New Holland is a community in
Hyde County, North Carolina, located along the southern shore of Lake Mattamuskeet. Between 1911 and 1934, three private investment companies partnered with the public Mattamuskeet Drainage District to build the
world's largest capacity pumping plant and dredge of large navigable canals to drain Lake Mattamuskeet for residential, commercial, and agricultural development. The lake drainage project also gave badly needed drainage relief to about 550 farmers around the lake whose farms drained by gravity into the huge lakebed. The investors created a community within the reclaimed lakebed and named it "New Holland," after similar land reclamation projects in the Netherlands. The drainage project ended when the third private owner sold the lake property to the United States government in 1934 to allow the creation of a migratory bird refuge. Today, Lake Mattamuskeet and the old town site of New Holland are on Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge. The community on the south central side of Lake Mattamuskeet is still called "New Holland Community." == References ==