Portsmouth Village

Portsmouth Village occupies the northern end of Portsmouth Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, south of Ocracoke Inlet. The village was authorized by the colonial legislature in 1753, and by 1860 it had 109 dwellings and was a shipping point where vessels waited to cross the shallow bar of Ocracoke Inlet, with cargo carried across by lighters. Its population peaked around 1860, then declined sharply after Hatteras Inlet opened in 1846 and grew, drawing shipping away. Confederate troops were stationed there in 1861 before Federal forces found it nearly deserted. The district is significant as the only surviving village on the Core Banks. About 25 complexes of mostly late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings remain, set among dunes and vegetation on narrow grassy lanes. The Methodist Church, rebuilt in 1901, is among the surviving structures.