Two brothers spent eight years in jail for refusing to leave their grandfather's heirs' property on Silver Dollar Road

In 1911 the brothers' great-grandfather bought 65 acres on the water in Carteret County. The family shrimped, crabbed and fished there. Mitchell Reels died without a will in 1970, and the land became heirs' property, owned in undivided shares by all his descendants. Shedrick Reels, a distant relative who had not lived on the land for about 20 years, claimed the waterfront section through a Torrens proceeding and won in 1976. He sold it over the family's opposition. In 1986 it was sold to William Dean Brown's company, Adams Creek Associates, which planned condominiums. Mitchell's grandsons Melvin Davis and Licurtis Reels stayed on the 13.25 waterfront acres and refused court orders to remove their homes. In 2011 Superior Court Judge Jack Jenkins held them in civil contempt and jailed them until they complied. The company's lawyer said they stayed in jail because they would not sign an acknowledgment that Adams Creek owns the land. On 21 September 2018 the North Carolina Supreme Court unanimously sent the case back to decide whether they were able to comply. They were released in April 2019 and ordered not to return to the land. They were held for civil contempt longer than anyone in North Carolina history. Their mother, Gertrude Reels, said in 2018: "This land is in my blood." No construction had started as of 2018.