Supplying ships and providing other vital marine services
By Robert Rehder
BOUND FOR THE PORT OF WILMINGTON,
her foremast rigged tightly against a raging sea, the heav-ily
laden four-masted schooner Sallie Marvil broached
hard to starboard. In a vicious current, she slipped peril-ously
close to the seething Frying Pan Shoals. Thrown
off course by the storm, the ship was out of supplies
and in dire need of repairs. At the helm the captain, an
old master of many oceans, cringed as a rogue wave
suddenly lifted the bowsprit 20 feet above an iron gray
sea, releasing it with a smashing blow to the yawning
trough below. On the distant horizon, framed against a
dark and looming November gale, the massive dunes of
Bald Head Island rose above a violent, smoking surf.
It was the winter of 1900. The Port of Wilmington
was a thriving maritime commerce center, trading a
diverse array of products from naval stores, cotton and
tobacco to timber, fertilizer and petroleum.
Despite the close call with the Graveyard of the Atlan-tic,
the captain’s skill brought the Sallie Marvil safely into
the Cape Fear River. She limped into Wilmington, her
holds filled with hogsheads (barrels) of molasses from the
Caribbean. After discharging her cargo, she would load
naval stores (tar, pitch and turpentine derived from nearby
longleaf pine forests) for export to the shipbuilding trade
in London — a 30-day voyage across the Atlantic.
Above, bottom to top: The Wilmington waterfront can be seen across the Cape Fear River as laborers pack barrels of naval stores
in 1892. Naval stores derived from longleaf pines, including tar, pitch, turpentine and rosin, were valuable exports shipped from
Wilmington. Barrels are loaded onto a three-masted schooner on the Brunswick County side of the Cape Fear River in 1900. Top: In
that time period, Oscar Andrew Durant managed the Old Brunswick and Ferry Company and started the ship chandler operation
that would later become O.E. Durant Company under his son’s direction. Durant also served Brunswick County as treasurer and then
county commissioner in the 1890s.
HISTORIC PHOTOS COURTESY OF NEW HANOVER COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY, NORTH CAROLINA ROOM
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WBM november 2020