Cape Fear Lost

Progress is a contradictory term, one that inherently means an improvement of luxury and an advancement of technology, yet usually at the expense of a community's identity, traditions, and history. Though many buildings survived Civil War skirmishes and Northern occupation during Reconstruction, these same structures did not escape the plans of ambitious entrepreneurs and thus disappeared from Wilmingtone(tm)s landscape, only to be replaced, over time, by shopping plazas and nationally recognizable commercial facades. Cape Fear Lost celebrates places that have vanished from presentday Wilmington. In this volume of more than 200 photographs, you will be able to explore the Wilmington of a bygone era, one punctuated by unpaved tree-lined streets and architecturally diverse dwellings. As you thumb through these pages, you will experience firsthand the beauty of many former mansions scattered throughout the downtown area, familiar churches, civic buildings and schools that once dotted the cityscape, the many businesses that utilized the pedestrian, horse-and-wagon, and shipping traffic along Market Street, and the transformation of Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach from humble summer bungalows into major tourist retreats. These varied scenes allow you an extraordinary insight into this coastal communitye(tm)s changing character over the past century and a half.

Progress is a contradictory term, one that inherently means an improvement of luxury and an advancement of technology, yet usually at the expense of a community's identity, traditions, and history. Though many buildings survived Civil War skirmishes and Northern occupation during Reconstruction, these same structures did not escape the plans of ambitious entrepreneurs and thus disappeared from Wilmington's landscape, only to be replaced, over time, by shopping plazas and nationally recognizable commercial facades. Cape Fear Lost celebrates places that have vanished from presentday Wilmington. In this volume of more than 200 photographs, you will be able to explore the Wilmington of a bygone era, one punctuated by unpaved tree-lined streets and architecturally diverse dwellings. As you thumb through these pages, you will experience firsthand the beauty of many former mansions scattered throughout the downtown area, familiar churches, civic buildings and schools that once dotted the cityscape, the many businesses that utilized the pedestrian, horse-and-wagon, and shipping traffic along Market Street, and the transformation of Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach from humble summer bungalows into major tourist retreats. These varied scenes allow you an extraordinary insight into this coastal community's changing character over the past century and a half.

From aerial survey to zoology, Part I of this two-part encyclopedia covers all aspects of underwater archeology, treasure hunting and salvaging. For example, entries are included for different types of artifacts, notable treasure hunters, the various salvaging equipment, and techniques in mapping and excavating. Part II covers the shipwrecks themselves, dividing them into 13 geographical categories. Beginning with the northernmost category (Canada) and ending with the southernmost (South America), every known shipwreck--both identified and unidentified--receives an entry in alphabetical order under its appropriate geographical category. Entries are by name, such as Andrea Gail, Titanic, and Queen Ann's Revenge. Unidentified is used when a shipwreck's name remains unknown. Entries give the nationality (e.g., Spanish, British, American), type (schooner, frigate, brig are three), function (examples: slave transportation, piracy, fishing), location and history of the shipwreck.

In Cape Fear Beaches, with more than 200 rare, black-and-white photographs, you will step back into affectionate memory, when early residents slept in hammocks in precarious beach shacks, when grand buildings, such as Lumina and the Oceanic Hotel, dotted the beachscape, when road repair meant a shovelful of oyster shells to mend a pothole, and when bathing suits left almost everything to the imagination. This volume also recounts the black community's experiences along these beaches, primarily at Seabreeze and Shell Island, and shares their personal stories and triumphs in a changing social scene, in which Reconstruction values slowly gave way to Civil Rights-era equality. Throughout the book, scenes of proud fishermen, both amateur and professional, with their daily catches, snapshots of family picnics on the beach, and photographs of friends posed with the ocean as a backdrop remind us that at the beach, the pace of life is measured not by the hands of a clock, but by the steady, changing tides.

More than 6,000 ships have met their doom in the waters along the North Carolina coast, weaving a rich history of tragedy, drama, and heroics along these picturesque beaches. Men have lost their lives and fortunes, and heroes have been made where the combination of mixing currents, treacherous coastline and shifting underwater sandbars spells disaster for even the most seasoned sailor. These are the stories of daring rescues, tragic failures, enduring mysteries, buried treasure, and fascinating legends.

 When Governor John White sailed for England from Roanoke Island in August 1587, he left behind more than 100 men, women and children. They were never seen again by Europeans. For more than four centuries the fate of the Roanoke colony has remained a mystery, despite the many attempts to construct a satisfactory, convincing explanation. New research suggests that all past and present theories are based upon a series of erroneous assumptions that have persisted for centuries. Through a close examination of the early accounts, previously unknown or unexamined documents, and native Algonquian oral tradition, this book deconstructs the traditional theories. What emerges is a fresh narrative of the ultimate fate of the Lost Colony.