Precursor to Bogue Banks Library:
The Bookmobile
In the
September 1973 issue of the Shore Line,
a brief note is made, reminding the readers that the Bookmobile would be
visiting once a month in Pine Knoll Shores, stopping on Wednesday morning from
10:30 to 11:15 a.m. It would park in
front of William and Nettie Murrill’s home on Yaupon Drive a few houses south
of Oakleaf. When first coming across this Bookmobile reference, I wondered if
the time listed was a misprint. How could 45 minutes per month accommodate the
reading interests of the community? A year later, the Bookmobile reminder
appeared again—the time clearly stated to be 45 minutes starting at 10:30 on
Wednesday at the Murrills’s home. (During the early years of Pine Knoll Shores,
homes did not have numbered street addresses. The reader was expected to know
where the Murrills lived. House numbers were not required until 1976.)
One of
the early Shore Line articles about
the Bookmobile included a list of other library facilities that were available
to readers. They included the Webb Library, the library at the Carteret
Technical Institute (now known as Carteret Community College) and the Carteret
County Public Library in Beaufort. Today, that list could be expanded to
include all the libraries of the Craven-Pamlico-Carteret Regional Library
system, the Pearse Memorial Library[i]
at the Duke Lab on Pivers Island, the Charles R. McNeill Maritime Library at the NC Maritime Museum, and the Jack Spencer Goodwin Research Library
at The History Place.
The
Bookmobile in 1973 was run by the Carteret Public Library and staffed by two
persons—a driver and a librarian. Searches to date have not identified when it started serving Bogue Banks. Perhaps, one
of our readers can provide that information. The service started in 1947 using a truck with side panels that opened displaying the books. That truck was replaced in 1959 with a Dodge panel truck that allowed inside display, so the patrons could be out of the weather. The Bookmobile pictured below entered service in1974 and served until 1989 when a new, larger vehicle started making the rouds. The service ended after
the vehicle was damaged beyond repair in an accident in the late 1999. It
edged off the side of a narrow road near Williston, caught a rut and crashed into a house. No one was seriously injured, but the vehicle was a total loss. The
library system lacked the funds to replace it. For a time, a station wagon was
employed to deliver books to remote parts of the county and to shut-ins. Most of these
deliveries were made to the Down-East area, a fact that provided some of the
evidence justifying a library facility in Otway. The Bookmobile service ended in 2001, like the county doctor and the bookmobile no longer make house calls.
History of Public Libraries in Carteret
County: Links to PKS
The
beginning of public libraries in Carteret County can be traced to the early
1900s. Unfortunately, these efforts were not sufficiently organized to be able
to benefit from the Carnegie Library Building Program. From 1883 to 1929, with
money donated by Scottish-American
businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie,
over 2,500 Carnegie libraries were built through the United States and hundreds
more overseas. The nation was on a library-building boom.
In 1933,
the Women’s Club of Morehead City established a small lending library,
originally housed in space at the old Municipal Building on the corner of Evans
and 8th.
 |
| Morehead City Municipal Building |
Mrs. Eva
Webb was a member of this club. Her husband, Earle W.
Webb Sr. started construction on a commercial building on the corner of Evans and
9th St. in Morehead City in 1929. This site was the location of his
childhood home. The building originally housed Dr. Ben Royal and Dr. Sam
Thompson, whose offices were on the first floor, and the second floor was
occupied by a Morehead City garment company and used as a training center. (Dr.
Ben Royal is no relation to John Royall, the owner of ¾ of Bogue Banks in the
early 20th century.)
In 1936, Mr. and Mrs. Earle Webb Sr.
announced they would remodel the Webb building and give it to the Morehead City
community as a memorial to their son, Earle Webb Jr., who died in 1932 while a
student at Duke University. In 1937, the Women’s Club lending library was moved
to the Webb Building. Today, The Webb Library contains over 13,500 volumes with
very nice collections on local history, local authors and subjects.
The source for much of this discussion
is a “Brief History of Earle Webb, Sr. and the Webb Memorial Library,” a
presentation to the Carteret County Historical Society in 2006. As part of the
credits section, “Nettie Murrill, a wonderful friend of the library” was
recognized. The same Nettie Murrill who was the host of the bookmobile in Pine
Knoll Shores. Nettie was born on June 3, 1911, in the Promise Land, a
neighborhood in Morehead City generally considered to extend from 12th
to 15th streets, from Evans St. south to Bogue Sound. In the early
1960s, she and her husband were among the first full-time residents in the
Roosevelt development on Bogue Banks. This development eventually became Pine
Knoll Shores. Nettie was a great supporter of libraries in all forms, a
recognized local historian and a keeper of the down-east/banker linguistic
traditions. "There must be a "blue million" ways to say things
southern," Miss Nettie Murrill once said.[ii]
There is another curious link between
Bogue Banks and the Webb Library. The land on the north shore of Bogue Sound
that Alice Hoffman purchased starting in 1923 to establish her dairy farm
operation adjoined property owned by Earle W. Webb. The chart below shows the
relationship of the various parcels and was prepared by Rivers &Associates
for the Roosevelts in 1953. In 1929, Earle and Eva Webb started construction on
a large vacation and retirement home on the parcel with Alice Hoffman as a
neighbor on both sides. The chart below identifies Alice hoffman's land as Roosevelt.
Will and Fannie Louise Webb, one of
Earle Webb’s brothers, had a house on the sound at 20th St. in
Morehead City. Fannie and Alice Hoffman were friends and had lunch at each
other’s house. We learned this story about Fannie and Alice from a 20th
Street neighbor who spent his summers in Morehead. This neighbor also attended
the auction at the Alice Hoffman house in 1954 after her death. He recalls a
nice collection of books being in the house.
The whereabouts or disposition of her collection is unknown.
Beaufort
Library: Precursor to Carteret-Craven-Pamlico Library District
The first library in Beaufort is thought
to have started about 1910-1911 in the old courthouse building—which had been
converted to use as a school after the new and current courthouse was built in
1906—located at the corner of Turner and Broad streets. Mrs. C. L. Stevens,
superintendent of Beaufort High School, organized the effort, and students
refurbished two rooms with stove heat and no electric lights. By the mid 1920s
this building no longer existed. There is no information available about what
happened to the library associated with the school.
The next mention of a library was in 1922,
when the Beaufort Community Club (known today as the Beaufort Women’s Club)
began the effort to form a library, which opened with a 120-volume collection
in an office of a store on Front St[iii].
This library moved many times, involving many dedicated members of the
community who saw it through financial difficulties common among libraries, but
over the years, it managed to serve the growing population. By 1940, it was
located in the Train Depot on Broad St., and in 1943, the Beaufort Library was
incorporated by the NC Secretary of State as the Carteret County Public
Library.
In 1962, the Carteret County Board of
Commissioners signed the contract merging the Carteret County Public Library
with the Craven-Pamlico Library forming the Craven-Pamlico-Carteret Regional
Library. Today, the Bogue
Banks Public Library is operated as a branch of the Carteret County Library and
is a member of the Craven-Pamlico-Carteret Regional Library District. Other
locations of the regional group can be found in Bayboro, Beaufort, Cove City,
Cape Carteret, Havelock, New Bern, Newport, Otway, and Vanceboro.
For the
story of the Bogue Banks Public Library from its formation in 1981 to the
present, see http://carteret.cpclib.org/bb/history/index.htm. The article covers organizational
and location changes, discusses the critical importance volunteers and The
Friends of the Library, and details the stormy weather that threatened the
library’s existence.