What is a staunchly conservative Dutch Reformed Church doing in the tiny, remote Eastern N.C, community of Pantego?
Well, it turns out that 25 Dutch families settled in Beaufort and Hyde Counties, beginning in the 1910s, displaced by WW1 and finding the marshy area around the Inner Banks to their liking. What's an activity the Dutch are known for? Draining wetlands. After that? Growing cut flowers. The Dutch arrived as part of the effort to drain Lake Mattamuskeet. When the drainage project ended, and Mattamuskeet was restored as a wildlife refuge, some of the Dutch turned to raising cut and bulb flowers, and some continue to this day.
(Photo by John Wenzelburger, CC BY-NC 2.0)
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