The Court Case That Helped Shape Salter Path

Long before beach homes and vacationers filled Bogue Banks, Salter Path was a small fishing community where families built lives on land they did not legally own.

Drive through Salter Path today and it is easy to miss just how unusual its history is.

The community took shape in the late 1800s as families moved to this part of Bogue Banks, many of them making their living from the water. Some came from earlier settlements on the Banks, including Rice Path, while others had connections to Shackleford Banks and communities around Cape Lookout. Historian David Cecelski, writing for Coastal Review, traces the establishment of the permanent Salter Path settlement to 1896, when several families moved from nearby island settlements to the area.

They built homes, fished, gardened and raised families there.

But there was a problem.

They did not hold deeds to the land.

A village on someone else's property

By the early 20th century, the land beneath Salter Path was privately owned. Alice Green Hoffman eventually controlled a large portion of central Bogue Banks, including an estate in what is now Pine Knoll Shores. East Carolina University's collection of Hoffman's papers documents years of disagreement between Hoffman and Salter Path residents over possession of the land, trespassing and fishing rights.

And this is where one of the more colorful pieces of local history enters the story.

According to Carteret County's official history of Bogue Banks, Hoffman sued Salter Path residents in 1923 after their cows wandered onto her estate. The later legal record describes the dispute more broadly as involving residents who were living on and using Hoffman's land as their own.

Either way, the case had consequences that would shape Salter Path for decades.

A Carteret County Superior Court judgment in June 1923 established boundaries for the community and allowed the defendants and their descendants to continue using and occupying the property. Carteret County's historical account says the village was confined to approximately 81 acres and that the beachfront was to be used collectively by the community.

There was still one major thing the judgment did not provide.

Individual residents did not receive deeds to the land beneath their homes.

More than 50 years without clear individual title

For decades, generations of Salter Path families continued living on land their families had occupied since the early days of the village.

The unusual arrangement lasted until another court proceeding in 1979.

The legal history is more complicated than simply saying Salter Path residents were awarded their land. According to a 2004 North Carolina Court of Appeals decision reviewing the earlier cases, Carteret County went to court in 1979 in an effort to clarify ownership and establish property-tax liability.

The court determined that title rested with the Roosevelt heirs, who had inherited Hoffman's interest in the property. After that judgment, members of the Roosevelt family conveyed deeds to many of the people occupying parcels in Salter Path.

That process finally changed an arrangement that had existed for generations.

Before the road, resorts and condominiums

The Salter Path captured in photographs from the Charles A. Farrell Collection at the State Archives of North Carolina, believed to date from about 1935 to 1940, looks almost unimaginable today.

There were modest homes surrounded by sand. Gardens grew near Bogue Sound. Fishing nets hung outside. Children gathered near the community store. Boats were transportation as much as recreation.

At the time Farrell photographed Salter Path, historian David Cecelski notes that it was essentially the only settlement on the western two-thirds of Bogue Banks, and no paved road yet connected the community to the outside world.

Fishing was central to life.

One story about the community's name says fishermen hauling mullet from the ocean side to boats in Bogue Sound repeatedly followed a path that passed a Salter family home. Over time, people began referring to it as Salter Path. The precise origin has been passed down through local history and tradition, but the connection between the village and its fishing heritage is unmistakable.

Today, development stretches nearly the length of Bogue Banks.

Salter Path is still different.

Its history is found not only in court records and old photographs, but in the families whose names and stories have remained connected to this small piece of the island for generations.

Historic photographs: Charles A. Farrell Photo Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh. Images are dated approximately 1935-1940 and are identified by the State Archives as having no known copyright restrictions.