Monkey Island approaching from the west.
September 20, 2015.
From Jane Brumley.
The North Beach Sun · April 9, 2013
By Kip Tabb, Photos by CHELLEshots, Michelle Conner
"From there, the distance to Monkey Island is four miles, and the ride normally took about twenty minutes. We saw large rafts of coots, which are locally known as blue peters, in the middle of Currituck Sound feeding on milfoil. We also saw ducks and geese, which got the sportsman's blood up." Travis Morris in Duck Hunting on Currituck Sound.
Travis Morris is 81 years old, although if he
didn't tell you that, it would be hard to tell. He is a one man
operation at his Currituck Realty office up there in Coinjock. The
author of seven books on the history and life of Currituck County,
he is, if there is such a thing, the embodiment of the 20th
century of the county.
And, he was the last manager of the Monkey
Island Club.
Named for the Pamunkey Indians, who used it as
a hunting camp, the island is a jewel that sits in the middle of
Currituck Sound. About three miles north of the Currituck Beach
Light and a mile and a half from the Outer Banks, the remnants of
a clubhouse, manager's quarters and outbuildings are all that
remain giving way inexorably to decay and time.
Even overgrown with rotting tree stumps and
branches littering the ground and the steadily encroaching waters
of the Currituck Sound, there is a beauty that is breathtaking.
The island is no more than five or six feet above the surrounding
waters, yet there is a gentle slope to the shoreline and the view
is unobstructed in all directions.
Walking the island, memories of a different way
of life seem to seep through the earth, for at its heyday, the
Currituck hunting clubs were the playground of the richest and
most powerful figures of 19th and early 20th century America.
Before the modern tourist era of the Outer
Banks, the seasons were reversed and summer was the slow time of
the year, when farmers would tend their fields and just about the
time they got the harvest in, the first of the ducks and geese
would arrive, followed closely by the rich and elite of
Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York City or Washington, DC.
When the club closed its doors for the last
time in 1978, a chapter in the history of the Outer Banks closed
with it, for at one time the Monkey Island Club rivaled all the
hunt clubs as a place of wealth and privilege.
It was never as ornate or opulent as the
Whalehead Club, yet its membership represented some of the most
wealthy and powerful figures of its day.
It first became a private hunting club in 1869
when Travis Morris' great, great grandfather, Samuel McHorney,
sold the property for $15 to Norfolk investors. Sometime soon
after that, although no one is exactly sure when, a clubhouse was
built. The remnants still remain, and the fireplace in the main
room still looks as if it was cleaned out and the flue cleared it
could warm the room on an Outer Banks night.
It changed hands a number of times–probably
as an investment until a group of tobacco executives bought the
property in 1919 and incorporated the island and surrounding land
as the Monkey Island Hunting Club. The share price was $5000
around $67,000 in 2013 dollars.
These weren't just any tobacco executives,
though. They included George Hill, president of the American
Tobacco Company, and in 1927 his executive vice president, Charles
A. Penn who is largely credited with developing the Lucky Strike
brand of cigarettes bought into the club. There were other
investors as well. The Webb family from Norfolk owners of Old
Dominion Tobacco Company, now Atlantic Dominion Distributors, were
also early members.
The club’s reputation for isolation, beauty and
excellent hunting brought some remarkable personalities to the
clubhouse.
The names aren't well known now, but in his
day, Irvin Cobb was a prolific author, something like 125 books.
Mostly humor, he also was also an editor, and wrote a couple of
screen plays. There was Bob Davis, a very well-respected editor,
author and columnist for the New York Post, who wrote a column
called "Over My Left Shoulder". In fact, he and Cobb collaborated
on a number of books, which is why they were probably on Monkey
Island about the same time.
Then there was Roland Clark, perhaps the
pre-eminent wildlife artist of the mid 20th century. According to
legend, Clark didn't hunt, but rather sat in the blinds with a pen
and sketch pad.
Charles Penn bought out his partners in the
club in 1930 and although he died later that year, the club
remained in the Penn family until 1974 when the family sold the
property to the Monkey Island Investment Venture Corporation for
$3 million.
It was a short-lived venture. The nation was
mired in recession in 1975; there simply were not enough hunters
coming to Currituck to make a go of it and the Penn family was
forced to buy the property back. Finally in 1978, the Penn family
sold the property to the Nature Conservancy.
It was during this time that Travis Morris
managed the club.
Through agreements and management, Morris was
able to hunt from Penny's Hill north of the Village of Corolla to
Great Beach Pond on the Whalehead Property. "We had 40 some
blinds, Morris recalled. Wasn't like it was in the early years,
but it was good."
After the doors closed
After buying the property, the Nature
Conservancy donated the property to U.S. Fish and Wildlife (USFW),
and the island is now part of Currituck National Wildlife Refuge
and is administered by Mackay Island Wildlife Refuge.
Although now abandoned, Currituck County had a
chance to turn Monkey Island into a center for education in the
1990s.
In 1987 the county traded 54 acres of marshland
for the rights to the island. The only stipulation USFW put on the
transaction was that Monkey Island would be used for environmental
education. A few educational trips to the island occurred in the
first few years, but in 1990 the island was unsafe for use and
considerable maintenance was required. Although grants to repair
and upgrade the buildings and dock were offered, county officials,
concerned that ongoing maintenance would be too expensive, refused
the grants.
In 1998 Monkey Island reverted to USFW.
It would have been great if they could have
done that, Morris said. It would have been something nobody else
had.
The island is shrinking, the bulkheads that
protected the land from the waves of Currituck Sound no longer
exist and the waters are slowly encroaching on the shoreline. It
is not a pleasant or safe place to visit in the summer.
Cottonmouth snakes have the run of the grounds and there is
nothing to control them.
Yet birds still flock to Monkey Island. The
north end of the island has become a rookery, noted for the
extraordinary diversity of birds. And in the raucous cry of all
those birds is the tale of the Currituck Sound.
