"Talking House"   
Various sites throughout the area are equipped with AM radio transmitters that provide access to interesting information - and you don't even have to leave the comfort of your car!  Simply tune your car radio to the AM radio setting indicated on this brochure at each site, and sit back and learn Hyde County's history.  If an attendant is on duty, you are welcome to enter any of the sites unless otherwise indicated.  
To receive radio transmission  Sites equipped with a radio transmitter are marked in this brochure and with a sign visible from the road.  Park your vehicle off the roadway, within 500 feet of the front entrance.  Set your AM dial to the frequency shown for that site.

Once there were more miles of railroad tracks than miles of state roads in the county.  The New Holland, Higgnsport and Mt. Vernon Railroad Company's track ran from Wenona in Washington County, 35 miles eastward to New Holland through this area.  Parts of the railway bed are visible from Highway 264 as are the pilings where it crossed Mill Creek. 
In the 1920s, a 22 mile stretch of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway was dredged connecting the Alligator and Pungo Rivers.  a steel swing span bridge was replaced by the current high-rise bridge in 1981.  The waterway provides calm passage for marine traffic.

The county courthouse was built in 1854 with bricks (since converted over) which were said to have come from England.  the ante-bellum courthouse with corbeled mousetooth cornices and ornate gable-end brackets, is one of 7 such courthouses still in use by NC courts.  It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. 

In the storm of 1876 that flooded the whole town, tide waters floated the small wooden church from a second choice location to the site originally chosen by the members. 
 

The old pumping station, converted to a rustic hunting lodge in the 1930s, is now on the National Register of Historic Places and undergoing renovation.

This unusual structure, known variously as the "Ink Bottle House," the "Round House," or the "Octagon House," was built in 1857. 
 

Unique among rural churches, Amity's Greek Revival architecture includes a second story balcony which was built to accommodate slaves.  The sunburst and finial atop the Neoclassical altar is distinctive in design. 

Leaded stained glass windows adorn the small Gothic Revival frame church.  a 1919 Opus 2526 pipe organ majestically rests in a corner, its pipes festooned with colorful, hand painted symbols. 
The Indian village of Pomeiock depicted in John White's paintings of 1585 is believed to have been nearby.  A 1985 archeological dig failed to uncover the exact location.  The Mattamuskeet Foundation is continuing the research. 
 

[From Englehard take State Road 1103 (Lazy Ln.) to State Road 1105 (Radar Rd.), turn right.  At stop sign take left on State Road 1107 (Farrow Fork Rd.)]  The village of Middletown became Hyde County's first incorporated town in 1787 and thrived as an important seaport.  A memorial marker honoring the county's Confederate soldiers may be erected in late 1998. 
 

Ocracoke present lighthouse was compiled n 1823.  It is the oldest operating lighthouse on the North Carolina coast. 

Off the coast of North Carolina lies the remains of the H.M.S.  Bedfordshire, sunk by a German submarine in May 1942.  This small well tended cemetery belongs to the British Government and contains the remains of four members of its crew.