Currituck County Photographs
Seth H. & Mary Frances (Tuten) Dutcher Photo Album
(Photos in possession
of Roy Sawyer)
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Seth Halstead Dutcher (2 Jan 1883 - 18 Feb 1959 [see
tombstone]) was the son of John Alvin Dutcher (7 Jun 1852 - 15 Apr 1931)
[see the
Dutcher Bible] and Olive Gallop Dutcher (31 Dec 1862 -
3 Mar 1936). John A. Dutcher was the son of Rev. Samuel Dutcher (28 Dec
1820 - 3 Sep 1888 [see his
will]) and his wife, Esther M. Dutcher (2 Mar 1824 - 20 Jul
1895). Rev. Dutcher was the first ordained minister at Hebron
Methodist Church at Olds Hill, and he was originally from Suffolk Co, NY,
and he was engaged in boatbuilding with Graham G Gallop at the
Gallop Landing in Powells Point. John A. Dutcher was a county
commissioner for Currituck, and his wife, Olive, was the daughter of
Graham G. Gallop (23 Mar 1837 - 7 Sep 1899) and his wife, Sidney Owens
Gallop (29 Dec 1839 - 8 Jan 1916) In addition to Seth H. Dutcher,
John A Dutcher & Olive Gallop Dutcher had two daughters: Lillie Mae Dutcher
(26 Oct 1880 - 12 Sep 1956) who married Nicholas C. Newbern (27 Aug 1876 -
29 May 1930) and Effie Dutcher (7 Feb 1894 - 10 June 1952), who married
John Etheridge
Clyde Owens (1890 - 1976). Effie & John Owens are buried in the
Olds-Newbern Cemetery in Jarvisburg. Comments from Roy Sawyer about Hurricane Barbara which destroyed Dutcher's Grocery in 1953 - The Dutchers were our next door neighbors, and I have fond memories of them. The 1954 Dutcher Grocery building was an entirely new building. The previous store was completely destroyed by Hurricane Barbara. Barbara was not a particularly bad hurricane except that a tornado hit the Dutcher store, our house which stands just to the north (The Willis Gallop house, built 1917, my father bought it in 1943), and the tornado continued thru the woods, leveling trees to the ground and along the back road hit the home of an elderly black couple, Jonas & Elessie Bowser, and it leveled their 2-story house. Mr. Charlie Wright drove thru the back road the next morning, noticed that Jonas' house was blown down, and he found them crouched in an outbuilding or shed. They were surprised to see someone they knew because they thought the world had ended! 21 trees blew down in our yard, 42 widows were blown out in the house, all five chimneys were broken off, power lines were down in the front yard. My father was at Buxton doing a quarterly visit to Estes White, who worked for Daddy's company, Home Security. We had gone to bed, and the tornado struck around 9pm. I was upstairs with my grandmother Sawyer, and my mother, her mother, and my sister were downstairs with Bob, Daddy's birddog. I jumped out of bed, put on a pair of shorts, turned on the lights, and ran downstairs. Everyone congregated in the hall by the front door. Sheets of water were coming in the house--the windows do not have but 2 panes - top and bottom, so when one broke, the whole window was out. My grandmothers nailed anything they could find to the windows, even took the oilcloth tablecloth from the kitchen table. Surprisingly, we had electricity until the next morning. We put on the front porch light, which lit up the front yard. Power poles and lines were down in the front yard, trees were blocking the road. Mama decided that we had to get out of the house because it was going to fall down, so out we all walked across the front yard to the Dutcher house and remained there until daybreak. Power lines down in the yard, live, and we were out there walking in the rain! Idiots! An elderly neighbor who lived behind us and her middle aged son also came to the Dutcher house as did a black man, Jack Fisher, who lived in an old barbershop south of Forbes Rd. The next morning, when Dutch and my grandmother Sawyer went out to survey the damage, they discovered that the Dutcher house had been moved about a foot off its foundation! Telephones did not work. The Coast Guard in Elizabeth City got word thru to my father in Buxton, and he came home the next day. A housemover, Mr. Ferebee in Manteo, jacked up the Dutcher house and a new foundation had to be built, then the house was lowered down on its new foundation. The tornado sounded like a locomotive, very deafening - I'll never forget that sound. It was pretty terrifying. I do not have a photo of the old store, which Daddy sold to the Dutchers. It was a much larger building than the small one Dutch built in 1954. The problem was that the post office was gone when the old store blew down. Mr. Charlie Wright had a small trailer, which was basically a wagon with regular truck wheels and a small wooden structure built on the frame, which he moved down to the site, and Miss Frances used it for the post office until the old building could be cleared away and the new building built. You will notice the iron bars at the windows of the store - they were salvaged from the old building. The next day following the hurricane, Dutch and Miss Frances gave away everything perishable in the old store - ice cream, etc. That was the best thing I remembered about the hurricane!
Seth H. Dutcher married first to Sarah "Sadie" Fisher (21 Jan 1884 - 18 Jul 1914), daughter of John W. & Fannie Melson Fisher [see the John Fisher home]. One son was born of this marriage, Walton D. Dutcher (10 Oct 1905 - Jul, 1985) who attended the University of North Carolina. He married Lydia Hickox (26 Jun 1913 - 17 Dec 2007), and they lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and had three children: Walton D. "Wally" Dutcher, Jr., Dorothy Dutcher, and Margaret Dutcher. Wally Jr. suffered a diving accident while serving in the US Navy and is a paraplegic. He graduated from the University of South Florida, has managed a financial fund, is a renowned designer of homes for the handicapped, and was a famous disc jockey in south Florida, known as "Dutch Walton". Dorothy worked in the office of the Secretary of State of Mississippi, and Margaret teaches nursing at the University of Mississippi.
Seth H. Dutcher married second to Mary Frances Tuten (20 Nov 1892 - 11 Jul 1986 [see tombstone]). She was born at Edward, NC, in Beaufort Co., and later lived at Chocowinity and Washington, NC. She was the daughter of John Allen Tuten (c1855 - 13 Mar 1933) and his wife, Margaret Pauline (Warren) Tuten. Her grandfather was Major Jesse Thomas Tuten. Legally, her signature was always "M. Frances Dutcher"; however she was known as Frances. Her first cousin thru her mother's Warren family was the Honorable Lindsay Warren, member US Congress and Comptroller General of the Currency during parts of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations. She attended East Carolina Teachers Training College and served as postmaster of Jarvisburg from 1929 until her retirement in 1962. She had at least one brother, Jesse, who remained in Washington, NC, and his daughter was Blanche Dudley who lived at Engelhard, NC. A sister, Bertha, lived in Richmond, Va. Another sister, Georgia Ann Tuten (1882 - 22 May 1920), married James Burney Lamm, and she died at Wilson, NC. Her son, Floyd Ashton Lamm (3 Aug 1900 - 4 Feb 1971) married Alice (d. 1981), and they retired at Jarvisburg and looked after Frances Dutcher until his death. Another sister, Margaret Tuten, married Harvey Harris and they lived in Raleigh, NC. They had one daughter, Carmen (d. 23 May 2009, age 84, at Greenville, SC) married Charles Ellis Upchurch from Raleigh, NC. They had two daughters, Margaret Upchurch Brissey (died 7 Jul 2004, Greenville, SC), and Mary Ellen Upchurch Adams, who lives in Raleigh, NC. Floyd Lamm, Harvey Harris, and Bertha's husband all worked for the Norfolk & Southern Railroad.
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No part of this document may be used for any commercial purposes. However, please feel free to copy any of this material for your own personal use and family research. Kay Midgett SheppardComments on the Dutcher family contributed by Roy Sawyer & comments on the Tuten family supplied by Charles Anthony "Tony" Tuten.
