Portsmouth Island, NC is located 6 miles SW of Ocracoke village and is separated from Ocracoke Island by Ocracoke Inlet. At one time this island was a thriving sea port and shipping center.
In the year 1753, the General Assembly of North Carolina, passed legislation on March 27 to lay out a town on Core banks in Carteret County. The town was to be named Portsmouth and it would be fifty acres and divided into half acre lots. The cost for one of these lots was 20 shillings and you had to build a house or warehouse of at least 20 by 16 feet.
By 1758 the town had been laid out and was inhabited. For the next 102 years this island was home to many people. At its height, just before the Civil War, the population was almost 600.
Then the decline started due to the war, storms that ravaged the island over the next century and the inlet closing and a new one forming that offered better shipping lanes. By 1960, three people were left on the island. One man and two women.
When the man became ill and died in 1971, the families of the two women insisted they leave the island. They went to the mainland and thus the habitation of Portsmouth island ceased.
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