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NEW HOLLAND, HIGGINSPORT, & MT. VERNON RAILROAD
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Story by Lewi
C. Forre
t
In 1918, the North Carolina Farms Company owned
Lake Mattamuskeet in Hyde
County, North Carolina. They bought the lake from New Holland
Farms, Inc. who purchased it in 1911 under its former name of the Southern Land Reclamation
Company, from the State Board of Education.
The private ownership of the lake coincided with the formation of the Mattamuskeet
Drainage District, a 100,000- acre enterprise. Mattamuskeet,
North Carolina’s largest natural
lake, made up almost half of the drainage district. The district was to remove the water from the lake and reclaim its rich bed for development and to relieve flooding of neighboring farms. By 1916, the district built the world’s largest capacity pumping plant to drain the lake, becoming America’s most famous pumpsupported land reclamation project.
New Holland Farms and the North Carolina Farms Company worked to develop a town called “New Holland” adjacent to the
pumping plant. Both companies planned to sell lots and farms in the reclaimed lakebed for much more than they paid for the property.
New Holland Farms, Inc. had planned to build a railroad from the pumping plant to connect with the Norfolk Southern Railroad on its run from Norfolk to Belhaven, but sold out before following through. A railroad was critical to raising the value of the reclaimed lakebed and other acreage within the drainage district.
In October of 1920, North Carolina chartered development of a 35-mile line called the “New Holland, Higginsport, and Mt. Vernon Railroad Company.” The charter stated the North Carolina Farms Company would build the line from the pumping plant at New Holland to Wenona in Washington County for a projected cost of $977,353. Based on inflation, that would
be equivalent to $12,532,874 in 2019.
The farms company contracted the Foundation Company of New York City to build the line, beginning construction in August of 1920. The contractor employed more than 600 men to clear rights-ofway, grade the bed, lay crossties, install rails, build sidings, sink wells and erect water towers for steam engines. By November of 1920, the workers were completing seven miles of the line per month.
Much of the line passed through swamps and virgin timberland. The contractor ran nine miles of the line directly in the reclaimed lakebed, making it essential to keep the water pumped out of the lake for the trains to operate. This short line railroad was one of the biggest engineering projects in North Carolina.
Between New Holland and
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Wenona, there were six stops called Benhamton, Harrison, Higginsport, Wilbanks, Patberry and Kirwin. The North Carolina
Farms Company named each stop for an investor in the rail line. At Wenona, the company built a barn, a small house for the train crew, a larger house for other railroad personnel and overnight guests, and an office for the Norfolk Southern Railroad agent. The railroad had standard
gauge tracks, allowing Norfolk Southern cars to travel on the
line without transferring cargo to narrower cars. In 1921, North
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Carolina Farms Company bought two steam engines, numbers 32 and 100, for the line.
In October of 1921, the first passengers took a ride on the new railroad. They soon added freight and mail service.
In 1922 or 1923, engine number 100 jumped the tracks and went into the marsh near
Wenona. The owners arranged for Norfolk Southern Railroad
to bring in a rail crane mounted on a flatcar to lift the steam
locomotive back onto the tracks.
In September of 1923, the North Carolina Farms Company went into bankruptcy. This shut down the railroad.
In 1925, August Heckscher, a wealthy New York industrialist, bought the bankrupt assets of North Carolina Farms Company, including the million-dollar railroad, for just $200,000. Heckscher formed the New
Holland Corporation for his lake enterprise, not to be confused with New Holland Farms, Inc. The new corporation shifted the focus from a real estate development venture to a huge commercial farm.
When the North Carolina
Farms Company went into bankruptcy in 1923, scheduled passenger service on their railroad ended forever. New Holland
Corporation chose not to operate as a public carrier but to only haul freight for his farming operation.
The new owners restored the
railroad line that had been idle
for two years, replacing 27,000 crossties of red heart Cypress. New Holland Corporation discontinued use of the steam
locomotives and replaced them with an eight-ton Plymouth gasoline-powered locomotive and a 25-ton Plymouth diesel electric engine. By the end of 1927, the small Plymouth engine was bringing 200 tons of coal per week to New Holland for the massive drainage pumps.
By 1932, New Holland Corporation was farming 13,000 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, flax and Irish potatoes and was shipping record yields to market on the railroad. That
fall, Heckscher agreed to sell Lake Mattamuskeet to the U.S.
Government to create a migratory waterfowl refuge.
This decision to sell led to
shutting down the pumps, dissolving the Mattamuskeet Drainage District, and allowing the lake to refill. This also ended
the operation of the New Holland Railroad. The nine miles of track
in the lakebed was soon under
water. A company from Alabama salvaged the steel tracks and the rolling stock from the line.
The nonprofit Mattamuskeet Foundation is preserving the records of the companies involved in draining Lake Mattamuskeet, including the railroad records. These are fading reminders of the only public railroad to ever serve Hyde County.
Lewis C. Forrest, Ed.D., is the executive director of the nonprofit Mattamuskeet Foundation. He
will speak on the New Holland, Higginsport, and Mt. Vernon Railroad at the 2019 Swan Days Festival on Dec. 7, at Mattamuskeet School.
