Celebrating Old Beaufort & Down East
It's been almost 50 years since a class from Appalachian State University came to Carteret County (tape recorders in hand) to learn more about the history of Beaufort and Down East.
On May 19th, those voices are coming home!
The story of how this came to be brings together people from the mountains to the coast including researchers, archivists, librarians and teachers who believed then, and know now, the lasting importance of oral histories.
In 1977, Professor Pat Morgan brought a small group of students to explore Beaufort, stopping at the Beaufort Historic Site and the Maritime Museum. There they recorded Grayden Paul's tour of Beaufort and listened to raconteur Eugene Pond of Davis tell stories of his beloved Down East.
They talked with Beaufort Historical Society visionary Jean Kell and town leader Shirley Babcock. They talked for hours with Esther Valentine and Lena Duncan and others, including Fred Gillikin, famous USCG Veteran of Marshallberg. Now, 49 years later, these conversations honor the heritage each of these individuals shared.
How these recordings were discovered goes back to Shannon Adams' commitment and Carteret County Library's collaboration in digitizing decades of Carteret County News-Times. Luckily, the News-Times reported on the story in 1977, giving Shannon, a graduate of Appalachian State University with strong ties to the university, the opportunity to follow the story to Special Collections at ASU.
After several trips to ASU and many phone calls, the University and Core Sound gained approval to transfer these original recordings to the Museum's oral history archive.
What began as a personal mission to digitize the Carteret County News-Times from microfilm from the 1960s to the present day has led to something far greater than I ever imagined. While reviewing old editions in May 2025, I discovered that Appalachian State University students had visited Carteret County in 1977 to record oral histories from local figures. These recordings had been held in the university's Special Collections ever since. After months of collaboration with Appalachian State's archives team, those voices are finally coming home.
This project would not have been possible without the support of Dorothy Howell, Carteret County Public Library Director; Karen Amspacher, CSWM Executive Director; and the dedicated team at the Appalachian State University Special Collections Department.
-Shannon Adams
