Whittlesey, Sarah Johnson Cogswell

By Richard Walser, 1996

24 Aug. 1824–14 Feb. 1896

Sarah Johnson Cogswell Whittlesey, writer, was born in Williamston, the oldest child of Luman and Elizabeth G. Peale Whittlesey. Her younger brother was Oscar Columbus. She had two half brothers, Edgar Augustus and Joseph Adolphus, by her father's first marriage to Sarah Johnson Cogswell, who died in 1821 and for whom his next child was named. Luman Whittlesey was a native of Washington, Conn., a descendant of New England forebears going back to 1635, and an 1816 graduate of Yale. His second wife was a North Carolinian. He moved to Williamston to teach at the new Williamston Academy in 1818. In 1830 he had a farm and a store in Palmyra but moved back to the academy in 1841. After an unfortunate business venture with his son-in-law, he taught in Edenton in 1846 and finally settled in Alexandria, Va., in 1848.

During these peregrinations Whittlesey was sooner or later joined by his daughter Sarah. Educated at home until she was fourteen, she attended a school in Hamilton for two years and was graduated from La Vallee Female Seminary in Halifax County in 1841. On 19 June 1842 she married Henry A. Smith, of Lenox, Mass., recently arrived in Williamston to conduct an evening writing school. Apparently she agreed to this unfortunate union to please her beloved father and brother. Four years later she abandoned Smith because of his "jealous tyranny," assisted in her escape by her friend D. William Bagley, who arranged to bring her and her trunk down a ladder from her locked room on the second floor of the house, and who transported her to a Roanoke River vessel making an instant departure. In 1850 she and her husband were divorced, and she resumed her maiden name.

Though her first literary effort had appeared in the Edenton Sentinel in the summer of 1846, it was not until she was comfortably at home with her parents and brother in Alexandria that her exceptionally honed talents for genteel "false-feminine" sentimentality got into full stride. The Spirit of the Age (Raleigh), the Williamston Mercury , and even the Southern Literary Messenger carried her poems. The Times of Greensboro serialized her short novels "The Hidden Heart,""Reginald's Revenge; or, The Rod and Reproof," and "The Broken Vow," and the Southern Field and Fireside (Raleigh) announced "The Unwedded Wife; or, Wrong and Remorse." The title of Heart-Drops from Memory's Urn (1852) indicates the nature of the poems therein. Seven moral tales in which pure-minded heroines are pursuing or being pursued appear in The Stranger's Stratagem; or, the Double Deceit, and Other Stories (1859). Virginia is the scene of her novel Herbert Hamilton; or, The Bas Bleu (1868). Yet Bertha the Beauty: A Story of the Southern Revolution (1872) is Miss Whittlesey's "glory," for this lengthy autobiographical novel, with scenes in Williamston and Palmyra, has a detailed narrative of the struggles of the long-suffering heroine with her wicked husband. To the poems in Spring Buds and Summer Blossoms (1889) she added some verses by her brother Oscar Columbus titled Idle Hours .

Thomas, John

11 Oct. 1705–3 Dec. 1788

John Thomas, religious leader, justice, and militia officer, was born in Nansemond County, Va., the son of John and Mary Lawrence Thomas. Educated locally, he was "bred a Churchman," but after settling in North Carolina about 1740 he was converted to the Baptist faith by Dr. Josiah Hart in 1748. In 1756 Thomas founded and was first pastor of the Tosneot Baptist Church, the first of any denomination in lower Edgecombe County. On 24 Sept. 1759 the county court licensed the meetinghouse recently completed on his upper plantation near Tosneot Swamp.

In 1760–62 he allied his church briefly with the distant Charleston Baptist Association, but on 6 Nov. 1769 he became a founder and signer of the covenant of Kehukee Baptist Association at its first formal meeting in Halifax County. On 17 Sept. 1772 he was named to the committee selected to present a complimentary address of the association to Governor Josiah Martin at New Bern. His last appearance noted in the surviving minutes was 20 Oct. 1777, when he was elected moderator and directed the special committee that drew up the Articles of Marriage still reflected in the ceremonies of the Southern Baptists.

In the course of his evangelical career he assisted, on 2 May 1772, Elders Morgan Edwards (Baptist historian from Rhode Island), John Moore, and John Meglamre in ordaining William Burgess as pastor of Kehukee Baptist Church. On 24 Sept. 1773, "through the goodness of God, and the instrumentality of Elder John Thomas," a reformation was accomplished at the Red Banks Baptist Church in Pitt County, and in 1776 he and the Reverend John Thomas, Jr., constituted the Flat Swamp Baptist Church in Martin County, also ordaining John Page to the pastorate. Early in 1777 he helped to reorganize the Lower Fishing Creek Baptist Church in Halifax County. With the assistance of Elder John Page, he constituted the Lower Town Creek Baptist Church and installed Elder Joshua Barnes as its first pastor on 17 Sept. 1780. He and Elder Barnes constituted Little Contentnea Baptist Church in Greene County on 10 Aug. 1785, it having been for some years a branch of the Tosneot church. Although Elder Thomas's home church remained in "a languid situation" for a time after his death, it was destined to fill many years of renewed prominence into the late twentieth century as the Wilson Primitive Baptist Church.

On 11 Oct. 1749 Governor Gabriel Johnston and the colonial Council at New Bern appointed John Thomas a justice of the peace, and the surviving minutes of the Edgecombe County Court reveal that he was in regular attendance at Council meetings from 17 June 1758 to 18 Oct. 1775. Although reappointed by the General Assembly on 23 Dec. 1776, he withdrew from the bench and devoted himself to ministerial duties and public service. His name appears on a road or bridge commission almost yearly between 1767 and 1786, and he served as captain of militia in his district from 1761 until after 1774.

A successful planter, Thomas accumulated around 1,800 acres and at least nine slaves. His considerable household goods, livestock, and home-distilled or fermented beverages enabled him to provide hospitable entertainment for the frequent visitors in his community on church or public business. The inventory of his estate listed twenty-four books by title, principally of a religious nature, and suggest his intellectual preparation for his long and useful career.

The Reverend Morgan Edwards, who visited Thomas in 1772, recorded that his host was married about 1732 to Christenater Roberts (1712–96), the daughter of Thomas and Mary Roberts of Nansemond County. They had six children: the Reverend John, Jr., (1733–1807), who married (1) Patience Williams and (2) Elizabeth Jones; the Reverend Jonathan (1735–75), who married Mary Hilliard; Obedience (1737–88); Major Theophilus (1740–1803), who married Mary Rogers; Millicent (1742–before 1788); and Theresa (1744–ca. 1826), who married (1) the merchant Theophilus Hill and (2) Don Manuel Marchal of St. Augustine.

Roanoke River

Roanoke River is formed in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Montgomery County, Va., north of the city of Roanoke, by the junction of North Fork and South Fork; it then flows southeast into Warren County, N.C., north of Roanoke Rapids. From there it travels along the Halifax-Northampton, Halifax-Bertie, Bertie-Martin, and Bertie-Washington County lines into Batchelor Bay in the Albemarle Sound. The Roanoke River has appeared under a variety of names in North Carolina history, including Morattico River in 1657 and Noratake River in 1671, but Edward Moseley wrote the name ‘‘Roanoke River’’ on his map of 1733. The river was a source of water for the early settlements in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

The Roanoke is dammed several times along its course to form a series of reservoirs. In northeastern North Carolina, the river is impounded to constitute the Lake Gaston reservoir, which stretches north and reaches the John H. Kerr Dam in Virginia, which forms Kerr Lake. Other reservoirs include the Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Lake. The size of the Roanoke’s North Carolina watershed is 3,600 square miles; the total length of the river is about 410 miles. The river basin encompasses 37 municipalities in the state, including Henderson, Halifax, and Williamston. In the early 2000s the region had a population of more than 275,000. The Roanoke has benefited from conservation efforts by the Nature Conservancy, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, and other agencies and private organizations. It remains a vital habitat for large numbers of fish, birds, and mammals as well as a principal recreational area for North Carolinians and visitors to the state.

Image credit:

Hairr, John. 2005. "The Roanoke River near Weldon in Halifax County."

Rawls's Mill, Battle of

The Civil War battle at Rawls's Mill in Martin County took place on 2 Nov. 1862. Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, commander of Union forces in North Carolina, was leading his 5,000 soldiers from Washington, N.C., to Wilmington when attacked by Confederates under Col. Henry "Harry" King Burgwyn Jr. At Rawls's Mill, approximately six miles south of Williamston, Foster's infantry, artillery, and cavalry fought a spirited half-hour battle with Burgwyn's troops, which had far fewer men and neither artillery nor cavalry. The Confederates were driven from their works and across a bridge, burning it to prevent pursuit. Nevertheless, this encounter was a trying ordeal for the green Union recruits of such regiments as the 44th Massachusetts, which had been organized only 60 days previously.

About noon on 3 November, Foster's army arrived at Williamston. They expected another fight, but the town was nearly deserted. The troops plundered the town, destroying everything that could not be taken.

Martin County, located in North Carolina's Coastal Plain region, was formed from Halifax and Tyrrell Counties in 1774. It was named for Josiah Martin, the last royal governor of North Carolina. The county seat of Williamston (originally Squhawky or Skewarky) was incorporated in 1779; other communities include Oak City, Jamesville, Hamilton, Hassell, Gold Point, Parmele, Everetts, Robersonville, Bear Grass, and Darden.

The area that became Martin County was settled by English colonists early in the eighteenth century, supplanting the land's original Tuscarora Indian inhabitants. Williamston, the county's first incorporated town, developed along the banks of the Roanoke River as an important shipping hub for tar, turpentine, and other local products. Although later towns such as Jamesville and Hamilton were established along the river to participate in the thriving shipping business, Williamston continued to flourish as a trade center throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth with its integration into a network of railroads and highways.

The Confederate outpost Fort Branch is one of Martin County's popular tourist attractions, and the Roanoke River and its surrounding lowlands provide an abundance of opportunities for hunting and fishing. Tobacco, peanuts, corn, soybeans, and cotton are produced in Martin County, and its manufactured products include paper, farm machinery, and textiles. In 2004 Martin County's estimated population was 24,700.

Llewelyn Conspiracy

Between the destruction of the Tory, or Loyalist, forces at Moore's Creek Bridge on 27 Feb. 1776 and the arrival of the British army of Lord Charles Cornwallis in September 1780, there was only scattered overt Tory resistance to the revolutionary government of North Carolina. One exception during those years was a clandestine plot known as the Llewelyn Conspiracy (also called the "Gourd Patch Affair" or "Tory Plot"), which involved a group of people opposed to the American cause on the grounds that Anglican dominance of North Carolina's affairs would be undermined in a revolution. The conspirators knew that the 1776 state constitution removed the privileges that the Anglican Church had held as the colony's established church. Further, in their distrust of the revolutionaries' intentions, they thought that an alliance with France would result in the imposition of Catholicism and the destruction of Protestant congregations throughout the colonies. The conspirators had also heard about the deistic position of some revolutionary leaders and questioned their intentions regarding Christianity in general.

The central figure in the conspiracy was John Llewelyn, a Martin County planter and justice of the peace. By March 1777 Llewelyn, his son William, and James Rawlins, an Anglican lay reader, had written a "constitution" (now lost) that outlined the aims of their organization and had begun looking for recruits to join their underground group. Most of the plotters planned to aid deserters and draft resisters, secretly obtain and store small amounts of gunpowder and lead, and wait to join the British troops that were sure to reach North Carolina in good time. Llewelyn himself had a more ambitious, and violent, agenda. He planned the assassinations of prominent Whig leaders in the region, including several acquaintances, and wanted to make a raid on Halifax to capture Governor Richard Caswell and the state magazine. To draw American troops away from Halifax, he intended to spark a slave revolt with the aid of a Loyalist slave patroller.

Instead, on 4 June 1777, the slave patroller gave revolutionary leaders important, if incomplete, information about Llewelyn's plans that seems to have provided their first knowledge of the conspiracy. Two weeks later another conspirator, William May Jr., came forth with more information, naming William Tyler, who was arrested the next day carrying papers regarding the more violent plans. That night at the gourd patch, Llewelyn's group laid plans to free May and Tyler from jail using powder they had obtained from Daniel Southerland, a Loyalist merchant in Tarboro.

In July about 30 conspirators were caught and disarmed while attempting to attack Tarboro and release May from jail. This failure was the high-water mark of the conspiracy. Most of the other known conspirators were arrested or gave themselves up. In all, about 90 people were implicated in the plot, most of whom were from Martin, Tyrrell, Hyde, Edgecombe, or Bertie Counties.

In the trials at Edenton, the revolutionary government was lenient with the conspirators. Most of them made depositions to the court, agreed to take the state loyalty oath and submit to militia service, and were never charged with a crime. Charges were dropped against most of the 18 who were tried. But Llewelyn was convicted of treason in September 1777 and sentenced to be hanged. Numerous requests for clemency came from friends, relatives, and even the presiding judge in his trial. Governor Caswell later pardoned him, and Llewelyn lived peacefully until his death in 1794.

Hill's Ferry

Hill's Ferry, from before the Revolutionary War and into the early twentieth century, was a crossing point on the Roanoke River along the road from the Rocky Mount and Tarboro area northeast to Suffolk and Tidewater Virginia. The 1733 Moseley map shows the road from "Tarburg" crossing the Roanoke at this location, as do the 1770 Collet and 1775 Mouzon maps. Most later maps of this area give the name Hill's Ferry (even into the 1920s), although Solomon Cherry's 1877 map incorrectly locates it several miles upriver.

The ferry was built and operated by wealthy revolutionary Patriot and legislator Whitmel Hill (1743-97) on his lands in what were then Martin and Bertie Counties. It was located at the tip of a large western bend of the Roanoke, about a half mile east of the present-day town of Palmyra and about seven miles from Scotland Neck near the modern boundary between Martin and Halifax Counties. Hill's grandson, Whitmel Hill Anthony (1810-51), owned a large warehouse and shipping business in the area, and for a few years it was called Anthony's Ferry (remains of the warehouse were still visible in the 1930s). There is a written record of army movements at Hill's Ferry during both the Revolution and the Civil War.

The Roanoke River at the site of Hill's Ferry is deep enough for commercial boat traffic. Hill operated a commercial fleet between the coastal plain fall line upstream at Weldon and the Albemarle Sound, and some vessels could even sail on to the West Indies. In 1785 the General Assembly acted to establish the town of Blountville with a public wharf on land east of the Roanoke donated by Hill. The town was named to honor the family of his wife, Winifred Blount, whose roots led back to the Anglo-Saxon King Alfred the Great (871-99). But the settlement never had more than a few structures, and its name is rarely found in written records. Today, the community of Palmyra, named for Hill's plantation there, sits on or near where Blountville was laid out.

There are likely two major reasons why Hill's Ferry and Blountville did not prosper beyond their immediate area. There is no evidence of mail routes crossing the Roanoke there, and no sizable towns arose anywhere to the east of the ferry in Bertie. Most commerce with the Tidewater areas of North Carolina and Virginia passed north of the region, while commerce with Edenton and other North Carolina ports went farther south. With these patterns set by the end of the eighteenth century, the railroad lines that later followed passed the area by. The state's highway system has never found the need to maintain a bridge or road at the site, which today is accessible only by walking through planters' fields.

Cherry, Annie Moore

By Ralph Hardee Rives, 1979

21 Sept. 1891–1 Feb. 1976

Annie Moore Cherry, educator, daughter of William Rodney and Elizabeth Eleanor Moore Cherry, was born in Martin County but spent most of her early life in Hobgood and Scotland Neck, Halifax County, where she received her earliest education. She was graduated from the State Normal and Industrial School, now The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, in 1912 and in 1927 received the master of arts degree in education from Columbia University; afterwards she did further graduate work at Columbia, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Duke University.

Miss Cherry's first teaching position was in Dunn, where she remained for four years. After brief service as rural elementary school supervisor for Harnett County, she became the first full-time rural elementary school supervisor in Halifax County in 1918 where she remained until 1933. During that time she worked with local home demonstration agents to develop hot lunch programs for rural schools and with educational personnel to introduce progressive teaching techniques. In 1921 she and Alonzo E. Akers, county school superintendent, wrote the script and directed teachers and pupils of the county in the presentation in Weldon of a pageant, The Spirit of the Roanoke, A Pageant of Halifax County History . Elizabeth Lay (Mrs. Paul) Green, who assisted in the production, termed the pageant "a worthy pioneer in North Carolina in Rural Community Drama by co-operative authorship."

Miss Cherry, after several years during which she was engaged in research with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, joined the faculty of Flora MacDonald College in Red Springs as professor of education and supervisor of student teachers in the elementary grades. She also taught in summer school at Western Carolina University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, and The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She frequently spoke before state and national educational organizations and was the author of a number of bulletins on school supervision. She was the third woman to serve as president of the North Carolina Education Association. She was both a trustee and president of the alumnae association of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro as well as a trustee of the Consolidated University of North Carolina. She was a member of Delta Kappa Gamma, honorary sorority for women educators.

Although she was a member of Enfield United Methodist Church she was buried in Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery, Scotland Neck.

Blunt (or Blount), Tom

by F. Roy Johnson

ca. 1675-ca. 1739

Tom Blunt (or Blount), a head chief and king of the North Carolina Tuscarora Indians, of obscure parentage, lived in the Upper Towns. During his time these numbered seven and formed one of three confederacies of the Tuscarora nation; they were located in the upper coastal plains on the Tar and Roanoke rivers and their tributaries and were frequented by Virginia traders during Blunt's boyhood. In a matrilineal society, he rose to political power, as a member of the bear clan, through his mother and her people. Whether because of blood ties or admiration, his name is the same as that of two Englishmen, Thomas Blount of Chowan Precinct in North Carolina and Tom Blunt, who from 1691 to 1703 served as Virginia's official interpreter to the Indians south of the James River. Blunt acquired a speaking knowledge of English.

The English of Carolina in particular were indebted to Tom Blunt for minimizing the Tuscarora War of 1711-13, by leading the Upper Towns on a neutral course, and for keeping the peace on the frontier for a quarter of a century afterward. By 1711 he was in high repute throughout the Tuscarora nation. The head men of the hostile towns consulted him as to what should be done with Christoph de Graffenried and John Lawson.

Virginia claimed much of the credit for keeping Blunt neutral during the war. His people had become dependent on Virginia traders: they had abandoned their bows, and control of their powder supply controlled their take of game for food and skins. After Virginia invoked trade restrictions, Governor Thomas Pollock of North Carolina wrote Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia that Blunt was "very earnest for peace and to have trade as formerly." And de Graffenried, who credited Blunt with saving his life, said that this king and chief was "full of sense" and much inclined toward the English.

Near the end of the Tuscarora War, Blunt was persuaded to assist the English by bringing in King Hancock, ringleader of the 1711 massacre, for execution and by taking nearly thirty scalps of other leaders and enemies.

Immediately after the Indian hostilities had been crushed, the North Carolina council recognized Blunt for his faithfulness and good service and made him chief of all Indians to the south of the Pamlico River. About three thousand of the Tuscarora had survived the war. Of these, about one thousand subjected themselves to Blunt, and the remainder fled beyond the frontier and began migrating to the North. So reduced in strength, the Tuscaroras under Blunt found themselves exposed and open to attack by the Catawbas and other enemy Indians. In 1717, for greater safety, the North Carolina council permitted them to settle on their old Skanwaknee hunting grounds north of the Roanoke River in present Bertie County. Here they established two towns, one of which was Resootska, or "to our grandfather," named in honor of King Blunt.

The English treated Blunt as an absolute monarch. The few matters of misconduct of his Indians were taken directly to him, and he acted effectively to preserve the peace. In 1723 he informed the council that a group of northern Indians were expected that fall "to seduce the young men of the nation from him in order to Comit mischief." Following the Indian custom of hospitality, Blunt gave the unwanted visitors food and shelter, and they did no injury to the English of North Carolina.

Within a few years, Blunt, on the threshhold of old age, saw his nation weakening. Whites, hungry for land, began to encroach upon his reservation; by 1731 northern Indians had enticed away all but six hundred of his people; and an undetermined number had left to work for the whites.

Blunt was dead before 5 Mar. 1739. At this time the great men of the Tuscarora nation petitioned the North Carolina council to elect a new king.

Of the king's family, we know that his wife and two of his children and a sister's son were captured by the Meherrin Indians during the Tuscarora War and redeemed for him by the Carolina government.

Biggs, Asa

4 Feb. 1811–6 Mar. 1878

Asa Biggs, jurist and senator, was born in Williamston, Martin County, the son of Joseph Biggs, a merchant and Primitive Baptist preacher, and his third wife, Chloe Daniel. His grandfather, Joseph Biggs, had come from Virginia as the first of the family to settle in Martin County. Educated at Williamston Academy, a school established in 1820 in large part through the efforts of his father, Asa Biggs entered mercantile work as a clerk at the age of fifteen. Two years later he was engaged by Henry Williams to manage a mercantile firm in Williamston. After reading law, he was admitted to the bar in 1831 and opened a law office in Williamston.

Though not a candidate, Biggs was elected to the House of Commons in 1840. Reelected in 1842, he left the Whig party, which his ancestors had supported and became a leader of the Democratic faction in the assembly. He was elected to the state senate in 1844 and was nominated without his knowledge in 1845 to run for David Outlaw's seat in the House of Representatives. Although he won that election, he was defeated by Outlaw in 1847, in the only election he lost in his political career. In 1848 he was a presidential elector on the Cass-Butler ticket, and in 1854 he returned to the state senate to represent the district comprised of Martin and Washington counties. In the same year he was elected to the U.S. Senate by the legislature. Never happy in the Senate, he accepted an appointment offered by President Buchanan in 1858 as federal district judge. An ardent supporter of slavery and states' rights, he approved of secession and resigned his federal position in 1861 to take a seat in the Secession Convention. He served as a Confederate district judge from June 1861 until the end of the Civil War.

Biggs stressed economy and efficiency in government and opposed any measure that he thought interfered with individual liberty. Disagreeing with the Whig party's support for internal improvements, he joined the Democratic party and aligned himself with the faction opposing federal expenditures that could lead to governmental control over personal affairs. When a young man he had supported Andrew Jackson, but as a delegate to the state constitutional convention of 1835, he voted with the planter interests he represented in the eastern part of the state. Appointed to the Finance Committee and the Committee on Territories in the U.S. Senate, he was in a position to work for issues, such as economy in government and the right to own slaves, that he considered essential in protecting the individual from governmental interference. Feeling somewhat inadequately trained for political life in Washington, however, he was more comfortable in antebellum political and judicial circles in his state.

As a prominent lawyer in the eastern part of the state, Biggs was selected to represent the trustees of The University of North Carolina from 1839 to 1851 in cases involving the university's share in estates of citizens dying intestate. His increasing reputation as a lawyer, together with his reputation as a politician whose principles usually took precedence over political expediency, led to his appointment by Governor John W. Ellis to join Bartholomew F. Moore in codifying the laws of his state. The Moore and Biggs Code, adopted in 1854, formed the basic legal document of the state until Reconstruction. He was again called upon in 1858 to exercise his legal and organizational ability, when he was appointed a federal judge. Succeeding Henry Potter, who had been appointed by Jefferson in 1801, he found that the district court over which he was to preside had languished during the last years of Potter's tenure and that extensive reorganization was necessary if the court were to operate efficiently.

Though a politician himself, Biggs felt strongly that the courts should remain free from both political control and involvement in politics. In 1869, therefore, he joined a number of lawyers in the state in formally protesting what they considered improper interference in political matters by the judges of the state supreme court. The court responded during its June term by requiring these lawyers to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for publicly expressing their criticisms. The judges further stipulated that no lawyer who had signed the protest could practice in the court until he had apologized for his statements. Refusing to recant and responding to financial difficulties brought on by the war, Biggs moved to Norfolk, Va., where he, with his brother Kader, organized a mercantile house. He also entered into a law practice with W. N. H. Smith, who later became chief justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Biggs was married on 26 June 1832 to Martha Elizabeth Andrews, who bore him ten children, six of whom survived him. One of his three sons, Henry, was killed at Appomattox on 8 Apr. 1865. Another, William, also served in the Confederate Army and later became editor of the Oxford (N.C.) Free Lance. Biggs's other children included Asa Thomas, Lucy E., Patricia, and Cottie. Never wealthy, he often despaired of being able to provide for his large family. He moved to Dalkeith in 1863 to settle on land he had acquired there; after the war he practiced law in Tarboro until he moved to Norfolk. A devoutly religious man, he experienced a religious conversion and described it in an autobiography written for his children in 1865 (published in 1915 by the North Carolina Historical Commission). He died in Norfolk and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery there. A portrait was presented to the federal court in Raleigh.

Ross, Martin

27 Nov. 1762–2 Feb. 1828

Martin Ross, Baptist minister, was born in Martin County, the son of William and Mary Griffin Ross. His ancestors had emigrated from Scotland to Virginia, and his father moved from there to North Carolina. Martin had four sisters and five brothers, two of whom, Reuben and James, also became Baptist ministers. Nothing is known of his education, but biographers mention his service in the American Revolution.

In January 1782 Ross became a member of Flat Swamp Baptist Church and was baptized by John Page. Two years later the same church granted him a license to preach. In 1786 a branch of Flat Swamp church worshiping at Skewarkey Meeting House in Martin County chose Ross as its pastor. On 26 Mar. 1787 Skewarkey was constituted as a separate church, and Ross was ordained as its first pastor by Lemuel Burkett and John Page. During this pastorate he also reorganized and served as pastor of Morattock Baptist Church. Much to the regret of the Skewarkey church, he took his letter of dismissal in 1796 and moved to Yeoppim Baptist Church, ten miles west of Edenton in Chowan County. He continued in this charge until 1806, when he was called to the church at Bethel in Perquimans County, "a church which had been formed by his own hand." He served as pastor of Bethel until his death in 1828.

Ross preached widely in northeastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia. He was a vigorous and highly respected leader, first in the Kehukee Association and then in the Chowan Association, and a staunch advocate of training for ministers and for cooperation among the churches. One biographer mentions the progressive aspects of his work as "1. An improved ministry; 2. Missions; and 3. Organized effort." He was a prime mover in organizing the General Meeting of Correspondence (1811–21), the forerunner of the Baptist State Convention, and was strongly advocating the organization of the convention at the time of his death.

He married Mrs. Deborah Clayton Moore, widow of James Moore, who died in 1796. Ross's second marriage was to Mrs. Mary Harvey, widow of Miles Harvey. She and a son both died in 1825. Ross had two other sons: Asher, who never married, and Martin, Jr., who married Eliza Townsend.

With the death of his second wife and son, Ross's health began to decline, and he was unable to do the work of corresponding with other associations in North Carolina with a view to forming a state convention. After his death he was buried near his wife on his farm near Hertford (owned by John O. White in 1931).

Joyner, Andrew

5 Nov. 1786–20 Sept. 1856

Andrew Joyner, legislator and army officer, was born in Halifax County, the son of Henry (d. 1803) and Menie Troughton Joyner. An able legislator and promoter of internal affairs in state government, Andrew Joyner represented Martin County in the House of Commons from 1811 to 1813. During the War of 1812, he served for two years as a second major in the Third North Carolina Regiment of volunteers; in 1814 he was transferred to a new division and there made lieutenant colonel of the First Regiment. After the war he returned to his native county.

In 1826 Joyner and Cadwallader Jones formed the Roanoke Steamboat Company, which saw the first steamboat travel up the Roanoke River to Halifax on 15 Apr. 1829. In 1835 Joyner's Roanoke Navigation Company built the canal from Danville, Va., to Weldon—Weldon Orchard being an important railroad junction for the canal. Joyner was also president of the Seaboard and Roanoke and the Weldon and Portsmouth railroads.

From 1835 to 1852 he served in the North Carolina Senate, of which he was speaker three times (1838, 1840, 1846). As a Whig, Joyner promoted internal improvements in the legislature. In the 1836–37 session, he served on the Joint Committee of Twenty-Six (15 Whigs and 11 Democrats) to advise on the use of surplus revenues. Influenced by Dorothea Dix, he also supported a bill to establish a state school for the deaf, dumb, and blind in Raleigh.

Joyner was a trustee of The University of North Carolina for nineteen years (1836–56). In January 1839, he, David L. Swain, and William A. Graham formed a committee that reported in favor of providing new halls for the Dialectic and Philanthropic literary societies, especially for housing their growing libraries. Admired for his fairness and integrity, Joyner also served as a justice of the peace and an arbitrator in local disputes. His judicial endeavors earned his residence the name of "Colonel Joyner's Court of Equity."

By his first wife, Temperance Williams, the daughter of Colonel William Williams of Martin County, Joyner had five children: Elizabeth (m. the Revered Robert Oswald Burton); Henry, a physician (m. Ann Elizabeth Pope); Martha Williams (m. Colonel Archibald Alexander Austin and later, in 1856 in Halifax County, Francis P. Haywood); Temperance (m. Dr. Willie Jones Eppes of Virginia); and Mary Camilla (m. William A. Daniel in 1850 in Warren County). In the fall of 1839, he married Sarah Wales Burton, the widow of Governor Hutchins G. Burton and the daughter of Willie and Mary Montford Jones of Halifax.

Joyner was baptized and confirmed in 1852 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Halifax. He was buried in the family cemetery at his plantation, Poplar Grove, four miles west of Weldon.

Bryan, Henry H.

d. 7 May 1835

See also: Joseph Hunter Bryan, brother

Henry H. Bryan, congressman, was born in Martin County and attended local schools before moving to Tennessee. He married Milly Taylor 13 June 1799; they were the parents of a son and a daughter, Henry H. and Mariana T., who married William Dortch. In Tennessee, Bryan held several local offices and on 21 May 1808 was commissioned captain of the Twenty-fourth Regiment, Tennessee Militia (Montgomery County). On 29 Dec. 1808 he was promoted to first major.

Bryan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Montgomery County, Tenn., in 1818 and served in the Sixteenth Congress (1819–21). He was appointed to the Committee on Private Land Claims and is recorded as introducing three petitions: two from constituents seeking compensation and one for a post road in Montgomery County. There is no further record of any action taken by him in Congress. He was reelected to the following session but did not qualify.

Bryan died in Montgomery County, the owner of eleven slaves and extensive property. His sole heir was his daughter, but at a sale of some of his possessions, five different persons named Bryan made purchases.

Chance, William Claudius, Sr.

23 Nov. 1880–7 May 1970

William Claudius Chance, Sr., educator and humanitarian, was born in Parmele. His parents were W. V. and Alice Chance; his grandparents, who reared him, were Bryant and Penethia Chance; all were former slaves. Brought up on a small farm in poverty-stricken Martin County, Chance set out at an early age to improve his living conditions. After struggling through high school, while working on the farm, he entered North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro. Four years later he was graduated with honors with an A. B. degree in agriculture. He received additional education from Howard University in Washington, D.C., spending four years there, of which the last year was devoted to the study of law. He earned other credits, intermittently, from Hampton Institute in Hampton, Va., North Carolina College at Durham, and La Salle University in Chicago, Ill.

It was after attending Howard's law school that Chance became impressed with the idea of building a school to improve the plight of blacks in Martin County. Upon returning to Parmele in 1909 he witnessed, among other deficiencies, the dreadful condition of the only local school for blacks. This school had one room, sixty pupils, one teacher, and a $160 annual appropriation from the state for its operation. To help remedy this situation, he founded a private school, using his home and a community church as the facilities. Serving as principal and one of the three teachers, he initially attracted about thirty students. For two years the teachers, mostly without salaries, provided a practical education, emphasizing agriculture, industrial and mechanical arts, and domestic science.

Chance's school was the first in Martin County to initiate a longer school term, eight months yearly. Later, in 1911, the black public school and his private school merged to become Parmele Industrial Institute, a public school, of which Chance was chosen principal. With the aid of such distinguished people as U.S. Representative John H. Small and Dr. Anson Phelps Stokes, secretary of Yale University, he was able to attract enough funds to erect the first brick school building in Martin County in 1914. Expanding from year to year, Parmele Industrial Institute had by 1948 experienced substantial growth. In that year the school had 460 students, 12 teachers, 78 veterans enrolled in the veteran trade school, and 4 buildings. Five years later the enrollment had increased to 600 students, 200 veterans, 15 regular teachers, and 5 additional teachers for the veterans. Because of Chance's devotion to his school throughout the years, the community changed the name of the school to W. C. Chance High School. Under his leadership, the school in 1948 had the highest percentage of graduating seniors entering college (70 percent) of any school in Martin County (the average was 50 percent). Many of his former students rose to become attorneys, doctors, college presidents, college deans, businessmen, ministers, school principals, and teachers.

Having achieved many of his goals, Chance retired in 1951. Four years later a fire destroyed most of the school complex, although classes continued to be held in the elementary school building until 1969.

Although he was going into retirement, Chance by no means was destined for inactivity. Realizing the inequities in the white and black schools in Martin County, he was instrumental in organizing black parents behind Attorney Herman L. Taylor of Raleigh, who filed a petition with the board of education in 1951. This petition demanded either equality in the distribution of appropriations to the school system or integration. It was alleged in the petition that more money, teachers, and buses were given to the white than the black schools, although 53 percent of the students in the county were black. Although no immediate remedies for the problems resulted, the petition did serve notice that Chance and other blacks were ready for some drastic social changes.

Chance became perhaps more widely known for his successful challenge of the Jim Crow policy on the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. He filed suit to recover damages from the railroad on the grounds that because of his race, he was wrongfully ejected from a railroad car on 25 June 1948 in Emporia, Va., and subsequently subjected to unlawful arrest and imprisonment in connection with this ejection. At the time of the incident he was returning from a business trip in Philadelphia, Pa. Between July 1948 and November 1952, four court actions were heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which ruled in favor of Chance and outlawed the Jim Crow policy in interstate travel.

Having won such a significant victory at the age of seventy-two, Chance still remained active in community affairs. He was a Presbyterian and a member of the NAACP and the Republican party.

Chance was married twice: in 1917 to Evelyn Payton, who died in 1927; and in 1929 to Julia Johnson, who died on 8 Mar. 1972. He had seven children; William C., Jr., attorney in New York City; Warren C., teacher in New York City; Anson G., of the Seaboard Coastline Railway; Harold P., former teacher in New York, now deceased; Mrs. Anice C. Wilson, executive director of Hopkins House Association in Alexandria, Va.; Wilbur J., former school principal in Caroline County, Va., now deceased; and Edward A., psychiatric social worker and director of social services at Spring Grove State Hospital in Baltimore, Md.

Chance died in Lynchburg, Va., while visiting his daughter and ailing wife, a patient in Guggenheimer Hospital. His body was returned to Bethel for burial about four miles from his birthplace in Parmele.

Kerr, Washington Caruthers

24 May 1827–9 Aug. 1885

Washington Caruthers Kerr, geologist, was born in eastern Guilford County in the Alamance Creek–Alamance Church region. His Scotch-Irish parents were William M. Kerr, a small farmer, and Euphence B. Doak, who reportedly possessed unusual mechanical talent. When "W. C." was a small child, the family moved to the Haw River area in western Orange County, which in 1849 became the eastern section of the new county of Alamance. His father died about 1835 and his mother in 1840, leaving four sons and two daughters. W. C., quick and bright, was the namesake of the family's pastor, the Reverend Eli Washington Caruthers. Indeed, Caruthers was then the state's outstanding Presbyterian as well as principal of a good preparatory school in Guilford County. Cared for and guided by his mentor, young Kerr entered the sophomore class at The University of North Carolina and was graduated in 1850 with highest honors. He taught for one year at Williamston in Martin County, and for another year at Marshall University in northeastern Texas.

In 1852 Kerr was appointed as a computer in the office of the Nautical Almanac at Cambridge, Mass., and held the post for almost five years. He also studied at the Lawrence Scientific School and came in contact at Harvard University with such luminaries as Louis Agassiz, naturalist, and Asa Gray, botanist. Between 1857 and 1862 he served as professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology at Davidson College, teaching upper-level courses. One of his students recalled in later years: "We used to call him 'Steam Engine,' instead of Kerr, such was his promptness to time and rapid motion." Another remembered: "He was a man of small physical stature,—with massive forehead whose amplitude was increased by baldness and his way of wearing his hair. His face was thin and intellectual—his eyes blue and piercing . . . his voice . . . clear and penetrating. He . . . could not brook shamming or laziness. His rebukes were often cutting—always deserved." Kerr's contribution to the Confederacy (1862–64) was as chemist and superintendent of the Mecklenburg Salt Company at Mount Pleasant, S.C., near Charleston; he improved the manufacturing process and cut the cost of firewood by half.

Governor Zebulon B. Vance appointed Kerr state geologist in 1864, but conditions in North Carolina during the final year of the Civil War precluded either systematic work or a salary. In 1866 he was reappointed by Governor Jonathan Worth. Kerr evaluated in Raleigh the "geological reconnaissance" performed by Chapel Hill professors Denison Olmsted and Elisha Mitchell in the 1820s (the first state survey in the nation), and the more detailed survey of state geologist Ebenezer Emmons during the 1850s. Neither, however, covered adequately the western quarter of the state, where most of the mineral resources were located. With an eye on economic development, Kerr concluded that the region beyond the Catawba River merited particular attention, and that an accurate geographic and topographical map of North Carolina should be produced.

Although not a trained specialist, Kerr was a keen observer and hard worker. His first official report stated that he had traveled, "mainly in the saddle," 1,700 miles in less than four months; his second, 4,000 miles in eleven months. The legislature appropriated only $5,000 annually for all geologic operations, which meant that Kerr could have no permanent assistants. Nevertheless, by 1870 his own statewide survey was ready for publication. The lawmakers, however, placed so low a priority on the work that it did not appear until 1875—a major frustration. Kerr's 325-page Report of the Geological Survey of North Carolina concentrated on topography, climate, geology, soils, fertilizers, and ores. His large fold-out geologic map was tinted in five colors by Mrs. Cornelia Phillips Spencer of Chapel Hill. The base for this map was that of the federal Coast Survey. After fifteen years of intermittent labor, Kerr in 1882 had calculated his own base, thus providing by far the most accurate map of North Carolina up to that time.

As state geologist he touched every county and, when not in the saddle, employed buggy, spring wagon, boat, handcar, or train. Always he collected specimens for the state museum in Raleigh. His correspondence was voluminous, his conferences frequent, his popular talks and articles many. He was a leading member of the state Board of Agriculture, lectured regularly on geology and related sciences at The University of North Carolina, and prepared displays of the state's resources for expositions both at home and abroad. A respectable number of his professional papers were read before, and published by, several scientific societies.

Kerr made two important theoretical contributions to geologic science. He was first in the United States to explain a phenomenon that many North Carolinians and South Carolinians had often noticed: along rivers flowing from west to east, their south banks presented bluffs and high ground, their north banks low plains and swamps. Citing Ferrel's "law of motion" (1859), Kerr deduced that this condition resulted from the coordinate action of stream flow and rotation of the earth. He was also first to describe the alternate freezing and thawing that produced "deep movement and bedded arrangement of loose materials on slopes," even very slight slopes—a "frost drift" analagous to "glacial drift." But his belief that glaciation occurred as far south as North Carolina was not accepted.

The satisfactions of his work were countered by certain vexations. Chief among them was the periodic meeting of the legislature and the inevitable confrontation between the state geologist, who favored plans for long-range economic development, and legislators, who expected immediate results for funds appropriated. To Kerr it was "real torture." Never robust, his health gradually deteriorated (from catarrah of the digestive organs) after age forty. Yet this period witnessed his greatest productivity. An associate declared that Kerr was "often impatient, often despondent" but "clung to his work, impelled and sustained by nervous energy alone."

In August 1882 he resigned his position to join the U.S. Geological Survey; some of his duties were in Appalachia, some in Washington. While in Washington, he prepared a report on the cotton production and general agriculture of North Carolina and Virginia for the Tenth Census, and wrote the article "North Carolina" for the ninth edition (1884) of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Finally his failing health persuaded him to give up regular work, resign from the Geological Survey, and spend summers in Asheville and winters in Tampa, Fla. The Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society at Chapel Hill elected him president in 1884, and the university honored him with the Ph.D. in 1879 and the LL.D. in 1885. During his lifetime Kerr was almost the only North Carolina-born scientist active in the state. His great service was to open the eyes of the people to their own natural resources, especially minerals. He died, of consumption, at Asheville and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh.

Kerr married Emma Hall of Iredell County in 1853. Their three children were William Hall, automatic-bagging inventor and manufacturer; Alice Spencer, a teacher who died of consumption at twenty-one; and Lizzie, who married Professor George F. Atkinson of Chapel Hill. In a letter to Lizzie from Burnsville dated 17 Nov. 1882, Professor Kerr, as most people called him, unconsciously left a portrait of himself: "I came in here Monday morning from Grandfather [Mountain], Tuesday went to Tom Wilsons, Wednesday to top of [Mount] Mitchell. Ground frozen hard & ice in path to top, & little lines of snow in the furrows of the rocks & whitening the top branches of the balsam trees. Day pleasant . . . I have taken board for party at Ray's, 4 men & 4 horses."

Everett, Reuben Oscar

20 Oct. 1879–27 Apr. 1971

Reuben Oscar Everett, attorney and civic and cultural leader, was born at Hamilton, Martin County, the son of Justus and Elizabeth Purvis Everett. Shortly afterwards he moved with his family to their plantation home, Swamplawn, near Palmyra, where his father was a large planter. After completing his early education at Vine Hill Academy in Scotland Neck, Everett attended The University of North Carolina where he held various class offices and was graduated in 1903. He studied law in the first class at Trinity College while he taught at Durham High School. Later he continued the study of law and other subjects at the summer schools of Columbia University and Harvard University.

Immediately after obtaining his law license in 1905, Everett began practicing in Durham. He was the first Durham city attorney and the first prosecuting attorney in Durham Recorder's Court (1921–33). He also was the first attorney (1906) for and later secretary of the Durham Merchants Association, which he helped form. In 1926, he became an early member of the American Law Institute and later was a life member. He was admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Military Appeals, federal district courts, and North Carolina state courts. By then he was president of the Durham Bar Association; a senior member of the North Carolina Bar Association and American Bar Association, with which he was affiliated from 1913 until his death; and a member of the judicial district bar. His law partners included former Governor W. W. Kitchin and former Attorney General James S. Manning.

On 24 June 1926 Everett married Kathrine Robinson, of Fayetteville, who was then one of the few women attorneys in North Carolina. Their only child, Robinson Oscar Everett, was born on 18 Mar. 1928; he subsequently was associated with his parents in the practice of law under the name of Everett, Everett & Everett. The senior Everett was devoted to his profession and never retired from it, actually dying in his office at the age of ninety-two.

Everett and three of his brothers, Justus, Benjamin B., and Alphonso, served in the North Carolina General Assembly. R. O. Everett served five terms in the state house of representatives between 1921 and 1933. His public service also included membership on the board of trustees of The University of North Carolina for twenty years. He served as chairman of the Durham County Board of Elections for a decade (when he initiated the use of voting machines there), of the Durham-Orange Historical Commission for many years, and of the Bennett Place Memorial Commission from 1923 until his death. Everett was a commissioner for North Carolina, a representative of the American Cotton Association to the World Cotton Conference in Europe (1921), and president of the North Carolina State Fair. He also was one of the state's delegates to the Democratic National conventions at San Francisco, Calif. (1920), and Houston, Tex. (1928). At the latter he made a nominating speech for Cordell Hull, who later became secretary of state in Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration.

Long active in the civic and religious affairs of the community, Everett, an Episcopalian, was a member of St. Phillips Episcopal Church in Durham, the Knights of Phythias, the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, the North Carolina Society of County and Local Historians, and the English Speaking Union. As chairman of the Bennett Place Memorial Commission, he headed the restoration of the Bennett Place in 1965. In addition, as chairman of the George Washington Statue Commission, he was instrumental in placing the present statue in the capitol rotunda in Raleigh, an event that received national publicity. Earlier he traveled to Italy to examine the model for the statue of George Washington made by Antonio Canova in 1820. The original was destroyed by a fire in the North Carolina capitol in 1831.

Everett was chief marshal for the North Carolina State Fair, and a street in West Raleigh and a street in Durham were named in his honor. A suggestion by him is credited with leading to the establishment of the Sir Walter Cabinet in North Carolina, a society for wives of legislators and chief state administrators. He was active in marking and preserving points of historical interest in North Carolina. Widely known by persons in all walks of life, he participated in many projects for the good of his community, state, and nation. He assisted in forming the Legal Aid Society in North Carolina, and for his work in bettering race relations he received a special award from the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs.

He was buried in Cross Creek Cemetery, Fayetteville.