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| Rivers&Assoc survey of Roosevelt Property, 1955 |
They hired the firm of Stone & Webster to assist them in developing
an environmentally sensitive use for the property while maintaining its natural
beauty. The concept that evolved called
for selling the mainland property and focusing on Bogue Banks. The early
recorded plats had the western part set aside for future development, a 1,000-foot
oceanfront lot set aside for each of the family members, and a small
residential development consisting of a half dozen roads on the eastern end of
the property where the Roosevelts planned to sell lots to test the market.
As these first roads we’re being sketched out at a meeting in the New
York offices of Stone & Webster (S&W), the question could well have
arisen: What shall we call this place?
Peter Rempe was in attendance at one of those early planning meetings at
S&W in 1954 and claims he suggested the name that was finally selected. [i] Neither
the options considered nor the logic applied to the selection process was
recorded, so we are left to ponder what could have been discussed.
A common source of place names is a surname associated with the land. Several
surnames were possibilities for what became Pine Knoll Shores. The first
recorded European to sail the area and mention it in his notes was Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524, but his name was
lost to history. Initially, when the Roosevelts assumed ownership, the land locally
was referred to as The Roosevelt
Property. It would have been easy to continue using the family name as plans
developed, but that did not happen. In the late 40s, the Roosevelts assisted
their Aunt Alice in setting up Hoffman
Beach, a development on the western part of the property, but they chose not to
expand the use of her surname perhaps because a town named Hoffman, established
in the 1870s, already existed in North Carolina, in Richmond County.
Other surnames they could have considered were settlers who preceded
Alice Hoffman. Royall may have been
a good choice since, before Alice Hoffman purchased her land, three quarters of
Bogue Banks was owned by John A. Royall
of Booth Bay Maine, but she also bought Bogue Banks property from the Lowenberg Brothers, S.P. Hancock, and the Crescent Land Co. During several decades of the early 1800s, the Meginnis or Maginnis family lived on
the land and appeared in census records. A variation of that name, McGinnis,
was used for one of the Roosevelt Property’s subdivisions. In 1909, Oscar Kissam started selling lots on Bogue
Banks to his associates on Long Island. If any of these names were considered,
they were finally rejected.
Reusing existing names from other places is often employed to name a
place, a name reminiscent of where the new occupants came from. The Roosevelt
family homes were in Oyster Bay, NY.
Teddy Roosevelt’s home was called Sagamore
Hill. There’s no indication either of these was considered. As a nod to Aunt
Alice’s admiration for France, the Roosevelts could have given the name a
French cast—Bois de Bogue (Bogue
Woods).
What the locals called the location would be another source to consider.
One obvious name would be Bogue Banks,
a name selected by the U.S. Government in 1918 when an official US Post Office
was established at Alice Hoffman’s house. Bogue Banks, of course, was already
the name of the entire island. Another well established and documented local name
was Hoop Pole Woods. It appears in
news articles and maps from 1800 forward.
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| US Army map 1946, updated 1956, Sheet 5663 III |
There were variations of the name: Hoop Pole Creek, Landing, and Point. Another local name appears on the above map
near the dashed line roads—Willis
Landing.
Maps from the 1700s referred to the area as Sanford Island or Borg Island
and Borden Banks. A newspaper
article from 1890 mentions parts of Bogue Banks as Piney Woods. An Army map from early 1940 refers to Pine Wood Shores. Could this have morphed
into Pine Knoll Shores?
But, there were other choices as well. Oscar Kissam called his
development on Bogue Banks Aibonito,
named for a battle in Peurto Rico during the Spanish-American War. John Royall
called his property Isle of Pines, a
name that was constantly in the news during the early 1900s due to a dispute
between the United States and Cuba over the ownership of a Caribbean Island by
that name. Alice Hoffman called her home Shore
House, and, at times, she called her dairy operations Pine Grove Farm.
Another local name was Salter
Path. A name recognized through the county as early as 1890 as a community
of families on the Banks who depended on the sea for their livelihood. This
community was within the boundaries of the Roosevelt property. The Roosevelts
could have elected to expand the use of that name for their entire development,
but Salter Path already had a character that set it apart.
Local landmarks and feature also offer the building blocks of a name. A
1902 navigation chart names the slough behind Town Hall as Alligator Gut and White Ash Swamp.
Names that appear on early maps and charts include: Frost Point, Yaupon
Point, Sage Path, Glover’s Point, Oglesby Path, Piney Point, and Rock Point.
Another approach to naming is based on physical attributes of the
location. Notable items associated with this area are: maritime forests, wind-swept Live
Oak trees, tall pines, dunes, ridges, hummocks, knolls, wetlands, sandy beaches,
herons, egrets, ibis, gulls, sea turtles, dolphins. Think
of the possibilities.
In the end, the Roosevelts chose not to go with a person name or
location identifier or a formerly used name. Instead, they combined several generic
attributes.
The name they chose captures the defining uniqueness of the area. There
certainly are pines as well as other trees; the dunes and ridgelines could
appear as knolls, and both ocean and sound shores border the town. Some may
feel the name lacks grandeur and historic substance, but it embodies the strong
sense of stewardship – the legacy of Teddy Roosevelt and their Aunt Alice.
Even after the name was selected, confusion existed before it was
established, as evidenced below.
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| Tourist map from mid 1950s showing Pinewood Knoll |
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| Hill's Directory, 1958, Carteret County, NC |
In deciding on a name that included the word Pine the developers took on the challenge of formulating a name
that includes the most frequently used word in the lexicon of town names in
North Carolina. Pine is part of 94
place names in the Tar Heel State. In a way, this seems fitting being that the
tar referred to, along with pitch and turpentine, is created from the vast pine forests and represented some of the most
important exports early in the state's history. The name list starts with Pine
Crest and ends with Piney Woods, and includes many three-word names – Pine Dale
Manor, Pine Forest Acres, Pine Hurst Park, Pine Log Village, Pine Mountain
Lakes, Pine Shore Lakes, Piney Forest Crossroads, and Pine Grove Landing.
Given the many name options mentioned in this
piece, if you were at the meeting in 1954 in the offices of Stone &
Webster, what would you have suggested?
Author: Walt Zaenker, revised 9/28/2016
To contact author or
the History Committee