By Renee Gannon, 2/2007

• 1: Introduction
• 2: Building Penderlea
• 3: Life on Penderlea
• 4: Penderlea Today
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Building Penderlea

Wilmington businessman Hugh MacRae knew a thing or two about building farming communities. Since 1903, he had recruited immigrants to work the farm colonies of Castle Hayne and Saint Helena. In 1906, MacRae purchased the 10,000-acre Wilson tract in Pender County for $12 an acre, with an eye on developing another farm town.

When the Resettlement Act passed, MacRae stood ready with plans for his Wilson Tract: Penderlea, a homesteading community.

MacRae sold the government 4,500 acres of the swampy timberland for $6.50 an acre, losing money on his investment. Workers began clearing the land and digging ditches in 1934, when a Civilian Conservation Corps workforce moved into a makeshift camp at a nearby abandoned sawmill. Readying the land proved difficult. CCC dug 15 canals and more than 100 miles of ditches to drain the land. According to Cottle, more than 1,000 men worked in the muck at the peak of land preparation and construction.

Cottle adds that these canals and ditches still drain the water today, keeping the Penderlea area from flooding when tropical systems move across the region.

The plan called for 152 farms on 10- to 20-acre tracts, with each farm consisting of a four- to six-room house with indoor plumbing and electricity, barn, chicken coop, wash/smoke house, corn crib and a hog house. MacRae owned Tidewater Power & Light (acquired in 1952 by Carolina Power & Light) and would provide electricity to the initial project. The government also purchased an additional 6,000 acres from MacRae for another 152 homesteads, but the project was never completed. Four County EMC still provides electricity to the homes that were built in this Penderlea extension.

The town would have a school with an auditorium, gymnasium, library, cafeteria, shop building, home economics building and lodging for teachers. Other community buildings included a vegetable grading shed, potato storage house, cannery, grist and feed mills, cooperative general store, social building, furniture factory and a textile mill. The idea was to build everything needed for a self-sustaining community.

In March 1934, the first homesteaders were Sutton and Katie Bell and their son. Bruno and Jo Van Bavel and their daughter and son arrived shortly after. One problem: the homesteaders were homeless—the land had been cleared but the houses did not exist. Movable, two-room tar paper shacks on “sled” runners served as a “mobile homes” for each family, and jobs at the project gardens and cannery provided an income while their homes were built.