COLONIAL DAYS IN CHURCH AND SCHOOL ON LITTLE RIVER, PASQUOTANK COUNTY
Among the many wide and beautiful rivers that drain the fertile lands of
ancient Albemarle, none is more full of historic interest than the
lovely stream known as Little River, the boundary set by nature to
divide Pasquotank County on the east from her sister county, Perquimans,
on the west.
On the shores of this stream, "little," as compared with the other
rivers of Albemarle, but of noble proportions when contrasted with some
of the so-called rivers of our western counties, the history of North
Carolina as an organized government had its beginning.
As early as 1659 settlers began moving down into the Albemarle region
from Virginia, among them being George Durant, who spent two years
searching for a suitable spot to locate a plantation, finally deciding
upon a fertile, pleasant land lying between Perquimans River on the
west, and Little River on the east. Following Durant came George
Catchmaid, John Harvey, John Battle, Dr. Thomas Relfe and other
gentlemen, who settled on Pasquotank, Perquimans and Little rivers,
buying their lands from the Indians; and later, when Charles II
included 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 this
newly settled region, and by 1663 the Albemarle region was a settlement
of importance, and Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, one of the Lords
Proprietors, had, with the concurrence of his partners in this new land,
sent William Drummond to govern the colony; and the Grand Assembly of
Albemarle had held its first session at Hall's Creek, an arm of Little
River, in Pasquotank County.
In 1664, when the Clarendon colony was broken up, many of the settlers
from the Cape Fear region came into Albemarle; and in 1666 this section
received a fresh influx of immigrants from the West Indies, many of whom
settled upon Little River and embarked upon the then lucrative trade of
ship-building. The usual natural advantages of the section made it in
many respects a desirable land for the new comers. Still there were many
drawbacks to the well being of the settlers, among the most serious of
which was the lack of the two factors which make for the true progress
of a country, educational and religious facilities and privileges.
Carolina was settled in a very different manner from most of her sisters
among the thirteen colonies. To those regions settlers came in groups,
often a whole community migrating to the new land, taking with them
ministers, priests and teachers; and wherever they settled, however wild
and desolate the land, they had with them those two mainstays of
civilization.
But into the Albemarle colony the settlers came a family at a time; and
instead of towns and town governments being organized, the well-to-do
settlers with their families and servants established themselves upon
large plantations, building their homes far apart, and devoting their
time to agricultural pursuits.
So it is not surprising that for many years the only religious exercises
in which the Carolina settler could take part were such as he held in
his own home, the members of the Church of England reading the prayers
and service of the Book of Common Prayer, the Dissenter using such
service as appealed most to him.
As for the education of the children, the wealthy planter would often
engage in his service some indentured servant, often a man of learning,
who would gladly give his services for a number of years for the
opportunity of coming to this new Land of Promise. And in later years as
the boys of the family outgrew the home tutor, they were sent to the
mother country to finish their education at Oxford or Cambridge.
But the poor colonist had none of these means of giving his children an
education; and for many years, indeed, not until 1705, we can find no
mention of any attempt on the part of the settlers to provide a school
for the children of the poor.
But about twelve years after George Durant settled on Little River, the
religious condition of Albemarle began to improve. In the spring of that
year, William Edmundson, a faithful friend and follower of George Fox,
the founder of the Quaker Church, came into Albemarle and held the first
public religious service ever heard in the colony at the house of Henry
Phelps, who lived in Perquimans County, near where the old town of
Hertford now stands. From there he went into Pasquotank, where he was
gladly received and gratefully heard. The following fall George Fox came
into the two counties himself, preached to the people and made a number
of converts to the Quaker doctrine.
This religious body grew in numbers and influence, and according to the
Colonial Records, "At a monthly meeting held at Caleb Bundy's house in
1703, it is agreed by Friends that a meeting-house be built at
Pasquotank with as much speed as may be." And later, between 1703 and
1706, this plan was carried out, and on the banks of Symons Creek, an
arm of Little River, between the two ancient settlements of Nixonton and
Newbegun Creek, the first Quaker meeting-house (and with the exception
of 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 large
majority of the men and women who gathered there to worship in their
quiet, undemonstrative way the Power who had led them to this land of
freedom. But the Word preached to these silent listeners in that rude
building inspired within them those principles upon which the foundation
of the best citizenship of our State was laid.
The Church of England, though long neglectful of her children in this
distant colony, had by this time begun to waken to her duty towards the
sheep of her fold in Carolina. Somewhere about 1700 a missionary society
sent a clergyman to the settlement, and in 1708 the Rev. Mr. Ackers
writes to Her Majesty's Secretary in London that "The Citizens of
Pasquotank have agreed to build a church and two chapels." As to the
location of these edifices, history remains silent; but that the church
had been sowing good seed in this new and fertile soil is shown by the
account given by the Rev. Mr. Adams of the people of Pasquotank, to whom
he 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 a
learned, public-spirited layman named Charles Griffin, who, seeing the
crying need of the people, had established by 1705 a school on Symons
Creek, for the children of the settlers near by.
Being a loyal son of the Church of England, he insisted upon reading the
morning and evening service of that church daily in his school, and he
required his young charges to join in the prayers and make the proper
responses. So faithful and efficient a teacher did he prove that even
the Quakers who had suffered many things from the Church of England, as
well as from their dissenting brethren, were glad to send their children
to his school.
The Colonial Records contain many references to the wide and beneficent
influence exerted by Mr. Griffin while acting in his two-fold capacity
of teacher and lay-reader in Pasquotank.
Governor Glover in a letter to the Bishop of London in 1708 writes: "In
Pasquotank an orderly congregation has been kept together by the
industry of a young gentleman whom the parish has employed to read the
services of the Church of England. This gentleman being a man of
unblemished life, by his decent behavior in that office, and by apt
discourses from house to house, not only kept those he found, but gained
many to the church."
Again and again in the pages of the Colonial Records, Vol. I, are the
praises of Charles Griffin sung; though, sad to say, in the latter days
of his life he seems to have fallen from grace, and to have become
involved in some scandal, the particulars of which are not given. This
scandal must have been proved unfounded, or he lived it down; for we
hear 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 Quaker
meeting-house. This latter building, erected somewhere between 1703 and
1706, was standing, within the memory of many among the older citizens
of our county, some of whom retain vivid recollections of attending,
when they were children, the services held by the Friends in this house
of worship.
It may be of interest here to mention that the heirs of the late Elihu
White, of Belvidere, to whom the property belonged, have lately donated
the site of the meeting-house on Symons Creek to the Quakers of that
section, of whom there are still quite a number. And once again, after a
lapse of many years, will the ancient worship be resumed on the shores
of that quiet stream.
To the pioneer settlers on Little River, then, belongs the honor of
starting the wheels of government at Hall's Creek, of erecting on Symons
Creek the second house of worship in the State, and of establishing on
that same tributary of Little River the first school in North Carolina.