A Museum-quality Coffee Table Book

The leather look and feel of the cover, with its inlay of Front Street houses, is a fitting prelude to Mary Warshaw's 11x 8 1/2, 200-page art-book of Beaufort history.    

Painted, researched and compiled since 2001, the foundation of author-artist Mary Warshaw's book is built around the houses that create Beaufort's street vistas and the people who built and lived in these "Architecture Treasures." 

Besides 50 featured porch paintings and family histories, woven into this book are many other histories, from those who first touched the sand banks to the history of the Beaufort plaque - all with full-color Giclée-quality images. 

To keep the look and feel of a centuries-old seaport, Warshaw chose to eliminate the traditional dust jacket and silk-screened the title onto the spine. 

The introduction by architectural historian Tony P. Wrenn is a wonderful "love song" to Beaufort. 

Ed Turberg's "found" sketches enhance the special architectural section. 

Artist's Notes are included with each porch painting.

SCROLL DOWN for a few EXCERPTS from the book.

Links to excerpts are also in the sidebar.

Artist's Introduction

I grew up Mary Faith Milton in Monroe, North Carolina and went on to graduate from Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a degree in art and education. Over the years, for one reason or another, I was unable to focus on my art. But, having always had the dream of moving to the coast to paint, in 1997 I moved to Beaufort with one goal in mind—to paint seriously and consistently for the first time in my life. I had never been to this quaint coastal town and knew no one. Little did I know what Beaufort would eventually mean to me.  
Full author's  introduction...

Introduction by Architectural Historian Tony P. Wrenn

Beaufort from Piver's Island - Wrenn 1970

. . ."Between the fort and the lighthouse, facing south toward the Atlantic, I found Beaufort to be more than I had thought it to be. I hitched a ride over whenever I could and wandered the streets, often sitting by the water or on a bench within the Old Burying Ground, sometimes on someone’s front steps with a sandwich and soda, absorbing Beaufort. What was so amazing to me was that it was all there." Wrenn's full introduction...

"Tony's introduction should be put to music! This book will be a treasure for the ages." - Edward F. Turberg
              

Excerpt from Architectural Treasures
From the beginning, Beaufort was affected by those who traveled the seas. An international network of trade and communication provided a cultural influence unlike that of inland North Carolina—thus the growth of not only a unique maritime heritage but also an unequaled collection of architectural treasures.

The Caribbean Influence

Coastal Cottages and Beaufort-style Houses

As noted in the 1997 Ruth Little Survey, the two house types most closely identified with Beaufort are the one-story side-gable house with engaged porch and its two-story version. The one-story type is referred to as a coastal cottage; the two-story type as a two-story Beaufort-style house . . . 

This segment includes six unique 4x6 thumbnail sketches done in 1985 by architectural historian Edward F. Turberg  when he was in Beaufort preparing the Federal and State Rehabilitation Tax Credit applications for the William Borden and Belcher Fuller Houses for Suzanne E. Osburn, then partner of Beaufort Inn Associates. 

With a master's degree in architectural history, Ed Turberg (1939-2018) worked as a restoration specialist with NC Archives and History, consultant for the National Register of Historic Places, then as an independent restoration consultant.

Excerpt from Beaufort in the 1700s

     John Brickell, in Natural History of North-Carolina, described Beaufort in 1737 as a town "with a pleasant prospect but ‘small and thinly inhabited."

     One account of Colonial Beaufort was given by a French traveler who visited the town in 1765. After arriving at Cape Lookout, the Frenchman walked down the beach to a whalers’ camp and persuaded some of the whalers to take him over to Beaufort. He described the town as “a Small vilage not above twelve houses, the inhabitants seem miserable, they are very lazy and Indolent, they live mostly on fish and oisters, which they have in great plenty.”

     Captain Charles Biddle, of Philadelphia, wrote of 1777 in his autobiography, “We loaded the schooner, which was called the Three Sisters, in April, and embarked on board her. As there were a number of British cruisers on the coast, I was determined to get into the first port we could make. The first land we made on the coast was near Cape Lookout, and the wind being fair for Beaufort, North Carolina, we entered the harbor. Beaufort is a pleasant little village on the sea-coast. Here it was I first became acquainted with Miss Hannah Shepard.” . . .

Excerpt from Beaufort in the 1800s

"Orange Street Cottage"

“There were no paved streets, no shell roads, only a wilderness of scrubby bushes and deep sand with marshy places here and there where at high tide or during storms the water came in and stood. The most frequent outlays of town funds were for 'causewaying' or laying 'trunks' over the low places, repairing the foot bridges on Ann Street, deepening the ditches, or 'grubbing' Ann Street and making it 'passable.' Sandy paths radiated out from the church, through trees and undergrowth and back lots, to the homes—all without benefit of street lights" -Amy Muse . . .

Excerpt from Beaufort in the 1900s

"Clammers on Town Creek"- Early 1900s

“At some elusive period early in this century, Beaufort changed considerably. Banker ponies were prohibited on the Town Marsh and Bird Shoal, so they were no longer able to swim across the channel at low tide to graze along the sidewalks or run up and down the streets at night. Artesian wells took the place of the old town pumps. A factory was built to manufacture our own ice. Sheds overhanging the sidewalks were removed, the picket fence around the cemetery was replaced with a wall, Dr. Maxwell came out with his Maxwell automobile in 1911, and from then on the familiar two-wheeled carts drawn by banker ponies began to disappear from the streets" - Amy Muse . . .

Excerpt from an 18th-century House

GIBBLE HOUSE circa 1772

. . . Likely built by Frederick and Dederick Gibble, this may have been home to Capt. Charles Manly Biddle (1745-1821) and bride Hannah Shepard (1758-1825) for a year and a half during the Revolution (1778-1780). 

Biddle wrote, "I moved about a month after my marriage to a small house belonging to an uncle of Mrs. Biddle....the first house as you entered from the eastward." Biddle captained the militia and helped built a small fort . . . 

     

Excerpt from a 19th-century House 

BUCKMAN HOUSE circa 1848

. . . After the deaths of Sophia’s mother in 1942 and Nathan Merwin in 1948, Sophia and her daughter Elizabeth lived alone in what had become known as the “Jennie Bell House.” When Sophia died in 1993 at the age of 101, Elizabeth had lived seventy-four years, of what would be her eighty-year life, under the watchful eye of an eccentric and domineering mother. The proud ladies had little money and refused any sort of assistance or “hand outs.” They spent all their time in the upstairs bedrooms and fed the invading raccoons. This was home to Miss Elizabeth Merwin for about sixty years. After her death in 1999, Joe and Marianna Hollinshed purchased the house, began their research and developed a plan to restore the house as close as possible to the structure built in 1848. Due to rot and termite damage, the back portion of the house had to be completely reconstructed, which included bulldozing the ell portion of the house that once contained a second kitchen, a bathroom and an entry to the back yard. The reconstruction was recessed a foot to note a more recent addition . . .

Excerpt from a 20th-century House

JOSEPH MASON HOUSE circa 1904

     The ancestry of the Mason family of Carteret County can be traced back to two brothers, William and Thomas Mason, who, finding themselves in political disfavor in their homeland, left England for the new world. They came ashore in Norfolk, Virginia on Good Ship Assurance in January 1652. Their descendants eventually moved to an area between the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds—now Hyde County, North Carolina.

     On February 7, 1861 Ichabod married a Beaufort girl, Levinia B. Roberson. The couple reared their family, including Joseph, in Beaufort: Addie (1864–1952) married Richard Mason in 1886 and had three daughters and twin sons who died in infancy; Aleta married Carl Smith; Leonard married Fannie Congleton; John H. (1870–1956) married Patsy Mason, daughter of Marcus Mason and Sabra Styron.

     Some twenty-four years later Sophronia Salter Styron, nineteen-year old daughter of Stephen and Hannah Willis Styron, came on a mailboat from her home in Hatteras to visit her brother in Beaufort . . .

Excerpt from Historic Buildings

St. Paul's Episcopal Church circa 1857

“. . . On September 1, 1855 a new parish was organized by William J. Potter, Isaac Ramsey, Robert E. Walker, James J. Whitehurst, Samuel S. Duffy, Elizabeth F. Duffy, Josephine E. Jones, William Cramer, D. B. L. Bell, J. B. Moore, Caroline S. Poole and the Reverend David D. Van Antwerp, a Federal Chaplain stationed at Fort Macon. The first service of this fledgling church was held in the Academy of S. D. Pool on September 2, 1855. Services continued at the Academy until December of 1855. At this time, the Beaufort Baptist Church had no pastor. St. Paul's Church had no church building of its own. In an ecumenical spirit difficult to find a century earlier, St. Paul's Church was allowed to hold services in the Baptist Church until early 1857. A year earlier, Abigail Hill sold a plot of land to the Vestry of St. Paul's Church for the sum of ten dollars. It was on this lot that the present church building was constructed . . ."

________________________________________________________

Excerpt from History of the Beaufort Plaque

    Not long after the founding of the Beaufort Historical Association in 1960, then president Dr. John Costlow went to Miss Elizabeth Merwin about designing and creating a plaque to mark houses over 100 years old. Their goal was to encourage interest in the townsfolk promoting the significance and value of their old homes. Miss Merwin, trained in classic heraldry, created a watercolor design—the same one that is in use today.

     Many had been skeptical of the project as Dr. Costlow placed the first plaque on the Duncan House on the west end of

Front Street

. But, once it was in place. . . 
    [Of note: The original plaque included 1709, which I later proved to be inaccurate. The town was established in 1713.]

Excerpt from "Three Centuries by the Sea"

Two (of 15) pages from: A Chronology of Significant "Builders"

 

"A Special Image - A Special Story"

"I'm Home--Beaufort Waterfront and Meka II"

In March of 2006, after several years of focusing on Beaufort's porches, I was inspired to paint my view of the Beaufort waterfront. Little did I know how the experience ahead and the painting process itself would affect me as a person and as an artist. The Story...