In the 1820s, Smyrna was called Jarrett’s Bay and included Williston and an area to the south called Tusk, and around 1836 community members renamed it Smyrna. It became a natural crossroads for the Down East area, where businesses included an upholstery shop, cooperages, groceries, a fish factory, freighting, and in the fifties and sixties a drive-in theater, while many families relied on farming and fishing as “saltwater farmers.” The first Missionary Baptist church in Carteret County was Warren Meeting House in 1829, renamed Smyrna Missionary Baptist Church in 1859, and many nearby communities worshiped there before forming their own congregations. The church, now beside the elementary school, originally stood a few miles farther south on the Hancock Plantation. The Hancock Plantation House, built in 1820, is one of the two oldest homes, while the earliest house was built in 1718 by Anthony Davis on Jump and Run Creek and still serves as a residence. Among local doctors, Dr. Josh Davis was especially remembered for mixing his own medicines, with bottles labeled “Shake before you take,” which gave him the lasting nickname “Doctor Shake It.” Numerous small Down East schools later consolidated as roads and bridges connected the communities, and the Smyrna-Straits school was consolidated in 1922.