Island Farm, which we visited on Friday, turned out to be the best surprise of the trip to Manteo. The farm belonged to the Etheridge family from the 1700s. Adam Etheridge IV was deeded 20 acres to begin his own farm in 1845. He then built the house that stands on Island Farm today. The property remained in the Etheridge family through the 20th century. It was sold out of the family for 12 years, but Etheridge descendants bought it back and turned it over to a non-profit preservation trust. The house was restored to its original condition and the outbuildings, including the smoke house, kitchen and privy were reconstructed. Interpreters dressed in period attire talk about various aspects of life as it was in the 19th century. If you are fortunate, as we were, and show up at the right time, you might get to ride around the farm in a wagon drawn by Charley, the ox.

Afterwards, we met one of the interpreters, Lee Brickhouse, on the back porch of the Etheridge house where he’d spread the contents of the “medicine box” on a table. The contents included quinine, small bottles of herbs, a tubular metal syringe for giving enemas, a fleam with sharp blades used for “bleeding,” pieces of cloth, a bottle of brandy and a handwritten notebook with directions for their use.

As we sat talking with Lee, we learned that his own story is a tale wound into the history of the Outer Banks in the 20th century. He’d gone to school with one of the farm’s caretakers and has an interest in history, so he decided to spend some time each week as an interpreter. Though he grew up in Virginia, his parents are Outer Banks natives and he spent summers at the See Sea Motel in Kill Devil Hills, owned by his grandparents. His grandfather was a barefoot 16-year-old who was a “runner,” getting tools and doing other errands, for the Wright brothers when they were experimenting with the gliders that would make North Carolina “first in flight.” His grandfather was, in fact, the last living witness of the flight that made them famous and launched the era of aviation. Lee grew up to be a consultant in the hospitality industry, but after years of helping others improve their businesses here and abroad, he decided to open his own bed and breakfast in his father’s hometown of Columbia, N.C. His parents thought he was crazy, but he bought an old house, restored it and opened the Brickhouse Inn in the coastal community’s downtown district about 35 miles from Manteo. The inn became a success and he has since sold it. But one of the things people who stayed there liked to do was go to the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge for the wolf howls, he said.

Lee became involved in the local chamber and participated in the stakeholder meetings when the wolves were being reintroduced more than 25 years ago. He remembered Warren Parker, who hired Robert at the Asheville U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office many years ago and went on from managing that field station to lead the red wolf reintroduction project in its early years.