The Hyde County Historical & Genealogical Society’s fall meeting, held at the Mt. Olive Church of Christ in Ponzer, was attended by 90 people who came to hear Dr. Lewis Forrest, executive director of the Mattamuskeet Foundation, speak about the schooner Star, a Beaufort County trading vessel built in Hyde County in 1842.

Captain David Gaskell ran the Union blockade in the Pamlico Sound on returning from the West Indies in 1862 and the schooner was later burned to the waterline and allowed to sink in the Pungo River. The Mattamuskeet Foundation sponsored underwater archaeological investigations in 2001, 2002 and 2003 to confirm the oral history and document remains. Following the 2003 dive, ECU graduate student Travis Snyder wrote his master’s thesis on the Star, comprehensively documenting her twenty-year history, including a list of owners and masters. A copy of the thesis is a part of the historical research materials section at the Mattamuskeet School library.

The fall issue of the society’s journal High Tides has an article about the Star as well as an article about Stonewall Jackson and two Hyde County soldiers, among other articles. Copies are available at R.S. Spencer, Inc. in Engelhard. For information, call 252-542-0000 or go to the society’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/HydeCountyHistoricalAndGenealogicalSociety/ or http://www.ncgenweb.us/hyde/HYDE.HTM.

The mission of the society is to preserve and record the history of Hyde County and its people. Anyone interested in the history of Hyde County can contact the society at PO Box 517, Engelhard, NC 27824.

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