James Styron sits in his living room Tuesday, June 23, 2026, in Oriental. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
Down in the County introduces Pamlico Voices, an ongoing oral history project that aims to preserve the memories, experiences and traditions of the Black communities of Pamlico County. Through recorded conversations, photographs and archives, we document the stories that have shaped the county — stories too often left out of official histories. By preserving these voices, we hope to create a lasting record that honors the past, strengthens our understanding of the present, and ensures future generations can learn history in the words of the people who lived it.
James Styron, 90, recalls a different version of Styrontown, one full of families and land that expanded beyond its now eroded coast.
A: “Oh my god, it was beautiful. Growing up here, in here, beautiful, beautiful. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
This was a community. We had 15, 20 houses down here when I was growing up.”
Q: Along this road (Styrontown Beach Road)?
“All this, the whole area was full of houses, everybody's family. Everybody had three or four kids. All this area you see in here was farm. Out there, down by the river, we had two ballparks out there, further out.
I think we lost about a mile, a mile and a half, two miles, in the ocean. My grandfather, when he first got this place, he said, you almost could walk to the other side. And I'm pretty sure, because when I left here, we could look all in Oriental. That's how much land we had. Big lakes that have been lost. And that, I don't know, that erosion was terrible, terrible, terrible.
But living in here, when I was young, I wouldn't trade it for anything.”
The pier leading out to the Neuse River at the end of Styrontown Beach Road. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
The land was built up by his grandfather, Franklin Styron Sr.
According to “Styron Family Roots,” a 500-page, hardcover book compiled by James Styron’s cousins Arleen Brooks and Adrienne Styron Johnson, the land was given to Franklin Styron’s “predecessors.” Their master, Captain Styron, who owned a plantation in Oriental and served in the Confederate Army, freed them from slavery before the start of the Civil War, and along with their freedom, he gave them 60 acres of his best land.
A photograph of 107-year-old Franklin Styron Sr. from “Styron Family Roots.” The caption says Styron Sr. was possibly the oldest person in North Carolina at the time. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
A property deed for Geneva Styron and Charlie H. Styron, James Styron’s uncle, from “Styron Family Roots.” (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
Photos of Franklin Stryon Sr. and his first wife, Lennie Caroline Kinsey Styron, shown in “Styron Family Roots.” (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
The Styron name dates to the 1600s with brothers John Stireing of Princess Anne County in Virginia and George Styring of Carteret County in North Carolina being the first two permanent settlers in those states.
Frank went on to have 13 children across three marriages, including his son Alexander Styron, who later met Annie Pearl Green, James’ mother.
James Styron, who grew up in the 1940s and 50s, recalled the beauty of the town and the variety of things to do.
Mailboxes and an old home along Styrontown Beach Road. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
A: “Hundreds of them.
Believe me, we had a beach down here. We had a beach. My grandfather, Frank, had a beach. Old Man Basin, Basin Beach. And Cooper, old man Cooper, black guy, had a beach down here. And it was a place to go.
We had all these little beaches, little shops that we used to go to hang out. And yeah, back in Bayboro, we had a place called Dew Drop Inn. And that was the place to go after a ball game.
I played basketball, (I was a) pretty good basketball player. And I don't know, you remember, I don't know his name, Walt Bellamy? He was in New Bern. He was a major pro, major Knicks, matter of fact.
And we used to compete against each other all the time. I was, as a matter of fact, I was probably just as good as he was, but he was 7 (foot) and I was 6 something, you know. And it was beautiful, beautiful time.
I wouldn’t trade it. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. It was beautiful, beautiful. Coming up, growing up, when was young. If I had to do it again, I would do it again, but I would do things a little different. I would take the scholarship that I was offered, North Carolina State, and can't do anything about that now.”
The view of Styron Town Beach from the beginning of the pier. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
Stratton, 11, and Ansley Lamm, 8, play along Styron Town Beach. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
Lee Schneider, 14, Molly Smith, 44, and Meredith Lamm, 44, sit along the beach while talking to Chip Smith, 56. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
Styron recalled attending Pamlico County High School, then called the trade school. At the time, students drove the school’s buses and Styron was one of the drivers. The bus quickly filled up, Styron said, noting how different that was from the few houses remaining in the area.
Photos show James Styron, No. 61, was co-captain of the Pamlico County High School men’s basketball team. Styron is on the right side of the top photo and kneeling on the right of the bottom photo. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
A: “Oh, that's the best time of my life, one of the best times of my life in high school. Yeah, because I played basketball, you know, that's the one. I was probably one of the popular dudes in the world, in basketball. I was a good basketball player. And going up to Bayboro, Pamlico County High School, it was a great, it was a great honor, really.
You know, I got up there, you know, just like I'm saying, I drove the bus for four years up there. You know, back in the old days, students had to drive the buses, not, they wouldn't rent it, you know, regular people. And that was a good, high school was, a matter of fact, you know, one of the better times of my life.
If I had to do it all over, I would do it, but I would do it a little different. Just like I said earlier, I wasn’t taking these people up on their basketball (scholarship). But back in the old days, a basketball player wasn't making seven, eight thousand dollars, you know what I mean? And I was doing that in New York.
You know, that's what stopped me, really. Yeah, but I enjoyed it. I made the decision, and I'm stuck with it.”
After high school, Styron struggled to find job opportunities in the county, and decided to pursue a career in New York City. There, he found work at Edison Brothers Shoe Store, working as a manager and salesperson.
Styron remained in New York for the majority of his life, 60 years, and considers himself a New Yorker. He met his wife, Janet, who grew up in Selma, Alabama, and they had six kids.
James Styron and his son Tony sit inside of Styron’s home. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
A: “It was the job thing. Strictly. 100% jobs.
Here, where you, you wasn't, I couldn't, you couldn't make a living back then in ’57, ’58. You couldn't make a living. In New York, you had a good opportunity. See, it wasn't always, then, and you meet so many different types of people. That's the important thing, what I really love, the people that I have met in New York.
You know, all these, all these, oh, one of the best moves I've made. If I have to do it all again, I will move to New York again. I will move now, but, if I have to do it, if I have to, I will live in New York.
Open, 24 hours a day, light never goes out. It always looks like daytime. And it's a beautiful, it was a beautiful place to live, especially for a minority.
Very, very, very nice. Wasn't all this, you know, stuff goes on in these areas, but we couldn't, we couldn't, at the time, we couldn't control that. We can't control what happens. We can't control people's minds. You know, people are going to think what they want to do anyway. They're going to do what they do anyway, which is very unfair, but that's our life.
You can't change things. Just like they always say, you can't change spots on a leopard. You couldn't change it, but believe me, if I have to do it all over again, I will take basically the same path, except I will go to school, you know, get a higher education.”
Styron’s time in New York came to an end 15 years ago when he returned to Styrontown to help take care of his mother, Annie Pearl Styron. Even at her advanced age, she was still moving and active. However, after suffering a broken leg, she began to slow down and died at age 102.
James Styron holds up a newspaper clipping from the Sun Journal featuring his mother, Annie. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
A sign on an abandoned structure near Styron Town Beach appears to spell “Styron Place.” (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
An American flag hangs from a neighbor’s house. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
After moving back to Pamlico County, Styron now lives in a house with his childhood home situated in the backyard. Yet this new dwelling is arguably one of the smaller changes since Styron's time away.
Styron’s childhood home is now deteriorating in the backyard of his current home. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
A: “Yeah, yeah, very, very changed, especially in Oriental. Oriental, you know, you have probably, I would ask them, how long, you'll know Kemp, before he died, Billy Kemp. If they want a nine original in Oriental, nine people, nine, nine people with a population of what, nine hundred? Yeah, well, I know everybody.
I know everybody in Oriental, you know; every, every family, Good, Delamars, the Styrons, you know, the Smiths, the Carcurties. I'm probably sure you've heard of these people.
Yeah, I know, you know, and it's, when I left here, Oriental was a world. They had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, there are about seven or eight stores you can shop in. Now, what they have now is one Piggly Wiggly and a Dollar General, and that's it.”
Today you can find what remains of the town along Styrontown Beach Road, leading you past Styron’s house to his family’s cemetery and beach. From the gravel parking lot extends a pier that is often used for fishing, with the sandy shores below often seeing soles too.
Rayna Shiminski, 20, smokes a cigarette while her son Giovanni, 4 months, plays in his stroller. Her friend David Vazquez, 23, and her husband, Anthony Peterson, 29, fish nearby. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
Valice Carmen, 55, holds his granddaughter Saylear Rodgers, 1, as Veneice Rodgers, 26, and Keishmund Rodgers, 25, chat. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
The Styron family cemetery is next to Styron Town Beach. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
While the town itself has continued to fade, the Styron name carries on. “Styron Family Roots” chronicles an extensive family history and James Styron said he has over 100 living extended family members.
A: “Favorite memories? Our beaches. That's a beautiful thing. We had a lot of places to go, and my grandfather had that big; this place in here, all of this was farmland, and it was a time, believe me, we could sit here and look at the all the ocean, just sit right here, and didn't have to move.
Not here, but in the old house, and that's a memory that I have. I know my grandfather had what? He used to tend tobacco, corn, watermelons, anything it had to be. My biggest memory, we used to have the tobacco, where you used to cure tobacco in a barn out there, and we used to have that tobacco.
We used to cure the tobacco in the barn, take it, grind it, and take it to Greenville, Raleigh, and Tennyson. We used to take this, they had a big warehouse where they'd grind the tobacco, you know, the Arthur Hill. Oh, that was one of my better times down here, going to the tobacco house, graveyard house, I guess.
That was a nice thing, you know, to go up there, spend the night up there, you know, and the next day, they would bring tobacco. You would come back, and half the time, you'd go to a movie, or watch a great, you know, beautiful thing back then. And that was a lifetime.
All the boys would get in that truck, and we'd go up, and that was, I guess, one of the better times down here, when we would take that truck out of town. Yeah, I would do that again, if I had, I wouldn't work in the tobacco field again. I would do that, I would do that again.
Yeah, that's one of my memories that I always cherish.”
To hear the full conversation with James Styron, click below.
James Styron poses for a portrait in his backyard. (Sage Russell/Down County Fellow)
Update/Correction (8:57 p.m. 8/6/26) James’ son Tony reached out to Down in the County to clarify that James had six kids instead of five, that the basketball player James’ competed with was Walt Bellamy not Walt Bellarmine and that Arleen Brooks and Adrienne Styron Johnson are James’ cousins, not nieces.
