Topics Related to Historical Markers

Union occupied the town March 22, 1862, & used this area in staging the Fort Macon campaign. Union camps remained in vicinity until 1865.

Congressman, 1935-61. Secured military bases for eastern N.C.; advocated Taft-Hartley labor relations act. Grave 4 blocks northwest.

Recruit training depot for black Marines, 1942-1949. In 1974 renamed Camp Johnson for Sgt. Gilbert Johnson, drill instructor. One mi. SE.

Physician and orator. Secretary of State of N.C., 1897-1901. Farmers' Alliance and Populist leader. Grave 4 mi. W.

Established 1 May 1941 by the U.S. Marine Corps for amphibious training. Named for Lt. Gen. John A. Lejeune, USMC, 13th Commandant, 1920-1929.

Pioneer photographer of N.C. and the South. An advocate of equal rights for women. Began career ca. 1904 in this house where she was born.

The marine environment in this vicinity has long attracted researchers. In the 1880s Johns Hopkins University operated a laboratory at the Gibbs House on Front Street. The U.S. government opened the nation’s second fisheries lab in 1899 in Beaufort. Environmentalist and author Rachel Carson (1907-1964) worked at the lab in 1930s. Marine labs were opened by Duke University at Pivers Island in 1938 and by UNC in Morehead City in 1947.

U.S. Marine Corps Air Station activated 1941 as Cunningham Field for first USMC aviator A.A. Cunningham. MCAS Cherry Point since May 1942.

U.S. Revenue Cutter built in N.C., 1791. Ship was commissioned in 1792 by Revenue Marine (now U.S. Coast Guard), 1/4 mi. W.

Brig. Gen. Gabriel Rains and Col. George Rains, graduates of West Point, inventors of explosives for Confederacy. This was their boyhood home.