[Illustration: OLD FLOAT BRIDGE ACROSS THE PERQUIMANS RIVER]

IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE

_By Catherine Albertson_

PUBLISHED BY THE

NORTH CAROLINA SOCIETY DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION

ILLUSTRATED FROM DRAWINGS BY

MABEL PUGH

RALEIGHCOMMERCIAL PRINTING COMPANY1914

COPYRIGHT, 1914

BY

CATHERINE ALBERTSON

DEDICATION

TO

MARY HILLIARD HINTON

STATE REGENT DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION

WITHOUT WHOSE AID AND ENCOURAGEMENT

THESE CHAPTERS WOULD NEVER

HAVE BEEN WRITTEN

--_C. A. _

THE PERQUIMANS RIVER

 From the Great Swamp's mysterious depths, Where wild beasts lurk and strange winds sough; From ancient forests dense and dark, Where gray moss wreathes the cypress bough; 'Mid marshes green with flowers starred, Through fens where reeds and rushes sway, Past fertile fields of waving grain, Down to the sea I take my way. 

 The wild swan floats upon my breast; The sea-gulls to my waters sink; And stealing to my low green shores, The timid deer oft stoops to drink. The yellow jessamine's golden bells Ring on my banks their fairy chime; And tall flag lilies bow and bend, To the low music keeping time. 

 Between my narrow, winding banks, For many a mile I dream along 'Mid silence deep, unbroken save By rustling reed, or wild bird's song; Or murmuring of my shadowed waves Beneath the feathery cypress trees, Or pines, responsive to the breath Of winds that breathe sea memories. 

 So far removed seem shore and stream, From sound and sight of mart or mill, That Kilcokonen's painted braves Might roam my woods and marshes still. And still, as in the days of yore, Ere yet the white man's sail I knew, Upon my amber waves might skim The Indian maiden's light canoe. 

 Thus, half asleep, I dream along, Till low at first, and far away, Then louder, more insistent, calls A voice my heart would fain obey. And by a force resistless drawn, The narrow banks that fetter me I thrust apart, and onward sweep In quiet strength toward the sea. 

 I leave my marshes and my fens; I dream no more upon my way; But forward press, a river grown, In the great world my part to play. Upon my wide and ample breast, The white-winged boats go hurrying by; And on my banks the whirring wheels Of busy mills hum ceaselessly. 

 And sharing man's incessant toil, I journey ever onward down, With many a lovely sister stream, With all the waters of the Sound, To join the sea, whose billows break, In silver spray, in wild uproar, Upon the golden bars that guard The lonely Carolina shore. 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Wikacome in Weapomeiok, the Home of George Durant 1

II. The First Albemarle Assembly--Hall's Creek, near Nixonton 13

III. Enfield Farm--Where the Culpeper Rebellion Began 19

IV. The Hecklefield Farm 31

V. Colonial Days in Church and School on Little River, Pasquotank County 46

VI. The Haunts of Blackbeard 54

VII. The Old Brick House--a True History of the Historic DwellingReputed to be the Home of the Famous Pirate 62

VIII. "Elmwood, " the Old Swann Homestead In Pasquotank County 66

IX. Pasquotank in Colonial Wars 72

X. Pasquotank in Colonial Wars--"The War of Jenkins' Ear" 78

XI. A Soldier of the Revolution--The Story of a Pasquotank BoyWho Followed Washington 84

XII. General Isaac Gregory, a Revolutionary Officer ofPasquotank-Camden 93

XIII. Perquimans County--"Land of Beautiful Women, " and theColonial Town of Hertford 114

XIV. Currituck, the Haunt of the Wild Fowl 134

XV. Edenton in the Revolution 153

ILLUSTRATIONS

 FACING PAGE

Old Float Bridge Across the Perquimans River _Frontispiece_

"The Old Brick House, " on Pasquotank River 62

Fairfax, the Home of General Isaac Gregory 112

The Eagle Tavern, Hertford 130

The Cupola House, Edenton 154

IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE

CHAPTER I

WIKACOME IN WEAPOMEIOK, THE HOME OF GEORGE DURANT

In Perquimans County, North Carolina, there lies between the beautifulPerquimans River on the west, and her fair and placid sister, theKatoline or Little River, on the east, a lovely strip of land to whichthe red man in days long gone, gave the name of Wikacome. The broadsound whose tawny waters wash the southern shores of this peninsula, aswell as all that tract of land lying between the Chowan River and theAtlantic Ocean, were known to the primitive dwellers in that region asWeapomeiok. 

Not until George Durant came into Carolina, and following him a thinstream of settlers that finally overflowed the surrounding country, didthe beautiful Indian names give place to those by which they are nowknown. Then Wikacome became the familiar Durant's Neck, and the watersof Weapomeiok and the territory known to the aborigines by the samename, changed to the historic cognomen of Albemarle. 

George Durant and Samuel Pricklove were the first of the Anglo-Saxonrace to establish a permanent settlement in Wikacome, though they werenot the first Englishmen whose eyes had rested upon its virgin forestsand fair green meadows, for in the early spring of 1586 Ralph Lane, whohad been sent with Sir Richard Grenville by Sir Walter Raleigh tocolonize Roanoke Island, set out with fourteen comrades from that placeon an exploring expedition, hoping to find the golden "Will-o'-the-Wisp, "which led so many English adventurers of the day to seek their fortunes inthe New World. 

As far as the Roanoke River sailed the bold explorer and his comrades, among whom were Philip Amadas and the historian Hakluyt. To the south asfar as Craven County they pushed their little boat, and northward to theshores of Chesapeake Bay. In the course of their journey they touched atChepanock, an Indian village lying at the extremity of Durant's Neck. And Lane relates that on his return trip he stopped again at that pointto secure a supply of provisions, and to fish in the sound. 

It was Easter morning, 1586, when Lane and his hardy sailors, worn outfrom their rough voyage down the Chowan and up the tawny waters of thesound, sailed into the quiet harbor of the Katoline River. Half starved, for the hostile tribes of the Mangoaks on the Chowan River, after beingrepulsed in an attack upon the strangers, had refused to sell themfood, Lane and his men, for two days without means of staying theirhunger, hoped to buy from the Indians of Weapomeiok the provisions sosorely needed. 

But when the little band of explorers rowed their small craft to theshore, and set out in search of corn and meat, they found the wigwams ofChepanock deserted, and no sign of the red men. The Indians doubtlesshad been alarmed at the sight of the strangers when they first stoppedat the village, and had fled from their homes to the interior of thecountry. 

No corn nor meal could Lane procure, but the weirs were full of fish, and the men were able to satisfy their hunger, and having rested atChepanock that night they returned to Roanoke Island next morning. Whenthe plash of their oars died away in the distance, the waters of theKatoline and the northern shores of Weapomeiok knew the white man'ssails no more until over half a century had passed away. 

Lane and his colony, discouraged in their hopes of finding gold, anddisheartened by the many misfortunes that had befallen them, sailed backto England with Sir Francis Drake. Raleigh's second attempt a year laterto establish a colony on Roanoke Island ended in the pathetic story oflittle Virginia Dare and the "Lost Colony. " Queen Elizabeth died, andthe tyrannical reign of James I came to an end. Charles I and Cromwellwaged their bitter war; the Commonwealth and Protectorate ran theirbrief course, and the Restoration of 1660 brought back the third of theStuarts to the throne of England. 

During all these changes in the ownership of Carolina and her sistercolonies, the red man roamed unmolested through the forests of Wikacomeand fished the weirs in the silver streams flowing into the broad watersof Weapomeiok, unafraid of the great, white-winged boats of the paleface. These brief visits to his shores were now remembered only when thetribes gathered around the great camp fires at night, and listened tothe tales told by ancient braves and squaws, to whom the appearance ofthe swift ships of the strangers now seemed only a dim, half-remembereddream. 

But as the years rolled by, venturesome hunters and trappers fromVirginia began to thread their way through the tangled woods of theregion lying to the south of the Chesapeake. Returning to their homesthey carried with them glowing accounts of the mild climate, the placidstreams teeming with fish, the wild game and rich furs to be found inthe country through which they had wandered. 

In 1630 Sir Robert Heath, to whom Charles I granted a large portion ofCarolina, attempted to establish a settlement in the territory. LaterRoger Green, an English clergyman, made a similar attempt near thepresent town of Edenton, but both these efforts failed. However, thespirit of discovery and adventure was now fully aroused, and by 1656 anumber of settlements had been established along the shores of thestreams that flow into Albemarle Sound. Of none of these, however, canany accurate account be given, their date and location having long beenforgotten; and not until 1661 is there any authenticated record of apermanent settlement in North Carolina. 

A year or two previous to that date, George Durant, a planter fromVirginia, attracted by the enthusiastic accounts he had heard of thedesirable lands to be found lying to the south, started out on anexploring expedition to see for himself if all he had heard of theIndian land of Weapomeiok were true, intending, if the country came upto his expectations, there to establish his home. 

For nearly two years Durant journeyed through the country, and finallysatisfied that the glowing accounts he had heard were not exaggerated, he determined to bring his wife and family, his goods and chattels, intothis new "Land of Promise, " and there build for himself a house todwell in, and to clear away the forest for a plantation. The first spotselected by him for his future home was very near the ancient Indianvillage of Chepanock, on the peninsula of Wikacome, which juts out intothe wide waters of Weapomeiok, and whose shores are watered by theKatoline and the Perquimans rivers. 

With the coming of George Durant to Carolina, the old Indian nameWikacome vanishes from history, and "Durant's Neck" becomes the name bywhich that section is henceforth known. The sound and the region northof it, first known as Weapomeiok, change to Albemarle; and the KatolineRiver soon loses its Indian designation, and is known to the settlerswho made their homes on its banks as the "Little River. "

With the establishment of George Durant on the peninsula now called byhis name, the connected history of North Carolina begins. And it is amatter of pride to the citizens of the Old North State that our firstsettler, with a sturdy honesty and a sense of justice shown but seldomto the red man by the pioneers in the colonies, bought from the Indianchief, Kilcokonen "for a valuable consideration" the land on which heestablished his home. The deed for this tract of land is now in the oldcourt-house in Hertford, North Carolina, and is the earliest recordedin the history of our State. The following is an exact copy of thisancient document:

 "George Durant's Deed from Kilcokonen:

 "Know all men these Presents that I, Kilcokonen King of the Yeopems have for a valuable consideration of satisfaction received with ye consent of my People sold and made over and delivered to George Durant, a Parcel of land lying and being on a river called by ye name of Perquimans, which issueth out of the North side of the aforesaid Sound, and which land at present bears ye name of Wecameke. Beginning at a marked oak tree which divideth this land from ye land I formerly sold Samuel Precklove and extending easterly up ye said Sound at a point or turning of ye aforesaid Perquimans River and so up ye east side of ye said river to a creek called Awoseake to wit, all ye land between ye aforesaid bounds of Samuel Precklove and the said creek whence to ye head thereof. And thence through ye woods to ye first bounds. To have and to hold ye quiet possession of ye same to him, his heirs forever, with all rights and privileges thereto forever from me or any person or persons whatsoever, as witness my hand this first day of March 1661. 

 "KILCOKONEN. 

 "Test: Thos Weamouth, Caleb Callaway. "

Having thus fairly and justly bought his lands, as this and other deedsfrom Kilcokonen testify, Durant proceeded to establish his belongings onhis estate, and to take up the strenuous life of a pioneer in a newcountry. 

And a fairer region never gladdened the eyes of men making a new home ina strange land. In the virgin forests surrounding the settlers' homes, the crimson berried holly tree against the dark background of loftypines brightened the winter landscape. The opulent Southern spring flungwide the white banners of dogwood, enriched the forest aisles withfretted gold of jessamine and scarlet of coral honeysuckle, and spreadthe ground with carpet of velvet moss, of rosy azaleas and blue-eyedinnocents. The wide rivers that flow in placid beauty by the woodedbanks of ancient Wikacome, formed a highway for the commerce of thesettlers and a connecting link with the outer sea. And however fierceand bold the wild creatures of those dark forests might be, the teemingfish and game of the surrounding woods and waters kept far from thesettlers' doors the wolf of want and hunger. 

The fame of this fertile spot spread, and ere long George Durant wasgreeting many newcomers into the country. Samuel Pricklove had precededhim into Wikacome, and later came George Catchmaid, Captain JohnHecklefield and Richard Sanderson, while later still the Blounts, theWhedbees, the Newbys, Harveys and Skinners, names still prominent inAlbemarle, came into the neighborhood and settled throughout PerquimansCounty. 

At the homes of the planters on Durant's Neck the public business of theAlbemarle Colony was for many years transacted. Courts were held, councils convened, and assemblies called, while from the wharves of theplanters on Little River and the Perquimans, white-sailed vesselscarried the produce of the rich fields and dense forests to New England, to the West Indies and to the mother country. 

Many of the most interesting events in the early history of Albemarleoccurred on Durant's Neck. The Culpeper Rebellion, of which GeorgeDurant and John Culpeper were among the leaders, began in Pasquotank, but reached its culmination in Durant's home on Little River. There, also, Thomas Miller was imprisoned for a time, and there the leaders ofthe rebellion organized a new people's government, the first in the NewWorld absolutely independent of Proprietors, Parliament and King. AtHecklefield's home on Little River, the plantation adjoining Durant's, the Assembly of 1708 met to investigate the Cary-Glover question and todecide which of those two claimants to the gubernatorial chair hadrightful authority to occupy that exalted seat. There also George Edenwas sworn in as ruler of North Carolina under the Proprietors; and therethe death of Queen Anne was announced to the Governor's Council, andGeorge I was formally proclaimed true and lawful sovereign of Carolina. 

A prominent meeting place for the courts, councils and assemblies inColonial Albemarle was the home of Captain Richard Sanderson in theLittle River settlement on Durant's Neck. Of the many notable eventsthat occurred at the home of this wealthy and influential planter, probably the Assembly of 1715 leads in interest and importance. The actspassed by this Assembly were directed to be printed, but the order wasevidently never carried out, as none but manuscript copies are nowextant. 

Among the most important measures taken by this Assembly was one makingthe Church of England the established Church of the Colony; thoughfreedom of worship was granted to all, and the Quakers were allowed tosubstitute a solemn affirmation in lieu of an oath. Other acts, necessary to the welfare of the Colony, were passed, and a revision ofall former acts was made. Edward Moseley, Speaker of the House, was ofcourse present on this occasion, as were Governor Eden, Thomas Byrd, ofPasquotank, Tobias Knight, of Currituck, Christopher Gale, of Chowan, and Maurice Moore, of Perquimans. 

Of all these old homes on Durant's Neck where so much of the earlyhistory of our State was made, none are now standing; though the sitesof several of these historic places are well known to the dwellers onthe peninsula. When the tide is low on Little River, the bricks of whatwas once the home of Governor Drummond can be seen. And an old tombstonefound in the sound, which is now used as the lower step of the sideporch in a beautiful old home, on Durant's Neck, once the property ofMr. Edward Leigh, but now owned by Mr. C. W. Grandy, of Norfolk, is saidto have once marked the grave of Seth Sothel. The inscription on thestone is now obliterated, but the original owners of the home declaredthat the old inhabitants of Durant's Neck claimed that the slab at onetime bore the name of this, the most infamous of all the unworthyGovernors whom the Proprietors placed over the people of Albemarle. 

The site of Durant's home is well known, and until a few years ago atombstone bearing his name, it is said, was standing under an oldsweet-gum tree on the bank of a great ditch near the sound. But thefield hands in clearing the ditch undermined the stone and covered itwith earth, so it now lies hidden from view. 

But though no monument now marks the resting place of our first settler, George Durant, there is no need of "storied urn or animated bust" tokeep alive in the hearts of his countrymen the memory of his name, andof the brave, fearless spirit which made him a tower of strength to theOld North State in the struggles of her early days. 

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST ALBEMARLE ASSEMBLY--HALL'S CREEK NEAR NIXONTON

In 1653 King Charles II granted to eight noblemen of his court a tractof land reaching from the northern shores of Albemarle Sound to St. John's River in Florida, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the PacificOcean. A small strip extending from the north shore of the AlbemarleSound to the southern boundary of Virginia was not included in thisgrant, but nevertheless the Lords Proprietors, of whom GovernorBerkeley, of Virginia, was one, assumed control over this section; andin 1663 these noblemen authorized Berkeley to appoint a governor to ruleover this territory, whose ownership was a disputed question for severalyears. 

In 1665 the Albemarle region, as it came to be called, comprising thefour ancient counties of Currituck, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Chowan, had become very valuable on account of the rich plantations establishedtherein by such men as George Durant, of Perquimans, and Valentine Byrd, of Pasquotank; and the Lords Proprietors, as the owners of the Carolinaswere called, begged the king to include the above-named strip of landin their grant. This the king did, ignorant of the vast extent of theterritory which he had already bestowed upon the Lords. 

William Drummond, whom Berkeley, of Virginia, had appointed to governthis Albemarle country, came into Carolina in 1664, and assumed thereins of government. To assist him in his arduous duties, the Lordsauthorized Berkeley to appoint six of the most prominent men in thesettlement to form what came to be known as the Governor's Council. Thisbody of men, with the Governor, acted for many years as the judicialdepartment of the State, and also corresponded to what is now the SenateChamber in our legislative department. 

That the liberty-loving pioneers in Carolina might feel that they were aself-governing people, every free man in the settlement was to haveright of membership in the General Assembly, which was to meet yearly toenact the laws. After the Governor, Councilors, and the freemen or theirdeputies had passed the laws, a copy of them was to be sent to the Lordsfor their consideration. Should they meet with the approval of theProprietors, they went into effect; if not, they were null and void. 

In the fall of 1664, Governor Drummond began organizing the governmentof his new province; and on February 6, 1665, the "Grand Assembly ofAlbemarle, " as these early law-makers styled themselves, met to frame aset of laws for this Albemarle Colony. The place chosen for the meetingof this first legislative body ever assembled in our State, was a littleknoll overlooking Hall's Creek in Pasquotank County, about a mile fromNixonton, a small town which was chartered nearly a hundred years later. 

No record of the names of these hardy settlers who were present at thisGrand Assembly has been handed down to us; but on such an importantoccasion we may be sure that all the prominent men in the Albemarleregion who could attend would make it a point to do so. 

George Drummond and his secretary, Thomas Woodward, were surely there;George Durant, Samuel Pricklove, John Harvey, all owners of greatplantations in Perquimans, doubtless were on hand. Thomas Raulfe, Timothy Biggs, Valentine Byrd, Solomon Poole, all large landowners inPasquotank, must have been there; Thomas Jarvis, of Currituck, andThomas Pollock, of Chowan, may have represented their counties. Andall--the dignified, reserved Scotch Governor, his haughty secretary, thewealthy, influential planters and the humble farmers and hunters--musthave felt the solemnity of the occasion and recognized its importance. 

We may imagine the scene: Under the spreading boughs of a lordly oak, this group of men were gathered. Around them the dark forest stretched, the wind murmuring in the pines and fragrant with the aromatic odor ofthe spicy needles. At a distance a group of red men, silent andimmovable, some with bow and arrow in hand, leaning against the trees, others sitting on the ground, gazed with wondering eyes upon thepalefaces assembled for their first great pow-wow. 

Down at the foot of the knoll the silver waves of the creek rippledsoftly against the shore; on its waters the sloops of the planters fromthe settlements nearby; here and there on its bosom, an Indian canoemoored close to its shores. 

As to the work accomplished by this first Albemarle Assembly, only onefact is certain, and that is the drawing up by the members of a petitionto the Lords Proprietors, begging that these settlers in Carolina shouldbe allowed to hold their lands on the same conditions and terms as thepeople of Virginia. The Lords graciously consented to this petition, andon the 1st of May, 1668, they issued a paper known to this day as theDeed of Grant, by which land in Albemarle was directed to be granted onthe same terms as in Virginia. The deed was duly recorded in Albemarle, and was preserved with scrupulous care. 

There is a tradition in the county that the Assembly also took steps forpreparing for an Indian war then threatening, which broke out thefollowing year, but was soon suppressed. 

Doubtless other laws were enacted, such as were necessary for thesettlement, though no record of them is extant. And then, the businessthat called them together having been transacted, and the wheels ofgovernment set in motion, these early law-makers returned home, to manorhouse and log cabin, to the care of the great plantations, to the plow, and the wild, free life of the hunter and trapper; and a new governmenthad been born. 

There seems to be no doubt in the minds of such historians as ColonelSaunders, Captain Ashe, and President D. H. Hill, that the firstAlbemarle Assembly did convene in the early spring of 1665. As for theday and month, tradition alone is our authority. An old almanac of H. D. Turner's gives the date as February 6th, and in default of any morecertain date, this was inscribed upon the tablet which the Sir WalterRaleigh Chapter Daughters of the Revolution have erected at Hall's CreekChurch. 

As to the statement that the place marked by the tablet was the scene ofthe meeting of our first assemblymen, tradition again is responsible. But such authorities as Captain Ashe, and various members of the StateHistorical Commission, accept the tradition as a fact. And all oldresidents of Nixonton assert that their fathers and grandfathers handedthe story down to them. 

An extract from a letter from Captain Ashe, author of Ashe's History ofNorth Carolina, to the Regent of the local Chapter Daughters of theRevolution may be of interest here:

"Yesterday I came across in the library at Washington, this entry, madeby the late Mrs. Frances Hill, widow of Secretary of the State WilliamHill: 'I was born in Nixonton March 14, 1789. Nixonton is a small townone mile from Hall's Creek, and on a little rise of ground from thebridge stood the big oak, where the first settlers of our county heldtheir assembly. '"

Other documents in possession of the Regent of our local ChapterDaughters of the Revolution go to show that the place and date as namedon the tablet at Hall's Creek are authentic, and that Pasquotank Countymay claim with truth the honor of having been the scene of the firstmeeting of the Grand Assembly of Albemarle. 

CHAPTER III

ENFIELD FARM--WHERE THE CULPEPER REBELLION BEGAN

Some two or three miles south of Elizabeth City on the banks of thePasquotank River, just where that lovely stream suddenly broadens outinto a wide and beautiful expanse, lies the old plantation known in ourcounty from earliest days as Enfield Farm, sometimes Winfield. 

It is hard to trace the original owners of the plantation, but the farmis probably part of the original patent granted in 1663 by Sir WilliamBerkeley, one of the Lords Proprietors, to Mr. Thomas Relfe, "on accountof his bringing into the colony fifteen persons and paying on St. Michael's Day, the 29th of September, one shilling for every acre ofland. "

On this plantation, close to the river shore, was erected about 1670, according to our local tradition, the home of the planter, two rooms ofwhich are still standing and in good preservation. Possibly "ThomasRelfe, Gentleman, " as he is styled in the Colonial Records, was thebuilder of this relic of bygone days, whose massive brick walls andstout timbers have for so long defied the onslaughts of time. 

Many are the stories, legendary and historical, that have gatheredaround this ancient building. Among the most interesting of the latteris that connected with the Culpeper Rebellion, an event as important inNorth Carolina history as Bacon's Rebellion is in the history ofVirginia. 

The cause of Culpeper's Rebellion dates back to the passing of thenavigation act by Cromwell's Parliament, when that vigorous ruler heldsway in England and over the American colonies. This act, laterbroadened and amended, finally prohibited the colonists not only fromimporting goods from Europe unless they were shipped from England, butforbade the use of any but English vessels in the carrying trade; andfinally declared that inter-colonial trade should cease, and thatEngland alone should be the market for the buying and selling of goodson the part of the Americans. Naturally the colonies objected to such aselfish restriction of their trade, and naturally there was muchsmuggling carried on, wherever and whenever this avoidance of thenavigation acts could be made in safety. 

To none of these thirteen colonies were these laws more injurious thanto the infant settlement on the northern shores of Albemarle Sound inCarolina. The sand bars along the coast prevented the establishment of aseaport from whence trade could be carried on with the mother country. The large, English-built vessels could not pass through the shallowinlets that connect the Atlantic with the Carolina inland waterways. Tohave strictly obeyed the laws passed by the British Parliament wouldhave been the death blow to the commerce and to the prosperity of theAlbemarle settlement. So, for about fifteen years after George Durantbought his tract of land on Durant's Neck from Kilcokonen, the greatchief of the Yeopims, the planters in Albemarle had paid but littleattention to the trade laws. The Proprietors appointed no customscollectors in the little colony, and had not considered it worth whileto interfere with the trade which the shrewd New Englanders had built upin Carolina. 

Enterprising Yankee shipbuilders, realizing their opportunity, constructed staunch little vessels which could weather the seas, sailover to Europe, load up with goods necessary to the planter, return andglide down the coast till they found an opening between the dreadedbars, then, slipping from sound to sound, carry to the planters in theAlbemarle region the cargoes for which they were waiting. 

Another law requiring payment of an export tax on tobacco, then theprincipal crop of the Albemarle sections, as it was of Virginia, wasevaded for many years by the settlers in this region. GovernorsDrummond and Stevens, and John Judkins, president of the council, musthave known of this disregard of the laws, both on the part of the Yankeeshippers and the Albemarle planters. But realizing that too strict anadherence to England's trade laws would mean ruin to the colonists, these officers were conveniently blind to the illegal proceedings oftheir people. 

But after the organization of the board of trade in London, of whichfour of the Proprietors were members, the rulers of Carolina determinedto enforce the laws more strictly among their subjects in far-awayCarolina. So Timothy Biggs, of the Little River Settlement, wasappointed surveyor of customs, and Valentine Byrd, of Pasquotank, collector of customs, with orders to enforce the navigation acts andother trade laws, so long disregarded. 

There was violent opposition to this decision of the Lords, as was tohave been expected; but finally the settlers were persuaded to allow theofficers to perform their duty. Valentine Byrd, himself, one of thewealthiest and most influential men in Albemarle, was by no means rigidor exacting in collecting the tobacco tax; and for several years longer, though the laws were ostensibly observed, numerous ways were found toevade them. The colonists, however, were by no means satisfied; forthough they were successful in avoiding a strict adherence to the laws, and in continuing their trade with New England, still the fact that thehated acts were in force at all, was to them a thorn in the flesh. 

Matters soon reached a crisis, and the smouldering feeling of resentmentagainst the Proprietors broke out into open rebellion. In 1676 the Lordsappointed Thomas Eastchurch Governor of Albemarle and Thomas Millercollector of customs for that settlement. Both of these men, who werethen in London, had previously lived in Albemarle and had incurred theenmity of some of the leading men in the settlement, Eastchurchespecially being in bad repute among the planters. 

In 1677, Eastchurch and Miller departed from London to take up theirduties in Carolina. Stopping at the Island of Nevis on their way over, Eastchurch became enamored of the charms (and the fortune) of a fairCreole who there abode, and dallied on the island until he succeeded inwinning the lady's hand. Miller, whom Eastchurch appointed his deputy inCarolina, continued on his way alone. When he reached Albemarle, thepeople received him kindly and allowed him to fill Eastchurch's place. But no sooner had he assumed the reins of government than he began arigid enforcement of the trade and navigation laws. Of course theplanters resented his activity in this direction, and most bitterly didthey resent his compelling a strict payment of the tobacco tax. Possibly, however, no open rebellion would have occurred, had not Millerproceeded to high-handed and arbitrary deeds, making himself soobnoxious to the people that finally they were wrought up to such aninflammable state of mind that only a spark was needed to light theflames of revolution. 

And that spark was kindled in December, 1677, when Captain ZacharyGilliam, a shrewd New England shipmaster, came into the colony in histrig little vessel, "The Carolina, " bringing with him, besides thesupplies needed by the planters for the winter days at hand, ammunitionand firearms which a threatened Indian uprising made necessary for thesafety of the settlers' homes. 

On board the "Carolina" was George Durant, the first settler in thecolony, and the acknowledged leader in public affairs in Albemarle. Hehad been over to England to consult the Lords Proprietors concerningmatters relating to the colony, and was returning to his home onDurant's Neck. 

Through the inlet at Ocracoke the "Carolina" slipped, over the broadwaters of Pamlico Sound, past Roanoke Island, home of Virginia Dare, and into Albemarle Sound. Then up the blue waters of the Pasquotank shesailed, with "Jack ancient flag and pennant flying, " as Millerindignantly relates, till she came to anchor at Captain Crawford'slanding, just off the shore from Enfield Farm. 

Gladly did the bluff captain and the jovial planter row ashore fromtheir sea-tossed berths. Many were the friendly greetings extended them, both prime favorites among the settlers, who came hurrying down toEnfield when the news of the "Carolina's" arrival spread through thecommunity. Eager questions assailed them on every side concerning newsof loved ones in the mother country; and a busy day did Captain Gilliamput in, chaffering and bargaining with the planters who anxiouslysurrounded him in quest of long needed supplies. 

Durant, though doubtless impatient to proceed as quickly as possible tohis home and family in Perquimans, nevertheless spent the day pleasantlyenough talking to his brother planters, Valentine Byrd, SamuelPricklove, and others. All was going merrily as a marriage bell whensuddenly Deputy Governor Miller appeared on the scene, accused Gilliamof having contraband goods on board, and of having evaded the export taxon tobacco when he sailed out of port with his cargo a year before. Aviolent altercation arose, in which the planters, with few exceptions, sided with Gilliam, who indignantly (if not quite truthfully) denied thecharges brought against him. 

Miller at last withdrew, muttering imprecations and threats againstGilliam; but about 10 o'clock that night he returned with severalgovernment officials, boarded the "Carolina" and attempted to arrestboth Gilliam and Durant. The planters, among whom were Valentine Byrd, Captain Crawford, Captain Jenkins and John Culpeper, hearing of thedisturbance, anxious for the safety of their friends, and fearing lestGilliam should sail away before they had concluded their purchases, camehurrying in hot haste to the rescue. Rowing swiftly out to the littlevessel, they quickly turned the tables on the Governor and hisofficials; and to their indignant surprise, Miller and his men foundthemselves prisoners in the hands of the rebels. Then the insurgents, with John Culpeper, now the acknowledged leader of the revolt, at theirhead, rowed ashore to the landing with their captives; and in the oldhouse at Enfield, on a bluff near the bank of the river--so goes ourlocal tradition--the angry and astonished Governor was imprisoned. 

Then the revolutionists proceeded to "Little River Poynte, " probablythe settlement which afterwards grew into the town of Nixonton, andseized Timothy Biggs, the surveyor and deputy collector of customs, whohad been wringing the tobacco tax from the farmers. Then breaking openthe chests and the locks, they found and took possession of Miller'scommission as collector of customs and returned to Enfield, where theylocked Biggs up with Miller in Captain Crawford's house. 

For two weeks the deputy governor and the deputy collector were keptclose prisoners at Enfield. The revolutionists in the meanwhile drew upa document known as "The Remonstrance of the Inhabitants of Pasquotank, "in which they stated the grievances that had led them to take thishigh-handed manner of circumventing Miller and Biggs in their tyrannicalproceedings. This "remonstrance" was sent to the precincts of Currituck, Perquimans and Chowan; and the planters, following the example of theirneighbors in Pasquotank, rose in insurrection against the othercollectors of the hated customs and export tax, and arrested and deposedthe collectors. 

At the end of a fortnight, the insurgents decided to take Miller andBiggs to George Durant's home in Durant's Neck. So the prisoners weretaken on board one of the planter's vessels; and down the Pasquotank, into the sound, and a short distance up Little River, the rebels sailed, accompanied by several vessels filled with armed men. As they passed the"Carolina, " that saucy little ship, which as Miller afterwardsindignantly reported to the Lords Proprietors, "had in all theseconfusions rid with Jack Ensign Flag and Pennon flying, " just off theshore from Enfield, saluted Culpeper, Durant and their companions byfiring three of her guns. 

Arrived at Durant's home, where some seventy prominent men of the colonyhad assembled, the revolutionists proceeded to establish a government oftheir own. John Jenkins was appointed governor, an assembly of eighteenmen was elected, and a court convened before which Miller and Biggs werebrought for trial on a charge of treason. But before the trial wasended, Governor Eastchurch, who had arrived in Virginia while theseaffairs were taking place, sent a proclamation to the insurgentscommanding them to disperse and return to their homes. This the boldplanters refused to do, and in further defiance of Eastchurch, the newofficials sent an armed force to prevent his coming into the colony. 

Eastchurch appealed to Virginia to help him establish his authority inCarolina; but while he was collecting forces for this purpose he fellill and died. Durant, Culpeper, Byrd and their comrades were nowmasters in Albemarle. 

The interrupted trials were never completed. Biggs managed to escape andmade his way to England. Miller was kept a prisoner for two years in alittle log cabin built for the purpose at the upper end of Pasquotank, near where the old brick house now stands. In two years' time Milleralso contrived to escape, and found his way back to the mother country. 

For ten years the Albemarle colony prospered under the wise and prudentmanagement of the officers, whom the people had put in charge of affairswithout leave or license from lord or king. But finally Culpeper andDurant decided of their own accord to give up their authority andrestore the management of affairs to the Proprietors. An amicablesettlement was arranged with these owners of Albemarle, who, realizingthe wrongs the settlers had suffered at the hands of Miller and hisassociates, made no attempt to punish the leaders of the rebellion. JohnHarvey was quietly installed as temporary governor until Seth Sothel, one of the Proprietors, should come to take up the reins of governmenthimself. 

So at Enfield Farm, now the property of one of Pasquotank's mostsuccessful farmers and business men, Mr. Jeptha Winslow, began adisturbance which culminated a hundred years later in the RevolutionaryWar; and here, in embryo form, in 1677, was the beginning of ourrepublic--"a government of the people, for the people, by the people. "

CHAPTER IV

THE HECKLEFIELD FARM

Of the old Hecklefield house on Little River in Perquimans County, mentioned so often in the Colonial Records as the place of meeting forthe Governor's Council, the General Court, and on one notable occasion, as the legislative hall of the Grand Assembly of Albemarle, not onestick or stone is left standing to-day. Only a few bricks where thegreat chimney once stood now remain, to suggest to the imagination thehospitable hearth around whose blazing logs the Governor and hiscolleagues, the Chief Justice and his associates, and the Speaker of theAssembly and his fellow representatives used to gather, when the oldhome was the scene of the public meetings of the Albemarle Colony. 

The Hecklefield home was located on Durant's Neck on the plantationadjoining the tract of land purchased by George Durant from Kilcokonen, the great chief of the Yeopims. Though no one now living remembers theancient building, yet the residents of Durant's Neck to-day, many ofwhom are the descendants of the early settlers in that region, confidently point out the site of Captain Hecklefield's house, and withone accord agree to its location, "about three hundred yards to thenorth of the main Durant's Neck road, at the foot of the late CalvinHumphries' Lane. "

An old sycamore tree, whose great girth gives evidence of the centuriesit has seen, stands by the side of the road at the entrance to the lane. Its mottled trunk and wide spreading branches are one of the landmarksof the region. And beneath its sheltering boughs, Durant and Catchmaid, Pricklove and Governor Drummond himself, who, tradition claims, was oneof the residents of Durant's Neck, may often have met to talk over theaffairs of the infant settlement. Governor Hyde and Chief Justice Galehave doubtless often hailed with relief the glistening white branchesand broad green leaves of the old tree, whose outlines had grownfamiliar through many a journey to Hecklefield's home on business ofstate. 

No description of the house is now extant. But that the building musthave been, for those days, large and commodious, is evident from thefact that so often beneath its roof the leading men of the colonygathered to transact affairs of public interest. On no less than twentyoccasions did executive, judicial and legislative officers assemble atCaptain Hecklefield's to perform their various duties. That a privatehome was chosen as the scene of these gatherings arose from the factthat for over forty years after the first recorded settlement in NorthCarolina, no town had been founded within her borders. Therefore nopublic building of any kind, court-house or capitol, had been erected, and the Council, the Assembly and the Court were held at the homes ofthose planters, whose houses were large enough to accommodate suchassemblies. 

Local tradition tells us that the first court ever held in our State wasconvened under a great beech still standing on Flatty Creek, an arm ofthe broad Pasquotank, in Pasquotank County. But no records of this courtcan be found, nor does tradition tell whether the judge and advocates, plaintiffs and defendants, witnesses and jury assembled beneath thebranches of that ancient tree, still strong and sturdy, came in answerto the call for the Palatine Court, the General Court, or the morefrequently assembled Precinct Court. 

The first Albemarle Assembly in 1665, was also held out in the open, theverdant foliage of another historic tree for roof, the soft moss forcarpet. But by 1670 the homes of the planters were being built ofsufficient size to accommodate these public meetings; and from that timeuntil Edenton was founded and became the seat of government, we findthese private homes being used for public gatherings. 

Of Captain John Hecklefield himself, though his name appears veryfrequently in the Colonial Records from 1702 until 1717, but little isknown. Of his ancestry nothing can be ascertained, nor do we know how orwhen he came into Albemarle. It is not even certain that he owned thehome assigned as his, for no record of lands bought by him can be foundin the records of Perquimans County. But that he must have been a man ofhigh social standing and of great weight in the community is evidentfrom the fact that he was a deputy of the Lords Proprietors, and thusbecame ex officio one of the seven Associate Justices of the GeneralCourt. The fact also that his home was so often selected for the meetingof the General Court, a body which in colonial days corresponded veryclosely to our modern Supreme Court; that the Governor's Council ofwhich he, as a deputy for one of the Lords, was a member, and, that onone occasion, the Albemarle Assembly was called to meet at his home, fixes his standing in the community. 

The first mention made of Captain Hecklefield is found in Vol. I of theColonial Records, where the following notice is inscribed: "At a GeneralCourt held at ye house of Captain John Hecklefield in Little River, Oct. 27, 1702. Being present the Hon. Samuel Swann, Esq. , the Hon. WilliamGlover, Esq. , Jno. Hawkins, Esq. "

From that day until 1717, we find many instances of these publicgatherings at Captain Hecklefield's home. The most prominent men in theAlbemarle Colony were often there assembled. To the sessions of theGeneral Court came Edward Moseley, the Justice of the Court, leader ofthe Cary faction in the Glover-Cary disturbance of 1708, ChiefCommissioner for North Carolina when the boundary line between Virginiaand Carolina was established, Speaker of the Assembly for four years, master of plantations and many slaves, and withal a very courteousgentleman and learned scholar. Christopher Gale, first judicial officerin Carolina to receive the commission as Chief Justice, in wig andsilken gown, upheld the majesty of the law at the sessions of theGeneral Court, assisted by his confréres, John Porter, Thomas Symonds, and John Blount. 

At the first Council held at Captain Hecklefield's, July 4, 1712, wefind among the dignitaries assembled on that occasion, Edward Hyde, first Governor of North Carolina, as separate and distinct from SouthCarolina, and first cousin of Queen Anne. This lordly gentlemancommanded "most awful respect, " and doubtless received it from planterand farmer. With him came Thomas Pollock, leader of the Glover faction, owner of 55, 000 acres of land, numerous flocks of sheep and herds ofcattle and of many vessels trading with the New England and West Indianports, a merchant prince of colonial days, and destined to become twiceacting Governor of North Carolina. 

Some years later, at a meeting of the Council in April, 1714, CharlesEden, lately appointed by the Proprietors to succeed Hyde, who had diedof yellow fever during the trouble with the Tuscaroras, took the oath ofoffice at Captain Hecklefield's home, and became Governor of NorthCarolina. Among the members of the Council present on this occasion wereColonel Thomas Byrd, Nathan Chevin, and William Reed, all prominent menin Pasquotank, and the two former, leading churchmen of that county, andactive members of the vestry of St. John's Parish. Tobias Knight wasalso there, a wealthy resident of Bath then, though he too had formerlylived in Pasquotank. Knight was later to win notoriety as a friend andcolleague of Teach, the pirate. And Governor Eden himself was lateraccused of collusion with Blackbeard, though no sufficient proof couldbe found to bring him to trial. 

By what means of locomotion these high dignitaries of the colony foundtheir way to Durant's Neck, we can only conjecture. Possibly a coachand four may have borne Governor Eden and Governor Hyde the long journeyfrom Chowan and Bath to Hecklefield's door. Possibly Judge and advocate, members of the Assembly and councilors, preferred to make the trip onhorseback, breaking the journey by frequent stops at the homes of theplanters in the districts through which they traveled, meeting along theroad friends and acquaintances bound on the same errand to the samedestination. And as the cavalcade increased in numbers as it drew nearerthe end of the journey, doubtless the hilarity of the travelersincreased; and by the time the old sycamore was sighted, it was a gay, though weary, procession that turned into the lane and passed beneathits branches, down to where the old house stood near the banks of theriver. 

More probably, however, the members of Council, Court or Assembly, metat some wharf in their various precincts, and embarking on the swiftsloops of the great planter, made the trip to Durant's Neck by water. Down the Pamlico, Chowan, Perquimans and Pasquotank the white-sailedvessels bore their passengers into Albemarle Sound and a short distanceup Little River; then disembarking at the Hecklefield Landing, where thehospitable host of the occasion was doubtless waiting to receive thetravelers, they made their way with many a friendly interchange ofgossip and jest to the great house, standing back from the river beneaththe arching branches of the sheltering sycamores. 

One of the most interesting and important of all the public gatheringsconvened at the Hecklefield home was the meeting of the Assembly onOctober 11, 1708, to decide which of the two claimants of the office ofPresident of the Council, or Deputy Governor of North Carolina, shouldhave just right to that office. The two rival claimants were ThomasCary, of the precinct of Pamlico, and William Glover, of Pasquotank. Tounderstand the situation which necessitated the calling of a specialsession of the Assembly to settle the dispute between the two men, itmay be well to review the events leading up to this meeting. 

In 1704, when Queen Anne came to the throne of England, Parliamentpassed an act requiring all public officers to take an oath ofallegiance to the new sovereign. The Quakers in Carolina, who in theearly days of the colony were more numerous than any other religiousbody in Albemarle, had hitherto been exempt from taking an oath whenthey qualified for office. Holding religiously by the New Testamentmandate, "Swear not at all, " they claimed, and were allowed theprivilege, of making a declaration of like tenor as the oath, substituting for the words, "I swear" the expression, to them equallybinding, "I affirm. "

But when Governor Henderson Walker died, Sir Nathaniel Johnson, thenGovernor of North and South Carolina, sent Major Robert Daniel fromSouth Carolina to take Walker's place as Deputy Governor of the NorthernColony. 

Daniel was an ardent member of the Church of England, and was stronglydesirous of establishing this church in Carolina by law. But he knewthat so long as the Quakers were members of the Assembly, and held highoffice in Albemarle, this law could never be passed. Therefore hedetermined to demand a strict oath of office from all who were electedto fill public positions. This determination was carried out. TheQuakers were driven from the Assembly, which body, subservient to thenew Governor, passed the law establishing the Church of England inAlbemarle. 

But the Quakers did not submit tamely to this deprivation of theirancient rights and privileges. Many of the most influential men in thecolony, especially in Pasquotank and Perquimans, were Friends; and theydetermined to appeal to the Proprietors to uphold them in their claim toa share in the government. The Dissenters in the colony joined with themin their plea, and the result was that Governor Daniel was removed fromoffice, and Governor Johnson ordered by the Lords to appoint anotherdeputy for the Northern Colony. Thomas Cary, of South Carolina, receivedthe appointment and came into Albemarle to take up the reins ofgovernment. But lo, and behold! no sooner was he installed in officethan he, too, like Daniel, made it known that he would allow no one tohold office who refused to be sworn in, in the manner prescribed byParliament. 

Quakers and Dissenters again banded together, this time to have Carydeposed; and John Porter hastened to England to state their grievancesto the Lords. Porter also petitioned in behalf of the Quakers and theirsupporters, that the law requiring the oaths should be set aside; andalso that the colony should be allowed to choose its own Governor fromits own Council. 

The Lords again listened favorably to the petitioners, and Porterreturned to Carolina, bringing with him a written agreement to thepetition. Cary, during Porter's absence, had left the colony, andWilliam Glover, of Pasquotank, was administering the government. OnPorter's return, Glover was allowed to retain the office; but later, tothe surprise and disappointment of Friend and Dissenter, he, too, decided to refuse to admit to office any who refused to take the hatedoaths. 

Cary returned at this juncture and demanded to be reinstated as DeputyGovernor; and Porter and other former supporters of Glover now went tohis side. A new Council was chosen, and Cary made its president, oncondition, as we infer, that he carry out the will of the Proprietors asexpressed in the commission given to Porter. 

But Glover was by no means disposed to surrender his office tamely toCary, and still claimed the authority with which he had been invested. Many prominent citizens supported him in his claim, Thomas Pollock, oneof the most influential of the planters, being his warmest adherent. Sonow there were two governments in the colony, each claiming to be theonly right and lawful one. Disputes over the matter grew so numerous andviolent that finally the two factions agreed to leave the decision ofthe matter to a new Assembly which was elected at this juncture. Andthis was the Assembly that convened at Captain Hecklefield's in 1708. 

Edward Moseley was elected Speaker; the rival claims of the twogovernors duly and hotly debated; and the result was, that Cary'sfriends being in the majority, that worthy was declared to be the trueand lawful ruler of the colony. Glover, Pollock and Christopher Gale, disgusted with the turn affairs had taken, left Carolina and went toVirginia, where they remained for two years, at the end of which timeEdward Hyde, the Queen's first cousin, was appointed Governor of NorthCarolina, and these malcontents returned to their homes in Albemarle. 

And how did Madam Hecklefield manage to provide for the numerous guestswho so often met around her fireside? The housewife to-day would rebelat such frequent invasions of the privacy of her home; and the highprice of living would indeed prohibit such wholesale entertainment ofthe public; but in those good old days living was easy. The waters ofLittle River and Albemarle Sound teemed with fish; the woods were fullof deer and other wild game; the fields were musical with the clear callof the quail; slaves were ready to do the bidding of the lady of themanor; wood was plentiful for the big fire-places, and candles easilymoulded for the lighting of the rooms. No one in those days was used tothe modern luxury of a private room and bath; and the guests doubtlessshared in twos and threes and fours the rooms placed at their disposal. So, Madam Hecklefield, with a mind at ease from domestic cares, was ableto greet her guests with unruffled brow. 

The neighboring planters doubtless came to the rescue, and helped toprovide bed and board for the gentry whom Captain Hecklefield could notaccommodate; and the lesser fry found the humbler settlers on the "Neck"no less hospitable in opening their doors to them, though very probablygood coin of the realm often settled the debt between guest and host. 

After the meeting of the Assembly of 1708, various other publicgatherings took place at the Hecklefield home, until November 22, 1717. On this occasion the colony was formally notified of the death of QueenAnne, and George I was proclaimed the "Liege Lord of Carolina. "

At this meeting Governor Charles Eden was present, and serving with himwere the Honorable Thomas Byrd, and Nathaniel Chevin, of Pasquotank, andChristopher Gale and Francis Foster, all deputies of the Proprietors. 

This being the first recorded occasion in North Carolina of aproclamation announcing the death of one sovereign and ascension to thethrone of another, the quaint phraseology of the original document maybe of more interest than a modern version of its contents:

 "Whereas we have received Certain Information from Virginia of the death of our late Sovereign Lady, Queen Anne, of Blessed Memory by whose death the Imperial Crownes of Greate Brittaine ffrance and Ireland are Solely and Rightfully Come to the High and Mighty Prince George Elector of Brunswick Luenburg--

 "Wee therefore doe by this our proclamation with one full voice and Consent of Heart and Tongue Publish and proclaim that the High and Mighty Prince George Elector of Brunswick Luenburg is now by the death of our late Sovereigne of happy memory become our Lawful and rightful Leighe Lord George by the grace of God King of Greate Brittaine ffrance and Ireland, Defender of the Faith etc. , To whom wee doe all hearty and humble affection. Beseeching Obedience with long and happy Years to raigne over us. Given etc. , the 16th Day of November, 1714. "

This proclamation having been duly read, the Governor and his Councilproceeded to subscribe to the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign, as did Tobias Knight, collector of customs, from Currituck, and otherpublic officers present. 

This meeting, with one exception, a Council held in 1717, is the lastrecorded as occurring at the Hecklefield home. Edenton, founded in 1715, became the seat of government for a number of years, and meetingsaffecting the affairs of the colony were for the most part held there inthe court-house built soon after. 

Captain John Hecklefield's house on Little River now disappears fromhistory; but though no longer the scene of the public activities ofAlbemarle, it doubtless kept up for many years its reputation as thecenter of all that was best in the social life of the colony. 

CHAPTER V

COLONIAL DAYS IN CHURCH AND SCHOOL ON LITTLE RIVER, PASQUOTANK COUNTY

Among the many wide and beautiful rivers that drain the fertile lands ofancient Albemarle, none is more full of historic interest than thelovely stream known as Little River, the boundary set by nature todivide Pasquotank County on the east from her sister county, Perquimans, on the west. 

On the shores of this stream, "little, " as compared with the otherrivers of Albemarle, but of noble proportions when contrasted with someof the so-called rivers of our western counties, the history of NorthCarolina as an organized government had its beginning. 

As early as 1659 settlers began moving down into the Albemarle regionfrom Virginia, among them being George Durant, who spent two yearssearching for a suitable spot to locate a plantation, finally decidingupon a fertile, pleasant land lying between Perquimans River on thewest, and Little River on the east. Following Durant came GeorgeCatchmaid, John Harvey, John Battle, Dr. Thomas Relfe and othergentlemen, who settled on Pasquotank, Perquimans and Little rivers, buying their lands from the Indians; and later, when Charles IIincluded the Albemarle region in the grant to the Lords Proprietors, taking out patents for their estates from these new owners of the soil, paying the usual quit-rents for the same. 

John Jenkins, Valentine Byrd, and other wealthy men came later into thisnewly settled region, and by 1663 the Albemarle region was a settlementof importance, and Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, one of the LordsProprietors, had, with the concurrence of his partners in this new land, sent William Drummond to govern the colony; and the Grand Assembly ofAlbemarle had held its first session at Hall's Creek, an arm of LittleRiver, in Pasquotank County. 

In 1664, when the Clarendon colony was broken up, many of the settlersfrom the Cape Fear region came into Albemarle; and in 1666 this sectionreceived a fresh influx of immigrants from the West Indies, many of whomsettled upon Little River and embarked upon the then lucrative trade ofship-building. The usual natural advantages of the section made it inmany respects a desirable land for the new comers. Still there were manydrawbacks to the well being of the settlers, among the most serious ofwhich was the lack of the two factors which make for the true progressof a country, educational and religious facilities and privileges. 

Carolina was settled in a very different manner from most of her sistersamong the thirteen colonies. To those regions settlers came in groups, often a whole community migrating to the new land, taking with themministers, priests and teachers; and wherever they settled, however wildand desolate the land, they had with them those two mainstays ofcivilization. 

But into the Albemarle colony the settlers came a family at a time; andinstead of towns and town governments being organized, the well-to-dosettlers with their families and servants established themselves uponlarge plantations, building their homes far apart, and devoting theirtime to agricultural pursuits. 

So it is not surprising that for many years the only religious exercisesin which the Carolina settler could take part were such as he held inhis own home, the members of the Church of England reading the prayersand service of the Book of Common Prayer, the Dissenter using suchservice as appealed most to him. 

As for the education of the children, the wealthy planter would oftenengage in his service some indentured servant, often a man of learning, who would gladly give his services for a number of years for theopportunity of coming to this new Land of Promise. And in later years asthe boys of the family outgrew the home tutor, they were sent to themother country to finish their education at Oxford or Cambridge. 

But the poor colonist had none of these means of giving his children aneducation; and for many years, indeed, not until 1705, we can find nomention of any attempt on the part of the settlers to provide a schoolfor the children of the poor. 

But about twelve years after George Durant settled on Little River, thereligious condition of Albemarle began to improve. In the spring of thatyear, William Edmundson, a faithful friend and follower of George Fox, the founder of the Quaker Church, came into Albemarle and held the firstpublic religious service ever heard in the colony at the house of HenryPhelps, who lived in Perquimans County, near where the old town ofHertford now stands. From there he went into Pasquotank, where he wasgladly received and gratefully heard. The following fall George Fox cameinto the two counties himself, preached to the people and made a numberof converts to the Quaker doctrine. 

This religious body grew in numbers and influence, and according to theColonial Records, "At a monthly meeting held at Caleb Bundy's house in1703, it is agreed by Friends that a meeting-house be built atPasquotank with as much speed as may be. " And later, between 1703 and1706, this plan was carried out, and on the banks of Symons Creek, anarm of Little River, between the two ancient settlements of Nixonton andNewbegun Creek, the first Quaker meeting-house (and with the exceptionof the old church in Chowan built by members of the Church of England), the first house of worship in the State, was built. 

Rough and crude was this house of God, simple and plain the largemajority of the men and women who gathered there to worship in theirquiet, undemonstrative way the Power who had led them to this land offreedom. But the Word preached to these silent listeners in that rudebuilding inspired within them those principles upon which the foundationof the best citizenship of our State was laid. 

The Church of England, though long neglectful of her children in thisdistant colony, had by this time begun to waken to her duty towards thesheep of her fold in Carolina. Somewhere about 1700 a missionary societysent a clergyman to the settlement, and in 1708 the Rev. Mr. Ackerswrites to Her Majesty's Secretary in London that "The Citizens ofPasquotank have agreed to build a church and two chapels. " As to thelocation of these edifices, history remains silent; but that the churchhad been sowing good seed in this new and fertile soil is shown by theaccount given by the Rev. Mr. Adams of the people of Pasquotank, to whomhe had been sent as rector of the parish in that county. 

According to the letter written by Mr. Adams to Her Majesty's Secretary, there had come into the county with the settlers from the West Indies alearned, public-spirited layman named Charles Griffin, who, seeing thecrying need of the people, had established by 1705 a school on SymonsCreek, for the children of the settlers near by. 

Being a loyal son of the Church of England, he insisted upon reading themorning and evening service of that church daily in his school, and herequired his young charges to join in the prayers and make the properresponses. So faithful and efficient a teacher did he prove that eventhe Quakers who had suffered many things from the Church of England, aswell as from their dissenting brethren, were glad to send their childrento his school. 

The Colonial Records contain many references to the wide and beneficentinfluence exerted by Mr. Griffin while acting in his two-fold capacityof teacher and lay-reader in Pasquotank. 

Governor Glover in a letter to the Bishop of London in 1708 writes: "InPasquotank an orderly congregation has been kept together by theindustry of a young gentleman whom the parish has employed to read theservices of the Church of England. This gentleman being a man ofunblemished life, by his decent behavior in that office, and by aptdiscourses from house to house, not only kept those he found, but gainedmany to the church. "

Again and again in the pages of the Colonial Records, Vol. I, are thepraises of Charles Griffin sung; though, sad to say, in the latter daysof his life he seems to have fallen from grace, and to have becomeinvolved in some scandal, the particulars of which are not given. Thisscandal must have been proved unfounded, or he lived it down; for wehear of him in after years as a professor in William and Mary College. 

History contains no record of the location of Charles Griffin's school, but according to tradition, and to the old inhabitants of that section, it was located on Symons Creek, not far from the ancient Quakermeeting-house. This latter building, erected somewhere between 1703 and1706, was standing, within the memory of many among the older citizensof our county, some of whom retain vivid recollections of attending, when they were children, the services held by the Friends in this houseof worship. 

It may be of interest here to mention that the heirs of the late ElihuWhite, of Belvidere, to whom the property belonged, have lately donatedthe site of the meeting-house on Symons Creek to the Quakers of thatsection, of whom there are still quite a number. And once again, after alapse of many years, will the ancient worship be resumed on the shoresof that quiet stream. 

To the pioneer settlers on Little River, then, belongs the honor ofstarting the wheels of government at Hall's Creek, of erecting on SymonsCreek the second house of worship in the State, and of establishing onthat same tributary of Little River the first school in North Carolina. 

CHAPTER VI

THE HAUNTS OF BLACKBEARD

The name of the famous pirate, Teach, or Blackbeard, as he wasfamiliarly known, plays a conspicuous part in the early history of NorthCarolina, and survives in many local traditions on our coast. 

Many spots along our sounds and rivers have been honey-combed by diggersafter the pirate's buried hoard. Tradition says that it was the gruesomecustom of those fierce sea robbers to bury the murdered body of one oftheir own band beside the stolen gold, that his restless spirit might"walk" as the guardian of the spot. And weird tales are still told oftreasure seekers who, searching the hidden riches of Teach and his band, on lonely islands and in tangled swamps along our eastern waterways, have been startled at their midnight task by strange sights and sounds, weird shapes and balls of fire, which sent the rash intruder fleeing interror from the haunted spot. 

Hardly a river that flows into our eastern sounds but claims to haveonce borne on its bosom the dreaded "Adventure, " Blackbeard's piratecraft; hardly a settlement along those streams but retains traditions ofthe days when the black flag of that dreaded ship could be seenstreaming in the breeze as the swift sails sped the pirates by, onmurder and on plunder bent. Up Little River that flows by GeorgeDurant's home down to the broad waters of Albemarle Sound, Teach and hisdrunken crew would come, seeking refuge after some bold maraudingexpedition, in the hidden arms of that lovely stream. Up the beautifulPasquotank, into the quiet waters of Symons Creek and Newbegun Creek, the dreaded bark would speed, and the settlers along those ancientstreams would quake and tremble at the sound of the loud carousing, thecurses and shouts that made hideous the night. 

On all these waters "Teach's Light" is still said to shed a ghostlygleam on dark, winter nights; and where its rays are seen to rest, there, so the credulous believe, his red gold still hides, deep down inthe waters or buried along the shore. 

A few miles down the Pasquotank from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, there stands near the river shore a quaint old building known as "TheOld Brick House, " which is said to have been one of the many widelyscattered haunts of Blackbeard. A small slab of granite, circular inshape, possibly an old mill wheel, is sunken in the ground at the footof the steps and bears the date of 1709, and the initials "E. T. "

The ends of the house are of mingled brick and stone, the main body ofwood. The wide entrance hall, paneled to the ceiling, opens into a largeroom, also paneled, in which is a wide fire-place with a richly carvedmantel reaching to the ceiling. On each side of this mantel there is acloset let into the wall, one of which communicates by a secret doorwith the large basement room below. Tradition says that from this room asecret passage led to the river; that here the pirate confined hiscaptives, and that certain ineffaceable stains upon the floor in theroom above, hint of dark deeds, whose secret was known only to theunderground tunnel and the unrevealing waters below. 

Standing on a low cliff overlooking the Pasquotank, whose amber waterscome winding down from the great Dismal Swamp some ten miles away, theold house commands a good view of the river, which makes a wide bendjust where the ancient edifice stands. And a better spot the piratecould not have found to keep a lookout for the avenging ship that shouldtrack him to his hiding place. And should a strange sail heave in sight, or one which he might have cause to fear was bringing an enemy to hisdoor, quickly to the secret closet near the great mantel in the banquethall would Blackbeard slip, drop quietly down to the basement roombeneath, bending low, rush swiftly through the underground tunnel, slipinto the waiting sloop and be off and away up the river or down, whichever was safest, out of reach of the enemy. 

But though many of the streams and towns in the Albemarle region retainthese traditions of Blackbeard, in little Bath, the oldest town in NorthCarolina, can the greatest number of these tales be heard; and with goodreason, for here in this historic village, the freebooter made his homefor a month or so after he had availed himself of the king's offer ofpardon to the pirates who would surrender themselves and promise to giveover their evil mode of life. 

This ancient village, founded in 1705, is situated on Bath Creek, bywhich modest name the broad, beautiful body of water, beside which thoseearly settlers built their homes, is called. The banks of the creek arehigh and thickly wooded, rising boldly from the water, in strikingcontrast with the low, marshy shores of most of our eastern rivers. 

Near the shores of the creek, just outside the town, there is still tobe seen a round brick structure resembling a huge oven, called Teach'sKettle, in which the pirate is said to have boiled the tar with which tocalk his vessels. Across the creek from the town are the ruins of "theGovernor's Mansion, " where, it is claimed, Governor Eden died. In anold field a short distance from the mansion is a deep depression filledwith broken bricks, which was the governor's wine cellar. Nearly on aline with this, at the water's edge, is shown the opening of a bricktunnel, through which the Pirate Teach is said to have conveyed hisstolen goods into the governor's wine cellar for safe keeping. ThatGovernor Eden, for reasons best known to himself, winked at the pirate'sfreebooting expeditions, and that there was undoubtedly some collusionbetween Blackbeard and the chief magistrate of the State, was generallybelieved; though Eden vehemently denied all partnership with thefreebooter. 

To the latter class of narrative the following thrilling tale, whichcombines very ingeniously the various points of historic interest inBath, must, it is to be feared, belong. The story goes that Blackbeard, with the consent of her father, was suing for the hand of GovernorEden's daughter. The young lady, for the excellent reason that shepreferred another and better man, declined absolutely to become thepirate's bride. 

Finally, in a desperate attempt to elude his pursuit, Miss Eden bribedtwo of her father's slaves to row her across the creek in the dead ofthe night to Bath. Here she took refuge in the "Old Marsh House" withher friend, Mrs. Palmer, whose memorial tablet is now in St. ThomasChurch at Bath, the oldest house of worship in the State. 

Teach, infuriated at the lady's continued rejection of his suit, put outto sea on one of his piratical excursions. The prize he captured on thisoccasion was Miss Eden's lover, his hated rival. The story goes thatBlackbeard cut off one of the hands of the unfortunate captive, threwhis body into the sea, and enclosing the gruesome relic in a silvercasket, as if it were some costly gift, sent it with many compliments tohis lady love. When the unfortunate maiden opened the casket and saw theghastly object she uttered a terrible shriek and swooned from horror;then, as was the fashion in the old romances, pined slowly away and diedof a broken heart. 

Now, at first blush, it seems that this interesting tale has enoughcorroborating evidences of its veracity to pass down to the coming agesas true history. A visitor to Bath can see for himself every one of theplaces mentioned in the story. The tablet in old St. Thomas Churchtestifies in many a high-sounding phrase the many virtues of Miss Eden'sfriend, Mrs. Margaret Palmer; and the "Old Marsh House" is stillstanding, a well preserved and fascinating relic of the past, where theabove lady is said to have sheltered her friend. We speak of facts ashard and stubborn things, but dates are as the nether millstone forhardness. And here are the rocks on which our lovely story shatters:Teach was captured and beheaded in 1718; Mrs. Palmer's tablet reportsher to have been born in 1721, and the Marsh House was not built until1744. The story is a beautiful instance of the way in which legends aremade. 

After so much that is traditional, a brief sketch of the pirate's lifemay not be amiss. According to Francis Xavier Martin's History of NorthCarolina, Edward Teach was born in Bristol, England. While quite younghe took service on a privateer and fought many years for king andcountry with great boldness. In 1796 he joined one Horngold, one of aband of pirates who had their rendezvous in the Bahamas, taking refugewhen pursued, in the sounds and rivers of North Carolina. 

On his first cruise with the pirate, Teach captured a sloop, of whichHorngold gave him the command. He put forty guns on board, named thevessel "Queen Anne's Revenge, " and started on a voyage to South America. Here Teach received news of the king's proclamation of pardon for allpirates who would surrender themselves. So, having collected muchplunder, and wishing to secure it, he came to North Carolina. Withtwenty of his men he proceeded to Governor Eden's house, surrenderedhimself and received the king's pardon. 

Soon after, Blackbeard married a young girl, his thirteenth wife, andsettled down near Bath with the intention, apparently, of becoming apeaceable citizen; but his good resolutions were soon broken; "beinggood" did not appeal to the bold sea rover, and soon he was back againon the high seas, pursuing unchecked his career of plunder. 

Finally, the people in desperation, finding Governor Eden either unableor unwilling to put an end to the pirate's depredations, appealed toGovernor Spotswood, of Virginia, for aid, and the pirate was finallycaptured and beheaded by Lieutenant Maynard, whom Spotswood put incommand of the ship that went out to search for this terror of the seas. 

Seen through the softening haze of two centuries, the figure of theredoubtable sea robber acquires a romantic interest, and it is notsurprising that many good and highly respected citizens of eastern NorthCarolina number themselves quite complacently among the descendants ofthe bold buccaneer. 

CHAPTER VII

THE OLD BRICK HOUSE--A TRUE HISTORY OF THE HISTORIC DWELLING REPUTED TOBE THE HOME OF THE FAMOUS PIRATE

Local tradition claims that the old brick house described in theforegoing chapter, was once a haunt of the famous pirate, Edward Teach, or Blackbeard, as he was commonly called. 

Wild legends of lawless revel and secret crime have grown up about theold building, until its time-stained walls seem steeped in theatmosphere of gloom and terror which the poet Hood has so graphicallycaught in his "Haunted House":

 "But over all there hung a cloud of fear-- A sense of mystery, the spirit daunted, And said as plain as whisper in the ear, 'The house is haunted. '"

It is said that the basement room of the Brick House served as a dungeonfor prisoners taken in Teach's private raids and held for ransom. 

There are darker stories, too, of deeds whose secret was known only tothe hidden tunnel and unrevealing waters below. 

But tradition has been busy with other occupants of the old house. It issaid to have been in colonial days the home of a branch of an ancientand noble English family. 

[Illustration: "THE OLD BRICK HOUSE, " ON PASQUOTANK RIVER]

To the care of these gentlefolk their kinsmen of old England were saidto have entrusted a young and lovely girl in order to separate her froma lover, whose fortunes failed to satisfy the ambition of her proud andwealthy parents. 

The lover followed his fair one across the seas, and entered in disguiseamong the guests assembled at the great ball which was given at theBrick House in honor of their recently arrived and charming guest. Theyoung lady's brother, who had accompanied her to this country, penetrated the disguise of her lover. 

"Words of high disdain and insult" passed between the young men, a duelfollowed, and the lover fell, leaving on the floor dark stains which aresaid to remain to this day, in silent witness to the tragedy of longago. 

Many years after, in a closet of the old house, a faded pink satinslipper was found which tradition naturally assigns to the fair butunhappy heroine of the old tale of love and death. 

So much for tradition. 

The story of Teach's occupation of the Old Brick House has not beenreceived without question, but in default of more accurate knowledge, ithas been accepted. 

Recently, certain facts have come to light concerning the ancientbuilding which are briefly given below. 

The information referred to was given by Mr. Joseph Sitterson, aprominent resident of Williamston, North Carolina. 

According to Mr. Sitterson, the Old Brick House was the property of hisgreat grandmother, Nancy Murden. This lady was a descendant of LordMurden, who in 1735 sent out an expedition in charge of his eldest sonto make a settlement in the New World. 

The party obtained, whether by grant or purchase is not known, the landon which the Old Brick House now stands. A sandy ridge extends intoCamden County, and is known to this day as Murden's Ridge. 

Young Murden had brought with him from England the brick and stone, thecarved mantel and paneling, which entered into the construction of thenew home he now proceeded to build. 

It is thought that the house was intended to be entirely of brick; butthe end walls of the massive chimneys having exhausted the supply, thebuilding was finished with wood. The house was planned with the greatestcare for defense against the Indian raids; hence the sliding panels, andthe roomy and secret spaces in which the family plate and jewelsbrought from the old country could be quickly concealed, in case ofsudden attack. 

With the same end in view, there were built in the basement, from therich timber of the adjoining woods, stalls of cedar, the narrow windowsof which can still be seen. In these stalls the ponies were kept forfear of Indian raids. 

It is believed that in the troubled times preceding the AmericanRevolution, Lord Murden's son succeeded to his father's large estatesand returned to England to claim his inheritance. 

After the Revolution, his American lands were confiscated and became theproperty of the State. 

Shortly after the war two brothers of the Murden family came to NorthCarolina, entered the old property and took charge of it. 

These brothers married sisters, the Misses Sawyer. In time the Old BrickHouse came into the possession of Nancy Murden, a descendant of one ofthe brothers Murden. 

At her death she left the property as follows: One-third to IsaacMurden, one-third to Jerry Murden, one-third to Nancy Murden, hergrandchildren. 

This will is recorded in the court-house at Elizabeth City, NorthCarolina. 

CHAPTER VIII

"ELMWOOD, " THE OLD SWANN HOMESTEAD IN PASQUOTANK COUNTY

On a low bluff, overlooking the waters of the beautiful PasquotankRiver, some five or six miles from Elizabeth City, there stood until afew years before the outbreak of the Civil War, an old colonial mansionknown as "Elmwood, " the home for many years of the historic Swannfamily, who were among the earliest settlers in our State, and played aprominent part in the colonial history of North Carolina. 

Mrs. J. P. Overman, of Elizabeth City, whose father, the late Dr. WilliamPool, of Pasquotank County, spent his boyhood days at Elmwood, then thehome of his father, has given the writer a description of this historichouse, as learned from her father: "The house was situated on theright-hand bank of the river, and was set some distance back from theroad. It was built of brick brought from England, and was a large, handsome building for those days. As I recall my father's description ofit, the house was two stories high; a spacious hall ran the full lengthof the house, both up-stairs and down; and in both the upper and lowerstory there were two large rooms on each side of the hall. A broad, massive stairway led from the lower hall to the one above. The housestood high from the ground, the porch was small for the size of thebuilding, and the windows were high and narrow. The ceilings of therooms on the first floor had heavy, carved beams of cedar that ran thelength of the house. On the left of the house as you approached from theriver road, stretched a dense woods, abounding in deer, and in thosedays these animals would venture near the homes of men, and feed in thefields. "

The great planters in those early days in North Carolina, spent theirworking hours looking after the affairs of their estates, settling thedisputes of their tenants, and attending with their fellow-landedneighbors the sessions of the General Assembly, and of the courts. Theirpleasures were much the same as those of their kinsmen across the sea inmerry England--fox-hunting, feasting and dancing; though to theseamusements of the old country were added the more exciting deer chase, and the far more dangerous pastime of a bear hunt, when bruin's presencenear the homestead became too evident for comfort. Often the wildscreams of the fierce American panther would call the planters forthinto the dark forests at their doors, and then it must be a hunt to thedeath, for until that cry was stilled, every house within the shadow ofthe forest was endangered. Among the homes of the planters in theancient counties of Pasquotank, Currituck, Perquimans and Chowan, Elmwood was noted for the hospitality of its earliest owners, theSwanns; and the long list of prominent families who afterwards livedwithin its walls, kept alive the old traditions of hospitality. 

On many a clear, crisp autumn day, the lawn in front of the mansionwould be filled with gentry on horseback, dressed after the fashion oftheir "neighbors" across the sea in hunting coats of pink, ready for ahunt after the wily fox. The master of the hounds, William Swannhimself, would give the signal for the eager creatures to be unloosed, the bugle would sound, and the cry "off and away" echo over the fields, and the chase would be on. A pretty run would reynard give his pursuers, and often the shades of evening would be falling ere the hunters wouldreturn to Elmwood, a tired, bedraggled and hungry group. Then at thehospitable board the day's adventures would be related, and after thedinner a merry dance would close the day. 

At Christmas, invitations would be issued to the families of the gentryin the nearest counties, to attend a great ball at Elmwood. The oldhouse would be filled from garret to cellar, and the hospitable homesof nearby friends would open to take in the overflow of guests. Damesand maidens coy, clad in the quaint and picturesque colonial costume, with powdered hair and patches, in richly brocaded gowns and satinslippers, made stately courtesy to gay dandies and jovial squiresarrayed in coats of many colors, broidered vests, knee breeches andsilken hose, brilliant buckles at knee and on slippers, their long hairworn ringleted and curled, or tied in queues. In stately measure thegraceful minuet would open the ball. Then the gayer strains of the oldVirginia reel would cause even the dignified dame or sober squire torelax; and in laughter and merry-making the hours would speed, till thegradual paling of the stars and a flush in the east would warn the merrydancers that "the night was far spent, and the day was at hand. "

Such are the tales still told in our county of the olden days atElmwood--tales handed down from father to son, and preserved in thememories of the old inhabitants of Pasquotank. And all such memoriesshould be preserved and recorded ere those who hold them dear havepassed away, and with them, the traditions that picture to a generationall too heedless of the past, the life of these, our pioneerforefathers. 

From this old home more distinguished men have gone forth than probablyfrom any other home in North Carolina. 

The Hon. J. Bryan Grimes in an address made before the State HistoricalSociety at Raleigh in 1909, gives a long list of eminent Carolinians whohave called Elmwood their home. Among them were Colonel Thomas Swann andColonel William Swann, both in colonial days Speakers of the Assembly;three members of the family by the name of Samuel Swann, and John Swann, members of Congress. Here lived Fred Blount, son of Colonel John Blount, an intimate friend of Governor Tryon. William Shephard, a prominentFederalist, for some years made Elmwood his home. The Rev. Solomon Pool, President of the University of North Carolina, and his brother, JohnPool, United States Senator from North Carolina, both spent theirboyhood days in this ancient mansion. And, as Colonel Grimes' researchesinto the history of this old home have made known, and as he relates inhis speech on "The Importance of Memorials, " "At Elmwood lived, and withit were identified, ten Speakers of the Assembly, five Congressmen, oneUnited States Senator, one President of the State University, and onecandidate for Governor. "

One of the Samuel Swanns who resided at Elmwood was the brave youngsurveyor, who, with his comrades, Irvine and Mayo, was the first toplunge into the tangled depths of the Dismal Swamp, when the boundaryline between North Carolina and Virginia was established. 

Before the War between the States had been declared, the old house wasburned to the ground; and since then the estate has been cut intosmaller farms, and the family burying-ground has been desecrated bytreasure-seekers, who in their mad greed for gold have not hesitated todisturb the bones of the sacred dead. 

Just when or how the old home was burned, no one is able to tell. Whatever the circumstances of the destruction of this fine old building, the loss sustained by the county, and by the State, is irreparable. 

CHAPTER IX

PASQUOTANK IN COLONIAL WARS

The earliest wars in which the pioneers of North Carolina took part werethose fought between the first comers into the State and the Indians. AsPasquotank was one of the earliest of the counties to be settled, wemight naturally expect that county to have taken an active part in thoseencounters. The fact, however, that the great majority of her earlysettlers were Friends, or Quakers, as they are more commonly called, prevented Pasquotank from sharing as extensively as she otherwise mighthave done in the fight for existence that the pioneers in Carolina werecompelled to maintain; for one of the most rigid rules of the QuakerChurch is that its members must not take up arms against their fellowmen, no matter what the provocation may be. 

However, a search through the Colonial Records reveals the fact that ourcounty has given a fair quota of men and money whenever the domestic orforeign troubles of colony, state or nation, needed her aid. 

The first encounter between our sturdy Anglo-Saxon forefathers and thered man of the forest occurred in 1666, two years after WilliamDrummond took up the reins of government in Albemarle. After thistrouble little is recorded, nor is Pasquotank nor any of her precinctsmentioned in reference to the Indian War. But as the majority of thesettlers in North Carolina then lived along the shores of Little Riverand the Pasquotank, we may feel sure that the men of this county wereprominent in subduing their savage foes, who, as Captain Ashe records, "were so speedily conquered that the war left no mark upon the infantsettlement. "

From then until the terrible days of the Tuscarora Massacre of 1711, thecounty, and Albemarle as a whole, rested from serious warfare; but theseyears can hardly be termed peaceful ones for the settlers in thisregion. The Culpeper Rebellion, the dissatisfaction caused by thetyrannical and illicit deeds of Seth Sothel, the disturbance caused byCaptain Bibbs, who claimed the office of governor in defiance ofLudwell, whom the Lords had appointed to rule over Carolina, and theCary troubles, all combined to keep the whole Albemarle district in astate of confusion and disorder for many years. 

But all of these quarrelings and brawlings were hushed and forgottenwhen in September, 1711, the awful tragedy of the Tuscarora Massacreoccurred. Though the settlers south of Albemarle Sound, in the vicinityof Bath and New Bern, and on Roanoke Island, suffered most during thosedays of horror, yet from the letters of the Rev. Rainsford and ofColonel Pollock, written during these anxious days, we learn that theplanters north of the sound came in for their share of the horrors of anIndian uprising that swept away a large proportion of the inhabitants ofthe colony, and left the southern counties almost depopulated. 

Though nearly paralyzed by the blow that had fallen upon the colony, which, in spite of difficulties, had been steadily growing andprospering, the officers of the government as soon as possible began totake steps to punish the Tuscaroras and their allies for the unspeakableatrocities committed by them during the awful days of the massacre, andalso to devise means for conquering the savage foes who were stillpursuing their bloody work. All the able-bodied men in the State werecalled upon to take part in the warfare against the Indians. But so fewwere left alive to carry on the struggle, that Governor Hyde wascompelled to call upon the Governor of South Carolina and of Virginia tocome to his aid in saving the colony from utter extinction. SouthCarolina responded nobly and generously. Virginia, for various reasons, sent but little aid to her afflicted sister colony. For two long yearsthe war continued, until at last the Indians were conquered, thesurviving hostile Tuscaroras left the State, and peace was restored tothe impoverished and sorely tried colony. 

During the bloody struggle, Pasquotank, which, with the other northerncounties suffered but little in comparison with the counties south ofthe Albemarle, had sent what help she could to those upon whom thehorrors of the war had fallen most heavily. In the Colonial Records thisentry of services rendered by Pasquotank is found in a letter sent byLieutenant Woodhouse and Thomas Johnson to certain "Gentlemen, Friends, and Neighbors, " dated October 3, 1712. "Captain Norton, as I wasinformed by Mrs. Knight, sailed last week from Pasquotank in MajorReed's sloop, with 30 or 40 men, provisions, and two barrels ofgunpowder and ten barrels, I think, of shot. " The destination of ship, men and cargo was Bath, the scene of the most disastrous of the Indianoutbreaks. 

In an extract from a "Book of the Orders and Judgments and Decrees ofthe Hon. Edward Hyde, Esq. , President of the Council, " mentioned in Dr. Hawk's History of North Carolina, we find the following entry: "Orderedthat Capt. Edward Allard shall depart with his sloop "Core SoundMerchant" to Pasquotank River, and there take from on board the"Return, " Mr. Charles Worth Glover, so much corn as will load his sloop, give to Mr. Glover a receipt for the same, and that he embrace the firstfair wind and weather to go to Bath County and there apply himself tothe Hon. John Barnewell, Esq. , and follow such instructions as he shallreceive from him. "

Again, in a letter from the Rev. Giles Rainsforth to "Jno. Chamberlain, Esq. , " written from "Chowan in North Carolina July 25, 1712, " furthermention is made of Pasquotank's part in the Tuscarora War: "Col. Boydewas the other day sent out with a party against the Indians, but wasunfortunately shot through the head and few of his men came home, butshared his fate and fell sacrifices to the same common misfortune. "

It has been charged against Pasquotank that her citizens did not respondto the call for volunteers to take part in the Tuscarora War; and it istrue that the Quakers in the county did enjoin upon their brethren thatthey should not bear arms in this or any other disturbance. It is alsotrue that a number of the citizens in the county did obey thisinjunction; and when the war was over we find that certain members ofthe Friends' meeting were brought to trial by the courts "for not goingout in ye Indian Wars. " But enough instances have been recorded to showthat our county did take an active part in breaking the power of theTuscaroras and in driving them from the State. 

In 1715, when South Carolina in her turn underwent the horrors of anIndian war, and appealed to North Carolina for aid, we find that menfrom Pasquotank joined with other forces from the colony in response tothis appeal. Captain John Pailin and Captain John Norton, both ofPasquotank, are ordered "to draw out their companies and go to theassistance of South Carolina in the Yamassie War. " And furthermore thecommand reads: "If men refuse, each captain is ordered to draft ten menwho have small families or none, and to put them under Captain Hastins. "That drafting was not resorted to, and that the men went willingly tothe aid of their brethren in South Carolina, who rendered the northerncolony such generous assistance in the Tuscarora War, is proved by thefact that fifty men were raised by the two captains, and cheerfullymarched to the front along with the bands of militia from theneighboring counties. 

So in these earliest trials of the military courage of her citizens, thecounty proved that she could and would take a worthy part. 

CHAPTER X

PASQUOTANK IN COLONIAL WARS--"THE WAR OF JENKINS' EAR"

After the war with the Tuscaroras was over, and most of that powerfultribe had left the State, going to New York and becoming the sixth ofthe tribes there called "The Six Nations, " for many years there were nopitched battles between the red men and the settlers in North Carolina. 

But the troubles with the Indians did not end with the Tuscarora War;for though a treaty was made in 1713 with Tom Blount, king of theTuscaroras, who remained in the State, whereby the Indians boundthemselves to keep the peace, yet, as late as 1718 the colonists werestill putting troops in the field to "catch or kill the enemy Indians. "Indeed the settlers in Albemarle suffered as much from the Indians afterthe Tuscaroras left the State as they did during the days of the Indianmassacre of 1711, and of the open warfare that followed. 

In 1714 another Indian outbreak occurred, and the alarm was so greatthat many of the settlers in the Albemarle region determined to flee toVirginia, where the government seemed better able to protect itscitizens than were the officials of North Carolina. 

To prevent such an immigration from the colony, Governor Eden, who hadsucceeded Edward Hyde, issued a proclamation forbidding the people toleave the colony; and Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, gave orders toarrest any Carolinians who should flee into his colony without apassport from duly authorized officials in Carolina. 

But as the years passed on, the Indian troubles gradually ceased, andthe red men mostly disappeared from the eastern portion of the State, though as late as 1731 Dr. Brickwell speaks of finding there "a nationcalled the Pasquotanks, who kept cattle and made butter, but at presenthave not cattle. "

With the dangers from the Indians over, and with the transfer ofCarolina from the hands of the neglectful Lords Proprietors into thepossession of King George II, brighter and more prosperous days began todawn for North Carolina. The population rapidly increased; and, whereas, in 1717 there were only 2, 000 persons in the colony, by 1735 this numberhad increased to 4, 000. Lively wranglings there were often between theRoyal Governors and the sturdy and independent members of the GrandAssembly, who resolutely carried out their purpose to preserve theconstitutional rights of the people of the province. But no war clouddarkened the skies for many years after the Indian troubles were over. 

Not until 1740 was there again a call to arms heard in North Carolina;then trouble arose between Spain and England, and the colonists inAmerica were called upon to aid their Sovereign, King George II, in hiswar against the haughty Don. 

The real cause of this war was the constant violation on the part of theEnglish of the commercial laws which Spain had made to exclude foreignnations from the trade of her American colonies. But the event whichprecipitated matters and gave to the conflict which followed the name of"The War of Jenkins' Ear, " was as follows:

The Spanish captured an English merchant vessel, whose master theyaccused of violating the trade laws of Spain. In order to wring aconfession from the master, Captain Jenkins, his captors hung him up tothe yard arms of his ship until he was nearly dead, and then let himdown, thinking he would confess. But on his stoutly denying that he hadbeen engaged in any nefarious dealings, and since no proof could befound against him, the captain of the Spanish ship cut off one of theEnglish captain's ears, and insolently told him to show it to hiscountrymen as a warning of what Englishmen might expect who were caughttrading with Spain's colonies in America. 

Captain Jenkins put the ear in his pocket, sailed home as fast as windand wave would carry him, and was taken straight to the House ofParliament with his story. Such was the indignation of both Lords andCommons at this insult to one of their nation, and so loud was theclamor for vengeance, that even Walpole, who for years had managed tohold the English dogs of war in leash, was now compelled to yield to thewill of the people, and Parliament declared war with Spain. 

Immediately upon this declaration, King George called upon his "trustyand well beloved subjects in Carolina" and the other twelve colonies, toraise troops to help the mother country in her struggle with arrogantSpain. Carolina responded nobly to the call for troops, as the followingextract from a letter from Governor Gabriel Johnston to the Duke ofNewcastle will testify: "I can now assure your grace that we have raised400 men in this province who are just going to put to sea. In thoseNorthern Parts of the Colony adjoining to Virginia, we have got 100 meneach, though some few deserted since they began to send them on boardthe transports at Cape Fear. I have good reason to believe we could haveraised 200 more if it had been possible to negotiate the Bills ofExchange in this part of the Continent; but as that was impossible wewere obliged to rest satisfied with four companies. I must in justice tothe assembly of the Province inform Your Grace that they were veryzealous and unanimous in promoting this service. They have raised asubsidy of 1200 pounds as it is reckoned hereby on which the men havesubsisted ever since August, and all the Transports are victualed. "

While no mention is made of Pasquotank in this war, nor of men from anyother county save New Hanover, we may reasonably infer that among thethree hundred troops from the northern counties adjoining Virginia, menfrom our own county were included. No record has been kept of the namesof the privates who enlisted from Carolina in this war. Nor do we knowhow many of those who at the king's call left home and country to fighta foreign land ever returned to their native shores; but we do know thatthese Carolina troops took part in the disastrous engagements ofCartagena and Boca-Chica; and that King George's troops saw fulfilledWalpole's prophecy made at the time of the rejoicing over the news thatParliament had declared war with Spain: "You are ringing the joy bellsnow, " said the great Prime Minister, "but before this war is over youwill all be wringing your hands!"

After the two crushing defeats of Cartagena and Boca-Chica, the troopsfrom the colonies who still survived embarked upon their ships to returnhome; but while homeward bound a malignant fever broke out among thesoldiers which destroyed nine out of every ten men on the ships. But fewof those from Carolina lived to see their native home again. That theybore themselves bravely on the field of battle, none who know the warrecord of North Carolina will dare deny; though as regards her privatesoldiers in this war, history is silent. 

One of the officers from Carolina, Captain Innes, of Wilmington, madesuch a record for gallantry during the two engagements mentioned, thatin the French and Indian War, in which fourteen years later, not onlythe Thirteen Colonies, but most of the countries of Europe as well, wereembroiled, he was made commander-in-chief of all the American forces, George Washington himself gladly serving under this distinguishedCarolinian. 

CHAPTER XI

A SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION--THE STORY OF A PASQUOTANK BOY WHO FOLLOWEDWASHINGTON

It is a well known fact that the records of the services of the NorthCarolina soldiers who took part in the Revolutionary War are verymeagre. Of the private, and other officers of leaser rank, this isespecially true. Therefore, it is not surprising that a search throughthe Colonial Records for a statement of the services rendered hiscountry by John Koen, a brave soldier of the Revolution from PasquotankCounty, reveals only this fact: that he enlisted in Moore's Company, Tenth Regiment, on May 30, 1777, and served for three years. 

But in addition to the above information, the following incidents in thelife of John Koen have been furnished the writer of this history by Mrs. Margaret Temple, formerly of Rosedale, now a resident of Elizabeth City. 

Mrs. Temple is a granddaughter of Colonel Koen, the widow of William S. Temple, a brave Confederate soldier from Pasquotank, and the mother oftwo of our former townsmen, Hon. Oscar Temple, of Denver, Colorado, andRobert Temple, of New Orleans. 

Mrs. Temple was about twelve years old at the time of Colonel Koen'sdeath, and retains a very vivid recollection of the stirring stories ofthe Revolution told by her grandfather during the long winter evenings, when the family gathered around the big fire-place in the old Koenhomestead near Rosedale. 

A record copied from the Koen family Bible states that John Koen, son ofDaniel Koen and Grace Koen, his wife, was born on the 27th day ofJanuary, 1759; and years later this record was entered: "John Koen, departed this life September 5th, 1840, aged 83 yrs. "

At the age of eighteen he entered his country's service as a volunteer, and served through the Revolution, participating in many of the greatestvictories won by the Americans, sharing the worst hardships of the warwith his fellow patriots, and laying down his arms only after Cornwallishad surrendered his sword at Yorktown. 

At the beginning of the winter of 1775-1776, North Carolina wasconfronting the most perilous conditions which she had ever been calledto face. From the north, east and west, the foe was pressing, whilewithin her own borders the Tories were rising, and planning to join theBritish in the subjection of this rebellious state. 

The plan formulated by the enemy was this: Sir Henry Clinton, withtroops of British regulars, was to come down the coast to the mouth ofthe Cape Fear River, where Lord Cornwallis, who with seven regimentsfrom England was hastening across the Atlantic, was to join him. LordDunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, was to incite the slaves andindentured servants in the Albemarle district to unite with the Toriesin the State; and the Indians in the western counties were to be inducedto take up arms against the whites. 

If these plans had matured, North Carolina would have been overpowered, but one by one they were frustrated. The battle of Great Bridge defeatedDunmore in his purpose. The Snow Campaign quieted the Indian uprising. The battle of Moore's Creek Bridge crashed the Tories, and the heavywinter storms delayed Cornwallis and prevented him from joining Clintonat the mouth of the Cape Fear. 

When Lord Dunmore issued his proclamation offering freedom to the slavesand indentured servants who should join his majesty's forces, and thenfollowed up this notice by burning and ravaging the plantations aroundNorfolk, Virginia, called upon her sister State for help, and Long andSumner, from Halifax, and Warren, Skinner and Daugé from Perquimans andPasquotank counties, hastened with their minute men and volunteers toGreat Bridge, where Colonel Woodford in command of the Virginia troops, had thrown up fortifications. 

Among the volunteers who were hastening to the scene of action was JohnKoen, of Pasquotank, a boy in years, but a man in purpose andresolution. 

On December 9, 1775, the British attacked the fortifications, and thesound of heavy firing at Great Bridge, the first battle in which the menof the Albemarle section had been called to participate, was heard bythe dwellers in the counties nearest Norfolk. 

The story is still told by old residents of Rosedale, that John Koen'smother, who was washing the breakfast dishes when the firing began, hearing the first heavy reverberations from the cannon some thirty milesaway, dropped the dish she was wiping, and in her motherly anxiety forthe safety of her boy, cried out, "Dodge, John, dodge!"

Whether John dodged or not we do not know, but we do know that he borehis part manfully in this, his first battle, and shared in the victorywhich drove Dunmore from Virginia, and saved North Carolina frominvasion from that direction, and a threatened uprising of the slaves. 

On February 26, 1776, the battle of Moore's Creek Bridge was fought, which defeated the Tories in Carolina, and convinced the British thatfurther attempts at this time to conquer the State were useless. So, toward the end of May, Clinton's fleet sailed from the mouth of CapeFear River to Charleston, South Carolina, where his intention was toreduce that city. 

Generals Charles Lee and Robert Howe, of the Continental army, hastenedimmediately to the defense of that city, and among the soldiers whofollowed them was John Koen. Here again the British were defeated, Colonel Moultrie's Palmetto fortifications proving an effective defenseto the city by the sea, and Thompson's South Carolinians and NorthCarolinians bravely repelling the British land troops. Here Koen foughtby the side of the soldiers of North Carolina, and here, possibly, hewas an eye witness of the brave deed by which Sergeant Jasper wonundying fame. 

The British fleet, repulsed in the attempt to capture Charleston, sailednorthward, the danger of invasion that for six months threatened theSouth was over, and we find many of the soldiers in North Carolinareleased from duty and returning to their homes. 

But John Koen's heart was filled with boyish love and admiration for thecommander-in-chief of the American army, and his one desire now was tofollow Washington; so, shouldering his musket, the hardy young soldiermarched away to offer his services to the great general. 

We do not know whether or not John Koen was with Washington in thebattle at Long Island and at White Plains, but from his own account asrelated by him to his family, he did have the glorious honor of sharingin the victory at Trenton on December 26, 1776. 

Most of us are familiar with the picture of "Washington Crossing theDelaware, " wherein he is represented standing erect in a small boat thatseems about to be dashed to pieces by the heavy waves and the cakes ofice, but according to Colonel Koen, who was with Washington on thatmomentous night, no boats were used. The river was frozen over, and thesoldiers, in order to keep their footing on the slippery ice, laid theirmuskets down on the frozen river and walked across on them to the Jerseyshore. At times the ice bent so beneath the tread of the men that theymomentarily expected to be submerged in the dark waters, but thedangerous crossing was safely made, the British and Hessian troops, spending the holiday hours in feasting and carousing at Trenton, werecaptured, and a great victory won for the American army. 

Some time in the spring of 1777, John Koen must have returned to hishome in Pasquotank County, for we find in the Colonial Records that inthe month of May, 1777, he enlisted in Moore's Company, Tenth Regiment, from North Carolina, and that in June he was promoted to the rank ofcorporal. 

According to the fireside tales told by Colonel Koen to the household inthe old Koen homestead, this young soldier, then only twenty years old, was with Gates' army, that, under the valiant leadership of Morgan andArnold, won for the newly born nation the great victory of Saratoga; andthe winter of that same year--'77--we find him sharing with Washington'sarmy the trials and privations of the days of suffering at Valley Forge. 

"I have seen the tears trickling down my grandfather's face when he toldof the sufferings of that awful winter, " said his granddaughter, Mrs. Temple to the writer, "and I used to wonder at seeing a grown man cry, and often I said in my childish way that war should never bring a tearin my eyes. Little did I know then that the bitterest tears I shouldever shed would be caused by war, and for eighteen months during theterrible struggle between the North and the South I should mourn as deadmy soldier husband, whom God in His mercy restored to me after all hopeof seeing him alive again was over. "

Although the Colonial Records state that Koen enlisted for only threeyears in May, 1777, he must have re-enlisted in 1780, for he has leftwith his family a graphic description of General Lincoln's surrender ofCharleston in that year, and of the horrible treatment to which theContinental troops were subjected, who found themselves prisoners of thevictorious British army. 

The hot climate, the wretched condition of the prison ships, theunwholesome and insufficient food, made these days of imprisonment atCharleston equal in horror to the worst days at Valley Forge. Of the1, 800 prisoners who were taken captive on May 12, 1780, only 700survived when they were paroled, and of these our hero was one. 

In what other battles or experiences Colonel Koen shared we have norecord, historical or traditional, but according to his granddaughter'saccount, learned from his own lips, he served his country until thevictory of Yorktown was won and peace was declared. And it is easy tobelieve that this gallant soldier who was one of the first to volunteerat Great Bridge, and who fought so bravely in many of the sharpeststruggles of the great conflict, would not have been willing to laydown his arms until his country was freed from the power that had solong held it in thrall. 

So we can imagine him following Greene in his retreat across the State, taking part in the battle of Guilford Courthouse, and possibly presentwhen the proud Cornwallis was forced to surrender at Yorktown. 

When the struggle at last had ended, John Koen returned to his home. During the years of his absence his plantation was managed by WilliamTemple, whose pretty young daughter, Susannah, soon won the heart of thebrave soldier, and consented to become his bride. After some years ofhappy married life, the young wife died, and a few years later we findJohn Koen making a second marriage, his bride being Christian Hollowell, of Perquimans County. 

Owing to his gallant conduct in the Revolutionary War, John Koen, a fewyears after the war was over, was appointed Colonel of the militia inPasquotank County, and the government awarded him a pension, which waspaid until his death in 1840. 

CHAPTER XII

GENERAL ISAAC GREGORY, A REVOLUTIONARY OFFICER OF PASQUOTANK-CAMDEN

During the War of the Revolution, the Albemarle Region, thoughthreatened with invasion time and again by the British, seldom heard thetread of the enemy's army, or felt the shock of battle. For thisimmunity from the destruction of life and property, such as the citizenswhose homes lay in the path of Cornwallis and Tarleton suffered, thissection of North Carolina is largely indebted to General Isaac Gregory, one of the bravest officers who ever drew sword in defense of his nativehome and country. 

Both Pasquotank and Camden claim this gallant officer for their son, andboth have a right to that claim; for the two counties were one until1777. In that year a petition was presented to the General Assembly byJoseph Jones, of Pasquotank, from citizens living in what is now CamdenCounty, that the portion of Pasquotank lying on the northeast bank ofthe river should be formed into a separate county, and have acourt-house of its own, in order to do away with the inconvenience thepeople of that section suffered in having to cross the river to attendcourt, military drills and other public gatherings. The GeneralAssembly passed an act providing for the erection of a new county, andthis county was named for Charles Pratt, Earl of Camden, a member ofParliament and Chancellor, who in the stormy days of 1765 worked for therepeal of the hated Stamp Act, and justice to the Colonies. 

Before the long and bloody days of the Revolution proved his worth as asoldier, Isaac Gregory had won a prominent place in the public affairsof his county. His name first occurs in the Colonial Records in 1773, when he was elected sheriff of Pasquotank. In the same year he wasappointed one of the trustees of St. Martin's Chapel in Indian Town, Currituck County, a settlement whose citizens were many of them tobecome honored in the civil and military history of our State. 

Ever since the passing of the Stamp Act in 1765, low mutterings of thestorm that was soon to sweep over the country some ten years later haddisturbed the peace of the Thirteen Colonies; and events in NorthCarolina showed that this colony was standing shoulder to shoulder withher American sisters in their endeavor to obtain justice from England. 

In 1774, John Harvey's trumpet call to the people of North Carolina tocircumvent Governor Martin's attempt to deprive them of representationin the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, had resulted in theconvention at New Bern, the first meeting in America at which therepresentatives of a colony as a whole had ever gathered in directdefiance of orders from a Royal Governor. 

The next year, in April, Harvey again called a convention of the peopleto meet in New Bern. Again Governor Martin was defied; again, the NorthCarolinians, taking matters into their own hands, elected delegates toPhiladelphia, and before adjourning, added Carolina's name to theassociation of Colonies. 

Pasquotank was represented in this convention by Edward Jones, JosephRedding, Edward Everigen, John Hearing, and Isaac Gregory. The lastnamed, being by now an acknowledged leader in his county, was appointedby this body a member of the Committee of Safety in the EdentonDistrict. 

The path toward separation from the mother country was now being rapidlytrod by the American colonies, though few, as yet, realized whithertheir steps were tending. In the vanguard of this march toward libertyand independence, North Carolina kept a conspicuous place. The EdentonTea Party in October, 1774, had proved the mettle of her women. Thefarmers of Mecklenburg had struck the first chord in the song ofindependence, hardly a note of which had been sounded by the othercolonies. Governor Martin had fled from New Bern, and in August, 1775, the Hillsboro Convention had organized a temporary form of government, and had placed at the head of public affairs Cornelius Harnett, who, asPresident of the Provincial Council, had more power in the State than isgenerally delegated to a governor. 

In December, 1775, Lord Dunmore's attempted invasion of the State hadbeen thwarted, largely by the aid of the Minute Men from Albemarle. Thencame the famous Snow Campaign, in which the militia of the westerncounties joined the patriots of South Carolina in defeating the Toriesof that State. And in February, 1776, the important victory at Moore'sCreek Bridge had completely for a time broken the power of the Loyalistsin North Carolina. There was no longer any hope of obtaining justicefrom England, nor, after such open and steady rebellion against theking's officers, civil and military, could there be any hope ofconciliation with the mother country, save on terms too humiliating toeven contemplate. 

North Carolina, recognizing these facts, called another convention tomeet at Halifax in April, 1776, and there sounded her defiance as aState to King and Parliament, and boldly authorized her delegates tothe next Continental Congress at Philadelphia to vote for independence. 

The convention then proceeded to make further preparations for the warwhich all now felt was inevitable. Pasquotank, in response to the callimmediately issued for more troops, raised two regiments of militia. Isaac Gregory, who had been appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of thePasquotank Militia by the Convention of 1775, was promoted and madeColonel of the Second Regiment of Pasquotank Militia, the other officersbeing Dempsey Burgess, Lieutenant-Colonel, Joshua Campbell, Major, andPeter Daugé, Second Major. 

Independence having been declared by the Continental Congress of 1776, the thirteen Colonies, now independent States, proceeded to organize apermanent government within their several borders. 

In North Carolina a State convention was called to meet at Halifax inNovember, 1776, to frame a constitution for the government of thatState. To this convention Isaac Gregory, Henry Abbott, Devotion Davis, Dempsey Burgess and Lemuel Burgess were elected to represent Pasquotank, and Abbott was appointed on the committee to frame the constitution. Bythe 18th of December the work was completed and the constitutionadopted, which, with amendments, is still the organic law of the State. 

After Clinton's unsuccessful attempt to invade North Carolina in May, 1776, no further effort to place the State under British control wasmade until 1780. But during the intervening years the Carolina troopshad not been idle. Their valor had been proved at Brandywine, Germantownand Stony Point, and during the winter at Valley Forge 1, 450 of hersoldiers shared with their comrades from the other States the hunger, cold and suffering that was the portion of Washington's army throughoutthose dreary months. The North Carolina troops had aided in the bravebut unsuccessful attempt to drive the British from Savannah, and 5, 000of her soldiers had been sent to prevent the capture of Charleston; butthe patriot forces had been unable to repulse the invaders. Savannahfell, then Charleston, and by the last of May, 1780, both Georgia andSouth Carolina were in the hands of the enemy, and Cornwallis wasthreatening North Carolina. 

So great was the blow to the American cause from the loss of theseSouthern States, and so great the danger confronting North Carolina, that Congress ordered DeKalb, of the Continental line with the regularsfrom Maryland and Delaware to march to the rescue of the patriots in theSouth. General Gates, the reputed victor at Saratoga, was also orderedSouth, and put in command of the Southern forces. 

For awhile the enemy remained quiet, Cornwallis delaying the devastationof South Carolina until the maturing crops should be safe. This respitegave the Carolinians time to collect their forces on the South Carolinaborder, in order to drive back the enemy. 

Isaac Gregory, who in May, 1779, had been promoted to the office ofBrigadier-General of the Edenton District, on the resignation of JohnPugh Williams, was ordered to join General Caswell in South Carolina. Assoon as he could collect his men, Gregory marched towards the Piedmontsection, on his way to Caswell's army; and by June he was withRutherford's Brigade at Yadkin's Ford in Rowan. Near this place theTories had collected, some 800 strong; and Rutherford hoped, withGregory's aid, to crush them. But to his disappointment, no opportunitywas given, for General Bryan, the Tory leader, hearing of the defeat ofthe Loyalists at Ramseur's Mill a few days before, crossed the Yadkinand united with General MacArthur, whom Cornwallis had sent to AnsonCounty. 

By July 31 Gregory's men, with Rutherford and his brigade, were withGeneral Caswell at The Cheraws, just across the South Carolina border. For several weeks there was much suffering among the men on account ofthe lack of food, for though corn was plentiful, the rivers were so highthat the mills could not grind the meal. 

Lord Rawdon's army was stationed near Camden, South Carolina, and Gates, who had joined Caswell on August 17, having learned that the Britishgeneral was daily expecting a supply of food and stores for his men, determined to intercept the convoy and capture the supplies for his ownarmy. In the meantime Cornwallis, unknown to Gates, had joined LordRawdon. Gates, ignorant of this reinforcement of Cornwallis' troops, marched leisurely towards Camden to capture the coveted stores. 

The result of the battle that followed is known only too well. TheAmerican militia, panic-stricken at the furious onslaught of the enemy, threw down their arms and fled. General Gates, after a vain attempt torally his troops, lost courage, and abandoning his forces and hisstores, brought everlasting disgrace upon his name by fleeing in hothaste from the field. 

But the cowardly conduct of Gates and several of the other officers ofthe American army, as well as many of the militia, in this disastrousbattle, was offset by the heroism and courage of others; and amongthose who won undying fame on that fatal field, none is more worthy ofpraise than General Gregory. 

Roger Lamb, a British officer, writing an account of the battle, andspeaking of the disgraceful conduct of those officers and men whoseflight from the field brought shame upon the American army, gives thisaccount of Isaac Gregory's heroic struggle to withstand the enemy atthis bloody field: "In justice to North Carolina, it should be remarkedthat General Gregory's brigade acquitted themselves well. They formed onthe left of the Continentals, and kept the field while they had acartridge left. Gregory himself was twice wounded by bayonets inbringing off his men, and many in his brigade had only bayonet wounds. "

As to fight hand to hand with bayonets requires far more courage than tostand at a distance and fire a musket, this account of Gregory and histroops proves the bravery with which they fought during those terriblehours. General Gregory's horse was shot from under him while the battlewas raging; and seeing him fall, so sure was the enemy of his death thatCornwallis in his official report of the battle, gave in his name in thelist of the American officers killed on the field. 

Two days after the battle of Camden, the patriots, Shelby, Clarke andWilliams, defeated a band of Tories at Musgrove's Mill in SouthCarolina; but hearing of the disaster at Camden, these officers nowwithdrew from the State. Sumter's corps, near Rocky Mount, had been putto flight by Tarleton, Gates had fled the State, and only Davie's menwere left between the army of Cornwallis and Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Had the British General pressed on into the State, North Carolina musthave inevitably fallen into the hands of the enemy. But Cornwallisdelayed the invasion for nearly a month, thus giving the Carolinianstime to collect their forces to repel his attempt. 

The General Assembly which met in September, 1780, acting upon GovernorNash's advice, created a Board of War to assist him in conducting themilitary affairs of the State. This board now proceeded to put GeneralSmallwood, of Maryland, in command of all the forces in the State, giving him authority over all the officers in the Southern army, thehonor being conferred upon him on account of his gallant conduct atCamden. General Gregory was consequently ordered to hold himself inreadiness to obey General Smallwood's orders, with the other officers inNorth Carolina. 

The Board of War then proceeded to raise money, arms and men for thearmy that would soon be called upon to drive Cornwallis from the State. Gregory's brigade received $25, 000 of the funds raised, and 150 flintsand 15 guns were distributed among his soldiers. 

The British now confidently expected that Cornwallis would quicklysubdue North Carolina, then sweep over the State into Virginia. In orderto prevent the Americans from hurrying into that State to join forcesagainst Cornwallis, General Leslie was ordered from New York to theChesapeake, and in October his army was stationed near South Quays inVirginia, not far from Norfolk. 

The presence of Leslie's army so close to the Carolina border causedmuch alarm for the safety of the Albemarle section, which for the secondtime was in danger of invasion. General Gregory, who after the battle ofCamden had joined Exum and Jarvis in front of Cornwallis, had recentlyreturned to Albemarle. He was now ordered to take the field againstLeslie, and to prevent him from entering the State. From his camp atGreat Swamp, near North River, he wrote to Governor Nash in November, 1780, reporting the repulse of the enemy. He also warned the Governorthat the British were planning to attack Edenton; and he set forth inhis letter the blow that the capture of this town would be to thecommerce of the State. 

General Gregory's post at Great Swamp was no sinecure. He had only about100 men to withstand Leslie, whose forces at Portsmouth amounted tonearly 1, 000 men. His troops were poorly equipped, half naked, andill-fed; and his situation seemed almost desperate. To add to histroubles, an attempt was made at this time by Colonel Blount, of theEdenton District, to deprive him of his command. But a Council of State, held at Camp Norfleet Mills to inquire into the matter, declared that asColonel Blount had resigned of his own free will and accord--in favor ofGregory--he should not now take the command from him. 

In spite of the troubles and perplexities that beset Gregory in the fallof 1780, he bravely held his ground; and by the end of November he wroteGovernor Nash from his camp at North West that the British had abandonedPortsmouth, and had departed for parts unknown. 

While these events were taking place in the East, Cornwallis, whose leftwing under Ferguson had suffered a crushing defeat at King's Mountain, disappointed at the humbling of the Tories at that battle, had leftNorth Carolina on October 12th, and returned to South Carolina. Theheavy rains encountered by his army on his retreat caused much sicknessamong his men; and himself falling ill, he was obliged to give up hiscommand temporarily to Lord Rawdon. 

General Leslie's destination soon became known. On November 23 he hadabandoned the vicinity of Norfolk, and had sailed to Wilmington, N. C. , hoping to rouse the Tories in that section; but Lord Rawdon's army beingnow in great danger, Leslie was ordered to his assistance, and heaccordingly set out for the British army near Camden. But SouthernVirginia and the Albemarle region were not long to be free from the fearof invasion, for soon another British army under the command of thetraitor, Benedict Arnold, sailed into Chesapeake Bay, and Gregory wasagain sent to keep the enemy in check. 

During this campaign a serious charge was brought against Gregory, which, though soon proved to be wholly unfounded, caused the gallantofficer life-long mortification and distress. The circumstances of thisunfortunate occurrence were as follows:

Captain Stevens, a British officer in Arnold's corps, while sitting idlyby his fire one night, "just for a joke, " as he afterwards explained, wrote two notes to General Gregory, which he intended to destroy, asthey were simply the product of his own imagination, and were neverintended to go out of his hands. 

In some unknown way these papers came into the hands of an Americanofficer, who, deeming from their contents that Gregory was a traitor, carried them to headquarters. Their purport being made public, evenGregory's most loyal friends began to look upon him with suspicion anddistrust. 

The first of these two notes was as follows:

"General Gregory:

"Your well-formed plans of delivering into the hands of the Britishthese people now in your command, gives me much pleasure. Your next, Ihope, will mention place of ambuscade, and manner you wish to fall intomy hands. "

The second note was equally incriminating:

"General Gregory:

"A Mr. Ventriss was last night made prisoner by three or four of yourpeople. I only wish to inform you that Ventriss could not help doingwhat he did in helping to destroy the logs. I myself delivered him theorder from Colonel Simcox. "

Great was the excitement and consternation in Gregory's brigade, andindeed throughout the American army when these notes were read. Arnold'streason early in 1780 was still fresh in the minds of all; and it wasnatural that the accusation now brought against General Gregory shouldfind ready and widespread credence. Gregory was arrested andcourt-martialed by his own men; but his innocence was soon established, for as soon as Colonel Stevens heard of the disgrace he hadunintentionally brought upon an innocent man, he hastened to make amendsfor his thoughtless act by a full explanation of his part in the affair. Colonel Parker, a British officer and a friend of Stevens, had beeninformed of the writing of the notes, and he now joined Stevens infurnishing testimony at the trial that fully exonerated the bravegeneral from the hateful charge. But though friends and brother officersnow crowded around him with sincere and cordial congratulations upon thehappy termination of the affair, and with heartfelt expressions ofregret at the unfortunate occurrence, the brave and gallant officer, crushed and almost heart-broken at the readiness with which his men andmany of his fellow officers had accepted what seemed proofs of hisguilt, never recovered from the hurt caused by the cruel charge. Forthough he nobly put aside his just resentment, and remained at his postof duty, guarding the Albemarle counties from danger of invasion untilthe withdrawal of the British troops from southeastern Virginia removedthe danger, his life was ever afterwards shadowed by the mortificationhe had been called upon to undergo. 

In February, 1781, the enemy's army in Virginia became such a source ofterror to the people of that section that General Allen Jones wasordered to reinforce Gregory with troops from the Halifax District. Butlater that same month a greater danger confronted the patriot army inthe South, and this order was countermanded. Most of the forces in theStates were now hurried to the aid of General Greene, who had supersededGates after the battle of Camden, and was leading Cornwallis an eventfulchase across the Piedmont section of North Carolina. Cornwallis, afterhaving been reinforced by General Leslie, had planned to invade NorthCarolina, conquer that State, march through Virginia and join Clinton ina fierce onslaught against Washington's army in the North. To foil theplans of the British officers Greene was concentrating the patriottroops in the South in the Catawba Valley, and Gregory was left withonly a handful of men to hold the enemy at Norfolk in check. 

In June, General Gregory's situation was so desperate that the Assemblyagain ordered General Allan Jones to send 400 men from Halifax Districtto North West Bridge to reinforce Gregory; and the latter officer wasauthorized to draft as many men as possible from the Edenton District. 

General Jones informed the Assembly that he would send the troops assoon as possible, but that Gregory would have to provide arms, as he hadno means of furnishing equipments for them. 

Several engagements took place in June between the British and Americansin the Dismal Swamp region, and in one of them Gregory was repulsed anddriven from his position. But in July he wrote to Colonel Blountreporting that his losses were trifling, and that he had regained hisold post from the enemy. In August, 1781, a letter from General Gregoryconveyed the joyful tidings that the enemy had evacuated Portsmouth. Ashis troops were no longer needed to guard against the danger of invasionfrom that direction, and as smallpox had broken out in his camp, GeneralGregory now released his men from duty, and they returned to theirhomes. 

The British army that had just left Portsmouth, was now on its way toYorktown, whither Cornwallis, after his fruitless chase of Greene, hisdisastrous victory at Guilford Courthouse, and his retreat toWilmington, was now directing his army. There on the 19th of October thefamous Battle of Yorktown was fought and Cornwallis and his entire armyforced to surrender. 

This battle virtually ended the war; but peace did not come to Carolinaimmediately upon the surrender. The Tories in the State kept up aconstant warfare upon their Whig neighbors, and in March, 1782, GeneralGreene, who not long after the battle of Guilford Courthouse had won adecisive victory at Eutaw Springs, and was still in South Carolina, sentthe alarming intelligence to the towns on the coast that the British hadsent four vessels from Charleston harbor to plunder and burn New Bernand Edenton. To meet this unexpected emergency, General Rutherford wasordered to quell the Tories in the Cape Fear section, who wereterrorizing the people in that region. And in April, 1782, GeneralGregory received orders from General Burke to take 500 men to Edentonfor the defense of that town, and to notify Count de Rochambeau as soonas the enemy should appear in Albemarle Sound. In August no sign of theBritish ships had as yet been seen, though the coast towns were still indaily dread of their arrival. Governor Martin, who had succeeded Burke, wrote Gregory to purchase whatever number of vessels the Edentonmerchants considered necessary for the protection of the town, to buycannon and to draft men to man the boats. 

But Edenton was spared the horror of a second raid such as she hadsuffered in 1781. In December, 1782, the British army in SouthCarolina, which since the battle of Eutaw Springs had been hemmed in atCharleston by General Greene, finally embarked for England. The shipsthat had been keeping the towns near the coast in North Carolina interror, departed with them, and the States that had for so many long andbitter years been engaged in the terrific struggle with England, wereleft to enjoy the fruits of their splendid victory without furthermolestation from the enemy. 

In September, 1783, the Treaty of Peace was signed by Great Britain, andthe United States, separately and individually, were declared to be"free, sovereign and independent States. "

General Gregory's services to his State did not end with the war. Eighttimes from 1778 to 1789, we find him representing Camden County in theState Senate, serving on important committees, and lending the weight ofhis influence to every movement tending toward the prosperity andwelfare of the State. In the local affairs of his neighborhood he alsotook a prominent part. In 1789 the Currituck Seminary was established atIndian Town, and Isaac Gregory and his friend and brother officer, Colonel Peter Daugé, were appointed on the board of trustees of thisschool, which for many years was one of the leading educationalinstitutions of the Albemarle section. 

General Gregory lived at the Ferebee place in Camden County in a largebrick house, known then, as now, as Fairfax Hall. The old building isstill standing, a well known landmark in the county. 

A letter from James Iredell to his wife, written while this famous NorthCarolina judge was a guest at Fairfax, gives a pleasant account of anevening spent in General Gregory's home with Parson Pettigrew and GideonLamb, and also of the kindness and hospitality of the Camden people. 

In volume 2 of the Iredell letters this description of General Gregory'spersonal appearance is given:

"A lady, who remembers General Gregory well, says that he was a large, fine looking man. He was exceedingly polite, had a very grand air, andin dress was something of a fop. " In the same volume the followinginteresting account of an incident in the life of the famous General isfound: "General Gregory lived in his latter years so secluded a life andknew so little of events beyond his own family circle, that he addressedto a lady, the widow of Governor Stone, a letter making a formalproposal of marriage, full six months after her death. "

General Isaac Gregory was the son of General William Gregory, an officerwho took a prominent part in the French and Indian Wars. He marriedMiss Elizabeth Whedbee, and had two children, Sarah and Matilda. Sarahmarried Dempsey Burgess, of Camden, and Matilda married a young German, John Christopher Ehringhaus. Many of the descendants of this braveRevolutionary officer are living in the Albemarle region to-day, andclaim with pride this ancestor, who, as Captain Ashe in his History ofNorth Carolina says, "was one of the few who won honor at Camden, andwhose good fame was never tarnished by a single unworthy action. "

[Illustration: FAIRFAX, CAMDEN COUNTY, THE HOME OF GENERAL GREGORY]

The Sir Walter Raleigh Chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution havewithin the past year obtained from the United States government a simplestone which they have had placed to mark the grave of this gallantofficer, who lies buried in the family graveyard at Fairfax. 

CHAPTER XIII

PERQUIMANS COUNTY--"LAND OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, " AND THE COLONIAL TOWN OFHERTFORD

From its hidden source in the southern fringe of the far-famed DismalSwamp, the Perquimans River, lovely as its Indian name, which, beinginterpreted, signifies "the land of beautiful women, " comes windingdown. Past marshes green with flags and rushes and starred with flowersof every hue, through forests dense with pine and cypress, with gum andjuniper, the amber waters of the ancient stream pursue their tranquilway. Lazily, but steadily and untiringly, the river journeys on inobedience to the eternal, insistent call of the sea, till its waves, meeting and mingling with those of the great sound and its numeroustributaries, finally find their way through the sand bars that bound ourcoast, to the stormy Atlantic. 

Save for the fields of corn and cotton that lie along its banks, and anoccasional sawmill whose whirring wheels break at long intervals thesilence of its wooded shores, the peaceful river through the greaterpart of its way is undisturbed by signs of man's presence. Only twice inits course do its banks resound to the hum of town and village life, once when shortly emerging from the Great Swamp, the river in itswinding flows by the sleepy little Quaker village of Belvidere; andagain when its tranquility is suddenly broken by the stir and bustle ofmill and factory, upon whose existence depends the prosperity of the oldcolonial town of Hertford. There, the river, suddenly as wide awake asthe beautiful town by which it flows, changes its narrow, tortuous, leisurely course, and broadening out from a slender stream, sweeps on tothe sea, a river grown, whose shores from this point on lie apart fromeach other a distance of more than a mile. 

Of all the streams that flow down to the sea from Albemarle, noneexceeds in beauty or historic interest the lovely Perquimans River. Onits eastern banks lies Durant's Neck, the home of George Durant, thefirst settler in our State, who in 1661 left his Virginia home and cameinto Albemarle; and being well pleased with the beauty and fertility offair Wikacome, was content to abide thenceforth in that favored spot. 

On the banks of the streams flowing on either side of Wikacome, roamedan Indian tribe, the Yeopims, whose great chief Kilcokonen gave toGeorge Durant the first deed for land ever recorded in our State. Durant, his friend and comrade, Samuel Pricklove, and their familiesand servants, proved to be the vanguard of a long procession ofsettlers, who, following the footsteps of these first pioneers, madetheir homes upon the shores of the Albemarle streams. Soon the denseforests that stretched down to the river brinks fell beneath the axe ofthese home-seekers, and small farms and great plantations fringed theborders of the streams. 

At the narrows of the Perquimans, where the waters widen into a broad, majestic river, a sturdy pioneer, Henry Phillips (or Phelps) had builthis home. Thither in the spring of 1672, came a missionary, WilliamEdmundson, a friend and follower of George Fox, who some years beforehad over in England founded the Society of Friends. Henry Phelps was amember of this Society also, and the meeting between the two godly menwas a joyful one. 

During the ten years that had passed since the Indian Chief had signedhis first grant of land to the white man, the settlers of Albemarle hadhad no opportunity of assembling together for public worship. Phelps, knowing how gladly the call would be answered, at the bidding ofEdmundson, summoned such of his friends and neighbors as he could reach, to his home, to hear the Word preached by this zealous man of God. 

Not since the days of little Virginia Dare had a body of Christian menand women met together in Carolina to offer in public worship theirprayer and praises to the loving Father, who had led them safely overstorm-tossed waters, through tangled wilderness, into this Land ofPromise. Rough and uncultured as most of the congregation were, theylistened quietly and reverently to the good missionary, and received theWord with gladness. There were present at the meeting "one Tems and hiswife, " who earnestly entreated Edmundson to hold another service attheir home three miles away. So the next day he journeyed to the home ofTems, and there another "blessed meeting" was held; and there wasfounded a Society whose members were to be for many years the mostprominent religious body in the State. 

In the fall of 1672, the hearts of the members of this infant churchwere gladdened by the tidings that George Fox himself was on his way tovisit the little band of brethren in the wilds of Carolina. One cool, crisp October morning, the great preacher arrived. Again was the home ofPhelps chosen for the meeting; but so great was the crowd that gatheredto hear him that the house would not hold the congregation. Standing alittle distance from Phelps' simple dwelling were two great cypresstrees. Close down by the water's edge they grew, their featherybranches shading the rippling waves, and shielding the listeners fromthe glare of a sun whose rays had not yet lost their summer's heat. Under one of these trees the preacher stood, and spoke to the assembledcrowd as the Spirit gave him utterance. It was a "tender meeting, " asFox reports in his letters describing his stay in Perquimans. Many whowere present became converts to the faith of Fox and Edmundson; andPerquimans County and her sister, Pasquotank, became for many years thestronghold of the Society of Friends in Carolina. 

For a number of years after George Fox's visit to Perquimans, theQuakers were the only religious body in the colony that regularlyassembled its members together for divine service. Their ministers werefor the most part from the congregation itself; no salary was demandedby them; and the home of some Friends was the scene of their religiousmeetings. In a new country where ready money is a scarce commodity, achurch that could be conducted without any expenditure of cash couldmore easily take root, than one whose existence depended upon a certainamount, however small, of filthy lucre. 

The Lords Proprietors, members for the most part of the Church ofEngland, were too intent upon extracting wealth from their colony inCarolina to be willing to expend any of their gains for the good of thecolonists. Disregarding the petitions of their officers in Albemarle, who saw the great need for missionaries in the struggling settlements, they refused to become responsible for the salary of a minister. 

But after a while the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel inforeign parts took hold of the matter, and in 1702 a church was built inChowan, near where Edenton now stands. By 1709 Rev. Mr. Gordon, who wasone of the two ministers sent out by the S. P. G. , writes to the secretaryof the Society from Perquimans:

"In Perquimans there is a compact little church, built with care andexpress, and better than that in Chowan. It continues yet unfinished, byreason of the death of Major Swann, 1707, who fostered the building ofthis church. "

Among the vestrymen of this new parish may be found the following names:Francis Forbes, Colonel Maurice Moore, Captain Hecklefield, ThomasHardy, Captain Richard Saunderson, Henry Clayton, Joseph Jessups, SamuelPhelps and Richard Whedbee. Most of these gentlemen were men of note inthe colony, and many of their descendants are now living in PerquimansCounty. 

That the wealthy planters in Albemarle felt a certain responsibilityfor the spiritual welfare of their slaves, was shown by the fact thatmaster and slave alike gathered together to join in the services held bythe early missionaries of the Church of England; and that the masterwillingly allowed his servant to share in the blessings of thesacraments of the church. A letter from Rev. Mr. Taylor, written fromPerquimans in 1719, records that he had just "baptized a young woman, slave of Mr. Duckinfield, to whom I have taught the whole of the churchcatechism. "

But the letter further reveals that our early colonists cherished theirworldly possessions fully as fondly as their descendants, who pursuewith avidity the chase after the dollar. And when it came to thequestion of the slave's spiritual welfare, or the master's temporalprosperity, the master did not hesitate to show which he considered ofthe most importance. For, as Mr. Taylor writes, when it was rumored in1719 that the General Assembly of that year had decreed that allbaptized slaves should be set free; and when, immediately, and by astrange coincidence, the reverend gentleman was suddenly besieged bybands of men and women, all loudly clamoring to receive the rite of holybaptism, Duckinfield and others of the planters prudently restrained thepoor darkies from entering the church's folds until that law could berepealed. 

In secular as well as religious affairs, Perquimans precinct in thoseearly days took an active part. Men of political and social prominenceresided within her borders, and at their homes, for lack of othershelter for public gatherings, much of the business of the colony, legislative and judicial, was transacted. 

As early as 1677 the population of Albemarle had grown so numerous thatthe settlers found themselves strong enough to successfully resist theoppressive rule of the unworthy governors set over them by the LordsProprietors. And in that year, led by John Culpeper and George Durant, arevolt against the tyrannical Miller, which began in Pasquotank, spreadthrough the surrounding precincts. 

Among the men from Perquimans who took part in this disturbance, knownin history as Culpeper's Rebellion, were George Durant, AlexanderLillington, Samuel Pricklove, Jenkins, Sherrell and Greene. Sosuccessfully did they and their comrades strive against Miller'styranny, that that worthy was driven out of Carolina, and the reins ofgovernment fell into the hands of Culpeper and Durant. And at the homeof the latter on Durant's Neck, a fair and equitable people's governmentwas organized, the first of the kind framed in America. 

Alexander Lillington, who lent the weight of his wealth and influence tothe people in their struggle against Miller, was a rich planter who in1698 bought a tract of land from Stephen Pane and John Foster, on YeopimCreek, and soon became one of the leading men in the colony. Hisdescendants moved to New Hanover, and a namesake of his in later yearswon for himself undying fame at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. 

At the homes of Captain John Hecklefield and Captain Richard Saunderson, the General Assembly and the Governor's Council often convened. Thefamous Glover-Cary controversy was temporarily settled at the home ofthe former, by the Assembly of 1708, while Captain Saunderson's dwellingsheltered the Assembly of 1715, whose important acts were for the firsttime formally recorded and published. The courts were frequently held atthe home of Dinah Maclenden, and James Thickpenny. James Oates, CaptainJames Cole and Captain Anthony Dawson also bore their share inentertaining the judicial assemblies. 

As the population of the colony increased, facilities for carrying oncommerce and for traveling through the country became one of the cryingneeds of the day. The numerous rivers of Albemarle made provision forferries imperative, and as early as 1700, we find record made of "Yeferre over ye mane road" in Perquimans. In 1706 it is recorded thatSamuel Phelps was appointed "Keeper of ye Toll Boke at ye Head ofPerquimans River. "

A council held at the home of Captain Saunderson in 1715 ordered: "Thatfor the better convenience of people passing through the country, a goodand sufficient ferry be duly kept and attended over Perquimans River, from Mrs. Anne Wilson's to James Thickpenny, and that Mrs. Wilson dokeep the same, and that no other persons presume to ferry over horse orman within five miles above or below that place. "

As time went on, the crowds attending the courts and Assemblies becametoo large to be accommodated in private dwellings. As early as 1722, theGeneral Assembly ordered a court-house to be built at Phelps Point, nowthe town of Hertford, and tradition states that the old building waserected on the point near the bridge, where the home of Mr. ThomasMcMullan now stands. 

One of the most interesting spots in Perquimans County is the strip ofland lying between the Perquimans and the Yeopim rivers, known asHarvey's Neck. This was the home of the Harveys, men who for over acentury bore an important part in the history of our State. It was inolder days, as now, a fair and fertile land. Herds of deer wanderedthrough its forests; and great flocks of swan and wild geese floatedupon its silver streams, feeding upon the sweet grass which then grew inthose rivers. The waters were then salt, but with the choking up of theinlets that let in the saline waves of the Atlantic, the grassdisappeared, and with it the wild fowl who wintered there. 

Of all the members of the famous Harvey family whose homes were buildedon this spot, none proved more worthy of the fame he won than JohnHarvey, son of Thomas Harvey and Elizabeth Coles. 

Elected when just of age to the Assembly of 1746, he continued to servehis State in a public capacity until his death in 1775. 

Resisting the tyrannical endeavor of Governor Dobbs to tax the peopleagainst their rights, he nevertheless stood by the same governor in hisefforts to raise men and money for the French and Indian War. Serving asSpeaker of the House in 1766, he took an active part in opposing theStamp Act, and boldly declared in the Assembly that North Carolina wouldnot pay those taxes. In the Assembly of 1769 he proposed that Carolinashould form a Non-Importation Association; and when Governor Tryonthereupon angrily dismissed the Assembly and ordered its members home, Harvey called a convention independent of the Governor, and theassociation was formed. 

When Governor Martin refused to call the Assembly of 1774, for fear thatit would elect delegates to the Continental Congress, John Harveydeclared: "Then the people will call an Assembly themselves"; andfollowing their intrepid leader, the people did call the convention of1774, elected their delegates to Philadelphia, and openly and boldlyjoined and led their sister colonies in the gigantic struggle with themother country that now began. 

In the time of Boston's need, when her ports were closed by England'sorders, and her people were threatened with starvation, John Harvey andJoseph Hewes together caused the ship "Penelope" to be loaded with cornand meal, flour and pork, which they solicited from the generous peopleof Albemarle, and sent it with words of cheer and sympathy to theirbrethren in the New England town. In 1775 Harvey again braved the angerof the Royal Governor and called another people's convention, whosepurpose and work was to watch and circumvent the tyrant in his endeavorto crush the patriots in the State. 

"The Father of the Revolution" in Carolina, he was to his native Statewhat Patrick Henry was to Virginia, in the early days of the Revolution, and what Hancock and Adams were to Massachusetts. His untimely death, in 1775, caused by a fall from a horse, was deeply mourned by patriotsthroughout the land. 

Among other eminent sons of Perquimans during the Revolutionary periodthe names of Miles Harvey, Colonel of the regiment from that county;William Skinner, Lieutenant-Colonel of the same regiment; Thomas Harvey, Major, and Major Richard Clayton, are recorded in history. Among thedelegates to the People's Convention called by Harvey and Johnston wefind the Harveys, Whedbees, Blounts, Skinners and Moores, men whosenames were prominent then as now in the social and political life of theState. 

As time went on, Phelps Point at the Narrows of the Perquimans Riverbecame so thickly populated that by June, 1746, a petition was presentedto the General Assembly, praying for an act to be passed to lay out 100acres of land in Perquimans, including Phelps Point, for a town and atown commons. 

But a disturbance arose in the State about that time concerning theright of the northern counties to send five delegates each to theAssembly, while the southern counties were allowed to send only two. Governor Gabriel Johnson sided with the southern section, and orderedthe Assembly to meet at Wilmington in November, 1746, on which occasionhe and the southern delegates proposed to make a strong fight to reducethe representation from the Albemarle counties. 

The northern counties, tenaciously clinging to their rights, establishedin the early days of the colony when the counties south of AlbemarleSound had not been organized, refused to send delegates to thisAssembly; whereupon that body, though a majority of its members wereabsent, passed an act reducing the representation from the Albemarleregion to two members from each county. Indignant at this act, whichthey considered illegal, the citizens in the northern counties refusedto subscribe to it, and for eight years declined to send any delegatesat all to the Assembly; and the bill for establishing a town inPerquimans was heard from no more until the trouble between the twosections was settled. 

Finally the people of Albemarle sent a petition to George III, prayinghim to restore their rights in the General Assembly, and the Kinggraciously granted their request. In 1758 an Assembly met at New Bern, at which delegates from all sections of the colony were present; and inanswer to a petition presented by John Harvey, it passed an act for theerection of a town at Phelps Point in Perquimans County. 

The little village was called Hertford, a word of Saxon origin, signifying Red Ford. It was named for the Marquis of Hertford, anEnglish noble who moved for the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, and whowas ambassador at Paris in the reign of George III, and Lord Lieutenantof Ireland. 

The settlement at Phelps Point was already an important rendezvous forthe dwellers in the county. The cypress trees under which Fox had stoodand preached to the little band of brethren still stood, as they standto-day, bending lovingly over the stream, close to the end of the point. A little Church of England chapel farther down had since 1709 been thecenter of the religious life of its members in the county, and thecourt-house on the point since 1722 had been the scene of the politicaland judicial gatherings in Perquimans. 

The Assembly of 1762, realizing the importance of the little town to thecommunity, decreed that a public ferry should be established "fromNewby's Point to Phelp's Point where the court-house now stands, " and in1766 Seth Sumner, William Skinner, Francis Nixon, John Harvey and HenryClayton were appointed trustees of the ferry; a three-penny tax was laidon all taxable persons to defray the expenses of the ferry, and "Allpersons crossing to attend vestry meetings, elections, militarymusters, court martials and sessions of the court" were to be carriedover free of charge. 

The site of the town, described in Colonial Records as "healthy, pleasantly situated, well watered and commodious for commerce, " was theproperty of John Phelps, who gave his consent to the laying off of 100acres for the town on condition that he should retain his own house andlot, and four lots adjoining him. The public ferry having fallen intohis hands, the further condition was made that the town should allow noferry other than his to be run so long as he complied with the ferrylaws. The subscribers for the lots were ordered to build within threeyears, one well-framed or brick house at least 16 feet square; and inone month from purchase, were to pay the trustees the sum of 45shillings for each lot. 

As early as 1754, before the little settlement began to assume the airsof a town, the old Eagle Tavern still standing on Church street, was aregistered hotel; and there when court week appeared on the calendar, the representative men of the county and the surrounding precincts wouldgather. 

Quiet Quaker folk from Piney Woods, eight miles down from Newby's Point, Whites and Nicholsons, Albertsons, Newbys and Symmes, jogged along thecountry roads behind their sleek, well-fed nags, to answer with sereneyea or nay the questions asked on witness stand or in jury room. Powdered and bewigged judge and lawyer, high and mighty King's officersfrom Edenton or New Bern, or Bath, brilliant in gay uniform, rolledponderously thither in cumbersome coaches. Leaving their greatplantations on the adjoining necks in the hands of their overseers, Harveys and Skinners, Blounts and Whedbees, Winslows and Gordons, Nixonsand Woods and Leighs, dashed up to the doors of the tavern on spiritedsteeds. Hospitable townsfolk hurried to and fro, greeting the travelers, and causing mine host of the inn much inward concern, lest their cordialinvitation lure from his door the guest whose bill he could see, in hismind's eye, pleasantly lengthen, as the crowded court docket slowlycleared. 

Very sure were the guests at the tavern that horse and man would be wellcared for by the genial landlord; for the law required that the host ofEagle Tavern should give ample compensation for the gold he pocketed. When business was ended, the strangers within his gates wended their wayhomeward. No skimping of the bill of fare, no inattention to the comfortof the wayfarer did the landlord dare allow, lest his license be takenfrom him for violation of the tavern laws. 

Many an illustrious guest the ancient inn has known, and a storycherished by the Hertford people ascribes to the quaint old structurethe honor of having on one occasion sheltered beneath its roof theillustrious "Father of his Country, " George Washington. 

[Illustration: EAGLE TAVERN, HERTFORD, NORTH CAROLINA]

Whether our first President came to Hertford on business connected withlands in the Dismal Swamp in which he was interested, or whether hetarried at the old tavern while on his triumphal journey through theSouth in 1791, no one now knows, but the room is still shown, and thetale still told of the great man's stay therein. 

Diagonally across the street from the Eagle Tavern, at the end of theyard enclosing the old Harvey home, may be seen two great stones whichare said to mark the grave of a mighty Indian chief. PossiblyKilcokonen, friend of George Durant, lies buried there. The Hertfordchildren in olden days, when tales of ghost and goblin were more readilybelieved than they are to-day, used to thrill with delicious fearwhenever in the dusk of the evening they passed the spot, and warilythey would step over the stones, half-dreading, half-hoping to see, aslegend said was possible, the spirit of the old warrior rise from thegrave, swinging his gory tomahawk and uttering his blood-chilling warcry. 

During the long years that have passed since the white man came intoAlbemarle, old Perquimans has borne an enviable part in making thehistory of our State. 

Hertford itself felt little of the fury of the storm of the War ofSecession, though during the awful cataclysm the peaceful Perquimans wasoften disturbed by the gunboats of the Northern Army. One brief battlewas fought in the town, in which one man was killed on each side. Andthe old residents still love to boast of the heroism shown by thecourageous Hertford women, who, while the skirmish was going on, cameout on their piazzas, and, heedless of the shot and shell flying thickand fast around them, cheered on the soldiers battling to defend theirhomes. 

A ball from one of the gunboats on the river, while this skirmish wastaking place, went through one of the houses down near the shore andtore the covering from the bed on which the mistress of the house hadjust been lying. 

The cruel war at last was over, the darker days of Reconstruction passedheavily and stressfully by; the South began to recover from the ruinwrought by the awful struggle and its aftermath; and in the quiet yearsthat followed, the Spirit of God brooded over her rivers, hills andplains, and brought peace and prosperity to the troubled land. Her farmswere tilled again, the wheels of mills and factories were set whirling, and new business enterprises offered to the laboring man opportunitiesto earn a fair living. 

And the old colonial town of Hertford, sharing with her sister towns andcities in the Southland the prosperity for which her children for manyweary, painful years had so bravely and manfully striven, sees the dawnof a new day, bright with the promise of a happy future for her sons anddaughters. 

CHAPTER XIV

CURRITUCK, THE HAUNT OF THE WILD FOWL

Currituck County is known the country over as the sportsman's paradise. Thither when the first sharp frost gives warning that the clear autumnskies will soon be banked with gray snow clouds, the wild fowl from thefar North come flocking. And as the swift-winged procession skimsthrough the starry skies, and the hoarse cry of the aerial voyagersresounds over head, then do the dwellers in eastern Albemarle know for asurety that the year is far spent, and the winter days close at hand. 

Guided by unerring instinct, the feathered tribes of the North pursue"through the boundless sky their certain flight" till the shallow watersof Currituck Sound and its reedy shores greet their eager sight. Therethey find the wild celery and other aquatic plants upon which they loveto feed, growing in abundance; and there they make their winter home"and rest and scream among their fellows, " preferring the risk of deathat the hands of the sportsman to the certain starvation that wouldconfront them in their native Arctic clime. 

Vast as are to-day the clouds of wild fowl that every year descend uponthe shores and waters of Currituck, their numbers were far greater inyears long gone, before the white man with shot and gun came rovingamong the reedy marshes. Long before George Durant's advent into theState, the Indians with that aptness for nomenclature for which they arenoted, had given to this haunt of the wild fowl the name of "Coretonk, "or Currituck, as now called, in imitation of the cry of the featheredvisitors. 

But not alone as the winter home of the winged creatures of the Northernwilds was Currituck noted in the early days of our State. This county, formerly much larger than it is to-day, for many years embraced theregion known as Dare County, and to Currituck belongs the distinction ofhaving once included within its borders the spot upon which Raleigh'scolonies tried to establish their homes. 

The history of that event is too well known to bear repetition. Thestory of Amadas' and Barlowe's expedition, of Ralph Lane's boldadventures in exploration of Albemarle Sound, Chowan River andChesapeake Bay, of the return of his disappointed colony to England inDrake's vessels, and the tragic fate of little Virginia Dare and of JohnWhite's colony, have all been told in fiction, song and verse. 

The failure of Raleigh's colonies to establish a permanent settlementin the New World discouraged the English for many years from making anyfurther attempts to settle America. From 1590, the date of GovernorWhite's return to Roanoke, and of his unsuccessful search for the "lostcolony, " that lovely island for many years disappears from the whiteman's gaze; and save for a few scattered, unrecorded settlements innorthern Albemarle, Carolina itself was almost unknown to the world. 

But in September, 1654, according to the Colonial Records, a young furtrader from Virginia had the misfortune to lose his sloop in which hewas about to embark for the purpose of trading with the Indians in theAlbemarle country. For reasons not stated he supposed she had gone toRoanoke, so he hired a small boat, and with three companions set out insearch of the runaway vessel. "They entered at Coratoke Inlet, ten milesto the north of Cape Henry, " so reads the ancient chronicle, "and sowent to Roanoke Island, where, or near thereabouts, they found the GreatCommander of those parts with his Indians a-hunting, who received themcivilly and showed them the ruins of Sir Walter Raleigh's fort, fromwhich I received a sure token of their being there. "

A few months before this journey of the young fur trader, Charles II hadbestowed upon eight of his favorites all the territory in America lyingbetween the thirty-first and thirty-sixth parallels of latitude, aprincely gift indeed, and worthy of the loyal friends who had devotedtheir lives and fortunes to the Stuart cause during the dark days whenthat cause seemed hopelessly lost. This grant embraced the land adjacentto the north shore of Albemarle Sound, and extending to Florida; but itfailed to include a strip of territory about thirty miles broad, lyingbetween the thirty-sixth degree and the Virginia line. In this fertileregion George Durant and other settlers had as early as 1661 establishedtheir homes, buying from Kilcokonen, the great Chief of the Yeopims, their right to the lands; and there these hardy pioneers were swiftlyconverting the primeval wilderness into fertile and productive fields. 

Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, looked with covetous eye upon this fairstrip of land, and with a view to planting settlements there in order toestablish Virginia's claim to the territory, he had offered in the nameof King Charles extensive grants in this region to planters who wouldbring a certain number of people into Albemarle. In 1663 Berkeleygranted to John Harvey 600 acres of land "lying in a small creek calledCurratuck (probably Indian Creek to-day), falling into the RiverKecoughtancke (now North River), which falls in the Carolina River(known to-day as Albemarle Sound). The land was given Mr. Harvey forbringing into the colony twelve new settlers. "

Many other settlers in this region had acquired their lands by patentsfrom Virginia; but after the King's gift to his friends, Berkeley, himself one of the Lords Proprietors, was no longer desirous to considerthe Albemarle region a part of the Virginia Colony; and henceforth thegrants of land were all issued in the name of the Lords Proprietors. Forseveral years, however, the Albemarle counties were really separate, andto all practical purposes, independent territory. The proprietors had nolegal claim to the region, and there was nothing in Virginia's charterto show that she could rightfully lay claim to it. Nevertheless theproprietors did claim it, and authorized Berkeley to appoint a governorfor that region. Berkeley therefore journeyed into the settlement, organized a government, and appointed Drummond Governor of Albemarle. 

In 1665 the Lords, realizing the confusion that would arise unless theirclaim to the land was made good, induced the King to include Albemarlein their grant. 

But Virginia was by no means ready to relinquish her claim to thispromising settlement, and after Berkeley's day a long struggle beganbetween the Royal Governors of that colony over the question as to whoshould collect the rents and taxes from the inhabitants of this disputedtract. As late as 1689 the quarrel was still going on, and the Governorand Council of Virginia appealed to William and Mary to restrain theGovernor of North Carolina from collecting taxes in Currituck County;and the question of the boundary line between Virginia and Carolinastill being uncertain, the sovereigns were asked to have the boundssurveyed and settled. 

Not for many years was this request regarded, though in 1711commissioners from Virginia went to Currituck to meet those fromCarolina for the purpose of surveying the land and establishing theboundary between the two colonies. For some reason the Carolinacommissioners failed to appear, and not till 1728 did the work ofsettling the disputed boundaries really begin. In March of that yearcommissioners from the two colonies met on the north shore of CurrituckInlet, and a cedar post on the seashore was fixed as the beginning ofthe line. The result of the survey was that many thousand acres andseveral hundred people whom Virginia had claimed were found to be in theAlbemarle District. 

This was naturally a great disappointment to Virginia, and equally amatter of rejoicing to Carolina, not only on account of the extraterritory and inhabitants she now could lawfully claim, but becauseCurrituck Inlet, the only entrance from the sea north of Roanoke Island, was thereafter indisputably thrown within her borders. This inlet, nowclosed by the shifting sands that form the long sand bars on theCarolina coast, was of great importance in the early days of the colony, forming an entrance from the sea to the sound through which the tradingvessels could slip. So necessary was this inlet to the commerce of thecolony that in 1726 the General Assembly ordered that the powder moneyaccruing to the government by vessels coming into Currituck Inlet shouldbe appropriated for beaconing and staking out the channel at thatentrance. But by 1731, the steady beating of the waves on the coast haddeposited a bank of sand at the inlet. Governor Burrington wrote to theBoard of Trade that it was no longer possible for large vessels to enterthere, nor at Roanoke Inlet, which had also become so dangerous that noone cared to use it, but that the vessels now were obliged to go aroundby Ocracoke Inlet to make their exit and entrance from and intoAlbemarle Sound. The closing of the inlet was such a serious misfortuneto the State that time and again efforts were made to reopen it, and theAssembly of 1761 appropriated money for that purpose. But "man'scontrol stops with the sea"; the waves continued to drop their burden ofsand at the entrance to the inlet, and finally the attempt wasabandoned. The great Atlantic had made the entrance, and the same forcehad closed it, seemingly, forever, though small sloops still slipped inand out over the bar until 1821, when it was entirely closed. Sonecessary was an outlet to the sea to the people of the Albemarleregion, that the Assembly of 1786 passed an act providing for thedigging of a canal from Currituck Sound to the head of North River; fromthence vessels could go up North River and into Elizabeth River, and onto Norfolk, and so to the sea. This proposed plan was not carried outuntil many years later; for it was not until almost 1858 that theAlbemarle and Chesapeake Canal, following closely the route proposed in1786, was dug, though long before that date the Dismal Swamp Canal hadbeen opened, and a flourishing traffic was carried on between Virginiaand Carolina waters. 

A traveler in eastern Carolina, writing for _Harper's Magazine_ in 1858, an account of his journeyings in the Albemarle region, gives a mostinteresting description of his trip on the Albemarle and ChesapeakeCanal. The Calypso was the first steamer to go through the canal, and onher maiden journey from Norfolk to Currituck County in 1858, she wasthe observed of all observers. Furthermore, continues Mr. Bruce, thewriter of the article, who stopped at Currituck Courthouse for severaldays, "We must say that for average culture, intelligence and physicalvigor, the people of this 'kingdom by the sea' will hold their own withmost other communities, North or South. "

Currituck being the sea frontier of Albemarle, her waterways werenaturally of prime importance to the State; but other matters of asgreat importance are found in reading the annals of this wind-blown, wave-washed county. In religious affairs we find that she early beginsto make history. In 1708 Governor Glover wrote to the Bishop of London:"Pasquotank and Currituck are now under the care of Rev. James Adams, totheir general satisfaction, to whom they have presented the smallprovision of 30 pounds a year. " In 1710 Rev. James Adams informed theS. P. G. A. That he had been living for over a year in the home of a Mr. Richard Saunderson, a former member of the Governor's Council, who hadmade a will in which, after his own and his wife's death, he had leftconsiderable legacy for the encouragement of a minister in CurrituckParish, where he lived, namely: "A good plantation with all the housesand furniture, slaves, and their increase, and stock of cows, sheep andhorses and hogs, with their increase forever. " This was later declaredvoid by the courts on account of Sanderson's incapacity. 

So acceptable did Mr. Adams prove to the parish, that in 1710 the vestrywrote a letter of thanks to Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, thankinghim for sending this godly clergyman of the Church of England to theparish. In 1712, on the death of Mr. Adams, the Rev. Mr. Rainsford wassent to take his place. He wrote back to England that on reachingCurrituck he found a small chapel at Indian Town, and there in June ofthat year he "preached to vast crowds" that came to hear him. 

In 1715 a legally appointed vestry was organized for the parish ofCurrituck, among the most prominent of whose members were RichardSaunderson, Colonel William Reed, Foster Jarvis, William Swann, andWilliam Williams. The services of the Church of England were conductedin the county during those early days with as much regularity as thescattered congregations and the lack of facilities for traveling in thatwater-bound region permitted. In 1774 the General Assembly passed an actto establish St. Martin's chapel at Belleville, and Isaac Gregory, PeterDaugé and a Mr. Ferebee were appointed to take this matter in charge. Ineducational matters Currituck was wonderfully alert in colonial daysfor a county so inaccessible from the rest of the State. Probably themost noted of her schools was the Indian Town Academy built in 1761 byWilliam Ferebee, one of the most prominent men in North Carolina, on hisplantation, called by the Indians "Culong, " and by the whites, "IndianTown. " Many of the students at this academy were in later days to becounted among the State's most famous and useful men. William Ferebee'sfamily alone furnished six members of the Legislature, threeRevolutionary officers, and one Colonel in the Confederacy in the War ofSecession. For a hundred years this famous old school kept up its careerof usefulness, but in the so-called "negro raid" of 1863 it met the fatethat befell so many of the South's cherished institutions during thedark days of 1861-1865, and was reduced to ashes by the incendiary'storch. 

Another well known school in Indian Town, the most prominent settlementin Currituck in colonial days, was the Currituck Seminary of Learning, which was built in 1789, and which numbered among its trustees IsaacGregory, Peter Daugé, and William Ferebee. This building served thetriple purpose of school, church and Masons' Hall, the upper story beingused for holding church service, and by the Masons for their meetings, and the lower for the school. The principal of this school was calledthe provost, a high-sounding title which must have made even the mostinsignificant of pedagogues feel proud and important. Among the teachersemployed at this institution during the later years of its existence wasEzekiel Gilman, of Massachusetts, a graduate of Harvard, who came toCurrituck in 1840 and who taught in Currituck and Camden fiftyconsecutive years. Mr. Gilman is still well and affectionatelyremembered by citizens of these counties, who as lads were fortunateenough to be his pupils. Though somewhat eccentric in manner and dress, he was a man of deep learning, whose kindness of heart was proverbialthroughout the counties which were the scene of his labors. 

When the storm of the Revolutionary War broke over the AmericanColonies, the men of Currituck came gallantly to the front, and withcomrade soldiers from the other colonies doggedly and persistentlyfought the foe till the last British trooper was driven from the land, and independence was not only declared, but won. Few counties in theState gave more freely of her sons than did this county by the sea. Fewcan show a longer list of brave and gallant officers. Among the mostnoted of these were the three sons of William Ferebee, of CulongPlantation, Joseph, William and Samuel. Joseph was a Lieutenant inColonel Jarvis' Tenth North Carolina Militia, and was at Valley Forgeduring the terrible winter of 1777-'78. There is a family tradition thathe killed General Fordyce, of the British Army, at the Battle of GreatBridge, near Norfolk. William was appointed Captain in the SeventhRegiment of Continentals from North Carolina, and was later a member ofthe Convention of 1789, which ratified the Federal Constitution. SamuelFerebee served as sergeant and ensign in the companies of CaptainWilliam Russell and Colonel Samuel Jarvis. He volunteered in CaptainJoseph Ferebee's company, was ensign under Captain James Phillips, andwas commissioned lieutenant, and collected troops by order of GeneralGregory for Baron Von Steuben. Samuel Ferebee was also the lastsurviving member of the Fayetteville Convention, which ratified theFederal Constitution. He was married three times, and as the familychronicle quaintly puts it, "was always married on Sunday and on thefourteenth day of the month. "

Among the prominent families of Currituck during the colonial andRevolutionary days, as well as in our own times, was the Jarvis family, whose members have been men of note in the State since her historybegan. 

At the two conventions, called at New Bern by John Harvey, in 1774-'75, Samuel Jarvis represented his county, and he also figured prominently inthe Halifax Convention that framed our State Constitution. In 1775 hewas appointed Colonel of the Minute Men from Currituck, in 1777 he wasthe recruiting officer from his county, and in 1779 he received hiscommission as Colonel of the militia, by the advice of the Governor'sCouncil, in place of Colonel Perkins, who had recently died. During thisyear Jarvis wrote to Governor Ashe, asking that he would grant thepetition of the men living on the "Banks, " who had asked to be excusedfrom enlisting. The dwellers on the coast were exposed to attacks fromthe enemy, and should the husbands and fathers of that section of thecounty be forced to the field, their homes would be defenceless. Howgreat the danger was had been realized a few days before Jarvis wrotethis letter, for a British ship had entered the inlet, burned twovessels belonging to the patriots, and killed the cattle in the nearbymarshes. The Governor granted the petition, and seeing the peril towhich the dwellers on the "Banks" were exposed, he ordered ammunitionand food to be sent to Jarvis for their use and protection. 

The names of Thomas Jarvis, Judge of the Admiralty Court of Currituck, and later Lieutenant Colonel in Samuel Jarvis' regiment, and of JohnJarvis, First Lieutenant in an independent company stationed betweenCurrituck and Roanoke inlets for the safeguard of the coast section, arealso familiar to students of the Revolutionary history of our State;while in recent times ex-Governor Thomas Jarvis, in his services to theSouth during the War between the States, his educational campaign whileGovernor of North Carolina, his distinguished career as Minister toBrazil and as one of the most prominent members of the State Bar, hasadded further distinction to the honored name he bears. 

Throughout the Revolution, from the Battle of Great Bridge, where hermen fought gallantly in repelling Lord Dunmore's invasion, through thesiege of Charleston, in the long and dreary winter at Valley Forge, onthe fatal field of Camden, and in many other important crises of thewar, the soldiers of Currituck were found in the front ranks of theAmerican army, lustily shouting the "battle-cry of freedom. " And notuntil the last British trooper had left our shores did they lay downtheir arms and return to their long neglected and deserted fields andfarms. 

But though the county gave freely of her sons to the American ranks, there were some within her borders who deserted the cause, and eitheropenly or secretly sympathized with the enemy. The most noted of theseTories was Thomas McKnight, who showed his colors early in the struggle. McKnight was a prominent citizen of Indian Town. This colonialsettlement was built on land reserved by the Lords Proprietors in 1704to Yeopim Indians, whose chief town was called by them "Culong. " In 1774these Indians, with permission of the General Assembly, sold theirlands, and with their king, John Durant, left the State. The lands werebought by Thomas McKnight, Gideon Lamb, Peter Daugé, Major Taylor Jones, John Humphries, William Ferebee, and Thomas Pool Williams, allRevolutionary soldiers or members of the legislative bodies before orafter the war. 

A white settlement grew up on the site of ancient "Culong, " and the nameof the red man's village was changed to Indian Town, in memory of itsformer inhabitants. 

McKnight represented Currituck at the New Bern Convention of 1775, andthere refusing to sign the document approving the Continental Congressat Philadelphia, and withdrawing from the Convention, he was accused ofbeing a Tory by the House and denounced as a traitor to his country. 

Though in an open letter to Joseph Jones, of Pasquotank, McKnightindignantly denied the charges against his loyalty to America, theHalifax Convention of 1770 ordered his estate to be confiscated andrented out for benefit of the State, by Isaac Gregory, William Ferebee, and Abram Harrison. An amusing story is told of how McKnight acquiredone of his plantations in Currituck. John Durant, the Chief of theYeopims, had very astutely made it known to his own braves, as well asto his white neighbors, that the visions that visited him in hissomnolent hours must somehow, somewhere, if within the range ofpossibility, materialize into visible, tangible realities, and thatthose who could, and did not help in their materialization, would incurthe anger of the great chief. Now it was the habit of the wily red man, whenever he greatly desired to acquire a new possession, to dream thatthe owner of the coveted article had presented it to him. Having dweltnear the paleface for a number of years, the old chief adopted the whiteman's mode of dress to a certain extent. Needing, or coveting, a newcoat, he very conveniently dreamed that McKnight, who had kept a tradingstore on Indian Ridge, gave him a bolt of bright cloth which appealedstrongly to his innate love of bright colors. Presenting himself at thetrader's store, he related his dream to the owner of the cloth; andMcKnight not daring to incur the enmity of the Indian by refusing to lethim have the coveted article, presented it to him forthwith; butMcKnight, equally as shrewd as the chief, soon did some dreaming on hisown account, and in his vision he saw himself the owner of some fourhundred acres of land in Indian Ridge, the property of John Durant. Sowith due ceremony he approached the chief and solemnly related hisdream; and the old Indian, realizing that in the Anglo-Saxon he had methis match--nay, his superior in cunning--made over to McKnight the land. 

This plantation was afterwards bought by Doctor Marchant, a prominentcitizen of Currituck, the friend and patron of Colonel Henry Shaw, whosegallant, though unsuccessful defense of Roanoke Island during the Warbetween the States, brought honor and distinction to his native county. 

Currituck in the past has played well her part in making the history ofthe Old North State, and that a bright and prosperous future awaits hermay easily be seen by all who can read the signs of the times. Thoughnature on the one hand has placed many obstacles in the way of herprogress by barring her coast to incoming vessels, and by surroundingher with barren shores and impenetrable marshes, on the other hand shehas been abundantly generous to the ancient district. Where her marshesare drained, as in the region around Moyock, the richest corn land inthe world is found. Her vast forests supply the great lumber mills ofthe Albemarle region; her sound and reedy shores provide her childrenwith an abundance of fish and game, and with the completion of theInland Waterway, which in Carolina follows the course of the oldAlbemarle and Chesapeake Canal, Currituck will be placed in closer touchwith the great world from which she has so long been in a measureisolated. Material prosperity, far in excess of the homely comfortswhich her people have always enjoyed, will inevitably be the heritage ofher children. 

CHAPTER XV

EDENTON IN THE REVOLUTION

From the day when the war cloud of the Revolution first began to gatherupon the American horizon, until the storm was spent and peace descendedupon the land, the little coast town of Edenton played a conspicuous andheroic part in the struggle which for seven weary years wrought ruin anddesolation throughout the thirteen Colonies. 

As early as 1765, when the oppressive rule of England reached itsculmination in the iniquitous Stamp Act, Edenton joined with the otherCarolina towns in adopting resolutions expressing the strong indignationof her citizens at this act of tyranny on the part of George III and hisParliament. In 1773 three of her prominent citizens, Joseph Hewes, Samuel Johnston and Edward Vail, were appointed on the CarolinaCommittee of Correspondence which wrote to the other colonies that NorthCarolina was ready to join them against the King and Parliament. WhenEngland put into operation the famous Boston Port Bill and that sturdylittle New England City was on the verge of starvation, Joseph Hewes, amerchant of Edenton, who was later to play a prominent part inRevolutionary events in North Carolina, joined with John Harvey, ofPerquimans, in collecting supplies and provisions from the patrioticpeople of Albemarle, which they sent in the sloop Penelope to theirdistressed compatriots in far away Boston. Gratefully was the donationreceived by the inhabitants of that city, and a letter of thanks fromthe Boston committee amply repaid the donors for their generosity. 

One of the earliest, and certainly one of the most interesting events inthe Revolutionary annals of Edenton, was the far-famed Edenton TeaParty, held at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth King, on October 25, 1774. This famous gathering of the Edenton women was convened for the purposeof protesting against the tax on tea, which England had lately begun toextort from the colonies, and also for heartily endorsing the work ofthe first people's Convention, which, at the call of John Harvey, hadmet at New Bern in August, 1774. 

Before the meeting adjourned these brave and patriotic women had drawnup resolutions firmly declaring their intention to drink no more of thetaxed tea, and to uphold and encourage in every possible way the men ofthe colony in their struggle to gain all the rights due them as Britishsubjects. 

[Illustration: THE CUPOLA HOUSE, EDENTON, NORTH CAROLINA]

The news of this bold stand of the Edenton women spread far and wide, and was commented upon by the newspapers of the day, both in America andEngland. Arthur Iredell, of London, brother of James Iredell, ofEdenton, who married the sister of Samuel Johnston, on hearing of theevent which seemed to have caused considerable stir in London, as wellas throughout the thirteen Colonies, wrote to his brother from his homein London the following letter anent the affair:

 "I see by the papers the Edenton ladies have signalized themselves by their protest against tea-drinking. The name of Johnston I see among them. Are any of my sister's relatives patriotic? I hope not, for we English are afraid of the male Congress; but if the ladies should attack us, the most fatal consequences are to be dreaded. So dextrous in the handling of a dart, each wound they give is mortal, while we, so unhappily formed by nature, the more we strive to conquer them, the more we are conquered. 

 "The Edenton ladies, conscious of this superiority on their side by former experiences, are willing to crush us into atoms by their omnipotency. The only security on our side, to prevent impending ruin is the probability that there are few places in America which possess so much female artillery as Edenton. Pray let me know all the particulars when you favor us with a letter. "

The old house under whose roof this historic Tea Party was held has onlyof recent years been destroyed. Age and decay undermined its walls, andit was found necessary to tear it down, but a handsome bronze tea-pot onan iron pedestal now marks the site of the ancient building; and withinthe halls of the State Capitol the Daughters of the Revolution haveplaced a bronze tablet in commemoration of this spirited act of thewomen of Edenton. 

When John Harvey, of Perquimans, "The Father of the Revolution" in NorthCarolina died, his mantle fell upon Samuel Johnston, of Edenton, whoseresidence at "Hayes" now became the headquarters of the Whig party inNorth Carolina, and his office the rendezvous of the leaders of thepatriots in the State, among whom Hewes, Iredell and Johnston, all ofEdenton, stood foremost. So active were these three men in arousing andspreading the spirit of patriotism among their fellow-countrymen thatMcCree, in his "Iredell Letters, " declares that "Much of the triumph atMoore's Creek must be ascribed to those three men, who at one time heldfrequent consultations in Johnston's office. "

By the close of 1774, and the beginning of 1775, the flames of theRevolution, which had been slowly kindling, now burst into openconflagration, and Edenton began to experience something of theconsequences of war. 

Her militia had for some time been drilling, in preparation for theinevitable struggle; and Mrs. Iredell, in a letter to her husband, written in the spring of 1775, thus expresses the general anxiety andthe apprehensive state of mind of the Edenton people: "The drum which isnow beating while our soldiers exercise, drives every cheerful thoughtfrom my mind, and leaves it oppressed with melancholy reflections on thehorrors of war. "

In November of that year emissaries sent by Lord Dunmore, the Governorof Virginia, were discovered near the town, endeavoring to incite theslaves of that section to rise against their masters, murder them, andjoin the Tory army. But General Robert Howe, at the head of a detachmentfrom his regiment, quickly drove these agents away, and thwarted thedastardly attempt; then marching on with six hundred North Carolinamilitia, into Virginia, the gallant General reached Norfolk two daysafter the victory of the patriots at Great Bridge, helped to expelDunmore from Norfolk, and to take possession of the city for theAmericans. 

In April, 1776, the Halifax Convention authorized the delegates fromNorth Carolina to the Continental Congress of that year, "to concur withthe delegates of the other Colonies in declaring independence, " and uponJoseph Hewes, of Edenton, fell the honor of presenting the HalifaxResolution of 1776 to the Congress at Philadelphia. To the instructionsof the State he represented, Hewes added his own urgent plea forimmediate action, and cast his State's vote squarely against postponingthe declaration of independence. When the Continental Congress finallyagreed to secede from the English Government, Hewes, with John Penn andWilliam Hooper, of North Carolina, affixed his name to that famousdocument in which the thirteen Colonies foreswore their allegiance toKing George. 

Some two months after the Halifax Convention, and two weeks before theContinental Congress had formally declared independence, the vestry ofOld St. Paul's Church in Edenton met in solemn conclave, and impelled bythe wave of intense patriotism now sweeping over the land, drew up theso-called "Declaration of Independence of St. Paul's Parish, " thecontext of which is as follows:

 "We, the Subscribers, professing our Allegiance to the King, and acknowledging the Constitutional executive power of Government, do solemnly profess, testify and declare, that we do absolutely believe that neither the Parliament of Great Britain nor any member nor any Constituent Branch thereof, have a right to impose taxes upon these Colonies or to regulate the internal policy thereof; and that all attempts by fraud or force to establish and exercise such claims and powers are violation of the peace and security of the people, and ought to be resisted to the utmost, and the people of this Province singly and collectively are bound by the acts and resolutions of the Continental and Provincial Congresses, because in both they are freely represented by persons chosen by themselves, and we do solemnly and sincerely promise and engage under the sanction of virtue, honor, and the Sacred love of liberty and our country to maintain and support all and every acts, resolutions and regulations of the said Continental and Provincial Congresses to the utmost of our power and ability. In testimony whereof we have set our hands this 19th day of June, 1776. "

During the winter of 1777 and 1778 nine battalions of soldiers fromNorth Carolina were sharing with their comrades from the other coloniesthe hardships of those terrible months at Valley Forge. Half naked andstarving, the soldiers would doubtless have given up the struggle tolive through the awful winter, had not Governor Caswell, of NorthCarolina, energetically set about securing the needed supplies for thearmy. Joseph Hewes, responding generously to the call for help, sent hisown ships to the West Indies to obtain necessaries for the army, hadthem brought to Edenton, and from there sent by wagon to Valley Forge. 

After the American victory at Saratoga, France, who had been until thenhesitating as to what course she should pursue in regard to helping theAmericans against the ancient foe of the French, now yielded at last toFranklin's persuasions, and promised to send a large fleet and fourthousand troops to aid the Colonies. 

A party of French gentlemen, sympathizing with the Americans, andanxious to aid in the cause, came over to the States in advance of thearmy sent by the government, and landing in Edenton, were so agreeablyimpressed with the social life of the hospitable town, that they spentseveral weeks in the little metropolis. Three of these foreigners, Messieurs Pinchieu, Noirmont de la Neuville, and La Tours, seem to havemade many friends in the town, and to have been the recipients of muchhospitality on the part of the gentlefolk of Edenton. 

Judge Iredell, who spoke French fluently, made a strong impression uponthe strangers; and M. Pinchieu became one of his warm friends. The visitof the French officers to Edenton was made the occasion of many socialfunctions, and before the foreigners departed from the town, they gave agrand ball to the Edenton ladies, who had made their stay so pleasant. The modest colonial maidens of old Edenton, though dazzled and charmedby the airs and graces of the gay and debonair strangers, at times foundthe manners of their foreign guests a little too free for their comfort. Miss Nellie Blair, in a letter to her uncle, Judge Iredell, declaresmost emphatically her displeasure at the decidedly French behavior ofone of her too attentive foreign admirers. 

On leaving Edenton, the Frenchmen proceeded to New Bern, where theytendered their swords to the General Assembly, and offered theirservices in the American cause; but for reasons not stated their offerwas declined. 

The many acts of open rebellion on the part of prominent citizens ofEdenton had by this time made the town a marked spot in the eyes of theenemy; and the fact that she was the most important port in theAlbemarle region, and that her destruction would be a heavy blow to theentire State, also singled her out as an important point of attack. 

So in 1779, when Sir George Collier entered Hampton Roads, guttedNorfolk, took possession of Portsmouth, and burned Suffolk, the citizensof Edenton were thoroughly alarmed. The Dismal Swamp was on fire, andthe crackling of the burning reed resembling the reports of musket shot, caused many to think that a battle was going on near the town. Many ofthe inhabitants began to pack up their household goods, ready to leavewhen the British should enter the town. 

But for some unknown reason the enemy, though so near, failed to descendupon the town; and as days and weeks passed by, the cloud ofapprehension began to disperse, and life in the village to resume itsnormal course. 

Events, however, were to prove that the danger of invasion was avertedfor a time only. In the fall of 1780, just after the disastrous defeatof the Americans at Camden, and prior to Cornwallis' march into NorthCarolina, General Leslie, of the British army, was sent from New York toVirginia to keep the Americans in southeastern Virginia and Albemarlefrom joining Greene's army in the effort to repel the invasion ofCornwallis. 

Edenton was again in danger. The enemy, two thousand strong, were campedat Portsmouth, and one thousand were reported to have set out fromVirginia on their way to attack the town. To add to the terror of theinhabitants, two British galleys, with sixty men each, had slippedthrough Roanoke Inlet, and were making for the little port. A letterfrom Mrs. Blair to James Iredell, written during those anxious days, gives a graphic description of conditions in Edenton at this juncture. "Vessels cannot get in, " she writes; "two row galleys are between us andthe bar, and are daily expected in Edenton. If they come, I do not knowwhat we shall do. We are unable to run away, and I have hardly a negrowell enough to dress us a little of anything to eat. We hear that thereis an English fleet in Virginia, landing men at Kempe's. "

Governor Nash, realizing that the town was in imminent danger, nowordered General Benbury, of Edenton, to join General Isaac Gregory atGreat Swamp, near the Virginia border, and aid him in preventing GeneralLeslie from entering Albemarle. At this post a battle was fought betweenLeslie's men and the militia under Benbury and Gregory, in which thelatter were victorious. A little later Gregory wrote Governor Nash thatLeslie's army had withdrawn from Virginia, but that he had not been ableto ascertain the destination of the enemy. However, it soon became knownthat Leslie was hurrying to Camden, South Carolina, to join Cornwallisin his attempt to sweep through North Carolina and conquer that State, as he had conquered her sister State on the south. 

With Leslie's army removed from the vicinity, Edenton remained for a fewmonths free from the fear of invasion; but not for long did her citizensenjoy a respite from anxiety, for in January, 1781, the traitor, Benedict Arnold, was sent by the British to occupy the posts in Virginialately deserted by Leslie. From Portsmouth Arnold wrote to General SirHenry Clinton, K. C. B. , that he was planning to send boats carrying fivehundred men through Currituck Inlet, sweep the sound as high as Edenton, destroy that town and its shipping, and then proceed to New Bern, whichhe hoped to serve in like manner. Then he expected to post armed vesselsoutside Currituck Inlet, distress the people of the coast country, andthus keep the people of eastern Carolina so busy defending their ownhomes that they would not be able to send men to interfere with theplans of Cornwallis. 

Arnold asked Clinton for 100 ship carpenters to build the vesselsnecessary for the execution of his plans, but the traitor was not ableto carry out his designs against the eastern towns, for on arriving inVirginia he found himself so hated and shunned by the British officersover whom he was placed that he soon resigned his command of theVirginia posts to General Phillips, of the British army, and instead ofproceeding against Edenton, he undertook another expedition up the JamesRiver. 

General Phillips, who now assumed command of the British in southeasternVirginia, immediately began to plan to join Cornwallis, who in themeantime had won the doubtful victory of Guilford Courthouse and hadretreated to Wilmington. 

The situation in Edenton was now alarming in the extreme. Leslie had3, 500 men in Virginia, 2, 500 of whom, General Gregory wrote Iredell, hadembarked at Kempe's Landing, supposedly for Edenton. Rumor had it thatthere were seven British boats at North Landing, and some at Knott'sIsland. Cornwallis' Army was marching northward from Wilmington, andreports from nearby counties that lay in his path, told of the atrociouscrimes committed by his men against women and children, of devastatedfields and homes burned and ruined. Hundreds of negroes were foragingfor the British army, and the Tories everywhere were wreaking vengeanceupon their Whig neighbors. 

The long dreaded day at last arrived. Edenton was raided, and thevessels in her harbor burned and carried off. Eden House, some ten milesfrom the town, the home of Robert Smith, a prominent merchant ofEdenton, was plundered, and valuable papers destroyed. Many of thebeautiful homes of the planters in the neighborhood were destroyed, anda schooner belonging to Robert Smith, and one, the property of a Mr. Littlejohn, were captured by the enemy and carried off down the sound. 

The danger was so real that many families fled from the town and soughtrefuge in Windsor, and the homes of that hospitable little village werecrowded with women and children. But in spite of the discomfort thathost and guest alike must have suffered from the overflow of visitors, the letters of the refugees to their husbands and fathers in Edentonspeak in warm praise of the cheerfulness and good humor that prevailedin the little town during those trying and anxious days, and of themerry social gatherings held in honor of the guests. 

Though panic-stricken at first when confronted by the long apprehendeddanger, the citizens soon rallied and bravely resisted the foe. CharlesJohnson, writing to James Iredell, says: "The inhabitants in general andthe sailors, have and do turn out unanimously. I never saw nor could Ihope to see so much public spirit, personal courage and intrepidresolution. " Robert Smith's schooner was retaken from the enemy, andlater the Row Galley that had invaded Edenton and captured the schoonerswas taken, and her commander, Captain Quinn, lodged in Edenton jail. 

In the meantime the refugees at Windsor were beginning to doubt theirwisdom in leaving their homes for the Bertie town. Many of them wereafraid that they had only jumped from the frying-pan into the fire. Cornwallis was only thirty miles away, in Halifax, and the Windsorpeople were in daily terror that foraging parties from his army woulddescend upon their homes. To add to the danger of their situation, thehated and dreaded Arnold, whose expedition up the James had beenattended by the perpetration of many dastardly cruelties, was marchingsouth to join Cornwallis in Carolina. Six hundred negroes, sent byCornwallis, were near Edenton, and other bands of foragers, two thousandin all, were pillaging and plundering in the wake of the British army. 

Fortunately for Edenton and the adjacent towns, Anthony Wayne wasstationed at Roanoke with his troops. Hearing of the ravages committedby Cornwallis' men, he marched in pursuit of the enemy, who now leftNorth Carolina, entered Virginia, burned South Quays, and thenproceeded on their way to Yorktown. 

In June, 1781, Samuel Johnston, of Edenton, was elected delegate to theContinental Congress, the first that had assembled since the adoption ofthe Articles of Confederation. His high ability and acknowledgedstatesmanship won for him in that body the distinguished honor of beingelected to the office of President of Congress. But the criticalsituation in Edenton, and his anxiety concerning his family, decided himto decline the office and return home to share the fortunes of histownsmen and to render what aid he could to his own people. 

In August, 1781, Charles Johnson wrote Governor Burke that a Frenchfleet had appeared off the Virginia Capes, and had driven back GeneralLeslie; and General Gregory, who had been stationed at Edmund's Hill inNansemond County, Virginia, to hold Leslie in check, reported at thesame time that the enemy had evacuated Portsmouth, and that it wasuseless to keep his soldiers there any longer. 

The British army had by this time reached Yorktown, where, on the 19thof October the famous surrender took place, and the long, weary strugglefor independence was over; but it was nearly a month later before thejoyful news of Washington's victory over Cornwallis reached Carolina. On November 18th the British troops in the State embarked fromWilmington, and North Carolina was troubled by the red-coats no more. 

But though the surrender at Yorktown had convinced the British that shehad lost her hold upon the American Colonies, it was not untilSeptember, 1782, that the King acknowledged the independence of hisformer American subjects; and still another year passed before theTreaty of Paris was signed, formally acknowledging the United States aseparate and independent power. 

During these two years North Carolina was torn and harrassed by bands ofTories; and in South Carolina the armies of Greene and Leslie were stillengaged in fierce skirmishes. Leslie was at last hemmed in at Charlestonby Greene's troops, and both his men and Greene's soldiers were in greatdistress for want of food and clothing. 

In the summer of 1782 Greene warned the people of North Carolina thatthe British in Charleston were preparing to send four vessels to raidEdenton, New Bern and Wilmington; and once more the inhabitants of thesetowns were plunged into a state of alarm. 

Governor Burke immediately ordered General Gregory to have 500 menready to march at a moment's notice to Edenton to repel the expectedinvasion, and also ordered him to ask the merchants of Edenton how manyvessels they thought necessary to protect the town. The Governorfurthermore gave Gregory instructions to purchase cannon and to draftmen to man the boats, guaranteeing, himself, full pay for men andsupplies. 

But the fleet of which Greene had written did not arrive, though duringthe summer of 1782, Tory galleys appeared in the bay and kept the townin constant terror of another raid. The fall passed without bringing theexpected invasion, and finally the joyful news came that on December14th the British had evacuated Charleston, and that their fleet hadsailed for the North. 

With the departure of the British fleet and army from the South, allfear of further invasion was over, and the little town of Edentonsettled down to long years of peace and happiness. 

FINIS