Editing Harkers Island, North Carolina (section)

===The Hurricane of 1899===
Harkers Island saw an influx of new residents after hurricanes in 1896 and 1899 devastated the communities established on the nearby Core Banks and Shackleford Banks. Mostly fishermen and whalers, the people of the Outer Banks began openly debating the merits of moving after the Hurricane of 1896. William Henry Guthrie of [[Diamond City, North Carolina|Diamond City]] was one of the first to relocate, buying {{convert|64.5|acre}} of land on Harkers Island in 1897.<ref name="prioli"/> Some others moved to more sheltered locations on the coast, but most Shackleford residents remained on the Banks. Diamond City was by far the largest town in that area of the coast, with over 700 inhabitants.

Three years later, another hurricane hit the Carolina coast, and this time the disaster for the residents of the Shackleford Banks was total. Diamond City was completely destroyed by the August 17 [[1899 San Ciriaco hurricane|Hurricane of 1899]]. The storm ravaged the Banks' protective sand [[dune]]s, and washed away nearly all of the top soil. Orchards and maritime forest on the Banks soon began dying from the salt left behind by the [[storm surge]]. Homes were ripped from their foundations, shattered, or submerged. Even graves in the local cemeteries were uprooted and disturbed. A botanist who visited the Banks after the storm described the landscape as completely devastated.<ref name="prioli"/>

Many families used boats to move what was left of their houses, plank by plank, from the Outer Banks to Harkers Island where they could rebuild. Some settled on the Guthrie property, which he began to subdivide. Others purchased or leased land on the island anywhere they could. Some emigrated to [[Morehead City, North Carolina|Morehead City]], on the mainland, where they built a new neighborhood soon nicknamed "The Promised Land". The last resident had left Diamond City by 1902.<ref name="prioli"/> In the five years between 1895 and 1900, the population of Harkers Island expanded fourfold from just 13 extended families to over 1,000 residents. The island had gone from being one of the smallest communities in Carteret County to one of the largest.<ref name="murphrey"/>

Elders of [[the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] (LDS Church) proselytized extensively on Harkers Island after the hurricanes. Many of the refugees from Diamond City, uprooted physically and emotionally by the devastating hurricanes, converted to the Latter Day Saints, and soon outnumbered the members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which had been founded on the island in 1875. A national wave of [[anti-Mormon]] sentiment was sparked by the [[Smoot Hearings]] in 1904, fueling fears that Mormons secretly continued to practice [[polygamy]]. The relationship between the Mormons on Harkers Island and their neighbors deteriorated.

Residents threw rocks and oyster shells through the windows of the LDS [[meetinghouse]] and fired at least one gunshot into the building. In 1906, arsonists burned the meetinghouse to the ground. Organized Mormon religious services did not resume on Harkers Island until 1909. A new LDS meetinghouse was constructed on the island in the 1930s.<ref name="rees">Rees, Franceine Perry, "Joel Hancock," ''ECU Report,'' Summer 1989, Volume 20, No. 1.</ref> Despite these difficult beginnings, Harker's Island has one of the highest percentages of residents as members of the Latter-day Saints of any locality in North Carolina.<ref name="lds_ward">[https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/tools/stake-and-ward-websites?lang=eng "Harkers Island NC Ward"]. [[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] official website.  Retrieved Sep. 19, 2007.</ref>