Mackeys Ferry, a.k.a. Mackeys, is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Washington County,

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

, United States. Mackeys Ferry is located in North Carolina's Inner Banks region and is located at the mouth of the Mackeys Creek on the south side of the

Albemarle Sound Albemarle Sound () is a large estuary on the coast of North Carolina in the United States located at the confluence of a group of rivers, including the Chowan River, Chowan and Roanoke River, Roanoke. It is separated from the Atlantic Ocean b ...

Railroad history

The

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

ran through Mackeys Ferry since the turn of the 20th century. Branch lines ran from Mackeys Ferry to Columbia and to Belhaven. These branch lines connected to the main line that ran between

Raleigh Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...

, via

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

, and

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

via Edenton and Elizabeth City. Prior to the Albemarle Sound Trestle being built, trains used to cross to Edenton via a ferry. In 1910 the Norfolk Southern Railroad built a wooden trestle bridging the 5.05 mi from Mackeys to Edenton"Norfolk and Southern Railroad at Mackeys Ferry" by Bob Spruill and the Norfolk and Southern Historical Society
In the late 1980s Norfolk Southern discontinued use of the Albemarle Sound Trestle due to maintenance costs and subsequently dismantled it. This created a spur line from Plymouth to Mackeys. Agriculture products were loaded at the site where the Mackeys Ferry train station used to be until 2004 when the tracks were removed. Today the tracks only run a mile outside the

city limits to the east into the industrial park.

References

Unincorporated communities in Washington County, North Carolina Unincorporated communities in North Carolina {{WashingtonCountyNC-geo-stub