Record #:

22876

Author(s):

Kammerer, Roger

Abstract:

Shipbuilding always has been a minor industry in Eastern North Carolina compared to agriculture. The first vessel, built in 1776, was a twenty-five-ton sloop named "Peggy." Thirty years later, in 1807, Yankee Hall became Pitt County's center for shipbuilding. That year, the ninety-nine-ton brig "Minerva" was built there, followed in 1810 by the 153-ton-brig called the "Charleston Packet." It would not be until the Civil War that the next ship would be built at Pillsboro in 1860. The final ship apparently built in Pitt County was the fifteen-ton gas screw steamboat called the "Lillian" in 1904 constructed by the J.L. Fountain and Company. When this boat was finished, Pitt County lost one of its main supplementary industries.

Source:

Greenville Times / Pitt's Past (NC Microforms), Vol. Issue , Mar 1-14 1989, p18

Subject(s):

Shipbuilding--History--Pitt County