Travis Morris

Travis Morris was born about a mile north of Coinjock Bridge in Coinjock, North Carolina on November 29,1932 in the same old farm house that his mother was born in on April 3rd, 1908. He was the only child of Chester and Edna Morris. His daddy was an attorney and later a Superior Court Judge. His daddy represented many of the old duck hunting clubs when he was practicing law. That's how he got a lot of old first hand information.

Travis was in the Coast Guard from January 1951 to January 1954. He married Frances Meiggs on June 21st, 1953. When he got out of the Coast Guard in 1954 he attended Campbell College in Buies Creek, North Carolina for a year and a half. He came home and started farming in 1956. In 1957 he also started in the long distance trucking business to haul his own produce. To keep drivers, he had to give them year round work and to do this he had to haul out of Florida in the winter. He was soon in the trucking business more than he was farming.

While his drivers hauled produce out of Florida, he guided sportsmen in the winter during the duck hunting season. One winter he commercial fished. All of this was to try to make a living and stay in Currituck. He followed these professions until 1970 when he and Frances got their Real Estate Licenses and started Currituck Realty, Inc., business he is still in 40 years later.

In 1971 when there was no road on Currituck Beach he took people across Currituck Sound in an old gas boat and took them out to the beach in an old Corvier he paid fifty dollars for. He painted Currituck Realty on the side of it with white shoe polish. Back then he was selling oceanfront lots for twelve thousand dollars that are now valued at over one million.

In 1974, Travis operated Monkey Island Club and opened it to the public for the first time since it was started in 1876. He did this for four years while in the process of selling it and three miles of beach-to-sound property for the Penn Family from Reidsville, North Carolina. They had owned it since 1932. Charles A. Penn was one of the founders of American Tobacco Company.

In 1983 Travis and John H. High started Piney Island Club, which Travis is still a member of. Frances died in 1992 and Travis married Jo Ann Hayman in 1995.

Travis said he never had any thoughts of writing a book until he got talked into it in 2006 by Susan Joy Davis, author of "Reflections of the Whalehead Club." Travis wrote Duck Hunting on Currituck Sound. The second week after it came out the publisher notified him they were going to do a second printing. People wanted more books from him so he wrote, Currituck; Memories and Adventures, Currituck; Ducks, Politics, and Outlaw Gunners, and Untold Stories of Old Currituck Duck Clubs., Trucking As It Used To Be, Hauling Produce in the 40's, 50's, & 60', Currituck As It Used To Be. All the books are published by The History Press in Charleston, South Carolina except the trucking book. They said there was no market for a trucking book. Travis published that himself, advertised it in Wheels of Time Magazine and sold it in 35 states coast to coast and four Canadian Provinces. His books are all short stories with a lot of pictures. The first book is about Travis's duck hunting experiences. All the other book have stories by other people in Currituck as well as things he'll insert from time to time that he remembers.