Unearthed photos a gift to historians on OBX

Manteo. N.C.

A collection of old photos, some not seen before by local historians, shows wreckage in Hatteras after the big hurricane of 1899.

Carol Cronk Cole, granddaughter of an employee of the Virginia Beach weather bureau office in the 1890s, has given copies of 20 photographs to the Outer Banks History Center in Manteo.

Many of them depict the aftermath of the August 1899 hurricane known as San Ciriaco that killed hundreds of people along the coast and in Puerto Rico and wrecked at least 13 ships along the North Carolina coast.

The collection is the most significant of this age the Outer Banks History Center has received in nearly 20 years, said Sarah Downing, assistant curator at the History Center.

"I have never seen many of these, and I've seen a lot of historic photos," Downing said.

Cronk's grandfather Corydon Pirnie Cronk had taken or collected these photographs as a hobby while working at the Weather Bureau in Virginia Beach. As part of his job, Cronk came down to the Outer Banks to inspect telegraph lines.

A few of the photos match photos also taken by H.H. Brimley, who took and collected more than 4,000 photographs for the state during a span of more than 40 years. The Brimley collection is stored at the North Carolina State Archives.

Officials are not sure whether the photographs were taken by Cronk or by Brimley or a combination. Both took photos of the Outer Banks at that time, Downing said.

Many of the photos include a caption describing the scene, likely written in ink by Cronk's wife, Cole wrote to Downing in an e-mail.

Cole, who lives in Ohio, could not be reached.

Outer Banks historian Bill Harris had never seen a clear photograph of the Kitty Hawk weather bureau building before these photographs, he said. Harris concentrates much of his research and collections in Kitty Hawk.

"They give you a better understanding of the lay of the land at that time," he said.

The only other photograph of the weather bureau he had seen was taken by the Wright brothers from a great distance and is barely visible, he said.

One photo shows the remains of a shipwreck washed ashore, including barrels, lumber and leftover cargo. In the distance is a beached and broken ship.

Another, possibly taken later, shows dozens of shad boats docked along the shoreline where their owners had come to attend a vendue, an auction of shipwreck remains conducted by the commissioner of wrecks.

Other photos depict the Cape Hatteras lighthouse and the village after the hurricane.

Cronk died in 1903, the same year the Wright brothers flew in Kitty Hawk.

One of the worst, most deadly storms in history, Hurricane San Ciriaco gets its name from striking Puerto Rico on Aug. 8, 1899, which was St. Ciriaco's Day, according to an online account by East Carolina University. Packing winds up to 140 mph, the storm killed 3,433 people, including those in Puerto Rico.

S.L. Dosher, a weather bureau observer in Cape Hatteras, sent a report to Washington, D.C., on Aug. 21, four days after the storm hit the Outer Banks. The account is recorded in "North Carolina's Hurricane History" by Jay Barnes.

"The howling wind, the rushing and roaring tide and the awful sea which swept over the beach and thundered like a thousand pieces of artillery made a picture which was at once appalling and terrible and the like of which Dante's Inferno could scarcely equal," Dosher wrote in part of his report. "At about 8 p.m. on the 17th when the wind lulled and shifted to the east and the tide began to run off with great swiftness, causing a fall of several feet in less than a half hour, a prayer of thankfulness went up from every soul on the island, and strong men, who had held up a brave heart against the terrible strain of the past 12 hours, broke down and wept like children..."

The photos show some of that destruction.

Harris recommended anyone with old photos of events or places on the Outer Banks get copies to the Outer Banks History Center, where they might be identified.

If not for the captions of some of the Cronk photos, it would have been hard to know where and when they were taken, he said.

"People probably have pictures from their grandparents and do not know what they have."

Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com