Visitors to Ocracoke commonly have heard about our banker ponies.  The National Park Service tends to their needs and the horses are kept in an enclosure on the north end of the island – about seven miles outside of town.  Any further knowledge, however, generally stops there, and I personally have been asked plenty of questions about the ponies just in this summer alone. 

The best theory about the origin of these horses can be summed up in one word: shipwrecks.  Being located in the Graveyard of the Atlantic, Ocracoke has seen its fair share of shipwrecks.  It’s commonly believed that our banker ponies are descendants of those horses, possibly Spanish mustangs, that survived these disasters and were stranded on Ocracoke.

It’s interesting to note that the horses fairly quickly adapted and evolved to better survive in the island environment.  They dug for fresh water with their hooves, but the well water they found was brackish.  They ate marsh grass, which no horse in its right mind would touch.  Actually, when the Ocracoke mounted Boy Scout troop came into being and the scouts had to retain their ponies instead of letting them roam, the boys had to “teach” their horses to eat hay and oats.  The banker ponies are an extremely hardy breed.

Originally, the horses ran free on Ocracoke.  Many an older native can tell you a story about waking up in the morning to find a herd in their yard grazing.  Every July 4^th the island would hold a pony penning; the horses would be driven into town, counted and branded, and then set free once more.  While the ponies were all wild, they were still technically owned by various community members.  They were later penned while the mounted Boy Scout troop was around for the preservation and safety of the herd.

For those of you who aren’t aware of the Ocracoke mounted Boy Scouts, here’s a quick little lesson:

The Rise

The mounted boy scouts of Ocracoke were the only mounted troop in the nation.  During the mid 1950’s, Lt Colonel Marvin Howard, who formally served with the US Navy in WWI before switching over to the US Army Corps of Engineers, was the acting scoutmaster and formulated the idea to put the boys on the banker ponies.  While most of the horses had their own nominal owner, once paid for, the boys were each responsible for catching and taming their mount.  They tested various ways to break their ponies, like using a sand-filled dummy in place of a rider or leading the horses into deeper water where the weight of the boys and the tack was lessened; although the scouts did tend to ride bareback often.  “Gee” and “haw” were not familiar commands for these ponies either, as the boys instead used the nautical terms “port” and “starboard.”  The unparalleled spirit of the Ocracoke boy scouts and the novelty of their four-legged counterparts drew national recognition in the form of news media and outside photographers.  Ben Dixon MacNeill, a journalist at the time, later went on to mention these mounted scouts in his book The Hatterasman and their trips to the annual Pirates Jamboree and pony races in Hatteras.  Other published works that contain information on the Ocracoke troop include Ocracoke by Carl Goerch, Ocracoke Album by Jack Dudley, and Wild Ponies of Ocracoke by Earl W. O’Neal, Jr.

The Fall

After the Cape Hatteras National Seashore came into being in 1953, the National Park Service set restrictions in place, and banned all freely roaming livestock on Ocracoke.  This included the banker ponies, as they were all owned by various members of the community, and, therefore, were considered livestock.  Through the team efforts of Scoutmaster Marvin Howard, the scouts, the Rondthalers, Sam Jones, and various others, the National Park Service was persuaded to keep a small herd on the island.  The scouts built the fenced enclosure for the ponies and maintained it themselves for awhile.  Not long after, the Boy Scouts of America demanded the boys must carry insurance if they continued to ride in the name of scouting.  It was an unrealistic demand, as no boy of that age could afford insurance.  The BSA withdrew their support, the boys could no longer ride their horses as scouts, and the pony pasture became too expensive to maintain.  The National Park Service took control of the horses in the late 60’s and now steadily manages the herd.  The mounted scouts of Ocracoke had existed roughly ten years.

            The herd continues to prosper on Ocracoke, though it’s a small one.  In order to keep the bloodlines pure but free of inbreeding, the Park Service will bring in purebred banker ponies from other areas on the coast to use for breeding and continuing the line of Ocracoke ponies.

“Until tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”

Chrisi