The Ocracoke pony herd has a new member, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore has announced.
A new foal, Winnie was born on May 3. Her mother is Sacajawea, a mare from Shackleford Banks who joined the Ocracoke herd in 2010, and her father is Captain Marvin Howard.
The foal was named by the Ocracoke School students after Winnie Blount, a former slave from Washington, Beaufort County.
According to Ocracoke Island Journal, a blog by Philip Howard, by the end of the Civil War in 1865 all of Ocracoke’s former slaves had fled the island. Winnie Blount (“Aunt Winnie”) and her husband Harkus (Hercules) Blount, moved to Ocracoke from Blount’s Creek, N.C., with a Williams family in 1866/1867. Harkus was a boat builder and carpenter; Aunt Winnie (ca. 1825 – 1925), worked as a domestic. The Blounts were the only post-Civil War black family to call Ocracoke home for more than 100 years.
Winnie will stay close to her mother for at least six months and will join the rest of the herd sometime in the fall.
For more National Park Service information regarding the Ocracoke Ponies and how you can participate in the “Adopt-A-Pony” program, click here.
