Wrightsville Beach Museum

Discover beach living through the eyes of residents who called Wrightsville Beach home over a 100 years ago. The Wrightsville Beach Museum of History has preserved the history of the community for future generations.

An intricate scale model shares a 3D snapshot of what the area looked like in 1910. Looking for something both enjoyable and educational to do with the family on a rainy day? Give this coastal attraction a try.

No need to worry about working another expense into your budget, admission to the Wrightsville Beach Museum is free. Donations are accepted.

Long before Wrightsville Beach was officially a town, the area was frequented by fisherman and visitors seeking a sandy respite from the world. Formerly known as Ocean View Beach before becoming incorporated in 1899, cottages dotted the beach offering oceanfront views for vacationers.

http://www.wbmuseum.com

NC Battleship Memorial

Known as The Immortal Showboat, the USS North Carolina survived every major pacific naval offensive of World War II and earned 15 battle stars. The USS North Carolina Battleship was brought to Wilmington, NC and the Cape Fear River in 1961 by the citizens of NC as a memorial to all the men and women who served in WWII.

The self-guided tour includes an orientation film, crew’s quarters, galley, sick bay, engine room, pilot house, guns, Kingfisher float plan and more. The Battleship NORTH CAROLINA is open every day of the year, including all holidays, as the ship is a memorial.

Summer Hours: Open Every Day! (Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day) are 8 am – 8 pm. EXCEPT Independence Day when the ship closes at 6:00 pm to prepare for fireworks. Winter Hours (After Labor Day weekend through Thursday prior to Memorial Day weekend) 8:00 am – 5:00 pm, EXCEPT Christmas Day when the ship opens at noon. Admission is charged. 910-251-5797,

Airlie Gardens

While you are at Wrightsville Beach take a day trip to Airlie Gardens! The gardens are in all their glory right now and Garden Tours are available.

Generations of locals and tourists travel to the historic property with its beautiful azaleas, dogwoods, camellias and various annuals bring a splash of color to the waterside oaks and pines.

A 67-acre county park, Airlie Gardens garnered nationwide fame for its spectacular plantings, which at one time included more than 600,000 azalea bushes and more than 5,000 camellias.

The most famous couple to originally owned the property were J. Pembroke Jones, a wealthy rice trader, and wife Sarah (Sadie) Jones, who bought a 150-acre tract in 1886. They named their estate “Airlie,” after the ancestral Scottish home of Jones’ family.

After the Joneses’ deaths, the Airlie property passed to the Corbett family in 1948. Bertha and Waddell Corbett operated the gardens as a private tourist attraction for many years. In 1999, in cooperation with the N.C. Coastal Land Trust, New Hanover County acquired Airlie from the Corbetts at a cost of $10.5 million.

Attractions include the gigantic Airlie Oak, estimated to be more than 460 years old, the Pergola Fountain and plantings arranged to bloom year-round.

The property known as Airlie was part of a 640-acre land grant from King George II to the Ogden brothers in 1735; by the 1800s much of the original acreage had been transferred to Joshua Grainger Wright.
It was not until the arrival of Sarah Jones, wife of Pembroke Jones, that a formal garden was created. The Joneses were wealthy industrialists noted for their lavish entertaining.

They used Airlie as a means to accommodate their guests and parties.

Sarah Jones began planting the property in 1901 and later in 1906 commissioned German landscape architect Rudolf Topel to transform the tract into a picturesque garden. Airlie reached its peak during the 1920s, at which time it was reported that over a half million azaleas and 5,000 camellias were in the garden; many of these plants still bloom and thrive in the garden. The 67-acres of today’s Airlie are all that remain of the original 155-acre estate.
The Corbett Family purchased the Airlie property from the Joneses in 1948 and used the gardens as a primary residence. Local business owners with strong ties to the community, the Corbetts would open the garden to the public several seasons throughout the year, especially in the spring during azalea bloom. In 1999 the family sold the property to New Hanover County.

Today, Airlie is a local treasure as one of the last undeveloped land tracts along Bradley Creek. The gardens are undergoing restoration and are now preserved for public use.

Regular season hours at Airlie are 9 a.m.-5 p.m., seven days a week. During spring bloom season (April 3-May 17), the gardens stay open till 7 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Winter hours (Jan. 2-March 19) are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday.
Cost: Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children aged 6-12. Children younger than 6 are admitted free.

Spend An Unforgettable Day!

Come to Wrightsville Beach and take in some history at neaby Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson Historic Site and Orton Plantation. Read more

Ft. Fisher Hermit

Robert E. Harrill, known as the Fort Fisher Hermit, lived for 17 years under the stars, living off the land and visitors’ contributions. These visitors came by the thousands each year to meet “The Hermit.” A misnomer from almost the beginning, “The Hermit” treated anyone who came by with a warmth and friendly appreciation that was contagious.

The following is from Wikipedia:

Robert E. Harrill or Robert Harrell, (February 2, 1893 – June 3, 1972), was known as “The Fort Fisher Hermit”. He became a hermit in 1955 at the age of 62 after a string of unsuccessful and unsatisfying jobs and a failed marriage. Harrill hitchhiked to Fort Fisher on the North Carolina Coast from Morganton, North Carolina, a distance of 260 miles. He had been committed to a mental hospital in Morganton by his in-laws, after his wife, Katie Hamrick, left him and asked for a divorce. Harrill apparently walked away from the hospital or made a key from an old spoon and used the key to escape the facility.

Harrill becomes the Hermit
The name “The Fort Fisher Hermit” came from Fort Fisher State Recreation Area, where he settled after leaving the mental institution in Morganton. Soon after arriving at Fort Fisher, Robert Harrill was arrested as a vagrant and sent to his hometown of Shelby by the sheriff’s department with the help of the Traveler’s Aide society. He returned the following summer and set up a simple home in an abandoned World War II era bunker near the Cape Fear River along a salt marsh. He was able to gather much of the food that he needed from the salt marsh and the nearby oyster beds. Harrill learned many of his survival skills from Empy Hewitt, a true hermit, who also lived in the salt marshes of the Fort Fisher area.

The Fort Fisher Hermit was not a hermit in the truest sense of the word. A hermit (from the Greek ?????? ermos, signifying “desert”, “uninhabited”, hence “desert-dweller”) is a person who lives to some greater or lesser degree in seclusion and/or isolation from society. Harrill was far from isolated, and in fact had many visitors every year. His guest registry, a notebook held down by sea shells, recorded a total of over 100,000 visitors[2] from all fifty states and at least 20 foreign countries.

Harrill planted a vegetable garden to supplement his diet (what he grew and what he was able to gather in his surroundings). Visitors also provided the Fort Fisher Hermit with monetary donations that were placed in a frying pan that he left out for just such a purpose.

The Hermit becomes an attraction
Robert Harrill became the second greatest tourist attraction in the state of North Carolina, trailing only the USS North Carolina in number of visitors. Visitors to Carolina Beach, Kure Beach, Fort Fisher and Southport would routinely take time to visit the man living in the salt marshes. Many of them were simply curious, others were attracted to his wisdom and words, but others went out of their way to harass him or to try to steal his money. There were rumors that he had thousands of dollars hidden somewhere in his bunker. He was also arrested by the local authorities on charges of vagrancy. Each trip to court saw the Fort Fisher Hermit defending himself, most times successfully. A group of men who beat him up and stole his money were convicted on the strength of the hermit’s testimony against them, in a trial that saw the hermit serve as both lead prosecutor and star witness.

The Fort Fisher Hermit also attracted a large number of journalists to his bunker with his lifestyle and beliefs. He explained his popularity in the New Hanover Sun in 1968, ”
“
Everybody ought to be a hermit for a few minutes to an hour or so every 24 hours, to study, meditate, and commune with their creator…millions of people want to do just what I’m doing, but since it is much easier thought of than done, they subconsciously elect me to represent them, that’s why I’m successful…”

Robert Harrill greeted as many visitors as possible and agreed to pose with them in pictures for a small fee. The Hermit saw each visitor as an opportunity to spread his “common sense” beliefs.
Robert Harrill told his visitors that he was writing a book entitled “A Tyrant in Every Home”. His book was a byproduct of his previously stressful life: his mother and two brothers died of typhoid fever when he was a young boy, and his father remarried to a woman that Robert described as “the tyrant in my family. The Hermit’s troubled youth and equally troubling adulthood were the primary reasons that he “dropped out” of society nearly ten years before the hippie movement began in full force. Robert Harrill stated that he finally achieved the peace and happiness that he sought for so long. He enjoyed living with nature and said, “My life here goes up and down like the tides of this old sea out here… Only nature determines my existence.”

Death
The Fort Fisher Hermit died under “mysterious” circumstances in June 1972. His body was found by a group of teenage boys on an early Sunday morning. It was covered in sand, bloodied, covered in wounds and laid spread eagle on a pile of rubbish. Some people believed that he was killed by a group of rowdy rednecks, others believed that it was a prank gone horribly bad. The New Hanover County coroner ruled that the cause of death was a heart attack. Heart attack remains listed as the official cause of death and an official investigation into a possible murder has never been conducted.

Memorial and legacy
The story and legacy of Robert Harrill lives on today through the efforts of The Hermit Society, founded by Michael Edwards, Edward Harrill, Harry Warren, Gaile Welker and Vergie Harrill. The Fort Fisher Hermit Society was formed on February 2, 1993 (What would have been Robert’s 100th birthday) and has members in numerous states. The President and founder is Michael F. Edwards, currently of Satellite Beach, Florida. Since the passing of Edward Harrill, the son of the Hermit, members elected Fred Pickler, a former friend of the hermit, to fill the spot. In the spring of 2007, Pickler co-authored the book “Life and Times of the Fort Fisher Hermit, Through the Lens of Fred Pickler.”

The hermit bunker is still standing and can be reached from the Fort Fisher Hermit Trail at Fort Fisher State Recreation Area.

The Hermit Society and the “Friends of the Fort Fisher Hermit” work to continue telling his story and a film directed by Rob Hill, The Fort Fisher Hermit, was produced by Wilmington, North Carolina-based Common Sense Films partners Hill, Richard Sirianni and Scott R. Davis in 2004.

It has won numerous independent film making awards and airs on American Public Television on PBS. . The film was nominated for a 2007 Mid-South Regional Emmy Award.