Updated January 22, 2012.
The Emma K from Anne Jennings and Willard Jones. Perhaps taken in the canal at South Mills.
Comment - Brenda Twiford: Emma-K, Steamboat built in 1890 Glen Cove NY. The last passenger ship to ply the Dismal Swamp Canal.
Comment - Jane Brumley: Gary posed the question a day or so ago about travel from Knotts Island to Norfolk. The steamer Currituck, was completed in 1860. This was designed to travel the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal and it stopped at the Knotts Island Landing at the South end. The Currituck left Norfolk at 8 PM and arrived at Knotts Island next morning at 5AM. From Knotts Island it went on to Popular Branch. This was the last passenger boat and it ceased operation in 1931. Her last Captain was Ernest L. Ballance. His daugter, Love Ballance Etheridge, is a resident of Knotts Island. There were other vessels that traveled thru the waterway during the time of water travel. I believe one of the smaller ones was a steamer named Bonito. It would seem that with increased travel by roads the passenger steamers lost business to the automobile.
April 11,2010. Comment - Melinda Lukei. I checked with my Aunt Catherine "Kitty" (Caterine Williams Etheridge widow of Lionel Etheridge who was brother to Scott Etheridge, Larry's father) and she said the boat to Norfolk left late evening and got to Norfolk the next morning. Any one that wanted to go to Norfolk went but it was a long tiresome trip. It was mostly the grocery merchants, farmers with crops going to Market that used the boat. They stayed in Norfolk all day until late evening and then caught the boat back to Knotts Island and arrived the next morning.
May 17, 2010 Comment - Tunis Corbell: Shipping Produce and Wild Fowl. In my Grandfather's early days in Popular Branch, farm produce and wild fowl were shipped by schooner up the inland waterway to Norfolk and then trans-shipped to New York, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, etc. In my earliest days I remember the shallow draft steamer Comet running from Popular Branch, to Aydlett, Knotts Island, Munden Point, Va. And then to Norfolk. If I remember correctly, it ran twice a week. All our goods for the general stores were shipped on the return trips. I used to ride on the mule wagon with my father, Tunis Corbell, Sr. hauling sweet potatoes to the south end of Knotts Island for shipment to major ports up North. Mr Ottma Bonney ran the dock at the south end of Knotts Island near where the ferry docks are today.
May 17, 2010 Comment - Sandra McCarthy: Grandpa Bonney had a store at the South end so that when the boat came in loaded with goods the store was in a convenient location to receive them. He sold that store to buy the one near Munden's when the goods were no longer delivered by boat.
April 28,2010. Comment - Dorothy Hocutt: FOUND THIS NEWSPAPER ARTICLE WITH A PICTURE OF THE CURRITUCK PADDLE BOAT. SOME OF THE ARTICLE READS..... THE SUNDAY ADVANCE, MARCH 22 1970 THE CURRITUCK CARRIED FISH, POTATOES & PASSENGERS TO NORFOLK by; S.W. Parker, Poplar Branch, Currituck County In the good old days in Currituck County, the Advance stated, there was no transportation with the exception of the barge. Back in about 1900 we had a boat by the name of "Comet" which was about 100 feet long, which had upper deck and lower deck, upper deck for passengers, lower deck for freight. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, it would leave Poplar Branch in Currituck County about 7:00pm and dock at Munden,s Point, Virginia late in the night and the freight was transferred to a Norfolk & Southern freight car and early in the morning, the passengers would transfer to a passenger train and would land at the Union Station in Norfolk in a few minutes and would return to Munden's Point about night for a return trip to Poplar Branch. After that Bennett's N.C. Line with offices and warehouse in Norfolk decided to build a boat that would be suitable for Currituck Sound, where the water is very thinly spread. This boat was named "Currituck." The boat was 115 feet long. It had a flat bottom, stern paddle, lower and upper decks, the upper deck was for passengers and consisted of saloon, eight state rooms, dining and galley; pilot houses and state rooms for officers. I remember the lower births cost more than the upper births. The Currituck left Poplar Branch on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 6:00 pm. At Poplar Branch if a passenger wanted a state room he would have to go on Monday or Wednesday, as Friday was reserved for Knotts Island passengers. There was a merchant on Knotts Island by the name of Munden who had the same state room each Friday night! He went to Norfolk, Virginia to buy groceries for the next week; no salesman went to Knotts Island as it was an island at the time. I decided to go to Norfolk on a Friday night and there were so many passengers, I remember crawling under a table to keep from getting stepped on, using my coat for a pillow. The next morning after my coat had been pressed all night I was ready to go uptown - my face washed. No. We would leave Norfolk Sundays at 8:00 pm with our first stop Knotts Island, next stop Churches Island.
January 22, 2012. From the Junior Historian Assoc. Ledger-Star March 22, 1969.
August 21, 2010. The Undine, owned by the Bennett North Carolina Line, which provided freight and passenger service between Coinjock and Norfolk (Bryan 2006), sank after hitting a log opposite MacKay Island on the east side of North Landing River.
