USA > North Carolina > Stanly County > Albemarle > In ancient Albemarle > Part 7
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upon extracting wealth from their colony in Caro- lina to be willing to expend any of their gains for the good of the colonists. Disregarding the peti- tions of their officers in Albemarle, who saw the great need for missionaries in the struggling set- tlements, they refused to become responsible for the salary of a minister.
But after a while the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel in foreign parts took hold of the matter, and in 1702 a church was built in Chowan, near where Edenton now stands. By 1709 Rev. Mr. Gordon, who was one of the two ministers sent out by the S. P. G., writes to the secretary of the Society from Perquimans :
"In Perquimans there is a compact little church, built with care and express, and better than that in Chowan. It continues yet unfinished, by reason of the death of Major Swann, 1707, who fostered the building of this church."
Among the vestrymen of this new parish may be found the following names: Francis Forbes, Colonel Maurice Moore, Captain Hecklefield, Thomas Hardy, Captain Richard Saunderson, Henry Clayton, Joseph Jessups, Samuel Phelps and Richard Whedbee. Most of these gentlemen were men of note in the colony, and many of their descendants are now living in Perquimans County.
That the wealthy planters in Albemarle felt a
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certain responsibility for the spiritual welfare of their slaves, was shown by the fact that master and slave alike gathered together to join in the services held by the early missionaries of the Church of England; and that the master willingly allowed his servant to share in the blessings of the sacraments of the church. A letter from Rev. Mr. Taylor, written from Perquimans in 1719, records that he had just "baptized a young woman, slave of Mr. Duckinfield, to whom I have taught the whole of the church catechism."
But the letter further reveals that our early colonists cherished their worldly possessions fully as fondly as their descendants, who pursue with avidity the chase after the dollar. And when it came to the question of the slave's spiritual welfare, or the master's temporal prosperity, the master did not hesitate to show which he con- sidered of the most importance. For, as Mr. Tay- lor writes, when it was rumored in 1719 that the General Assembly of that year had decreed that all baptized slaves should be set free; and when, im- mediately, and by a strange coincidence, the rever- end gentleman was suddenly besieged by bands of men and women, all loudly clamoring to receive the rite of holy baptism, Duckinfield and others of the planters prudently restrained the poor darkies from entering the church's folds until that law could be repealed.
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In secular as well as religious affairs, Perqui- mans precinct in those early days took an active part. Men of political and social prominence re- sided within her borders, and at their homes, for lack of other shelter for public gatherings, much of the business of the colony, legislative and judi- cial, was transacted.
As early as 1677 the population of Albemarle had grown so numerous that the settlers found themselves strong enough to successfully resist the oppressive rule of the unworthy governors set over them by the Lords Proprietors. And in that year, led by John Culpeper and George Durant, a revolt against the tyrannical Miller, which be- gan in Pasquotank, spread through the surround- ing precincts.
Among the men from Perquimans who took part in this disturbance, known in history as Cul- peper's Rebellion, were George Durant, Alexan- der Lillington, Samuel Pricklove, Jenkins, Sher- rell and Greene. So successfully did they and their comrades strive against Miller's tyranny, that that worthy was driven out of Carolina, and the reins of government fell into the hands of Culpeper and Durant. And at the home of the latter on Durant's Neck, a fair and equitable peo- ple's government was organized, the first of the kind framed in America.
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Alexander Lillington, who lent the weight of his wealth and influence to the people in their struggle against Miller, was a rich planter who in 1698 bought a tract of land from Stephen Pane and John Foster, on Yeopim Creek, and soon be- came one of the leading men in the colony. His descendants moved to New Hanover, and a name- sake of his in later years won 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 Assem- bly and the Governor's Council often convened. The famous Glover-Cary controversy was tempor- arily settled at the home of the former, by the Assembly of 1708, while Captain Saunderson's dwelling sheltered the Assembly of 1715, whose important acts were for the first time formally recorded and published. The courts were fre- quently held at the home of Dinah Maclenden, and James Thickpenny. James Oates, Captain James Cole and Captain Anthony Dawson also bore their share in entertaining the judicial assemblies.
As the population of the colony increased, facilities for carrying on commerce and for trav- eling through the country became one of the cry- ing needs of the day. The numerous rivers of Albemarle made provision for ferries imperative, and as early as 1700, we find record made of "Ye
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ferre over ye mane road" in Perquimans. In 1706 it is recorded that Samuel Phelps was ap- pointed "Keeper of ye Toll Boke at ye Head of Perquimans River."
A council held at the home of Captain Saunder- son in 1715 ordered: "That for the better con- venience of people passing through the country, a good and sufficient ferry be duly kept and at- tended over Perquimans River, from Mrs. Anne Wilson's to James Thickpenny, and that Mrs. Wil- son do keep the same, and that no other persons presume to ferry over horse or man within five miles above or below that place."
As time went on, the crowds attending the courts and Assemblies became too large to be accommodated in private dwellings. As early as 1722, the General Assembly ordered a court-house to be built at Phelps Point, now the town of Hert- ford, and tradition states that the old building was erected on the point near the bridge, where the home of Mr. Thomas McMullan now stands.
One of the most interesting spots in Perqui- mans County is the strip of land lying between the Perquimans and the Yeopim rivers, known as Har- vey's Neck. This was the home of the Harveys, men who for over a century bore an important part in the history of our State. It was in older days, as now, a fair and fertile land. Herds of
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deer wandered through its forests; and great flocks of swan and wild geese floated upon its sil- ver streams, feeding upon the sweet grass which then grew in those rivers. The waters were then salt, but with the choking up of the inlets that let in the saline waves of the Atlantic, the grass disappeared, and with it the wild fowl who win- tered there.
Of all the members of the famous Harvey fam- ily whose homes were builded on this spot, none proved more worthy of the fame he won than John Harvey, son of Thomas Harvey and Eliza- beth Coles.
Elected when just of age to the Assembly of 1746, he continued to serve his State in a public capacity until his death in 1775.
Resisting the tyrannical endeavor of Governor Dobbs to tax the people against their rights, he nevertheless stood by the same governor in his efforts to raise men and money for the French and Indian War. Serving as Speaker of the House in 1766, he took an active part in opposing the Stamp Act, and boldly declared in the Assembly that North Carolina would not pay those taxes. In the Assembly of 1769 he proposed that Caro- lina should form a Non-Importation Association ; and when Governor Tryon thereupon angrily dis- missed the Assembly and ordered its members
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home, Harvey called a convention independent of the Governor, and the association was formed.
When Governor Martin refused to call the As- sembly of 1774, for fear that it would elect dele- gates to the Continental Congress, John Harvey declared: "Then the people will call an Assembly themselves"; and following their intrepid leader, the people did call the convention of 1774, elected their delegates to Philadelphia, and openly and boldly joined and led their sister colonies in the gigantic struggle with the mother country that now began.
In the time of Boston's need, when her ports were closed by England's orders, and her people were threatened with starvation, John Harvey and Joseph Hewes together caused the ship "Pene- lope" to be loaded with corn and meal, flour and pork, which they solicited from the generous peo- ple of Albemarle, and sent it with words of cheer and sympathy to their brethren in the New Eng-
land town. In 1775 Harvey again braved the anger of the Royal Governor and called another people's convention, whose purpose and work was to watch and circumvent the tyrant in his en- deavor to crush the patriots in the State.
"The Father of the Revolution" in Carolina, he was to his native State what Patrick Henry was to Virginia, in the early days of the Revolution, and
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what Hancock and Adams were to Massachusetts. His untimely death, in 1775, caused by a fall from a horse, was deeply mourned by patriots through- out the land.
Among other eminent sons of Perquimans dur- ing the Revolutionary period the 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 the delegates to the People's Convention called by Harvey and Johnston we find the Harveys, Whed- bees, Blounts, Skinners and Moores, men whose names were prominent then as now in the social and political life of the State.
As time went on, Phelps Point at the Narrows of the Perquimans River became so thickly popu- lated that by June, 1746, a petition was presented to the General Assembly, praying for an act to be passed to lay out 100 acres of land in Perqui- mans, including Phelps Point, for a town and a town commons.
But a disturbance arose in the State about that time concerning the right of the northern coun- ties to send five delegates each to the Assembly, while the southern counties were allowed to send only two. Governor Gabriel Johnson sided with the southern section, and ordered the Assembly to
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meet at Wilmington in November, 1746, on which occasion he and the southern delegates proposed to make a strong fight to reduce the representation from the Albemarle counties.
The northern counties, tenaciously clinging to their rights, established in the early days of the colony when the counties south of Albemarle Sound had not been organized, refused to send delegates to this Assembly ; whereupon that body, though a majority of its members were absent, passed an act reducing the representation from the Albemarle region to two members from each county. Indignant at this act, which they con- sidered illegal, the citizens in the northern coun- ties refused to subscribe to it, and for eight years declined to send any delegates at all to the Assem- bly; and the bill for establishing a town in Per- quimans was heard from no more until the trouble between the two sections was settled.
Finally the people of Albemarle sent a petition to George III, praying him to restore their rights in the General Assembly, and the King graciously granted their request. In 1758 an Assembly met at New Bern, at which delegates from all sections of the colony were present; and in answer to a petition presented by John Harvey, it passed an act for the erection of a town at Phelps Point in Perquimans County.
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The little village was called Hertford, a word of Saxon origin, signifying Red Ford. It was named for the Marquis of Hertford, an English noble who moved for the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, and who was ambassador at Paris in the reign of George III, and Lord Lieutenant of Ire- land.
The settlement at Phelps Point was already an important rendezvous for the dwellers in the county. The cypress trees under which Fox had stood and preached to the little band of brethren still stood, as they stand to-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 the center of the religious life of its members in the county, and the court-house on the point since 1722 had been the scene of the political and judicial gatherings in Perquimans.
The Assembly of 1762, realizing the importance of the little town to the community, decreed that a public ferry should be established "from Newby's Point to Phelp's Point where the court-house now stands," and in 1766 Seth Sumner, William Skin- ner, Francis Nixon, John Harvey and Henry Clay- ton were appointed trustees of the ferry ; a three- penny tax was laid on all taxable persons to defray the expenses of the ferry, and "All persons cross- ing to attend vestry meetings, elections, military
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musters, court martials and sessions of the court" were to be carried over free of charge.
The site of the town, described in Colonial Records as "healthy, pleasantly situated, well watered and commodious for commerce," was the property of John Phelps, who gave his consent to the laying off of 100 acres for the town on condi- tion that he should retain his own house and lot, and four lots adjoining him. The public ferry having fallen into his hands, the further condi- tion was made that the town should allow no ferry other than his to be run so long as he complied with the ferry laws. The subscribers for the lots were ordered to build within three years, one well- framed or brick house at least 16 feet square ; and in one month from purchase, were to pay the trustees the sum of 45 shillings for each lot.
As early as 1754, before the little settlement be- gan to assume the airs of a town, the old Eagle Tavern still standing on Church street, was a registered hotel; and there when court week ap- peared on the calendar, the representative men of the county and the surrounding precincts would gather.
Quiet Quaker folk from Piney Woods, eight miles down from Newby's Point, Whites and Nich- olsons, Albertsons, Newbys and Symmes, jogged along the country roads behind their sleek, well-
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fed nags, to answer with serene yea or nay the questions asked on witness stand or in jury room. Powdered and bewigged judge and lawyer, high and mighty King's officers from Edenton or New Bern, or Bath, brilliant in gay uniform, rolled pon- derously thither in cumbersome coaches. Leav- ing their great plantations on the adjoining necks in the hands of their overseers, Harveys and Skinners, Blounts and Whedbees, Winslows and Gordons, Nixons and Woods and Leighs, dashed up to the doors of the tavern on spirited steeds. Hospitable townsfolk hurried to and fro, greeting the travelers, and causing mine host of the inn much inward concern, lest their cordial invitation lure from his door the guest whose bill he could see, in his mind's eye, pleasantly lengthen, as the crowded court docket slowly cleared.
Very sure were the guests at the tavern that horse and man would be well cared for by the genial landlord ; for the law required that the host of Eagle Tavern should give ample compensation for the gold he pocketed. When business was ended, the strangers within his gates wended their way homeward. No skimping of the bill of fare. no inattention to the comfort of the wayfarer did the landlord dare allow, lest his license be taken from him for violation of the tavern laws.
Many an illustrious guest the ancient inn has
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EAGLE TAVERN, HERTFORD, NORTH CAROLINA
IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE
known, and a story cherished by the Hertford people ascribes to the quaint old structure the honor of having on one occasion sheltered be- neath its roof the illustrious "Father of his Country," George Washington.
Whether our first President came to Hertford on business connected with lands in the Dismal Swamp in which he was interested, or whether he tarried at the old tavern while on his triumphal journey through the South in 1791, no one now knows, but the room is still shown, and the tale still told of the great man's stay therein.
Diagonally across the street from the Eagle Tavern, at the end of the yard enclosing the old Harvey home, may be seen two great stones which are said to mark the grave of a mighty Indian chief. Possibly Kilcokonen, friend of George Du- rant, lies buried there. The Hertford children in olden days, when tales of ghost and goblin were more readily believed than they are to-day, used to thrill with delicious fear whenever in the dusk of the evening they passed the spot, and warily they would step over the stones, half-dreading, half-hoping to see, as legend said was possible, the spirit of the old warrior rise from the grave, swinging his gory tomahawk and uttering his blood-chilling war cry.
During the long years that have passed since
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the white man came into Albemarle, old Perqui- mans has borne an enviable part in making the history of our State.
Hertford itself felt little of the fury of the storm of the War of Secession, though during the awful cataclysm the peaceful Perquimans was often disturbed by the gunboats of the Northern Army. One brief battle was fought in the town, in which one man was killed on each side. And the old residents still love to boast of the heroism shown by the courageous Hertford women, who, while the skirmish was going on, came out on their piazzas, and, heedless of the shot and shell flying thick and fast around them, cheered on the sol- diers battling to defend their homes.
A ball from one of the gunboats on the river, while this skirmish was taking place, went through one of the houses down near the shore and tore the covering from the bed on which the mistress of the house had just been lying.
The cruel war at last was over, the darker days of Reconstruction passed heavily and stressfully by; the South began to recover from the ruin wrought by the awful struggle and its aftermath ; and in the quiet years that followed, the Spirit of God brooded over her rivers, hills and plains, and brought peace and prosperity to the troubled land. Her farms were tilled again, the wheels of mills
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and factories were set whirling, and new business enterprises offered to the laboring man oppor- tunities to earn a fair living.
And the old colonial town of Hertford, sharing with her sister towns and cities in the Southland the prosperity for which her children for many weary, painful years had so bravely and man- fully striven, sees the dawn of a new day, bright with the promise of a happy future for her sons and daughters.
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CHAPTER XIV
CURRITUCK, THE HAUNT OF THE WILD FOWL
C URRITUCK County is known the country over as the sportsman's paradise. Thither when the first sharp frost gives warning that the clear autumn skies will soon be banked with gray snow clouds, the wild fowl from the far North come flocking. And as the swift-winged procession skims through the starry skies, and the hoarse cry of the aerial voyagers resounds over head, then do the dwellers in eastern Albe- marle know for a surety 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 waters of Currituck Sound and its reedy shores greet their eager sight. There they find the wild celery and other aquatic plants upon which they love to feed, growing in abundance; and there they make their winter home "and rest and scream among their fellows," preferring the risk of death at the hands of the sportsman to the certain starvation that would confront them in their native Arctic clime.
Vast as are to-day the clouds of wild fowl that every year descend upon the shores and waters of
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Currituck, their numbers were far greater in years long gone, before the white man with shot and gun came roving among the reedy marshes. Long before George Durant's advent into the State, the Indians with that aptness for nomen- clature for which they are noted, 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 feathered visitors.
But not alone as the winter home of the winged creatures of the Northern wilds was Currituck noted in the early days of our State. This county, formerly much larger than it is to-day, for many years embraced the region known as Dare County, and to Currituck belongs the distinction of having once included within its borders the spot upon which Raleigh's colonies tried to establish their homes.
The history of that event is too well known to bear repetition. The story of Amadas' and Bar- lowe's expedition, of Ralph Lane's bold adventures in exploration of Albemarle Sound, Chowan River and Chesapeake Bay, of the return of his dis- appointed colony to England in Drake's vessels, and the tragic fate of little Virginia Dare and of John White's colony, have all been told in fiction, song and verse.
The failure of Raleigh's colonies to establish a
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permanent settlement in the New World discour- aged the English for many years from making any further attempts to settle America. From 1590, the date of Governor White's return to Roan- oke, and of his unsuccessful search for the "lost colony," that lovely island for many years disap- pears from the white man's gaze; and save for a few scattered, unrecorded settlements in northern Albemarle, Carolina itself was almost unknown to the world.
But in September, 1654, according to the Colon- ial Records, a young fur trader from Virginia had the misfortune to lose his sloop in which he was about to embark for the purpose of trading with the Indians in the Albemarle country. For rea- sons not stated he supposed she had gone to Roan- oke, so he hired a small boat, and with three com- panions set out in search of the runaway vessel. "They entered at Coratoke Inlet, ten miles to the north of Cape Henry," so reads the ancient chron- icle, "and so went to Roanoke Island, where, or near thereabouts, they found the Great Com- mander of those parts with his Indians a-hunting, who received them civilly and showed them the ruins of Sir Walter Raleigh's fort, from which I received a sure token of their being there."
A few months before this journey of the young fur trader, Charles II had bestowed upon eight of
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his favorites all the territory in America lying be- tween the thirty-first and thirty-sixth parallels of latitude, a princely gift indeed, and worthy of the loyal friends who had devoted their lives and fortunes to the Stuart cause during the dark days when that cause seemed hopelessly lost. This grant embraced the land adjacent to the north shore of Albemarle Sound, and extending to Florida; but it failed to include a strip of terri- tory about thirty miles broad, lying between the thirty-sixth degree and the Virginia line. In this fertile region George Durant and other settlers had as early as 1661 established their homes, buy- ing from Kilcokonen, the great Chief of the Yeo- pims, their right to the lands; and there these hardy pioneers were swiftly converting the pri- meval wilderness into fertile and productive fields.
Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, looked with covetous eye upon this fair strip of land, and with a view to planting settlements there in order to establish Virginia's claim to the territory, he had offered in the name of King Charles extensive grants in this region to planters who would bring a certain number of people into Albemarle. In 1663 Berkeley granted to John Harvey 600 acres of land "lying in a small creek called Curratuck (probably Indian Creek to-day), falling into the River Kecoughtancke (now North River), which
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falls in the Carolina River (known to-day as Albe- marle Sound). The land was given Mr. Harvey for bringing into the colony twelve new settlers."
Many other settlers in this region had acquired their lands by patents from Virginia; but after the King's gift to his friends, Berkeley, himself one of the Lords Proprietors, was no longer de- sirous to consider the Albemarle region a part of the Virginia Colony; and henceforth the grants of land were all issued in the name of the Lords Proprietors. For several years, however, the Albemarle counties were really separate, and to all practical purposes, independent territory. The proprietors had no legal claim to the region, and there was nothing in Virginia's charter to show that she could rightfully lay claim to it. Never- theless the proprietors did claim it, and authorized Berkeley to appoint a governor for that region. Berkeley therefore journeyed into the settlement, organized a government, and appointed Drum- mond Governor of Albemarle.
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