Marvin Wyche Howard was born into a seafaring family on Ocracoke Island in 1897. With no more than a basic elementary education and an active and inquisitive mind he left the island at fifteen years old and secured a job with the US Army Corps of Engineers in Philadelphia. Marvin rose steadily in the Corps, becoming master of the 288-foot sea-going hydraulic hopper dredge, Manhattan. During World War II he took command of the dredge Chester Harding and, as commodore, led a fleet of armed merchant vessels across the Atlantic to England to dredge strategic channels in London and Liverpool. At Marvin’s retirement in 1951 he was feted as “the best dredge operator in America.”

Back home on Ocracoke Island Marvin immersed himself in his community and church. In 1954 he organized Ocracoke Boy scout Troop #290, at the time the only mounted boy scout troop in the country. He advocated for Ocracoke with local and state politicians and wrote letters to the editors of coastal North Carolina newspapers.  He also penned essays about his island community and his beloved Outer Banks ponies.

Although prone to sentimentalism and idealism, Marvin’s essays capture his love of his island home. On Friday, December 25, 1953, The Coastland Times (Manteo, NC) published a front-page article by Marvin, titled “Here I Build My Castle.” The paper’s introduction read, “A True and Loyal Son, and a Worshipper of the Happy Island of Ocracoke With Golden Words Pens A Saga of His People, and Their Glory; and of the Goodness of God to the Coastland. Let This Be a Sermon for All at This Christmastide.”

“Here I Build My Castle”
by Marvin Wyche Howard [slightly edited], 1953

While sailing the Seven Seas I read an article titled, “Were You Ever Homesick?” The article exemplified the deep affection many have who were forced to leave their home in pursuit of a livelihood, those who were instilled with love, honesty, integrity, thrift, loyalty, cleanliness and the love for “Home,” its surroundings and environment. Home was a place where one was always welcome in his neighbor’s house as in his own…where neighbors loved and cared for each other as though they were one big family… a place to go when one was sick or hurt, to have his sorrow or pain eased…where fathers and mothers were loved and respected…a real Home! where existed only love and kindness, that being cherished above all things worldly.

I can think of nothing more pathetic than seeing the island young men and old alike, each spring, start their migration northward to seek a job, for there was little work at Ocracoke. They left their mothers, fathers, wives and sweethearts, their families, each with their luggage and very few dollars in their pockets, to walk down the sandy roads before dawn in the cold, raw days of February and March, when the light of cottages from early risers shined bright and clear, down to the fishing wharves where the daily mail boat left at 4 a.m. Some of them would leave their family in sorrow, tears rolling down their cheeks, their hearts seemingly broken from grief. These men were going off! Away to the far north (Philadelphia or New York) to look for work, going where it was even colder than home, where if a job was found, they would remain for about eight or nine months, or until cold fall, when the icy blasts froze up the rivers of the great industrial north, or because of winter winds and cold, fishing ceased along the Atlantic seaboard.

These men and boys were uneducated and had to seek work on dredges or fishing craft where a room and board was provided in addition to wages. The pay was mostly about $30 per month for 12 to 15 hours daily work, or approximately 10 cents per hour. At the end of each season, when the rivers froze and the fishing ceased, they were laid off for lack of work. Then they would return Home.

If ever there was a heaven on earth, each fall as these men and boys returned to their loved ones and Home, this was heaven. They usually arrived in groups, on the mail boat, just about dusk, for the winter darkness comes early. Lights from the little cottages would be discernible, sparkling clear as stars on cold blue nights through the waving cedar, oak, myrtle, and yaupon. And the lights seemed to twinkle as the stars. A dim outline of the fishing boats tied to their individual stakes could be seen in the creeks. Ashore could be seen families waiting, the children waving in glee, gathered to greet the Home-comers.

As the boat landed and was secured to the dock the men and boys stepped off with their luggage and presents for loved ones. It was both a pleasant and sad spectacle, for the people were happy and joyful, yet tears streamed down the cheeks of many in sheer gladness. Each family would then take off for home. Practically hysterical from joy, they chattered like monkeys on their homeward trek, and as some had a mile or more to walk, it seemed they all tried to crowd a whole year’s conversation into a few minutes.

Once Home, tired and weary from the ride (sitting up on the old Norfolk and Southern Railroad, and the all-day ride on the crowded mail boat from Beaufort), they gathered once more around the family table to partake of clam chowder, oyster stew, fried chicken and all the specialties they could afford. Then they bowed their heads in solemn tribute and thanked God that once again this year’s trek was over, and they were Home!

Now times have changed, for no more do these migrations take place in spring and fall – but rather it is worse in its way, for in order to live they have found it necessary to remain away for years, ever yearning and praying that the opportunity might come when they may come back home to stay. Some do, some don’t, but those who have gained security for later life by pension or other means, mostly always come back in retirement. They rebuild the old home or build a new one, and arrange for their gardens, chickens, and ducks. They look out over the waters of Pamlico Sound, they watch the soaring gulls, the shearwaters as they scoop along, the rippling waters on cool clear days, the white caps of roughened waters on stormy days. They watch for the clammers, oystermen, and fishermen coming in Cockle Creek, weary and tired, watch them make fast their boats and walk homeward, their long boots heavy and their old clothes on their arms, wet.

These are old men now. After watching all the above, they sigh in contentment and say, I’m Home! Their eyes are not so keen and bright now as they shade them with their hands from the sun in the western sky. They falter in their steps as they trudge homeward, their body slightly bent from their struggles in life, but their hoary heads are lifted high, for their visions of younger days have come to pass and they say, I’m Home! Heaven on earth to me! Here I’ll stay, and then surely, I shall be put under this sand. From this God-given earth I spring. To it I must return. Here I build my Castle!

For more about Marvin Wyche Howard, see https://www.villagecraftsmen.com/marvin-howard-life-well-lived/