Albemarle Sound
Encyclopedia
Estuary
An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
on the coast of North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
located at the confluence of a group of rivers, including the Chowan
Chowan River
The Chowan River is a blackwater river formed with the merging of Virginia's Blackwater and Nottoway rivers near the stateline between Virginia and North Carolina. According to the USGS a variant name is Choan River....
and Roanoke
Roanoke River
The Roanoke River is a river in southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina in the United States, 410 mi long. A major river of the southeastern United States, it drains a largely rural area of the coastal plain from the eastern edge of the Appalachian Mountains southeast across the Piedmont...
. It is separated from the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
by the Outer Banks
Outer Banks
The Outer Banks is a 200-mile long string of narrow barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, beginning in the southeastern corner of Virginia Beach on the east coast of the United States....
, a long barrier peninsula upon which the town of Kitty Hawk
Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
Kitty Hawk is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 3,000 at the 2000 census. It was established in the early 18th century as Chickahawk....
is located, at the eastern edge of the sound. Roanoke Island
Roanoke Island
Roanoke Island is an island in Dare County near the coast of North Carolina, United States. It was named after the historical Roanoke Carolina Algonquian people who inhabited the area in the 16th century at the time of English exploration....
is situated at the southeastern corner of the sound, where it connects to Pamlico Sound
Pamlico Sound
Pamlico Sound in North Carolina, is the largest lagoon along the U.S. East Coast, being long and 24 to 48 km wide. It is a body of water separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Outer Banks, a row of low, sandy barrier islands, including Cape Hatteras. The Neuse and Pamlico rivers flow in...
. Much of the water in the Albemarle Sound is brackish or fresh, as opposed to the saltwater of the ocean, as a result of river water pouring into the sound.
Some small portions of the Albemarle have been given their own "sound" names to distinguish these bodies of water from other parts of the large estuary. The Croatan Sound
Croatan Sound
Croatan Sound is an inlet in Dare County, North Carolina. It connects Pamlico Sound with Albemarle Sound, and is bordered to the east by Roanoke Island; Roanoke Sound is on the other side of the island. Its name comes from the Croatan Indians who once inhabited the area.The Croatan Sound is crossed...
, for instance, lies between mainland Dare County
Dare County, North Carolina
-National protected areas:* Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge * Cape Hatteras National Seashore * Fort Raleigh National Historic Site* Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge* Wright Brothers National Memorial-Demographics:...
and Roanoke Island. The eastern shore of the island to the Outer Banks is commonly referred to as the Roanoke Sound
Roanoke Sound
The Roanoke Sound is a sound that separates Roanoke Island from Bodie Island of the Outer Banks. To the north of the Roanoke Sound lies the Albemarle Sound and to the south lies the Pamlico Sound. One bridge, which carries U.S. Highway 64, crosses the sound....
. The long stretch of water from near the Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
state line south to around the Currituck County
Currituck County, North Carolina
-National protected areas:*Currituck National Wildlife Refuge*Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge -Demographics:As of the census of 2010, there were 23,547 people, 6,902 households, and 5,204 families residing in the county. The population density was 70 people per square mile . There were...
southern boundary is known as the Currituck Sound
Currituck Sound
Currituck Sound is a protected inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northeastern part of North Carolina. Thirty miles N-S and 3–8 miles wide, this shallow, island-filled sound is separated from the ocean by Bodie Island, part of the Outer Banks...
.
The sound
Sound (geography)
In geography a sound or seaway is a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight and wider than a fjord; or it may be defined as a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land ....
forms part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Its coast saw the first permanent English settlements in what became North Carolina, the Albemarle Settlements
Albemarle Settlements
The Albemarle Settlements were the first permanent English settlements in what is now North Carolina, founded in the Albemarle Sound and Roanoke River regions, beginning about the middle of the 17th century. The settlers were mainly Virginians migrating south...
. Many inland tidewater
Tidewater
Tidewater may refer to:*Tidewater , a geographic area of southeast Virginia and northeast North Carolina*Tidewater , a company providing marine services to the offshore petroleum industry...
communities along the Albemarle today are part of the Inner Banks
Inner Banks
The Inner Banks is a term used by some to describe the inland coastal region of eastern North Carolina, an area on the East Coast of the United States that is 22,227 square-miles by its broadest definition...
region of the state.
History
Before Europeans came to the Albemarle Sound, the AlgonquianAlgonquian peoples
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
Indians lived in the region. They traveled the sound in dugout canoes, and trapped fish.
In 1586 the first European explorers sailed up the fifty-five mile (90 km) length of the Albemarle Sound. Half a century later, the first European settlers came south from Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, establishing agricultural and trading colonies along the shores of the Sound. The Albemarle Sound soon became a very important thoroughfare, with small trading ships called Coasters carrying cargo to and from other colonies, and larger merchant ships bringing spices, silks, and sugars from the West Indies in exchange for products such as tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
(a major export of the southern colonies), herring
Herring
Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...
, and lumber.
In 1663, Albemarle Sound was made part of the Province of Carolina
Province of Carolina
The Province of Carolina, originally chartered in 1629, was an English and later British colony of North America. Because the original Heath charter was unrealized and was ruled invalid, a new charter was issued to a group of eight English noblemen, the Lords Proprietors, in 1663...
by King Charles II of England and given to eight Lords Proprietor
Lords Proprietor
Lords Proprietor was the name for the chief or highest owners or proprietors of certain English proprietary colonies in America, such as Carolina, New Jersey and Barbados....
s. One of these royal beneficiaries was George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle
George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle
George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, KG was an English soldier and politician and a key figure in the restoration of Charles II.-Early life and career:...
, for whom the sound is named.
Ferries were a common method of transportation through the swamps surrounding the Albemarle Sound throughout the history of the region. One ferry that linked the towns of Edenton and Mackeys, North Carolina
Mackeys, North Carolina
Mackeys is a community in Washington County, North Carolina, United States. Mackeys is located in North Carolina's Inner Banks regions and is located at the mouth of the Mackeys Creek on the south side of the Albemarle Sound.-Geography:...
, continued in service from 1734 to 1938, when a bridge was built across the Sound. Another longer bridge of more than 3 miles (5 km) in length was built in 1990.
Fishing was a major industry in the Albemarle Sound. In late spring, plantation farmers would fish for shad
Shad
The shads or river herrings comprise the genus Alosa, fish related to herring in the family Clupeidae. They are distinct from others in that family by having a deeper body and spawning in rivers. The several species frequent different areas on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea....
, striped bass
Striped bass
The striped bass is the state fish of Maryland, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and the state saltwater fish of New York, Virginia, and New Hampshire...
, and herring
Herring
Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...
. Nets used by these fishermen were sometimes enormous, with some more than a mile (1600 m) long, and were frequently manned 24 hours a day. Herring was cut and salted for export to Europe, while shad was packed in ice and shipped up the Chowan River
Chowan River
The Chowan River is a blackwater river formed with the merging of Virginia's Blackwater and Nottoway rivers near the stateline between Virginia and North Carolina. According to the USGS a variant name is Choan River....
to be sold in northern colonies. Regional striped bass tournaments attracted sport fishermen to the area, and it was considered by many to be the greatest striped bass fishery in the world.
Overfishing in recent years has depleted the fisheries of the Albemarle Sound by seventy percent.