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Processed by Kim Cumber, April 2008

Encoded by Kim Cumber, April 2008

Swan Island is located in Currituck County, NC, in Currituck Sound, near the more well known Knott's Island.

In the nineteenth century, northern businessmen discovered the wealth of wild birds in this area and began buying up tracts of the marshes and small islands in the sound to construct hunt clubs. Hunters from New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey would come in the winter months down to Currituck to these clubs to hunt and fish. Local residents served as caretakers, servants, and guides, providing them with a sorely needed source of income.

The Swan Island Club is a guided duck hunting club and was established in 1872. According to tradition, a group of seven sportsmen sailing from Boston to Florida ran aground at Swan Island. They were so enamoured with the wildfowl hunting opportunities on Swan Island that they did not continue on to Florida. They enjoyed the hunting there so much that they returned and built a clubhouse on the island which became the Swan Island Club. Each year the members elected one of their number as president to oversee the club's operations. As the years went by, older members left their memberships to younger men along with their guns and decoys. Today the Swan Island Club is still a popular private club and is a favorite winter travel destination to notable artist/painter Bob Timberlake, among others.

More information on the Swan Island Club can be found in  Arts in Earnest: North Carolina Folklife by Daniel W. Patterson and Charles Zug, p.37,  Wildfowl Traditions of the Past chapter (Duke University Press. 1989).

[Identification of item], PhC.129, Swan Island Club Photograph Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC, USA.

Donated to the State Archives of North Carolina April 2008 by Richard Casabianca of Southampton, NY. Before he acquired them, the photos belonged to a Mr. Leverett Squires of Good Ground, NY (now Hampton Bays, Long Island, NY).

Additional information on topics found in this collection may be found in the Manuscript and Archives Reference System (MARS)  http://www.ncarchives.dcr.state.nc.us.

Card photographs of the Swan Island Club, Currituck County, N.C., c. 1890-1900, depicting the dock, what appear to be people on the dock, boats in the water, a picket fence, and some decoy houses, as well as the overall exterior of the Swan Island Club building and surrounding buildings and landscape.