Best-Kept Secrets: Battlefield, blueberries and a Hollywood-ready small town in Pender County

When you’re traveling Interstate 40 toward the coast, it’s easy to pay no mind to the signposts that flash by – Watha, Currie, Hampstead, Burgaw. But exit the highway and spend the day traversing some of the 933 square miles of land and water that make up Pender County and you’ll get a refresher course in U.S. history and a pop culture quiz.

It was here at Moores Creek in Currie that the Patriots got their first victory of the American Revolution, and it was here in Penderlea that the first of 152 homestead projects were built during the Great Depression under a New Deal effort to give farmers who had gone belly up during the Depression a chance to own land and a home.

The Confederacy got 4,000 soldiers from the region, and one of those men, Gen. William D. Pender, provided the county its name when it was finally carved out of New Hanover County in 1875, more than 150 years after the area was settled. Those first settlers were drawn by rich bottomlands and the creeks and rivers that provided them with a water highway.

The soil here in the coastal plains is still rich and the land flat. Blueberries love it, and farmers grow them in abundance, along with strawberries, grapes, sweet potatoes, peanuts, corn and tobacco. Each June the town of Burgaw celebrates its love affair with blueberries with the N.C. Blueberry Festival. This year’s festival drew more than 20,000 people to the town’s wide streets and courthouse square.

Burgaw’s name harks back to a long-gone Indian tribe, but the town really owes its existence to the railroad, which laid tracks in the area then known as Cypress Grove in 1838. The Wilmington and Weldon Railroad deeded over the land for Burgaw to be the county seat, laid out the streets and lots for the courthouse and church, the school and cemetery. Street names – Bridgers, Fremont, Dickerson, Cowan – are those of men who ran the railroad.

On a hot summer’s day, Burgaw is a welcoming town with shade trees, parks and benches for sitting a spell. Antique stores and small shops, including Dees Drug Store with its old-fashioned soda fountain, are welcoming. It looks like Hollywood’s idea of a what small town should look like. The town’s courthouse square area and other streets have been used often in movies and TV shows, most recently “Under the Dome” and “Tammy,” while nearby Watha was the location for “The Secret Life of Bees,” and the TV show “Sleepy Hollow” used areas in Currie.

And if you need another reason to get off the interstate and out of your car, the Coastal Crescent Trail (an alternate route on the state’s Mountains to the Sea Trail) recently opened, taking you from the Holly Shelter game lands about 20 miles from Burgaw to Topsail Island and the historic Ocean City Beach, an African-American community founded in 1949.

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Morning

Start your day where, 239 years ago, British troops learned just how wily North Carolina’s Continental soldiers could be. To stop British loyalists from crossing Moores Creek Bridge and reaching the coast to meet up with the British Navy, Patriots removed planks from the bridge and greased the girders. Then they waited behind hastily thrown up earthworks. When the loyalists charged the bridge, those who didn’t fall into the swamp were felled by musket and cannon fire. The battle is credited with stopping a full-scale British invasion of the South and stirring up enough revolutionary fervor that the state became the first colony to vote for independence at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The National Park Service site covers 87 acres, and there are two short trails. One loops you through the battleground and the other offers a natural history lesson. Both trails are flat, and a boardwalk and a bridge (not the original) make it easy going over the creek. The bridge offers a chance to throw out a fishing pole, or if you’re given to reflection, gaze into the black waters and imagine coming through the snake-infested swamp in the pitch of night, unsure of what lay ahead. Earthen mounds mark the line of earthworks used by the Patriots, showing clearly how they used the location to their advantage. Monuments honor the only Patriot killed that day, Pvt. John Grady, the heroic women of the Cape Fear, and the loyalists who died and “did their duty as they saw it.” Take bug spray and plenty of water. The air-conditioned visitors center is closed Mondays, Tuesdays and federal holidays, but trails are open daily. Free. www.nps.gov/mocr, 919-283-5591.

Moores Creek flows into the Black River, which despite being the color of tea is one of the cleanest rivers in the state (the color comes from the tannins that leach out of decaying vegetation into the water). The river flows through Bladen and Pender counties. Some of the oldest cypress trees are in the Bladen part of the river, but Pender has a good share of old-growth forest. You’ll most likely see a few snakes as well – nonvenomous brown water snakes like to sun on the tree branches. Take a river guide for your first trip on the Black – it’s not a great place to get lost. The state Wildlife Commission has two public boat landings, and there are several bridges in Pender where you can put in, but the land that fronts the river is privately owned. Mahanaim Adventures, http://mahanaimadventures.com/, 910-547-8252, or The Expedition Organization, www.expeditionorganization.com/, 910-200-1594.

Afternoon

Smack in the middle of Burgaw is a coffee house where any hipster would feel right at home. It sells local pottery, honey and T-shirts with a brown Lab on the front, and the berry smoothies are ice cold and tasty. The owners, Donna Best-Klingel and her husband, Barry Klingel, started the business more than a decade ago. They roast their own coffee, and the blueberries in those smoothies are locally grown. The muffins and scones are made locally as well. It’s a friendly spot, welcoming to strangers. If you ask, the Klingels will be happy to point out what sites around town have shown up in “Under the Dome” and various movies. Open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, 103A W. Fremont St., 910-259-3349.

The white station house on the edge of downtown is often the scene of weddings these days but got its start as the wood and water stop for the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad – and without it, there might not be a Burgaw. The depot predates the town by 29 years. The structure was renovated extensively after Hurricane Fran but has the original doors and the four corner posts from the original station – which allows it to claim to be the oldest depot still in existence in the state. Today it houses a very small transportation museum with a replica of a station master’s office and old telegraph equipment. Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Fridays. 115 S. Dickerson St., 910-259-9817.

Evening

Steve Holland went looking for a piece of land for a campsite and stopped at a small store for Nabs and directions. The owner suggested what he really needed was a store, and 18 days later Holland had a new career. Thirty-four years later, his restaurant draws locals from the county, seasonal regulars who stop in whenever they’re in nearby Topsail or Surf City and three satisfied couples from Raleigh who make the drive once a month. In the beginning it seated 18 people, but he’s added on and rebuilt (that was after Hurricane Floyd’s floodwaters rose 51/2 feet up the restaurant’s walls). His cook has been with him 18 years, her older sister 20.They serve up generous platters of catfish, shrimp, oysters and frog legs – 60 pounds of frog legs a week, he said. And if the views of Shelter Creek from the dining room beckon, Holland rents canoes and kayaks. If, at the end of the day, you need a place to put your weary head, he rents campsites as well. Open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The store is open the same hours, but if you’ve got a group that wants an earlier start on the water, call ahead and someone will meet you.

This story was originally published June 29, 2015 at 6:46 AM with the headline "Best-Kept Secrets: Battlefield, blueberries and a Hollywood-ready small town in Pender County."