Outer Banks village homecoming set

No one has lived year-round in the island village of Portsmouth for decades, but Outer Banks history buffs don't consider it a ghost town.

"That upsets a lot of people," said Ed Burgess, head of The Friends of Portsmouth Island. "It's not a ghost village. It has been restored."

The village that once clung to a remote island in Carteret County will be bustling again during a homecoming April 19. As many as 400 people, some of them descendants of former residents, are expected to trek to the island for a day of singing and storytelling, and a re-enactment of a life-saving drill at the village's historic life-saving station.

The homecoming, sponsored by the Cape Lookout National Seashore and the friends support group, will provide a glimpse of bygone life in the village across Ocracoke Inlet from Ocracoke.

Before the Civil War, Portsmouth was a thriving port with more than 500 residents and 109 dwellings. But the population dropped to about 14 by the 1950s and to three by the 1970s. Three women who were the last full-time residents reluctantly moved off the island in the early 1970s after a male caretaker died.

Since 1976, the island has been part of the National Seashore, a 55-mile string of barrier islands. About two dozen buildings are intact.

Burgess said Portsmouth Island is unique because it avoided the development that altered other seashores.

"It will not be condominiums or a gated community," he said. "It's the way the Outer Banks used to be."

The seashore and friends group sponsor homecomings every two years. This year the gathering will show off the life-saving station built in 1894. The National Park Service restored the building after it was heavily damaged by Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

Re-enactors will demonstrate techniques the U.S. Life Saving Service used to rescue people from shipwrecks. Activities will include hymn singing in the small Portsmouth Methodist Church and dinner on the grounds. The village post office will offer a one-day-only special "Portsmouth" stamp cancellation. Most of the island's historic buildings will be open to the public.

Sponsors encourage visitors to bring food and drink for the dinner. They also encourage people to make plans early because the remote island is accessible only by boat or ferry.

"You just don't get in your car and come riding out there," said Burgess, who lives in Alamance County.

He and his wife are volunteers with the park service who stay in a former kitchen near the life-saving station a few weeks during the summer tourist season.

Passenger ferries from Ocracoke begin at 7:30 a.m. The homecoming program begins at 10:30 a.m., and the drill begins at 12:30 p.m.

In case of inclement weather, the homecoming will be held at 10:30 a.m. at the Assembly of God Church on Ocracoke.

For more information, contact Richard Meissner at Cape Lookout National Seashore, (252) 728-2250, ext. 3008.