This small quaint seaport has roots back to April 7, 1730 when Isaac and Jonathan Green Sr. purchased from Ebenezer Harker "a certain plantation and track of land containing by estimation 441 acres situate lying and being in ye Carterett in ye county of province of aforsaid being ye west side of ye mouth off White Oak River." By 1771 Theophilus Weeks started a town on his plantation, laying out a plat and selling lots. Formerly known as Bogue, Week's Point, The Wharf and New Town, the town was officially designated by the North Carolina General Assembly on May 6, 1783. Above photo (from North Carolina State Archives) courtesy Jack Dudley, as included in Swansboro - A Pictorial Tribute

Edward Moore Hill House circa 1900

NATIONAL REGISTER of Historic Places: 214 Water Street – Three-bay double-pile two-room plan house with triple-A roof, ell, reworked front porch, aluminum siding. Hill was a carpenter, boatbuilder, pilot and fisherman. NR (House images to be added)









  • Edward Wallace Hill (1805-1845) married Charity Moore (1815-1859) in 1832. Children: Edward Moore, Sarah Jane and William Henry.
  • Edward Moore Hill (1835-1918) married Armecia Gaskins Willis (1846-1929) on December 24, 1862. Armecia Willis was daughter of Kilby F. Willis and Maryland V. Davis of Straits, Carteret County. The Davis roots go back to early 1700s Davis Island. Children of Edward and Armecia: Sarah Ann, William H., Kilby Lewis, Mary Virginia, Edward Wallace, Monte Lue and Laura Clementine.
  • Edward Wallace Hill (1876-1926) married Olivia Howland (1882-1962) about 1903. Olivia Howland was the daughter of 1842 Benjamin Tucker Howland, son of 1800 Samuel Howland of Beaufort. Children of Edward and Olivia: Ruth A., Vera Edward, Mary E., and twins Dorothy O. and Edward Hill.
1910 Census
 During the Civil War, mariner Edward Moore Hill, age 25, enlisted in Company G, North Carolina Co. A 1st Light Artillery Battery on May 22, 1861. He was mustered out June 13, 1862. In 1870 he and family were in Smyrna, Carteret County. In the 1880 census sailor Edward Moore Hill and family were in Stump Sound, Onslow County. By 1900 the family—sailor Edward, Armecia, house carpenter Edward Wallace 23, boat builder Monte 20 and Laura—was in Swansboro on “2nd” (Water) Street.

Edward Moore Hill's Death Certificate
By 1910, the census recorded 74-year-old boat carpenter Edward Moore Hill next door to his house-carpenter son Edward Wallace Hill on Water Street—between the Joseph Moore and Van Buren Willis families. 

By 1920, son Edward Wallace Hill's family was in New Bern. At 44, Edward Wallace Hill was recorded as a carpenter in a shipyard. Six years later, he died of double pneumonia. At that time he was employed by Norfolk Southern Railroad.


83-year-old fisherman Edward Moore Hill died on September 4, 1918. Cause of death "myocarditis from arteriosclerosis, contributed to by acute malaria." Informant was Monte L. Hill.

Many of the Hill family were buried in Swansboro’s Ward Cemetery.

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