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Updated November 23, 2013.

February 20, 2012. From the Heritage of Currituck County 1670-1985.
Article by Margaret Dowdy.

Dr. George Carrie was the first doctor to practice medicine in the early part of the l900’s on Knotts Island. Dr. Carrie came with his wife and two step-sons. He and Mrs. Carrie had one daughter named Catherine. Katie, as she was called, ate an apple in her teen years and died very suddenly at age 20. The first doctor was a community doctor. Every family on Knotts Island paid him about $1.50 per month for medical services rendered. Dr. Carrie died in October 1908 at age 51. He did not practice medicine the last few years he lived. He had bad health himself. He and his daughter are buried in the Knotts Island Cemetery.

Dr. Julian Maynard came to Knotts Island in 1909 or 1910. He came from Durham, North Carolina, He stayed about 7 or 8 years. He did have a daughter named Elsie and a son named Julian; ages not known.

Dr. Maynard had no personal possessions when he came to Knotts Island. He did not even have a change of clothing. Mr. Curtis Fentress loaned him a used bicycle to get around with. He later got a horse and buggy. Sometime after that, he purchased a Model T Ford, which was the first automobile that came on the Island (that was owned by a local resident).

Dr. Julian Maynard and his wife, Myra, left Knotts Island in 1917. They went to Wadesboro, North Carolina where Dr. Maynard practiced medicine. While living in Wadesboro, he committed suicide.

Dr. Maynard’s son, Julian Maynard Jr., attended the University of North Carolina. He was drafted by the U.S. Government sometime soon after college. He was stationed at Langley Air Force Base, Newport News, Virginia as an aeronautic engineer.

Dr. Maynard's daughter, Elsie, married twice. She had a daughter, Cycilia, by her first marriage. She later married Stanley Dickerson from New Jersey. They lived on Cape Cod where Elsie was affiliated with the Audubon Society.

Mrs. Myra Maynard lived with her son, at Newport News, Va., for a while after Dr. Maynard’s death. She then went to live with her sister, Banty Kiker, in Ashboro, North Carolina who was ill, and later went to live in the Naples Florida area.

Dr. Gatlin (given name not remembered) came to Knotts Island around 1918-1919 during the great Flu epidemic. He had no medication with him. He went to Mr. Ed Munden's store and bought all the patent medicine he had. He asked Mr. Munden to order him a brown tonic mixture (name not known) and quinine to administer to the flu patients. After he received that medicine, it is believed he never lost another patient.

He stayed on the Island about 10 years. He left in the late 1920's. He came to Knotts Island from Norfolk, Virginia, out of the United States Army. He left Knotts Island and went to Baltimore, Maryland.

His wife was named Lucy. They had two children, a son and a daughter. While living here his wife became afraid of him, as he had gone on drugs. She took the children and left the Island. She placed them in a home and got a job working there to support them.

Dr. Gatlin's mother lived with her two sons in Brambleton, that area was then a nice part of town. She had come to Norfolk, Virginia from overseas. The country she came from is not known.

November 23, 2013. Comment Rod Gatlin:

He was my grandfather and a country doctor from Vanceboro, NC. He lived and worked on Knotts Island in the 1920s. I have read that he was there during the great Flu epidemic and saved many lives during that time.
    Oscar Andrew Gatlin graduated from the University of Maryland in 1910. He and his wife Lucy were both from Vanceboro, NC. They had 5 children, of which my father was the oldest - Oscar A. Gatlin, Jr. I do not know exactly how long they lived on Knotts Island, but Lucy left Oscar while they were there. She moved to Charlotte, NC with all the children.
    I believe Dr. Oscar Gatlin died in New Bern, NC in 1941.

Sources; Mrs. Arilla Bowden, Mr. Herman Jones, Mrs. Paulien Munden, Mrs. Ada Waterfield, and Mrs. Grace Williams. (This information was gathered/compiled by Mrs. Irma W. White.) These people are residents of Knotts Island.