These communities are Bettie, Otway, Straits, Harkers Island, Gloucester, Marshallberg, Tusk, Smyrna, Williston, Davis, Stacy, Masontown, Sea Level, Atlantic and Cedar Island.
Many residents of these communities feature a High Tider ("Hoi Toider") accent, a dialect remnant of Elizabethan English that was once spoken in colonial Carolina.
This dialect is indigenous to the lowland areas of North Carolina, in combination with the general southern accent common in the Southeast.
[1] The term Down East has broadened in usage over the years to refer to Eastern North Carolina in general or more specifically the central coastal plain of the state, roughly where the Pamlico Sound watershed is between the Tar-Pamlico and Neuse river basins.
[2][3] Towns and cities in the watershed include but are not limited to Greenville, Goldsboro, Kinston, New Bern, Rocky Mount, Tarboro, Washington, and Wilson.