Tobe Tillett

In the summer of 1924 Toby Tillett started his own ferry service across Oregon Inlet. There were no paved roads on either side of the inlet at that time, so fishermen coming down to Hatteras Island had to drive on the beaches. Toby's first ferry was a thirty-foot barge that he pulled behind his fishing boat. As soon as he was financially able, Toby bought a second ferry, the Oregon Inlet, which carried two cars and had its own engine. By the early thirties, Toby had acquired a third ferry, the Barcelona, capable of transporting up to fourteen cars. Toby continued this independent service for fishermen and residents of Hatteras Island until 1941, when he leased his equipment and services to the State of North Carolina. Ironically, Toby died from injuries sustained in a tractor accident in 1962, the same year the State of North Carolina began construction on the Herbert Bonner Bridge. Some folks say Toby's spirit still roams the shores and waters around Oregon Inlet.

People who still remember Tobe Tillett speak affectionately of a man who was a pioneer in an era gone by. My father was one such person. Neil Gilchrist and his fishing buddies from Norfolk, Virginia spent many weekends riding Toby's ferry across Oregon Inlet to get to the fishing grounds off Hatters Island. Sometime around 1935, on one such trip, my father took a picture of Toby in the pilot house of the Barcelona as he maneuvered the vessel through the shallows of Oregon Inlet.

In 1973, after repeated requests by my father to do a painting from the photograph, I put aside my devotion to abstract painting and embraced the elements of realism inherent in his photograph. The result was a painting that received immediate acclaim. It won first place in a juried regional painting exhibition at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, and was subsequently honored with a purchase award in a show at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, entitled Realism in North Carolina. The painting is now on display in the lobby of the Nations Bank highrise office building in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina.

In 1980, at Larry Brown Lithography in Los Angeles, California, Doug Gilchrist personally supervised the printing of 550 reproductions of the painting. Of this number, only 295 were selected to be signed and numbered.