PERQUIMANS COUNTY--"LAND OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN," AND THE COLONIAL TOWN OF
HERTFORD
From its hidden source in the southern fringe of the far-famed Dismal
Swamp, the Perquimans River, lovely as its Indian name, which, being
interpreted, signifies "the land of beautiful women," comes winding
down. Past marshes green with flags and rushes and starred with flowers
of every hue, through forests dense with pine and cypress, with gum and
juniper, the amber waters of the ancient stream pursue their tranquil
way. Lazily, but steadily and untiringly, the river journeys on in
obedience to the eternal, insistent call of the sea, till its waves,
meeting and mingling with those of the great sound and its numerous
tributaries, finally find their way through the sand bars that bound our
coast, to the stormy Atlantic.
Save for the fields of corn and cotton that lie along its banks, and an
occasional sawmill whose whirring wheels break at long intervals the
silence of its wooded shores, the peaceful river through the greater
part of its way is undisturbed by signs of man's presence. Only twice in
its course do its banks resound to the hum of town and village life,
once when shortly emerging from the Great Swamp, the river in its
winding flows by the sleepy little Quaker village of Belvidere; and
again when its tranquility is suddenly broken by the stir and bustle of
mill and factory, upon whose existence depends the prosperity of the old
colonial town of Hertford. There, the river, suddenly as wide awake as
the beautiful town by which it flows, changes its narrow, tortuous,
leisurely course, and broadening out from a slender stream, sweeps on to
the sea, a river grown, whose shores from this point on lie apart from
each other a distance of more than a mile.
Of all the streams that flow down to the sea from Albemarle, none
exceeds in beauty or historic interest the lovely Perquimans River. On
its eastern banks lies Durant's Neck, the home of George Durant, the
first settler in our State, who in 1661 left his Virginia home and came
into Albemarle; and being well pleased with the beauty and fertility of
fair Wikacome, was content to abide thenceforth in that favored spot.
On the banks of the streams flowing on either side of Wikacome, roamed
an Indian tribe, the Yeopims, whose great chief Kilcokonen gave to
George Durant the first deed for land ever recorded in our State.
Durant, his friend and comrade, Samuel Pricklove, and their families
and servants, proved to be the vanguard of a long procession of
settlers, who, following the footsteps of these first pioneers, made
their homes upon the shores of the Albemarle streams. Soon the dense
forests that stretched down to the river brinks fell beneath the axe of
these home-seekers, and small farms and great plantations fringed the
borders 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 built
his home. Thither in the spring of 1672, came a missionary, William
Edmundson, a friend and follower of George Fox, who some years before
had over in England founded the Society of Friends. Henry Phelps was a
member of this Society also, and the meeting between the two godly men
was a joyful one.
During the ten years that had passed since the Indian Chief had signed
his first grant of land to the white man, the settlers of Albemarle had
had no opportunity of assembling together for public worship. Phelps,
knowing how gladly the call would be answered, at the bidding of
Edmundson, 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 men
and women met together in Carolina to offer in public worship their
prayer and praises to the loving Father, who had led them safely over
storm-tossed waters, through tangled wilderness, into this Land of
Promise. Rough and uncultured as most of the congregation were, they
listened quietly and reverently to the good missionary, and received the
Word with gladness. There were present at the meeting "one Tems and his
wife," who earnestly entreated Edmundson to hold another service at
their home three miles away. So the next day he journeyed to the home of
Tems, and there another "blessed meeting" was held; and there was
founded a Society whose members were to be for many years the most
prominent religious body in the State.
In the fall of 1672, the hearts of the members of this infant church
were gladdened by the tidings that George Fox himself was on his way to
visit the little band of brethren in the wilds of Carolina. One cool,
crisp October morning, the great preacher arrived. Again was the home of
Phelps chosen for the meeting; but so great was the crowd that gathered
to hear him that the house would not hold the congregation. Standing a
little distance from Phelps' simple dwelling were two great cypress
trees. Close down by the water's edge they grew, their feathery
branches shading the rippling waves, and shielding the listeners from
the 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 assembled
crowd as the Spirit gave him utterance. It was a "tender meeting," as
Fox reports in his letters describing his stay in Perquimans. Many who
were present became converts to the faith of Fox and Edmundson; and
Perquimans County and her sister, Pasquotank, became for many years the
stronghold of the Society of Friends in Carolina.
For a number of years after George Fox's visit to Perquimans, the
Quakers were the only religious body in the colony that regularly
assembled its members together for divine service. Their ministers were
for the most part from the congregation itself; no salary was demanded
by them; and the home of some Friends was the scene of their religious
meetings. In a new country where ready money is a scarce commodity, a
church that could be conducted without any expenditure of cash could
more easily take root, than one whose existence depended upon a certain
amount, however small, of filthy lucre.
The Lords Proprietors, members for the most part of the Church of
England, were too intent upon extracting wealth from their colony in
Carolina to be willing to expend any of their gains for the good of the
colonists. 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 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 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 considered of
the most importance. For, as Mr. Taylor 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, immediately, and by a
strange coincidence, the reverend 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.
In secular as well as religious affairs, Perquimans precinct in those
early days took an active part. Men of political and social prominence
resided within her borders, and at their homes, for lack of other
shelter 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 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 began in Pasquotank, spread
through the surrounding precincts.
Among the men from Perquimans who took part in this disturbance, known
in history as Culpeper's Rebellion, were George Durant, Alexander
Lillington, Samuel Pricklove, Jenkins, Sherrell 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 people's government
was organized, the first of the kind framed in America.
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 became one of the leading men in the colony. His
descendants moved to New Hanover, and a namesake 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 Assembly and the Governor's Council often convened. The
famous Glover-Cary controversy was temporarily 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 frequently 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 traveling through the country became one of the crying
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
ferre over ye mane road" in Perquimans. In 1706 it is recorded that
Samuel Phelps was appointed "Keeper of ye Toll Boke at ye Head of
Perquimans River."
A council held at the home of Captain Saunderson in 1715 ordered: "That
for the better convenience of people passing through the country, a good
and sufficient ferry be duly kept and attended over Perquimans River,
from Mrs. Anne Wilson's to James Thickpenny, and that Mrs. Wilson 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 Hertford, 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 Perquimans County is the strip of
land lying between the Perquimans and the Yeopim rivers, known as
Harvey'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 deer wandered
through its forests; and great flocks of swan and wild geese floated
upon its silver 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 wintered there.
Of all the members of the famous Harvey family whose homes were builded
on this spot, none proved more worthy of the fame he won than John
Harvey, son of Thomas Harvey and Elizabeth 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 Carolina
should form a Non-Importation Association; and when Governor Tryon
thereupon angrily dismissed the Assembly and ordered its members home,
Harvey called a convention independent of the Governor, and the
association was formed.
When Governor Martin refused to call the Assembly of 1774, for fear that
it would elect delegates 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 "Penelope" to be loaded with corn
and meal, flour and pork, which they solicited from the generous people
of Albemarle, and sent it with words of cheer and sympathy to their
brethren in the New England 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 endeavor
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 what Hancock and Adams were to Massachusetts. His untimely death,
in 1775, caused by a fall from a horse, was deeply mourned by patriots
throughout the land.
Among other eminent sons of Perquimans during 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, Whedbees, 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 populated 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 Perquimans, 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 counties 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 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 considered illegal, the citizens in the northern counties refused
to subscribe to it, and for eight years declined to send any delegates
at all to the Assembly; and the bill for establishing a town in
Perquimans 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.
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 Ireland.
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 Skinner, Francis Nixon, John Harvey and Henry
Clayton 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 crossing to attend vestry meetings, elections, military
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 condition that he should retain his own house and
lot, and four lots adjoining him. The public ferry having fallen into
his hands, the further condition 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 began 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 appeared 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 Nicholsons, Albertsons, Newbys and Symmes, jogged along the
country roads behind their sleek, well-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
ponderously thither in cumbersome coaches. Leaving 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 known, and a story
cherished by the Hertford people ascribes to the quaint old structure
the honor of having on one occasion sheltered beneath its roof the
illustrious "Father of his Country," George Washington.
[Illustration: EAGLE TAVERN, HERTFORD, NORTH CAROLINA]
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 Durant, 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 the white man came into
Albemarle, old Perquimans 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 soldiers 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 and factories were set whirling,
and new business enterprises offered to the laboring man opportunities
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 manfully striven, sees the dawn
of a new day, bright with the promise of a happy future for her sons and
daughters.