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n Sunday afternoon, about 40 people boarded a barge on the western shore of the South River and motored across to the Lukens Cemetery.

The barge carrying 40 people across the South River from the community of South River to the Lukens Cemetery. Elzie Tosto mans the pole at the bow (the poles were shallow water auxilary propulsion – and a handy depthsounder).

The one-mile, fifteen-minute barge ride and the cemetery visit were part of the Annual Lukens Picnic – now in its 24th year. The graveyard visit — and the dinner before hand — aim to keep alive memories and stories of the small river town of Lukens which disappeared in the 1940’s as its families moved away.

The barge ride pointed up one of the reasons for the demise of Lukens. While not technically an island, Lukens was virtually on an islolated land mass. Even today, this spot remains inaccessible by any public roads. Several people on Sunday spoke of it being an island in spirit, if not in name.

That isolation — compounded by hurricanes and opportunities elsewhere after WWII — led the families of Lukens to leave.

Tom Tosto and Eloise Collins who organize the yearly picnic at South River and barge trip to the Lukens Cemetery.

Since 1987, Tom Tosto and Eloise Collins have been organizing the picnic for descendants of the Lukens’ families. They include Pittmans, Tostos, Hardys, Masons among others — all who transplanted elsewhere. Some went just across the river to South River, others to Beaufort. Still others set down roots across the Neuse in Oriental.

The cemetery – and its arched sign – are all that remain of Lukens.

As was recounted in the cemetery Sunday, a number of those families literally took their homes with them. They floated the structures away, making them in to temporary houseboats, or took apart the homes in Lukens and then reassembled them in their new place.

Those buildings that weren’t floated away intentionally were either destroyed in hurricanes or disappeared over time. Today, there’s no evidence of the store, the post office, the school, the church. Tom Tosto says they had been situated just north of the cemetery.

Only the graveyard gives evidence of the families that had lived on that eastern shore of the South River. At the cemetery and its shaded and gently sloping hill on Sunday, people clustered at the gravesites. Noting the names on the stones, they talked about the roots of their family trees.

One of the younger descendants reading the markers of the Lukens graves.

Tom Tosto said that a few years ago, an Oriental resident who attended the picnic asked what he’d have to do to be buried there in the Lukens Cemetery. In telling the story Sunday, Tosto waited a beat and then said, “I told him… All you have to do is die.”

It is possible to visit before then. As with the picnic, the cemetery is open to anyone with an interest in the history of Lukens, so long as they are able to arrive by boat. A dock awaits just to the right of the “Lukens Cemetary” sign. Visitors who wait til next May, of course, can join the others on the barge.

The approximate location of the Lukens Cemetery is highlighted in yellow, at lower right on the chart. Oriental is at the upper left, about a 9 mile boat trip.

The river trip started out across the South River, at Tom Tosto’s landing (just inside Big Creek off of the South River’s western shore.)

The barge about to dock at the Lukens Cemetery side of the South River. Genny Hill, whose father, Tom Tosto is a key organizer of the Lukens Picnic, prepares the line to tie up his barge.

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After the barge ride, a walk up a small — rare — hill to the Lukens Cemetery. While the community of Lukens was largely destroyed in hurricanes in the 1930s and 1940s, the cemetery, on higher ground, has withstood those forces of nature. Today it provides the place to return to for the descendants of the town’s families.

One of the older stones in the Lukens Cemetery.

Lukens Cemetery and the big oaks that shade the graves.

There was lots of looking at gravestones and the spans of life etched in to them.

The Lukens Picnic started as a way for descendants of the community’s families to trace their roots, and while they make up most of the participants, the event is open to the general public. Bud Daniels of Merritt was walking between the stones in search of unmarked graves, using copper “dowsing rods”. Bud says the rods are activated by ironification of bodies.

A gravestone and mark from nature.

Tom Tosto with his daughter Genny Hill and her son, Jason, all of South River. Gennys mother and Tom’s late wife grew up in Lukens and Tom has organized the yearly Lukens Picnic for more than 20 years.

Elzie Tosto, who grew up in South River, just across from Lukens.

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Tom Tosto.

The barge awaits the crowd for the 15 minute one mile ride back across the South River.

Elzie Tosto handles the lines as the barge prepares to depart from Lukens on the east side of the South River.

It took some pushing to get the barge afloat and away….

Still some more pushing off was needed.

And another push.

Leaving Lukens, 2010.

And on to the Town of South River… across the South River.

Lukens Cemetery.

Thanks to Ken Laser and Wendy Osserman who provided high speed powerboat transportation to South River for the TownDock crew. TownDock.net does have a “press boat” – but Ken’s 140hp Suzuki outboard is somewhat faster than our big red sail.

Posted Tuesday May 18, 2010 by Melinda Penkava