45 years, with Corncake Inlet, in the south, slowly silting up. In 1998, Hurricane Bonnie pushed large quantities of sand into the inlet and finally closed it off. Pleasure Island and Smith Island were combined as one and remain that way today.

The People of the Lower Cape Fear

Federal Point was historically home to small groups of Native Americans, but much heavier concentrations, perhaps numbering into the thousands, lived on the west side of the river or upstream. History has forgotten the names of these tribes so they are generally referred to as the Cape Fear Indians. The tribes called the lower Cape Fear River, "Sapona" and they lived on the abundant forest, river and ocean resources. By the time Europeans arrived in the fifteenth century, the Native Americans of the region had largely transitioned from hunter-gathering to small-scale agriculture. Various artifacts and oyster mounds have been found on and near Federal Point over the years. One village site was discovered about “1.5 miles south of the head of Myrtle Grove Sound, 3 miles north of Fort Fisher, and less than 100 yards from the beach. Sugar Loaf is less than one mile from this site in a northwesterly direction”. This location would be very close to where Carolina Beach Lake sits today.
England laid its European claim to the area that is now the eastern United States in 1497 after the first voyage of Venetian John Cabot, who was in the service of King Henry VII. In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer in the service of the King of France, wrote about reaching Cape Fear region. He talked about seeing smoke from a multitude of native campfires and went ashore to briefly meet with them. The Spaniard, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, then came to the Cape Fear River in 1526, which he call the Jordan River. The Spanish spoke of the greater area as “Cape San Romano”. Shortly after arriving, Ayllón died of fever after attempting to settle in what is now South Carolina. This was the end of any significant moves by Spain to claim lands north of Florida.
Several attempts at English colonization in the area North and South of the Cape Fear region were launched during the ensuing century, notably the failed colony of Roanoke. However, the Cape Fear area did not see serious attempts at permanent colonization until the 1660s.
In 1662, the Englishman William Hilton, on the ship Adventurer, in the service of New Englanders from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, came and explored the lower reaches of the Cape Fear River, which was then called the Charles River. He wrote of an Indian ambush on the river in his journal of the expedition. Hilton's favorable reports of the area, Indians not withstanding, encouraged a group of colonists from Massachusetts to sail south to try to settle in the area. Within months, however, the settlement was abandoned presumably due to Indian problems or disease; and the colonists' livestock were left behind to roam freely along what is now Bald Head Island. Legend says the party left behind a sign on a tree warning others to not try to settle in the area.
Also in 1662 King Charles II granted all of his English lands south of Virginia and north of Spanish-held Florida to his eight Lord Proprietors of Carolina, as a reward for their loyalty in restoring him to the English throne. This grant included all of the lands in the Cape Fear region, which they called Clarendon County. The Cape Fear River was therefore renamed as the Clarendon River. The Lord Proprietors had almost complete control of who could or could not settle in the area.
In 1663, Hilton accompanied another group of English colonists, this time from Barbados, who were hoping to gain permission from the Lord Proprietors to settle in the area. Their settlement was called Charles Town and was located on the north side of Town Creek, just across the river from Federal Point. Others from both New England and Barbados followed until the number reached over 800, spread out along the river. They stayed in the area for the next few years, but significant conflicts with Indians, problems with the Lord Proprietors and concerns of abandonment—after the start of an English war with the Dutch—prompted them to leave by 1667. The settlers evacuated Charles Town and some travelled to other Atlantic Coast settlements, while others returned home to Barbados.
Europeans from Charleston continued a brisk trade with the Indians on the Cape Fear River throughout these early years. In 1710, the Lord Proprietors divided the province of Carolina into North and South on an ambiguous border along the Cape Fear River. In an effort to avoid taxation from the Charleston authorities, one Charleston trader known as the second Landgrave Thomas Smith, claimed the island lands on the lower east side of the river as part of North Carolina. The North Carolina authorities granted his claim and the area, then known as Cape Island, was renamed Smith Island. There are no records, however, that show Smith actually visited the island.
European Settlers slowly continued to arrived in the Carolina region which ultimately resulted in the Tuscarora War, which forced the Native Americans further west.
in Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates
The area was also frequented by pirates, who would harass ships and the coastline and then slip away behind the many shoals and islands in their relatively shallow-draft boats. One such pirate was Stede Bonnet, who previously traveled with Blackbeard. In 1718, Bonnet was captured on the lower Cape Fear River, near present-day Southport, while he was laid over, repairing his ships and waiting out the hurricane season. The battle between the pirates and the English authorities from South Carolina lasted several hours, with the authorities eventually prevailing. Bonnet was later hanged in Charles Town in South Carolina.
In 1715, Maurice Moore, the son of the Carolina provincial Governor James Moore, crossed the Cape Fear River on his way south from Beaufort on a military mission to aid South Carolina during the Yamasee Indian War. He crossed near the Haulover at Sugar Loaf and landed on the west side of the river at what would eventually become Brunswick Town. He liked the land he saw and eventually petitioned the Lord Proprietors for a grant. In 1725 the new governor, George Burrington, granted several thousand acres of land in that same area to Maurice. In addition to vast lands on the western side of the river, Maurice's holdings included some 3,000 acres on the eastern peninsula near the upper Haulover at Sugar Loaf. In 1725, Maurice's brother, Roger Moore, moved from the Province of South Carolina to the area by then known as Orton located near the former Charles Town settlement on the west side of the Cape Fear River. Roger acquired Orton from his brother and together they founded Brunswick Town one mile to the south. Over time the brothers gained control of tens of thousands of acres in the region. Roger built a home at Orton in 1725 that was soon destroyed in an attack by local Native Americans. Roger gathered a group of men and slaves and crossed over the river and attacked the Indians from the north at Sugar Loaf , in the last major Indian action on the peninsula. Roger rebuilt the Orton house in 1735 and created Orton Plantation, and specialized in rice growing in the nearby marshes as well as other crops. The rebuilt house has been added onto many times, but still stands today.
The settlement of Brunswick Town was located directly across the Clarendon River, by then renamed as the Cape Fear River, from the Federal Point Peninsula, just south of the old Charles Town settlement. A ferry was commissioned from Brunswick Town to the Haulover on Federal Point, tightly linking the two areas and allowing easy access to the main coastal road that headed north to the relatively large town of New Bern. Brunswick Town saw success in its early years and housed two of the North Carolina's early colonial governors.
In the 1730s, English settlements along the coast of North Carolina lacked fortifications to protect against the various attacks of pirates and privateers, as well as Spanish forces. In response, construction began on Fort Johnston in 1748 on the lower Cape Fear River at what eventually became Smithville. Later that year, before the fort was finished, two Spanish ships sailed up the Cape Fear River and attacked Brunswick Town, an act that was part of King George's War. After initially fleeing, the colonists regrouped days later and counterattacked, successfully driving the Spanish from the town. One Spanish ship, the Fortuna, exploded in shallow water during the retreat, likely due to a magazine fire. In all, nearly half of the attackers were killed. The colonists were later able to recover most of the plunder from the sunken ship to help rebuild the heavily damaged town.
Over the next several decades, Brunswick Town slowly declined as more commerce moved to Wilmington which was located several miles to the North on the opposite bank of the river, and the seat of government moved to Tryon Palace in New Bern. Brunswick Town was burned by the British during the American Revolutionary War, and was never rebuilt. The land was eventually purchased by the nearby Orton Plantation. Brunswick Town is now a popular historic and archaeological site.
From the inception of Brunswick Town and Wilmington, dozens of large slave-holding plantations were quickly established, capitalizing on the vast lands and the low cost of overwater transport. These included the Haulover Plantation which covered most of Pleasure Island, and eventually Sedgely Abbey and Gander Hall slightly to the north. By 1767, slaves accounted for more than 62% of the population of the region. In addition to rice, hemp and traditional agricultural crops, the area was rich in naval stores. These included tar, pitch, and turpentine, as well as lumber and were all significant exports for the region. With Wilmington as the remaining hub of commerce, the export growth of the region continued after the American Revolution and well into the 1800s.
Around 1850, in the midst of the antebellum era, two "free colored persons" of mixed African and Native-American heritage, Alexander and Charity Freeman, acquired 250 acres of swampy, sandy land on the lower portion of the Federal Point Peninsula near Myrtle Grove Sound. The family made their living as small farmers and fishermen. In January 1876, their son Robert Bruce Freeman, purchased an additional 2,500 acres of nearby land, making him one of the largest landowners in the area. Robert eventually amassed land holdings of nearly 5000 acres, stretching from the freshwater lake in the south, to north beyond what is now Snows Cut. Robert called this land the "Old Homestead Tract".
The Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, at the time the longest track in the world, opened to traffic in 1855, greatly increasing the importance of trade via the lower Cape Fear River. It was not uncommon to see 90 vessels in the Port of Wilmington loading or unloading, or waiting their turn at anchor in the river. Imports included coffee, sugar, molasses, hoop iron, cotton ties, and salt, among many other items.
The Cape Fear River and the surrounding area also held a strategic role during the American Civil War. Wilmington was a major port for Confederate Blockade Runners, who used the two Cape Fear inlets to slip past the Federal blockade and bring much-needed European goods to the war effort. Fort Fisher, on the lower tip of the Federal Point Peninsula, was the site of a major amphibious battle in 1865. The subsequent fall of the fort and the loss of Cape Fear River shipping greatly diminished the south's ability to prosecute the war and eventually helped lead to a cessation of fighting. After the war, shipping and farming remained a major source of income for the region.
By the 1880s, entrepreneurs and promoters from the Wilmington area had their eye on the lower portion of Federal Point due to its easy access from the town and the short distance across the island to the ocean. Steamboat service was established and soon thousands of Wilmington tourists were visiting the new "Carolina Beach Resort" each year. The area steadily grew as a get-away destination over the next several decades.In the 1920s, descendants of Robert Freeman founded the African-American beach resort at Seabreeze, on family lands now to the north of Snows Cut. This also included the oceanfront strip of land they named Freeman Beach.
The land that is now Pleasure Island became an actual island in 1931 with the digging of the canal now called Snows Cut, which chopped off the end of Federal Point Peninsula. The island continued to flourish and its reputation as a tourist destination grew quickly during World War II. Tens of thousands of military personnel, from Camp Davis, Fort Bragg and Fort Fisher flocked to the area every weekend to enjoy the beachside resorts and nightly entertainment. A growing permanent population, established shortly after the war, reshaped the island to resemble what one sees today.
In 1955, Robert E. Harrill, who eventually became known as "The Fort Fisher Hermit”, took up residence in an abandoned World War II Army bunker on the Fort Fisher end of the island. He was seen as a sort of philosopher and was, at one point, the second most-visited "site" in the state. Robert died of mysterious circumstances in 1972. The bunker can still be seen today via Basin Trail .

Carolina Beach

The land at the headwaters of Myrtle Grove Sound was scarcely populated in 1881 when Joseph Winner acquired land and laid out lots in what is now Carolina Beach. The area then saw major change in summertime population after 1887, when John W. Harper, a popular Wilmington ship captain, started making steamship runs from Wilmington to a newly built pier located near the Sugar Loaf sand dune. Harper was a partner in the New Hanover Transit Company which saw the potential of an easy-to-access beach destination.
The company acquired the rights to build a small railroad across the island which roughly followed what today is Harper Avenue. They built hotels and restaurants near the beach along with various other amenities to attract visitors. This included a pavilion on the ocean that "was designed by Henry Bonitz, who also designed the famous Lumina at Wrightsville Beach." That first year, thousands of people took Harper's steamship ride down the Cape Fear River to visit his beachside attraction. Carolina Beach grew steadily as a summertime vacation destination over the next several decades. By the 1940s a small year-round population began to take hold. In spite of devastating fires and hurricanes, the town continued to thrive, with new businesses, dance pavilions and a boardwalk. After a period of decline in the late twentieth century, Carolina beach is now flourishing with the addition of a refurbished boardwalk as well as many new restaurants, business and beachfront hotels.

Kure Beach

In the early 1880s a Danish ship captain, named Hans Kure, moved his family from Charleston, SC to Carolina Beach, where he ran various businesses. In 1895, he created the Kure Land and Development Company and purchased 900 acres of land two miles to the south, a tract that spanned from the ocean to the Cape Fear River. The land was originally called Fort Fisher Sea Beach, but over time it became known as "Kure's Beach", and eventually "Kure Beach".
In 1916, the Kure Family put up money to build a modern road down Federal Point leading to their beach. The road was built from rock brought in from outside the area, as well as from Coquina rock found near Fort Fisher. The road opened up the area to automobile tourists from Wilmington and other parts of the state.
Hans Kure's son, L.C. Kure, also built the first public fishing pier on Kure Beach in 1923. Kure relatives still run the pier today.
In 1933 the Dow Chemical Company and the Ethyl Corporation built a large plant near Kure Beach for extracting bromine from seawater. Bromine was used for an additive for gasoline and other fuels. The plant operated for approximately 15 years and employed 250 workers at its height. Most of the complex was demolished or destroyed in the late 1940s.
In 1945, the Kure Beach Progressive Association was established for improving conditions on the barrier island community. Money was raised to bring water, electricity and even a firetruck to the area. This association led to the incorporation of the Town of Kure Beach in 1947.
Today Kure Beach is a thriving bedroom community with several restaurants, maritime forests and long, beautiful beaches.

Seabreeze

The Seabreeze resort area was created by the descendants of Alexander and Robert Freeman during the Jim Crow Era as a place where African-Americans could come enjoy the beach and nightly entertainment, without harassment. Seabreeze included land just north of Snows Cut as well as a parcel of oceanfront land, then known as Freeman Beach. In the years before the Snows Cut canal was built, Seabreeze vacationers on the mainland side could wade or swim across the shallow Myrtle Grove Sound and access Freeman Beach. After the completion of the canal, the increased flow of water scoured out and deepened the sound in front of Seabreeze and made wading across the water no longer possible. Beach goers then had to drive through the town of Carolina Beach or ferry out in small boats to access the isolated peninsula.In spite of the challenges, Seabreeze and Freeman Beach grew rapidly and soon there were dozens of juke joints and restaurants. Well-known hotels like the Lofton and Ruth & Joe's sprang up. Groups of African-American families flocked to Seabreeze during the day and turned the area over to the juke joints for nightly entertainment. Bathhouses and dance halls were also built oceanfront on Freeman Beach and that portion of the resort became known as Bop City. Seabreeze was a thriving resort up until the late 1950s.
The downfall of the area began with the opening of the man-made Carolina Beach Inlet in 1952, which caused heavy erosion at Freeman Beach. Then, on October 15, 1954, Hurricane Hazel caused massive damage to the island communities and destroyed nearly every building at Bop City. Some of the facilities were rebuilt, but the area began to fade. The onset of desegregation in Americas in the 1960s removed much of the reason for the segregated resort’s existence, further hastening the decline. The last of the clubs at Seabreeze closed in the 1980s and Hurricane Fran, in 1996, destroyed the remaining Freeman Beach cottages. Today the sound side of Seabreeze is a coastal forest where trailers and smaller cottages mix with higher-end subdivisions and expensive sound-front houses. The oceanside enclave of Bop City, which is part of Pleasure Island, is now a public beach known as Freeman Park.

Sugar Loaf

One of the key geographical features on the island is a large naturally-occurring sand dune known as the Sugar Loaf. It was originally 110 feet high and is located on the Cape Fear side of the island. Early travelers and ship captains used Sugar Loaf as a directional beacon as well as a distance marker since the dune could be seen from miles around.
Sugar Loaf was also the site of prehistoric native-American encampments. The sand mound was the site of a retaliatory attack on the local Indians in 1725, by Englishman Roger Moore, around the time of the establishment of the Brunswick Town settlement.
The first authorized river ferry was established in 1727 from Brunswick Town to the haulover near Sugar Loaf on the eastern shore. The haulover was a narrow stretch of the peninsula where small boats were portaged from the river directly across to the ocean. This was far shorter and easier than paddling or sailing up and down the swift Cape Fear River to reach the ocean by the river mouth.
During the American Civil War the Sugar Loaf was part of a fortification that was extended across the island to Myrtle Grove Sound in order to block Union troop access up the Federal Point Road, which led directly to the vital Port of Wilmington.
The Sugar Loaf dune is now 50 feet high and is nestled in the pine trees within the Carolina Beach State Park. It is open to the public and is accessible via park trails.

Military

The eastern buffer zone of the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point, makes up the western portion of Pleasure Island. MOTSU is located on the west side of the Cape Fear River and is one of the largest US Army supply depots in the world.
During the American Civil War, Pleasure Island was the site of Confederate Camp Wyatt. The area is also home to the remains of Fort Fisher, which held significant strategic value to the Confederate supply chain. Fort Fisher was the largest earthwork fortification in the Confederacy and was the site of a major amphibious battle, before it fell to Union forces in 1865.The Fort Fisher portion of the island was home to various military installations between 1865 and 1988, including a World War II firing range and landing strip. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961, the first in North Carolina. It is now part of Fort Fisher State Historic Site, belonging to the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, and includes the main fort complex, a museum and a visitor center. Fort Fisher State Recreation Area is adjacent to the State Historic Site, just to the south.

Wildlife

In addition to white tailed deer, red fox, coyotes and assorted mammals, Pleasure Island is home to a wide variety of permanent and migrating species of birds, fish, and occasional wintertime whales. The island hosts dozens of sea turtle nests each year, which are closely monitored by the . Loggerhead turtles are by far the most common sea turtle seen near the island, but Green, Leatherback, Ridley and Hawksbill turtles can also be found.
Pleasure Island is near two major reserves of the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve: Masonboro Island and Zeke’s Island.

Points of interest

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