The place, quite frankly, is so gorgeous – quaint homes and businesses and waterfront vistas so stunning that one local realtor says the sunsets over White Oak River are as beautiful as those in Key West – that you’d want to visit even if there was nothing to do but look around.

Just drive into town on a clear day when the sun is glistening off the dappled river and the almost constant gentle breeze is rippling the green sea grass beds, and boats of all sizes and shapes are puttering about; it’s all you can do not to stop on the bridge, traffic be damned. If there’s a prettier spot in coastal North Carolina than the NC 24 bridge over the White Oak, it might not be healthy to see it. It’s like my Dad once told me about Hawaii: “I’ll never go there, because I know if I did, I’d never leave.”

But the sense of history in Swansboro is so pervasive – the town’s colonial roots and regard for them so intriguing and so obvious – that if you spent only a day there, you could, with little trouble, stay busily engaged without even noticing how darn beautiful it is.

Throw in the fact that the town has a creative business and promotional community that has spawned some of the coolest events you can imagine – a Memorial Day weekend blue water fishing tournament, the Arts By the Sea and Storytelling Festival in June, the Mullet Festival in October and a Christmas Flotilla and a Candlelight Shopping night in December – and this little town of only a couple thousand residents is as good at luring visitors and prospective residents as the aforementioned mullet is at luring bigger fish to the hook at the end of an angler’s line.

Just walk into any shop or restaurant in Swansboro, randomly pick any customer, and listen to him or her gush about the place.

“We’ve been coming here for 13 years and we just love it,” said Ruenell Stewart, a 60-something resident of Jamestown, near Greensboro, 225 miles away in North Carolina’s Piedmont. “We were going to retire here, but my husband had a stroke and we decided to stay where our doctors are. But we still might do it. I’d rather be here than anywhere else."

“The town is just beautiful. It’s so quaint, and the weather is wonderful, even in the middle of the winter. The people are so friendly and everyone makes you feel so at home. And there’s so much to do. We always do the Christmas candlelight shopping – they block off the streets! – and we come every year for the Christmas flotilla. Those boats are so pretty, all decorated and lit up on the river.”

A Town with Deep Roots

Once the site of an Indian village, Swansboro’s lineage traces back to around 1730, when Jonathon and Gracie Green established a settlement. Approximately 10 years later Theophilus Weeks, a prominent landowner, divided a portion of his plantation into 48 lots with six streets and developed his Colonial port town. In 1783 the town was incorporated as “Swansborough,” in honor of Samuel Swann, former speaker of the North Carolina House of Commons and a long time Onslow County resident. Weeks (1708-1772), was a soldier in the French and Indian War. He was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts and came to North Carolina in about 1730 with his family, settling on Hadnot Creek in Carteret County. At about the same time, another family from Falmouth, Jonathan Green, and his brother Isaac, settled on the other side of the White Oak River, in what is now Onslow. Onslow was formed from New Hanover and Carteret counties in 1734. The White Oak River forms the boundary between Onslow and Carteret counties.

According to various accounts, Jonathan Green, died about 1735, at the age of about 35. In 1735, Weeks married his widow, Mrs. Grace Green, and moved into the Green plantation. In time, he bought out Isaac Green’s half-interest in the property and the latter returned to Massachusetts. The plantation was located on the Onslow (west) side of the mouth of the White Oak River, and was named “The Wharf.”

Weeks’ plantation was a favorite place for seafarers to visit. He was appointed inspector of exports for Bogue Inlet in 1757, and held that position for the rest of his life. Weeks’ town was in three tiers, with sixteen lots each. Three of the streets ran north and south, and the other three east and west. They are known today as Front, Water, Elm, Moore, Main (originally Broad), and Church Streets. A county road extended northeastward from Broad Street to Onslow Courthouse – now Jacksonville, which is a 10-minute drive west on NC 24 and home to Camp Lejeune, one of the world’s largest U.S. Marine Corps bases.

Swansboro celebrated its bicentennial in 1983. About 150 people were on hand, of whom 85 were descendants of Weeks or his brother, Jabez. As part of the July 4 celebration that year, a memorial marker was dedicated to him as Swansboro’s founder.

Another prominent figure in Swansboro’s history is the legendary privateer/politician Otway Burns. Burns was born in 1775 at Queen’s Creek, near Swansboro, and became a seaman, learning the trade at the ports in Swansboro and Beaufort, which is 28 miles east on Beaufort Inlet in Carteret County. After becoming a merchant captain, Burns sailed all along the East Coast, up to Maine. After his voyage, he is said to have married his cousin, Joanna Grant, on July 6, 1809, and the couple moved to Swansboro.

Burns received financial support for his trading activities from Edward Pasteur, a physician and local political leader from New Bern. In the summer of 1812, according to most accounts, just a month after the War of 1812 started, Burns and Pasteur purchased a vessel in New York City. Burns intended to use it for privateering along the coast of the Carolinas. The 147-ton vessel, named the Zephyr, measured 85.5 feet and was armed with one pivot gun and five to seven gun carriages. Also on board were a number of small arms, including cutlasses, pistols, muskets and blunderbusses. They rechristened it as the Snap Dragon and eventually took on a 25-man crew.

Through the war, Burns and Snap Dragon took numerous prizes. Using the wealth he obtained in his privateering endeavors, he engaged in shipbuilding in Beaufort and eventually spent 13 years in the North Carolina General Assembly.

Two destroyers have been named in his honor: both the USS Burns, in World War I and II, respectively. He’s honored in Swansboro with a statue in Bicentennial Park on the White Oak.

The entire Historic District in downtown Swansboro is a sight to behold and a chance to step back in time; one can dine and shop in buildings among the most interesting on the East Coast, and even in the peak tourist season in the summer, it’s not as crowded as some of the more well-known historic areas. For details, go to the visitor’s center in the Swansboro Chamber of Commerce at 774 W. Corbett Avenue, or call 910-326-1174.

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