Collection: Cape Fear River Mermaids

Deep in the heart of North Carolina and over one hundred miles from the Atlantic ocean, lies Chatham County. It's not a place one might go and be warned of the mermaids. But according to this old North Carolina legend, Chatham County's Mermaid Point is one southern spot where some people still take care to look out for mermaids along the river channel.

The Cape Fear River forms at Mermaid point, it is the place where the Deep and the Haw rivers meet and join together. The Cape Fear River is said to be named for the explorers in the 16^th century who found themselves nearly wrecking their ships as the traveled along the cape and into North Carolina. From Mermaid Point, the river flows down and around Wilmington and flows into the ocean not far from Bald Head Island. This is the path that explorers like Sir Richard Greenville would take to come into North Carolina and find themselves near what would become known as Mermaid Point.

For North Carolina, the Cape Fear River was one of the early economic drivers, and provided transport along the falls and rapids from the piedmont to the port of Wilmington. Fish like the strange ancient Atlantic Sturgeon, would swim upstream from the ocean into the fresh river water to lay eggs, which was a favorite for caviar. Because of the possibilities for wealth, the shores of the Cape Fear River became a huge draw for settlers. In 1740 a few of those settlers, two brothers and their two friends from Scotland, purchased several plots of land, the land where the Deep and the Haw rivers joined, and together they formed the town of Lockville.

Soon others were coming to the new settlement to prosper from the river, including one man named Ambrose Ramsey. He believed that money had was money needing to be spent and the best way for him to capitalize on that was to open a tavern. He placed Ramsey's Tavern right on the banks of the Deep River, just a short distance upriver from where it meets with the Haw River. Travelers coming through the channel would stop in at the tavern and soon there were stories of some seeing mermaids who also had traveled up from the Atlantic into the Cape Fear River.

The Ramsey's tavern patrons said that as they would leave at the end of the night to return home, they would see the mermaids on the sandbars along the channel. People said they saw mermaids sitting on the sandbars at night, combing through their hair against the moonlight. Others saw them laughing and singing, swimming and splashing in the water. If anyone tried to approach or call out to them, they would dive below the surface. Some said the mermaids were vain creatures, and used the fresh water channel to wash the salt from their hair so it would stay beautiful and shiny. Others just said those who saw the mermaids were just drunk. But eventually people began to call the area where Ramsey's Tavern sat Mermaid Point. During the Civil War soldiers would frequently stop at the tavern to get drunk and claim to see the mermaids. Some of them became so determined to meet the mermaids they would attempt to swim out to the sandbar and become exhausted and lost in the river, eventually drowning to their death. Although some would say the mermaids themselves drowned the soldiers after luring them out into the water.

The town of Locksville was not able to thrive and was eventually taken up by the neighboring towns of Moncure and Haywood, North Carolina. The Ramsey's Tavern continued on into the late 19^th Century, when it was destroyed by a flood. After the tavern was destroyed, the mermaid sightings began to stop. Many believed the sightings stoped because of the series of locks and dams being placed along the Cape Fear River, which would have cut off the path the mermaids took from the Atlantic ocean to get to their Mermaid Point.

Today there is nothing left of Ramsey's Tavern, the sandbar on which the mermaids were said to sit is no longer visible due to the construction of the Buckhorn Damn which raised the water levels and sunk the sandbar beneath the surface. A roadside historic sign is all thats left to remind people of the Tavern and the mermaids, but those who know still wonder and look out for a mermaid who might have made it up the Cape Fear River to wash their hair against the moonlight.