Ownership of Harkers Island was first titled to Farnifold Green, a native of the Carolina colony, by the lord proprietor in 1707.

Separated from the mainland for centuries, many Harkers Island residents speak a distinct dialect of English, earning them the nickname "Hoi toiders.

[7] On December 20, 1707, Farnifold Green obtained the first patent for land in the Core Sound area from the lord proprietor of the Carolina colony, which had been established by the English monarch Charles I in 1633.

[9] George Pollock sold Craney Island to Ebenezer Harker on September 15, 1730, for £400 and "one boate twentey foot long with oars & mast".

[10] Harker had moved to Beaufort, North Carolina, by 1728, where he was appointed a tax collector for the whale oil revenue generated in the area.

After purchasing the island, Harker took up residence there with his family and began building a small plantation and boat yard.

Harker sold half of the island to his nephew John Stevens of Onslow County on March 8, 1733, for £300, with many restrictions on its agricultural use.

Prohibited from farming or ranching the land for profit, Stevens eventually sold his half of the island back to his uncle on June 9, 1737, for just £180.

In 1752, he deeded approximately 10 acres (4.0 ha) of the island to his daughter Hepsobeth and her husband Nathan Yeomans as a wedding gift.

Hepsobeth inherited "one barrel of corn", and Ebenezer's other married daughter, Sarah Freshwater, was given a female slave named Hope.

Revolutionaries used warehouse facilities on Harkers Island to store provisions sought by British troops who had seized the nearby county seat of Beaufort.

[9] A small milling facility was built on the west end of the island in 1870 by Louie Larson, an immigrant from Norway, but it closed before the turn of the 20th century.

William Henry Guthrie of Diamond City was one of the first to relocate, buying 64.5 acres (26.1 ha) of land on Harkers Island in 1897.

Many of the refugees from Diamond City, uprooted physically and emotionally by the devastating hurricanes, converted to the Latter Day Saints, and soon outnumbered the members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which had been founded on the island in 1875.

A national wave of anti-Mormon sentiment was sparked by the Smoot Hearings in 1904, fueling fears that Mormons secretly continued to practice polygamy.

[14] Despite these difficult beginnings, Harker's Island has one of the highest percentages of residents as members of the Latter-day Saints of any locality in North Carolina.

The road and the post office were connected to the mainland by a ferry service until the Earl C. Davis Memorial Bridge was built in 1941.

A wooden structure, the bridge connected the northwestern end of Harkers Island to the small town of Straits directly to the north.

[7] The 1933 Outer Banks Hurricane which made landfall on September 15 would forever change the economy of Harkers Island.

This new channel gave Harkers Island fishermen a new, direct access route to offshore fishing grounds.

[16] In November 1941, the construction of a new United States Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, 30 miles (48 km) to the northwest of Harkers Island, brought more wage-earning jobs to the local economy.

German submarines patrolled the North Carolina coast and sank merchant shipping traffic, especially oil tankers.

The federal government became interested a few years later, and envisioned the Outer Banks of North Carolina being included in a string of national seashores stretching the length of the United States Atlantic coast.

In late December of that year, a series of arson fires destroyed most of the major structures on the Shackleford Banks, including a recently constructed park visitor center.

In 2013, the United States Census Bureau reported 22 business establishments on Harkers Island employing 107 people.

In the late 19th century, the Core Sound area produced 80% of the salted mullet sold on the United States east coast.

In addition to mullet, the commercial fishing industry of Harkers Island brings in oysters, clams, shrimp, scallops, crabs, spot, croaker, trout, flounder, bluefish, and mackerel.

Ferry service from Harkers Island is one of the principal means of tourist access to Cape Lookout and the Shackleford Banks.

Founded in 1987 at the Harkers Island home of Wayne Davis, the Core Sound Decoy Carvers Guild organized the first of what would become an annual festival in December 1998.

[19] The Core Sound Waterfowl Museum, operated by a separate board of directors from the Carvers Guild, is a major year-round tourist attraction for the island.