History with ‘Hud’: A local group’s mission to unearth Cape Fear’s past, one discovery at a time

BRUNSWICK COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The Cape Fear is full of historic buildings and landscapes. But not every piece of the area’s past is located in plain sight.

For the last several years, volunteers with non-profit group ‘Cape Fear Explorers’ have spent countless hours scouring land across southeastern North Carolina in search of old, buried artifacts.

Three members recently spent time hunting in the Liberty Landing neighborhood in Brunswick County, walking property where an 18th century structure once stood.

Jack Hooker says they use a specific strategy to hone in on even the smallest pieces of history.

“We’ll kind of find the hot spot, like where the house sat,” Hooker said. “We’ll get into a big iron patch, work in there a little bit and then go outside, kind of in the yard of the property where it kind of quiets down a little bit.”

While the group uses metal detectors and other equipment to locate coins, bullets and buttons, Noah Harrell points out the current home owners have been stumbling upon pieces of history for years.

“When I came to get permission here at the property, the homeowner showed me a ton of cool stuff they’d already found,” Harrell said. “There’s a cool little early opium bottle; they found a ton of glass artifacts, lots of porcelain stuff, pottery.”

Each find is carefully pulled from the dirt, with a sifter being used to uncover non-metal treasures hidden under layers of dirt.

“We label what the home site is, what we think the name of it was,” Jack Hooker continued. “We have it on display at our house; we like to share it with the homeowners. If they’d like to keep it they can keep it. A lot of times they let us keep it.”

Objects the group members don’t return to the homeowners or keep for themselves are placed in a newly-created display in Southport.

Jacob O’Briant says the process of going from the ground to the new exhibit inside the Fort Johnson building takes several weeks to ensure the longevity of the objects.

“We have to coat it and seal it so it doesn’t get air to it, moisture,” O’Briant said. “We don’t want it to rust again.”

Despite the effort it takes to locate, dig up and preserve each object, O’Briant says it’s worth it so residents can see history still lies all around them.

“A lot of people don’t know the very sidewalks they walk on contain a very rich history,” O’Briant pointed out. “So without this display being here, they wouldn’t be able to learn about the area’s rich past.”

The Cape Fear Explorers plan to rotate the objects in the Southport exhibit once per month to give a widespread overview of the area’s extensive history.

Meteorologist Matthew Huddleston (‘Hud’) has always had two major loves – weather and history. While you can watch him talk about weather each evening on WWAY, he looks forward to bringing you a little piece of history each Thursday on WWAY’s website.

To read other History with ‘Hud’ segments, click HERE.