Mr. Nixon had the faith in the healthful qualities of the Outer Banks that his descendants have inherited from him in such large measure. He determined to use these qualities, no matter what the expense, to try to save the lives of his slaves. At considerable cost, he took carpenters and other laborers on board boat and floated lumber from Perquimans Country down to Nag's Head, towing it with the currents, behind sailing barges. When they arrived, the carpenters proceeded to build a small village of weathertight houses, sheds, and out-buildings. These were generously spaced in the forest of hardwoods that stood on that spot in those days. Arbors were built on which to train the luxuriant local grapevines. Garden plots were cleared in the rich soil, and the earth was pulverized to make it ready for the seeds that were brought along.

Once this village was complete, Mr. Nixon returned to his plantations and chose from his slaves seven sisters whose families had been stricken with tuberculosis. He transported these seven sisters with their husbands and their children en masse to Nag's Head and set them up in housekeeping in the newly constructed village. Further, he stocked their pantries and smokehouses with food in abundance, as was his way. He brought several cows to their pastures and presented them with a whole herd of pigs.

There his slaves stayed in various stages of sickness and were administered to be doctors, who visited them regularly, and by boats from the plantations, which brought supplies. In the beginning, the healthier individuals had no duties other than fishing, clamming, crabbing, and tending their little garden plots, as well as keeping house, while caring for the needs of the more seriously sick of their number. As the ill ones began to recover, however, the whole community took seriously to fishing, gardening, and herding the cattle and swine. Eventually the group became almost self-sufficient.

According to the story handed down from generation to generation, this Arcadian village lasted for a little more than three years. It is said that not a single one of the slaves died but that all the sick recovered, and there were several births during that time. Upon their complete recovery, the whole community was brought back to the plantations in Perquimans Country, and the village on the Outer Banks was abandoned, being soon retaken by the forest.

The location of this ante-bellum health spa, this early experiment in communal health care, is said to have been on the exact spot where the seven lovely sand hills now stand. It is from this settlement that the hills take their name. Not long ago there were people who could tell you what each hill was called, pointing out which hill represented which sister. Unfortunately such detailed knowledge has now been lost in the frenetic hurry and bustle of our modern way of life.

Folk memory persists to the effect that those seven sisters were the daughters of an African king and were sold into slavery through the trickery and avarice of certain court underlings who took advantage of an illness of the king to betray his family into the hands of Yankee slave traders. Their mother died on board the slave ship, so the legend goes, but the seven daughters survived. They were sold in a lot on the auction block in Philadelphia and eventually found their way to the plantations of eastern North Carolina and to the ownership of this kind and humane master. The king lost no time in executing his betrayers, but by that time his wife and daughters were far beyond his reach and forever lost to him.

Admittedly it is untraditional and quite different from the usual conduct of ghosts, but the legend keeps coming back and back that the spirits of these seven princesses return to this site of their great happiness and good fortune. This is said to occur always in the summertime, the season of their greatest enjoyment of the Outer Banks.

To many it seems quite plausible that, on soft moonlit summer nights when the wind is still and the customary roar of the ocean is muted to a rhythmic sign, you may see the ghost of one, or more, of these seven royal sisters walking the crest of her own namesake-hill and praying to whatever gods she knew for the recovery of her babies and her husband from the dreaded white plague. Such things can happen on these Outer Banks.

True, entomologists have long known that the exceptionally brilliant fireflies denominated Lampyridae Photinus are found in great numbers on the flat beds behind these hills and are thought to migrate to the tops of the dunes on calm nights during certain periods in summer for their pyrotechnic courtship rites. Even the most dedicated and preoccupied practicing entomologist, however, would hardly confuse Photinus with the ghost of a princess.