A Mailbox on the Beach is the Keeper of Personal Stories

Beyond the dunes of a remote North Carolina beach you’ll find a unique home for more than 35 years worth of personal stories from thousands of visitors and locals. Visit the Kindred Spirit Mailbox on Bird Island where a once-secret caretaker tells his own tale of this truly magical place.

On a remote stretch of beach, on the North Carolina coast, near Sunset Beach, is a treasured tradition for thousands who visit these waters each year.

After a mile-and-a-half walk on Bird Island, you’ll see the flag, and then the kindred spirit mailbox, which for over 35 years has uniquely safeguarded thousands of secrets, joys and heartaches within its tightly bound journals.

For years, no one knew who put the Kindred Spirit mailbox here, until just recently.
Frank Nesmith and his late former girlfriend Claudia put the mailbox here over 35 years ago. The story goes that frank found Claudia struggling to put the mailbox up, and Frank found a piece of driftwood to steady it. That’s when they met.

“I always felt like the people that went down there were the kindred spirits. And they brought the kindred spirits when they come,” says Nesmith.

Frank, now 88, says he can’t make the walk down to the mailbox anymore, so he relies on helpers like local author Jack DeGroot who along with her friend Sandy keeps the Kindred Spirit mailbox going.

I feel like I’m doing something to help people. If the notebooks weren’t collected, if they weren’t saved, that would be terrible, says DeGroot.

Hundreds of the journals are now in special collection at UNC-Wilmington’s Randall Library where their unique voice will always have a home.

As for Frank Nesmith, he enjoys talking to anyone about the legacy of the Kindred Spirit mailbox that he and Claudia started so long ago.

“Regardless of whatever else happens around here, the Kindred Spirit, it should still be alive and kicking when I’m dead and gone.”