Qualla: Carteret County, North Carolina

Carteret County, North Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Synnibang, CC BY-SA 4.0. Sixty-two percent of Carteret County is water. The county covers 1,330 square miles, but only 508 of those are land; the rest is sound, river, inlet, bay, ocean. That ratio explains almost everything: why the county seat is a working waterfront, why a Beaufort house once belonged to Blackbeard, why the place names read like a sailor's logbook. Carteret was created in 1722 as a precinct, became a county in 1739, and took its name from Sir George Carteret, one of the 17th-century English Lords Proprietor.

Image: Synnibang | CC BY-SA 4.0

Carteret County, North Carolina: The First English Birth

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit US Census, Ruhrfisch, Public domain. John Fulford was born in 1629 in what is now Carteret County, the first male of English parents born in the territory that became North Carolina. He settled near Beaufort and died in 1729, one hundred years old by the records of the time. An 1893 article in the New Bern Daily Jou...

Image: US Census, Ruhrfisch | Public domain

Carteret County, North Carolina: Blackbeard's Landlord

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rick Doble, CC BY-SA 4.0. William Dennis Sr., born 1720, was an extremely colorful landowner, Revolutionary War officer, and defender of the county. In 1747 he helped fend off Spanish pirates during the War of Jenkins' Ear. He served as a 2nd Major in the Carteret County Regiment during the Revolution. In...

Image: Rick Doble | CC BY-SA 4.0

Carteret County, North Carolina: The Lost Ballots

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Esstroud, CC BY 3.0. On November 2, 2004, a voting machine in Carteret County malfunctioned during early voting, losing 4,438 ballots. The number exceeded the lead Steve Troxler held over Britt Cobb in the statewide race for agriculture commissioner, which meant nobody could say who had actually won....

Image: Esstroud | CC BY 3.0

Carteret County, North Carolina: Marines and Marine Biologists

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DrStew82, CC BY-SA 4.0. The county is military country and science country at once. Marine Corps Auxiliary Landing Field Bogue covers 875 acres along Bogue Sound, the Corps's only East Coast site for Field Carrier Landing Practice. Outlying Field Atlantic trains pilots from up the road. The Coast Guard ...

Image: DrStew82 | CC BY-SA 4.0