USA > North Carolina > Beaufort County > Some colonial history of Beaufort County, North Carolina Vol. 14 No. 2 > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at http://books.google.com/
975.606 .J29 V.14 NO.2 C.1 ... Some colonial hist Stanford University Libraries
3 6105 048 977 271
1
OR
NIOR
LANL
IVERSITY
LI
O
91
STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
The James Sprunt Historical Publications
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
The North Carolina Historical Society
J. G. Di Romaran Eoniños HeNur MOGILBERT WAGSTAFF
VOL. 14 No. 2
CONTENTS SOME COLONIAL HISTORY OF BEAUFORT COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA
JAMES SPRUNT HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS
NON 1. SIISONKEL OF THE CONVESTIOS DF 1301. Try Juin Cilvarias Medorsaka
By Kangi P. Bottle
Ur Rdwir Mied Wilson,
By Kump 15 Bintil
By Kmn P. DALLIL
20.7. WILLIAM RIGUARDAAS DIVIEL A MEMAIL By J. G. de Boilla: HABOtok
De Kemp 1. Ilque. Din. a. ITITE VAOVERUTAL QUEKUIL AND QUIEMITTERS OF BAENTT IK NORTH CAROLINA, Dy Damit Tama Whitaker.
THE JAMES SPRUNT HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
THE DE NOEY ELSEMASSA
VEDEDALIRM ER SORTIL CARDULWAS
By Huery &t, Wayssuit
By T. 0, 4h Bilhar Hamilton.
THE GERDALAR ESTELEDA UT LENCOLE COUSTE ARD WASTERS MONTH
Bling X6 M. Wapisi
STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
The James Sprunt Historical Publications
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
The North Carolina Historical Society
J. G. DE ROULHAC HAMILTON Editors HENRY McGILBERT WAGSTAFF
VOL. 14
No. 2
STIA
CONTENTS SOME COLONIAL HISTORY OF BEAUFORT COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA
CHAPEL HILL PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY 1916
1
.
.
975,616 J29
RALEIGH, N. O. EDWARDS & BROUGHTON PRINTING CO. STATE PRINTERS 1916
SOME COLONIAL HISTORY OF BEAUFORT COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA
BY FRANCIS HODGES COOPER
.
CONTENTS
Geography, Topography, and Resources of the County. Formation and Early History. Troubles with the Indians. The Towns of Colonial Beaufort County.
Religion and Churches of the County.
Commerce in the County. Piracy in the County.
Social Life in the County. Biographical Notes on Beaufort County Personages. Members of the Assembly.
Some Colonial History of Beaufort County, North Carolina1
GEOGRAPHY, TOPOGRAPHY, AND RESOURCES OF THE COUNTY.
In dealing with the history of any nation, country, state, county, or place, one cannot usually account for the past events of the sec- tion with which he deals if he has not considered the physiography of that section. Therefore, before we look at some aspects of the history of colonial Beaufort County, it is necessary that we take a good survey of the physiography of the county.
Beaufort County lies in the tidal plain section of Eastern North Carolina, embracing in its boundaries that arm of Pamlico Sound known as Pamlico River. The county is bounded on the north by Martin and Washington counties; on the east by Hyde and Pamlico counties ; on the south by Pamlico and Craven counties, and on the west by Craven and Pitt counties. Its area is 819 square miles, being nearly 300 square miles larger than the average for the coun- ties of the state.
Owing to the nearness of the county to the Atlantic Ocean, the height of the county above sea-level varies from about forty feet on the western border to about nine or ten feet in the extreme eastern part. The general surface of the county is level; there are no hills more than ten feet high, with the possible exception of a river or creek bank. On account of the general levelness of the county the rivers and creeks are broad and shallow, the deep water being found only in very limited channels. The one great river, which traverses the whole length of Beaufort County, is known as the Pamlico below Washington, and as the Tar above that city. The other river, which drains part of the county and which forms the eastern boundary between Beaufort and Hyde counties, is the Pungo River. The names of these three rivers are the sole remaining monuments of the Pampticough, the Tau, and the Matchapungo tribes of Indians whom the first settlers found living where we live today. The other
"This paper was awarded the first prize in the Colonial Dames contest for 1915.
6
JAMES SPRUNT HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
streams of importance are Tranters Creek in the western part of the county, on the north side of Pamlico River, being tributary to it, and South Creek on the south side of the river, and also a tributary to the Pamlico. The soil of the county presents a variation from very sandy, on the Pitt side, to a very dark loam on the Hyde and Pamlico side. In passing from the sandy loam on the west to the black loam of the east, different varieties of clayey soil and stiff, closely compacted soil are everywhere to be found. The subsoil is invariably clay of different textures.
The flat nature of the land leaves the county without the natural resources of waterpower. The few instances in which waterpower is used are examples of the wasteful flooding of large tracts of "lowground" land, in several cases a six-foot fall of water necessi- tating the inundation of from three to even fifteen square miles of land. There are no minerals found in the county, but there are extensive deposits of marl at no very great depth, and good fire-clays are to be found all through the middle section of the county. Marl is dug on both sides of the river, both above and below Washington, and there are several kilns where terra cotta tiling and a good quality of brick are burnt. Sand is abundant, and the number of uses to which concrete is put is thus materially increased.
Until the advent of the portable steam sawmill the forest re- sources of the county were unsurpassed by any other section of the state. There were once large primeval forests of pitch and yellow pine, as is evinced by the fact that Washington shipped a large amount of naval stores in the years preceding and immediately following the Civil War. These forests have since been largely cut, being the source of much wealth to the county. There are also large areas of swamps timbered with fine growths of cypress and black and sweet gums. Junipers are also abundant in many sec- tions of the county. Oaks of many varieties, maples, ashes, pop- lars, and elms are very abundant, some of them being of such abun- dance as to be of considerable commercial value. The shrubs, plants, flowers, roots, and herbs of the county are almost innumer- able.
There is one other great natural resource of the county that furnished employment for its full share of the population of the
.
7
SOME COLONIAL HISTORY OF BEAUFORT COUNTY
county, and which is the source of considerable wealth. This is the fish and oyster industry of this section. Being situated on a large river flowing into a sound, which in its turn connects with the Atlantic, the county has at all times of the year a very large run of both salt and freshwater fish. Shad, herring, trout, blue fish, spots, mackerel, mullets, and a long list of the more common freshwater fish are to be found on the markets in season. Oysters are usually plentiful except in May, June, July, and August, the weather being too warm in these months to permit of oysters and clams being transported very far from the place where they are caught. The oysters, fish, and game shipped to northern markets from Beaufort County are considered the earliest and finest-flavored of any re- ceived.
With such a location, with such a goodly number of navigable rivers, with such a variety of soils, with immense forests, with good building sands and clays, with such valuable fisheries-in fact, with every natural resource except minerals and an abundance of water- power, and being possessed of such a mild climate, it is no wonder, then, that what is now Beaufort County was attractive to the early settlers of North Carolina.
FORMATION AND EARLY HISTORY.
The history of the present county of Beaufort really began at a period earlier than 1705, in which year, at a meeting of the Gov- ernor, Charles Eden, and Thomas Pollock, Samuel Swann, John Arderne, and Edward Moseley, deputies of the Lords Proprietors, it was decided that "whereas the county of Bath, is now grown populous and daily encreasing, do hereby think fit and it is hereby ordered, that three Precincts be erected in the said county, bounded as follows, viz. : The precinct of Pampticough [now Beaufort and Pitt counties,] lying on the north side of Pampticough River and beginning at Moline's Creek, and westerly to the head of the river. The Precinct of Wickham, beginning at the said Moline's Creek, so including all the lands and Rivers from said Creek to Matchepungo Bluff; and the Precinct of Archdale taking all the south side of
.
8
JAMES STRUNT HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
said river, and at present, including all the Inhabitants of Newse."2 The same statute, it might be remarked in passing, gave each of these precincts two members in the Assembly.
..
Prior to this time all that territory south of the Albemarle Sound and Roanoke River was known as Bath County. Really the limits and authority of the county extended only about as far as the colonists had pushed westward, which, roughly speaking, was about 75 miles inland, usually along the navigable rivers. Bath was by far the largest county ever created within the state, for when an early county was formed, the western limit of the county was con- sidered to terminate in the western boundary of the colony.3 These western boundaries sometimes called for a stretch of territory from the Atlantic to the mountains, or from the Atlantic to the Missis- sippi, or from the Atlantic to the Southern (Pacific) Ocean. In this case, Bath County embraced a vast belt of land reaching across the present United States. By comparing it with a present-day map of North Carolina, we find that Bath County really contained and exerted jurisdiction over all or parts of Dare, Tyrrell, Wash- ington, Martin, Pitt, Beaufort, Hyde, Pamlico, Craven, Greene, Lenoir, Jones, Duplin, Onslow, Carteret, Pender, Sampson, and New Hanover counties. Considering only these counties, what a princely domain would Bath County have been, had it only been more populous !
Besides the county of Bath, Albemarle was the other great county in the colony. These two counties in 1705 comprised the whole of what is now North Carolina, and more besides. Albemarle was the first to be peopled, settlers pushing down from Virginia and plant- ing the first permanent settlement in the region north of Albemarle Sound. From this same source, and often by way of these Albe- marle settlements, the settlements around Pamlico Sound were made. The people making the settlements were usually English, even when they came from the New England colonies, as a good many did. The names of the people who applied for land titles are good English names, with the occasional appearance of a French name. The English people came for social and economic, and not for religious reasons, as did the French Hugenots who settled in
30. R., II, 629.
"Clark, Indian Massacre and Tuscarora War, "Booklet," v. 2.
-
9
SOME COLONIAL HISTORY OF BEAUFORT COUNTY
Bath and Albemarle. All of us know that there is no Bath County today, and just so there is no Albemarle County. The names of the two oldest counties in the state have been lost, with the exception of the name of a town in one case and the name of a town and sound in the other. Bath County, formed in 1696, named in honor of the Earl of Bath (the head of the Lords Proprietors), divided in 1705 into precincts, finally ceased to exist even in mention.
Beaufort County was formed in 1705. It was visited in 1709 by Lawson, and two years later it was a witness to and a chief sufferer in the Indian uprisings of 1711. It was the seat of the Proprie- tary Governor, Charles Eden, who lived for a short time at Bath, about 1715. Just about this time it was visited by Teache, and in 1717 it was the county to which this pirate was brought after being killed. Fort Reading, the name given to a fort which was estab- lished near the present site of the town of Washington, was estab- lished during the second decade of the eighteenth century. In 1715, Bath, the principal town in the county, was made a port of entry, thus tending to increase the commerce of the county. In 1734, St. Thomas Church, at Bath Town, was completed, being not then the first Episcopal church in the colony, but being now the oldest church which stands essentially as it was erected. In 1738 the legislature recognized the will of the people, and called the county by the name of Beaufort. This name had been chosen by the people some time before, but only now were the boundaries of the different counties, so promiscuously referred to in the Colonial Records, run out by special enactment of the legislature. The people were unusually well pleased with Henry, Duke of Beaufort, one of the Lords Pro- prietors, and a Palatine, and it was for him that they called the old precinct of Pampticough. Exactly how early the people affixed some other name to this region is unknown, but Pampticough is not entered at all on Lawson's map of 1709. Between the years 1740 and 1760 the people of Beaufort were undisturbed, except for the outbreak of the French and Indian War. They furnished their share of the militia sent from North Carolina against the French and the Indians. In 1760, upon a petition of the people concerned, the western part of the county was cut off and formed into Pitt County and St. Michael's parish, Tranters Creek being the dividing
10
JAMES SPRUNT HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
line between the two counties then as now. The years 1760-1775 were years of healthy growth, both in numbers, in religious ideas, and in the love of peace, liberty, and freedom, for as Wheeler4 says, "the inhabitants of Beaufort were distinguished for their early devotion to the principles of liberty," as is proved by the fact that Beaufort was well represented and her representatives well in- structed at the congresses which met at Halifax, New Bern, and Hillsborough.5
TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS.
Within two years after John Lawson, our earliest historian, made the assertion that of all the colonies, North Carolina was the only one that had been established without bloodshed, the greater por- tion of Eastern North Carolina was plunged into the throes of a bitter struggle with the Indians, which followed immediately upon the terrible attempt of the savages to prevent the white man from encroaching upon the hunting grounds of the Indian. Once in a while a white man would harm an Indian, and the revengeful and relentless Red Man would retaliate by killing the settler. Once in a while, tempted by some worldly possession of the white man's, the Indian would kill the white man, and be brought to justice in the courts of the little colony if he was ever caught up with. How dif- ferent was the Indian Massacre of 1711, and how much more inter- esting to us should this be than a study of the troubles with the Indians of Kentucky or Florida or Massachusetts. Because of its local interest, it should be especially interesting to every citizen of Beaufort and Craven counties.
Different reasons have been assigned as the cause of the trouble of 1711, but the chief causes, everything else set aside, were the steady encroachments of the whites upon the hunting and fishing grounds of the Indians, though the struggles of the whites among themselves as a result of the Carey Rebellion, which had been quelled only a little before, may have exerted a baneful influence upon the sanguinary Indians. Some of the contemporary writers
"Historical Sketches of North Carolina, p. 29.
"Though I have not mentioned each reference specifically in the running recital of events in the county, I have looked each one carefully up, and find my statements sub- stantiated in each case, usually by the Colonial Records.
11
SOME COLONIAL HISTORY OF BEAUFORT COUNTY
say that both Carey and Roach, his subordinate, were influential in persuading the Indians to make the attack upon the white set- tlements. This last reason is advanced by Dr. Hawks in the first volume of his history, and is a little shaky as far as proof is con- cerned, but it is sufficient to say that the two first causes would have been sufficient to bring on the war. The fact remains that the war did break out, and that the people living on the Tar and Pam- lico rivers, and those living in the vicinity of Bath, were the heav- iest sufferers. Mr. Urmstone, writing to the Secretary of the S. P. G., says that Bath "is now the seat of war,"6 and later as well as contemporary writers say that the struggle was severest in what is now Beaufort County.
Had the Indians not been inferior to the whites in their capac- ity for strategy and concerted action, and had they been equipped and armed even as well as the colonists were, the settlements planted here before 1711 would surely have been wiped out of existence. They were immensely superior to the whites in num- bers, for according to Judge Clark, the Indians could muster around eighteen hundred fighting men, whereas the colonists could gather only about a thousand men capable of bearing arms.7 This latter number was smaller than it should have been, owing to the decreased numbers due to the troubles with Carey. On the side of the Indians, by far the greatest number was furnished by the Tuscaroras, who were the leaders in the movement to massacre the whites, and who assumed the work of the extermination of the Indians along the southern bank of the Roanoke, and especially along the Tar and Pamlico rivers. This was the home and hunt- ing grounds of the Tuscaroras. On the north side of Albemarle Sound and the Roanoke River lived the Meherrins, Notoways, Chowanokes, Pasquotanks, Connamax, and Yeopims,8 who were not very formidable, being considerably outnumbered by the whites in that section of the colony. The Pamlicos, it appears, were to labor with the Tuscaroras in slaughtering the whites above Bath and along the Pamlico and Tar rivers, while the Matta- muskeets were to surprise the settlements to the east of Bath. The Cotechneys and the Cores, from whom Core Sound draws its
·C. R., I, 885.
"Indian Massacre and Tuscarora War. "Booklet," v. 2.
&Ibid.
12
JAMES SPRUNT HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS
name, were to massacre the Swiss and the Palatines at New Bern. To all appearances, the plot was a general one, considering the fact that it was to begin at sunrise on the day before the new moon in September, which was the 23d of the month. According to this, the massacre began at sunrise of the 22d, as was ever afterwards remembered in the colony.
On the 21st the Tuscaroras and their allies began to spread through the colonies in order to make the attack, which was to begin next morning, all the more concerted, and to carry it through with dispatch. The settlers little suspected treachery from the increased numbers of Indians, who merely asked for bread. The next morning, however, just as the sun rose, the red men began their hellish work, and in a few hours several hundred perished. Some account of the atrocities committed and the general pitiless- ness of the cruel Indian may be found in a letter from Christo- pher Gale to his sister, under the date of November 2, 1711.º They are as revolting as could be imagined, and I venture the assertion that they could be repeated today only by a savage people. Most of the outlying settlements in our county were sur- prised, the inhabitants, of all ages and races and of both sexes, being killed, being often treated as was the family of a certain Mr. Nevill, who lived a short distance from Bath.10 Not all of the settlers were killed, for a goodly number gathered wherever there was a fortified place. Crowds from what is now Beaufort County flocked to Bath and to Fort Reading, near where Washington now stands. The Indians did not bury the bodies of their victims, merely mutilating them terribly, and leaving them "for prey to the dogs and wolves and vultures," whilst the care of the settlers was to strengthen their garrisons and to secure those still alive.
Though slaughter continued for a space of three days,11 during which time Governor Hyde tried to put an end to some of the barbarity, his efforts were almost futile, for the Governor was able to raise only about one hundred and sixty men, owing to the necessity for garrisons, to the fact that a great many of the colon- ists were Quakers who would not fight, and to the fact that a good
C. R., I, 826-827.
10 Ibid.
"Indian Massacre and the Tuscarora War. "Booklet," v. 2.
.
13
SOME COLONIAL HISTORY OF BEAUFORT COUNTY
part of all who were able had fled to Virginia. Hyde could get no assistance from the friendly Indians, so general and widespread was the conspiracy of the Tuscaroras. Aid was sought from Vir- ginia and South Carolina, though the chief thing accomplished by the Virginia troops was the liberation of Baron de Graffen- reid, who, together with John Lawson and his servants, had been taken prisoner on the 22d of September, and who, unlike poor Lawson, had not been put to death. The Virginia troops may have overawed the Indians, and thus aided in checking their depredations to some extent. The greatest and most material aid came from our southern sister, South Carolina, for the assembly of that colony voted to send Colonel Barnwell with 600 militia and some 350 Indians. These reinforcements made good progress over the wilderness which then separated the two Carolinas, and Colonel Barnwell, on the 28th of January, 1712, after having driven the Indians to a palisaded fort about twenty miles above New Bern, and after surrounding and killing a good number of the Indians, both inside and outside the fort, agreed to a capitu- lation and treaty with them, instead of utterly crushing their power as the people desired and expected him to do.12 This treaty which Barnwell made he allowed his allied Indians to break and to carry off a large number of captives to South Caro- lina to be sold into West Indian servitude. Thus the hatred and animosity of the aborigines was only aggravated, and their power was far from broken. Colonel Barnwell had to give up his com- mand on account of a wound received in the encounter at Fort Barnwell, so called after the captor of the fort rather than being named for some defender.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.