LITTLE BOAT WITH A BIG HISTORY.
The Hattie Creef, a Carolina Sharpie once owned by the Globe Fish Company, was moored for many years on the P.P. Gregory property (which is now the Jennette Brothers Inc. parking lot). The 55-foot-long vessel was built as an oyster boat in 1888 by George Washington Creef Jr. of Nags Head. Creef constructed the vessel of heart pine logs that had washed ashore from a wrecked ship. He named it for his daughter, Hattie. Over her long life, the Hattie Creef would become a fishing boat, a mail boat, a passenger and freight vessel, a tug boat, a crabber, and a pleasure cruiser on the Dismal Swamp Canal. Her most famous passengers were Orville and Wilbur Wright, the Ohio brothers who invented the first powered aircraft. In her retirement years, the Hattie Creef, was sunk in the
The Hattie Creef sails the Pasquotank River. The Woodley Grocery Company, the Burgess Street Wharf, and the old train yard are shown in the background. This is the location where the steamer Annie blew up in 1918.