James Allen Rose, Model Boats, Harkers Island

“James Allen Rose represents all that is good about Harkers Island,” says Karen Amspacher, director of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum. “His wit, his way with words, and his love for music blend with his craftsmanship of ‘little boats’ to exemplify the many rich traditions of this Island community.” Rose carved and traded hand-size boats with his schoolmates as a boy, but his skills grew as he went on to build working boats. He learned from the best of the Island’s tradition bearers, and today, without blueprints or formal education, Rose builds his small boats as he used to build the larger ones, “by the rack of the eye.” His miniature masterpieces tell a story of his community, where heritage continues to be a guidepost.

From the 1999 Core Sound Waterfowl Museum yearbook:

Down East is honored with another North Carolina Heritage Award
James Alan Rose - A Man of the Water
Model Boat Builder, Musician, Historian

James Allen Rose represents all that is good about Harkers Island. His wit, his way with words and his love for music blend with his craftsmanship of "little boats" to exemplify the many rich traditions of this Island community. For him, like most other Islanders, it all "comes naturally" on this place where "learning still comes from doing" at an early age.

James Allen is first a man of the water. On Harkers Island you had to be.

"Building boats was just the natural thing to do, being surrounded by water ... As far as the natives were concerned, it was just tradition. There was a time when it was all that anyone out here did. There would be a boat in every other yard with more than 300 boat builders operating in the region."
— James Allen Rose, 1998

This tradition of boat building was supported and maintained by the community of fishermen of which James Allen was also a part. He, like every other young man on Harkers Island, earned their first "real money" from fishing, where he learned what a "good boat" must be to serve its captain. At that time, boats were tools to help feed a family, a skill needed to survive on a small island where resources were plenty if a man was willing to work and learn.

Today, James Rose's "little boats" represent the much larger tradition of boat building for which Harkers Island is most famous. Even though as a child, James Allen would carve and trade hand-size boats with his schoolmates, his skills as a boat builder came from working with his father and in local boat houses with other noted boat builders like James and Earl Rose. However, his boat building career came mostly from his own backyard, where he would build boats up to 32-feet long under the shade of Harkers Island's famous oaks, staked in sand and seasoned by the same wind and weather it was built to withstand.

James Allen learned well and from the best of the Island's tradition bearers. Today, without blueprints or formal education, James Rose builds his small boats as he used to build the larger ones around him, "by the rack of the eye." He carries on his treasured tradition of boat making with pride and a deep understanding of its importance to his community's heritage, especially in light of the many changes taking place around him. James Allen stands true to his roots, learning to adapt without compromise, holding on to more than 100 years of tradition in one of the most rapidly growing and developing areas of North Carolina.

"James's contribution to the continuation and appreciation of folklife is simple and powerful. His life is the natural continuation of a genuine tradition. His people are people of the coast. For as many ancestors as he can count, all lived by the sea and their lives were connected to the water. He is part of a community, still intact, but threatened daily, that has followed this kind of life for generations."
—Michael Alford, NC Maritime Museum

James Rose represents those generations well, with a knowledge and satisfaction that though wooden boats may become outdated by more sophisticated and functional replicas, the value of the tradition is worth preserving. James's models allow those who want to share in the preservation of that tradition to do that through their knowledge of him as a person, as a boat builder and as part of a community where heritage continues to be a guidepost.

James Allen's contributions to the history of Harkers Island does not end with boat building. He, like many of his family and community, is an accomplished musician. This community's musical traditions, though not as well known or documented as its boat building abilities, have long been an active part of people's lives. Through church, school and neighborhood gatherings, music has held the spirit of Harkers Island people together in many ways. This too is a "natural talent," born in families and nurtured in a community of accomplished musicians, singers, songwriters and ballad singers.

James Allen mixes his love for music and his accomplishments as a guitarist with his great skill as a storyteller, to bring together a mixture of old and new, church and secular to portray a man of many talents, interests and experiences. His way of life is reflected in his way with words, speaking with his rich Harkers Island tongue, James Allen shares his life with all who will come and share with him. He always welcomes all who will join him, his cousin Tommie and others who regularly "get-together" in his home to sing and play. He and his group( whoever they might be at the time) are often invited to participate in local festivals and museum events where he is recognized and honored as one of the true native talents.

"What sets James Allen Rose apart is that he is the special kind of person who expresses those traditions, and projects them to the people he comes into contact with. Through his music, through his boats, through his daily conversations, through the way he smiles and welcomes you into his home, James conveys the spirit of a way of life that flourished in the seam between the richness and the harshness of the coastal environment ... When James Allen Rose talks about such things, as he does with anyone who comes to his little boat shop, it is with a sincerity and humility that reflect his love for people, his love of history, and his desire to pass things on to those who will listen."
— Michael Alford, NC Maritime Museum