History for Lunch: Searching for Shell Castle: Exploring Submerged Histories on the North Carolina Coast

Anne Mitchell Whisnant, PhD, director of graduate liberal studies at Duke University, will introduce the history of Shell Castle Island. The island was a bustling site of homes and wharves from the 1780s to the 1810s. It served as a transfer point for cargo shipping in and out of coastal North Carolina through Ocracoke Inlet. North Carolina merchant John Gray Blount and Portsmouth pilot John Wallace owned and developed Shell Island, which was worked by dozens of African American people they enslaved. At its height, Shell Castle boasted numerous buildings, enterprises, and even a lighthouse. The owners marketed it internationally with 19th-century “swag”: creamware pitchers embossed with an image of the community—one of which is on display at the Museum of the Albemarle.