GOVERNOR GABRIEL JOHNSTON.
A. D. 1722 TO 1748.
Upon the death of Governor Eden in 1722, Colonel Thomas
Pollock, as President of His Majesty's Council for North
Carolina, assumed the place of Governor, but he died in a short
while and was succeeded by William Reed. That year Bertie
precinct was erected west of Chowan River, and court houses were,
for the first time, ordered to be built. Not only the General
Assembly, but courts and all public affairs, up to this time, had
been held in private houses.
2. North Carolina then comprised three counties. These were
Albemarle, Bath and Clarendon. Albemarle contained Currituck,
Pasquotank, Perquimans, Chowan and Bertie precincts. Bath and
Clarendon, though counties, were not subdivided at this time.
1724.
3. The Lords Proprietors, as the last evidence of their lack of
wisdom and interest in the province they had so long cursed with
their misrule, sent over George Burrington. After the creation
of the counties of Bath and Clarendon the representative of the
Lords Proprietors was called "Governor of North Carolina."
4. Governor Burrington's character was very bad; he had been
indicted and punished in the Old Bailey, in London, for beating
an old woman, and was, all his life, drunken and quarrelsome.
Yet such a man came over to be the guardian of a people who knew
not when they were to be tomahawked by the savages or driven into
further exile by the zealots who were disturbed at the nature of
their religious belief.
1725.
5. This weak and wicked ruler only remained one year in charge,
when Sir Richard Everhard came to replace him. They were
brothers in iniquity, and before Burrington left Edenton these
two men disgraced themselves by fighting in the streets of that
village. The General Assembly met at Edenton, and by enactment
of law the dividing line between North Carolina and Virginia was
run in November of this year.
1729.
6. Such rulers as have just been mentioned so utterly disgusted
every one in the colony that the King and Parliament were
petitioned to buy the province and abolish the rule of those who
had only hindered its growth. So, in 1729, for the sum of forty-
five thousand dollars, all of the proprietors except Lord
Carteret, sold to the crown their interest in Carolina . Thus,
after sixty-six years of unbounded misrule, these men in London
who had so greatly cursed North Carolina by their ignorance and
mistakes, surrendered their title to property which had never
paid them more than about one hundred dollars a piece in any one
year.
7. They had never really cared for the people whom they were so
anxious to disturb with their crude notions of religion. The
schemes of London merchants were of far more moment thanthe
welfare of Albemarle, and the folly of the Fundamental
Constitutions was to be upheld even at the ruin of the province.
8. As an earnest of the want of care King George I. was to
exhibit towards the colony, Governor Burrington was sent back to
the people who were already so well acquainted with his faults of
temper and character. He soon got into trouble with the leading
men of the province, and pretending to go to South Carolina,
returned to England, where he was soon after killed in a night-
brawl in the city of London.
1734.
9. Nathaniel Rice was Governor until the arrival and
qualification of Gabriel Johnston, who took the oaths of office
at Brunswick, on the Cape Fear River. Governor Johnston was a
Scotchman, who had lived for several years in London, and was to
prove the wisest and best of all the men sent over to rule the
people in Carolina. He married Penelope Eden, daughter of the
late Governor, and dwelt at her home on the Chowan River.
10. There were no troubles between the Governor and people in the
time of Governor Johnston's administration. Sometimes Edward
Moseley, always a stickler for the rights of the colonists, would
carry some dispute into the General Assembly, but the measures of
Governor Johnston, as a general thing, were pleasing to all
classes of the people and received their support.
11. At this period, Dr. John Brickell, with a party of white men
and Indians, was sent by the General Assembly to explore the
mountain region of Western North Carolina. He went into East
Tennessee in his travels among the Cherokees. He brought back
wondrous accounts of the beauty of the region and of the
simplicity and kindness of the natives. Dr. Brickell practiced
medicine in Edenton and wrote an interesting book about the North
Carolina of that day.
1740.
12. During the Spanish war Governor Johnston enlisted four
hundred North Carolina troops for the expedition that was led by
Governor Oglethorpe against the Spaniards at St. Augustine, in
Florida. They formed a battalion of the regiment commanded by
Colonel Vanderclussen. They were carried under Admiral Vernon to
the siege of Carthagena and participated in the dangers and
horrors of that expedition. But few returned to tell the story of
their disasters.
1746.
13. In consequence of the great defeat of the Scotch by the
English at the battle of Culloden, many Scotch emigrants began to
settle in North America. The captives in the struggle mentioned
had been offered choice between death and exile to America. The
emigrants landed at Wilmington in large numbers and formed
settlements along the Cape Fear River. One of their principal
towns was at Cross Creek, now known as Fayetteville. These
Scotch people were brave, industrious, and frugal, and North
Carolina has always esteemed them as a part of her best
population.
1748.
14. The province had never grown so rapidly, or been so
prosperous, as in the rule of this wise and excellent man who now
conducted public affairs. The provinces of North and South
Carolina were formally separated in Governor Burrington's time,
and upon the death of Governor Johnston, in 1752, it was found
that the population had been multiplied several times over what
it had been twenty years before, and it now numbered nearly fifty
thousand people. Great quantities of tar, pitch and turpentine,
also staves, corn, tobacco and other products of the farm,
besides pork, beef, bacon and lard were exported.
QUESTIONS.
1. Who became Governor on the death of Governor Eden? What
changes were noticed in the colony?
2. Into what precincts and counties was North Carolina divided?
3. Who was sent over by the Lords Proprietors in 1724 as Governor?
4. Can you tell something of Governor Burrington's past life?
5. How long was Governor Burrington in office, and who succeeded
him? How did these officers conduct themselves in Edenton?
6. What large purchase was made in 1729? Which of the Lords
Proprietors reserved his right? What had been the annual profit
to the Proprietors from the colony?
7. How had these men always felt toward their province?
8. What was the first act of George I. in the government of North
Carolina? How did Burrington's administration terminate?
9. Who was Burrington's successor? Who followed Governor Rice?
Tell something of Governor Johnston.
10. How did Governor Johnston conduct affairs?
11. What expedition was sent out at this time? What account of
the western country was given by Dr, Brickell on his return?
12. What occurred in 1740?
13. How and by whom was the Cape Fear region now being settled?
14. Give an account of the prosperity of the province during period.