Category: History

Founded in 1792 McBride Church, east of South Mills in the Pearceville community of Camden County, is the “mother church” of Methodism in northeastern North Carolina.  The Moseley map of 1733 shows a chapel on the site (Forke Chappel).  The site originally hosted a chapel belonging to the Church of England (in time Episcopalian).  After the Revolution the fortunes of that chapel, not unlike that of other Anglican houses of worship, declined.  Bishop Thomas Coke preached at the church on a number of occasions and Bishop Francis Asbury preached on the site in 1788.

 The name Forke Chapel continued to be used until 1800 when the present name was adopted, presumably for Elisha McBride, one of the founders.  Prominent families associated with the church include members of the Halstead, Pearce, Taylor, Sawyer, Abbott, Forehand, Gordon, Jones, McCoy, McPherson, Spence, Whitehurst, and Williams families.

The 1792 deed transferred a half-acre from Jeremiah Sexton to Elisha McBride and Joshua Gambling on behalf of the Methodists worshippers.  The document took note of the “purpose of finishing and keeping in repair a house of worship for the joint use of the Methodist Society and the Episcopal Church of America.”  The transfer terms called for Sexton and his heirs to receive “one grain of Indian corn” every year as payment.  The present building was erected in 1837 and remodeled in 1882.

References:
Camden County Deed Book F, page 79
William L. Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina
Walter Clark, ed., State Records of North Carolina
Grady L. E. Carroll, ed., Francis Asbury in North Carolina:  The North Carolina Portions of the Journal of Francis Asbury, vols. I and II (1965)

Location: US 17 Business and NC 343 at South Mills

 William Reed (ca. 1670-1728) began serving as a Proprietor’s deputy and member of the Council in 1712, and from October 7, 1722 until his death was President of the Council.  As president, he served in the capacity of acting governor from the time of his selection until George Burrington’s arrival in January 1724.  Little is known about Reed’s early life or, in fact, his personal life in general, since there were several William Reeds in the colony at the time and it is difficult to distinguish them in extant records.  Reed was married twice; the first wife was named Christian and the second, Jane.  With his wife Christian, he had two sons, Christian and Joseph, and with Jane he had William.

It has been presumed that the William Reed who appears as a witness in Currituck Precinct court in 1692 and as a juror in 1697 was the future acting governor.  It is likely the same William Reed who was chosen as a vestryman for the Church of England in the Currituck Precinct in 1715.  Governor Charles Eden appointed Reed and two other men to the Virginia-North Carolina Boundary Line Commission on October 30, 1718.  While the group began the dividing line survey the following year, the dispute over the line was not settled until 1729, after Reed’s death.

William Reed’s tenure as acting governor was relatively uneventful.  He seems to have fulfilled the duties of his office, as well as participated in some land speculation.  There was a complaint in a 1726 report of the Committee of Grievances, Pasquotank Precinct, claiming that in 1724 Reed levied and collected an unfair tax and assumed the power to appoint commissioners and assessors.  When Burrington took the oath of office in 1724, Reed continued as President of the Council.

As President, Reed did not get along with either of the proprietary governors with whom he served.  He also had grievances with several of the councillors.  While not, to judge from surviving records, overly combative, Reed did not tolerate disrespect from the council, demanding on one occasion to be referred to as President Reed instead of Mr. Reed.  Despite quarrels William Reed served as President of the Council until his death in 1728.  There is even a letter to the king in which he and the council complain about the state of North Carolina’s government at the hands of Sir Richard Everard that was dated and sent the day after his death.  He was contentious until the end.  Reed died at his home in Pasquotank County on December 11, 1728.

References:
Robert J. Cain, Colonial Records of North Carolina, Records of the Executive Council 1664-1734, Series 2, VII (1984)
J. R. B. Hathaway, North Carolina Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol. I, No. 1 (January 1900)
William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, V, 187-188—sketch by Vernon O. Stumpf
Location: NC 343 southeast of Camden

Lemuel Sawyer, United States Congressmen and author, was born in 1777 in Camden County, the youngest of Lemuel and Mary Taylor’s nine children.  Born into a well-connected and wealthy family, young Lemuel received an education at Flatbush Academy on Long Island in New York, before briefly attending the University of Pennsylvania in 1796.  In 1799, he enrolled at the University of North Carolina, but left the following year to enter politics.

In 1800-1801, Sawyer held a seat in the North Carolina House of Commons, and served as a presidential elector casting his vote in 1804 for Thomas Jefferson.  Sawyer was admitted to the bar that same year, and opened a law office in Elizabeth City.  However, Sawyer proved a more successful politician than lawyer, and was elected eight times to Congress serving 1807-1813, 1817-1823, and 1825-1829, often defeating powerful candidates such as William H. Murfree and James Iredell.

In addition to his political pursuits, Sawyer engaged in the literary arts.  His first work, Journal to Lake Drummond, published in 1797, was reviewed by David L. Swain as “puerile, and the language the most superlative bombast.”  He wrote a series of treatises on Greek literature and Roman history, all of which are now lost, as well as A Biography of John Randolph of Roanoke.  In the latter work, Sawyer portrayed his congressional colleague as a coward and imbecile to such a degree that reviewers labeled it libelous.  Sawyer followed with an autobiography, disclosing his gambling, wastefulness, and illicit affairs.  The book is still considered one of the most self-condemning works ever produced in American literature.

Sawyer also wrote several works intended for the common good.  In 1833, he produced The Observatory, advocating the development of a national observatory in Washington, D. C.  His last publication, “The Vine of North Carolina,” published in Report of the Commissioner of Patents in 1849, encouraged the growing of scuppernongs in North Carolina to promote the production of wine.

Sawyer is best known for his plays.  In 1824 he published Blackbeard:  a Comedy in Four Parts that is considered the first play written by a native North Carolinian.  The piece received such accolades when sold to members of Congress by subscription that Sawyer produced a second, The Wreck of Honor, which detailed the adventures of a lecherous American in Paris during the Napoleonic period.  Neither play has ever been staged.

Sawyer married three times.  His first wife, Sarah Snowden, died two years after their marriage in 1812.  In 1820 he married Camilla Wertz in Washington, D. C., who died six years later.  His final wife, Diana Rapayle Fisher, whom he married in 182, was a Brooklyn, New York socialite.  Over the next twenty years, Sawyer squandered her fortune leaving the two in utter poverty.  In 1850, Sawyer was forced to take a clerkship in a Washington, D. C. attorney’s office to make ends meet.  He died two years later and is believed to have been buried beside his brother in Camden County.

References:
William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, V, 289-290—sketch by Richard Walser
Dictionary of American Biography, XVI, 394-395—sketch by A. R. Newsome
Richard Walser, “First Playwright was a Gay Blade,” The State, July 5, 1952                                                     Location:                                                     US 158/NC 34 southwest of Camden

Location:                                                     US 158/NC 34 at Camden

Marker Text: DEMPSEY BURGESS   Member of provincial congresses, 1775-1776; lieutenant colonel of militia in Revolution; Congressman, 1795-99. Grave is 7 miles S.E.

Location: US 158/NC 34 at Camden

DISMAL SWAMP CANAL marker reads: Connects Albemarle Sound with Chesapeake Bay. Begun 1790; in use by War of 1812.

BENJAMIN JONES

ca 1757-1806

IN THE PERIOD following the Revolutionary War the economic outlook was very promising in the central and upper parts of the county. Plank Bridge had been made a port of entry for the region and the resulting maritime activity brought commercial benefits to the entire community adjacent to Sawyers Creek. In the upper end the Dismal Swamp Canal, a spectacular undertaking which was to connect the Elizabeth River in Virginia with the Pasquotank River in North Carolina by traversing Camden, stirred the imaginations of business men as far north as Philadelphia so that the locality in the vicinity of present day South Mills took on the aspects of a real estate boom.

A persistent tradition that the original survey for the waterway was made by George Washington seems hardly justified by existing records. The first individual to suggest such a project, it appears, was Virginia’s indefatigable Governor William Byrd, who mentioned the possibility when he and the North Carolina commissioners were establishing a boundary line between the two states. According to a scholarly article written by Alexander Crosby Brown in 1945, a survey of the possibilities of the vast area known as the Dismal Swamp was made by a company of which George Washington and Gershom Nimmo were members, and Washington considered a canal through the swamp to be impracticable. The prospects of a waterway which would connect the ports of Norfolk and Portsmouth directly with the regions behind the sounds and outer banks continued to appeal to the minds of many, notwithstanding, and in 1784, with Governor Patrick Henry of Virginia as one of the promoters, a through canal was actually proposed. In 1787 the Virginia Legislature passed an act for cutting a navigable watercourse from the Elizabeth River in Virginia to the Pasquotank River in North Carolina, the act to become in force after the General Assembly of the latter state should approve similar legislation. North Carolina formally approved such a bill in 1790.

In order to raise funds with which to carry out the plan, the act authorized a named group of commissioners to receive subscriptions for shares at $250 each. On the nineteenth of September, 1791, solicitors reported the number of shares sold as 241; and on the thirtieth of the same month additional sales of 112 shares were announced, the combined receipts therefore approximating $88,250. Considerable time was consumed in organizing the operating company and obtaining easements and rights of way with the stamp of court approval; hence it was 1793 before digging actually began with hired slave labor, starting at each end.

The excavations were finally connected in 1805 so that flats loaded with shingles and similar products could be poled the whole distance from river to river, but the passageway was probably not more than a muddy ditch for some time to come. The War of 1812, however, made the Federal Government aware of the need for a backdoor route for the transportation of supplies, and work seems to have been renewed since the year 1814 marks the first recorded trip of a vessel other than a shingle flat. In 1826 the waterway was enlarged as a shoal draft ship canal. In 1899 it was extended substantially to its present form.

Only one of the five directors who were named to the board of the Dismal Swamp Canal Company in 1792 was from Camden County, and he was Benjamin Jones. As a matter of fact most of the shares had been purchased by Virginians, and they included many of the commonwealth’s leading men, such as, to name only a few, Patrick Henry, James Madison and John Blair. The seven subscribers from Camden County and the number of shares bought by each were: Joseph Jones, 3; Isaac Gregory, 2; Benjamin Jones, Michael Fennell, John Mason, James Pearce, Fred B. Sawyer, Isaac Stokelie and Polly Stokelie, all one each. There were others in the locality who became owners of stock at a later date.

Jones not only has the distinction of being on the first list of directors of the Dismal Swamp Canal Company; he may also qualify as the most spectacular financier this county has known. In the first place he was our largest landowner, having acquired either by grant or purchase upwards of twelve thousand acres. The census of 1790 reports the number of slaves belonging to him as thirty-six, and this was six more than the next largest slaveowner possessed. His commercial activities were varied. He was associated with Nathaniel Allen in the mercantile business and they had a warehouse, and perhaps a store, at River Bridge, which was the trading and shipping center for the upper end of the county. He bought and sold lands continually, and he was interested in enterprises elsewhere. As a young man he had represented Camden for two terms in the House of Commons, but one can imagine that politics would tend to be tedious to a person of his practical nature.

In addition to his affiliation with the Dismal Swamp Company he was also one of the charter members of the New Lebanon Company, a business venture whose prospects stemmed from the canal project. This company excavated a cross canal which was to be utilized for more convenient transportation of forest products via the Dismal Swamp waterway. Mills were also to be constructed whose power would originate from the reservoir of water impounded in the Dismal Swamp artery. The New Lebanon group attracted investors from far and near, the most noted in the Albemarle country being, perhaps, Thomas Harvey and Colonel John Hamilton. Other outstanding investors were William Aitcheson of Norfolk, and in Philadelphia, John C. Christie and Samuel Bartleson. We do not know just how successful the enterprise was, though we can still see traces of canals dug and mills erected.

In one respect Benjamin Jones is an anomaly in the annals of this county. The space devoted to records of his transactions is larger than that allotted to any other individual, and yet details of his personal life are practically lacking. The status of his estate at the time of his death is a mystery. In his latter years parts of his holdings were sold at public auction in order to satisfy judgments against him, and now and then he mortgaged tracts for varying amounts of money. About the only fact which can be stated concerning his last years is that he died in 1806. Certain it is, however, that he was active in two of the most ambitious enterprises ever undertaken in this county; and because of his activity and of those associated with him, South Mills became the largest village in the Camden and the upper end developed on a prosperous financial basis. Indeed, it is still possible that the Canal and the Dismal Swamp constitute the greatest potential economic assets in this section.

Historically speaking, it is generally overlooked that the Dismal Swamp Canal is the oldest artificial waterway still in use in the United States.

Source: Three Hundred Years Along the Pasquotank By Jesse F. Pugh (1957).

 The Great Dismal Swamp

JOSEPH JONES

ca 1730-1800

IT TOOK forty-two years for the inhabitants on the northeast side of Pasquotank River to realize their ambition to become a separate county. By an interesting coincidence the three families who have probably contributed most to the history of the northeast side—Sawyer, Burgess and Jones—all played a part in the efforts made to accomplish this cherished ambition. The attempts of Caleb Sawyer in 1735 and of William Burgess in 1744 have already been noted, and we have also learned that both bills were defeated because they contained a provision providing for the same rights and privileges as the other counties in the Albemarle, which meant five representatives in the assembly. The newer counties which had been created were allowed only two representatives, and the governor opposed what he considered to be an inequitable allotment of representation.

This objection was eliminated, however, by the State Constitution, adopted in December of 1776, which set up two houses in the legislature, the senate and the House of Commons, and each county was allowed one senator and two representatives. Joseph Jones, a resident of the northeast side, was elected the first senator from Pasquotank for the first session of the State Legislature, which met in April of 1777. On April 19 Senator Jones moved for leave to prepare and bring in a bill to divide Pasquotank into two counties, one on either side of the river. The bill was read the necessary three times, passed and was ordered to be engrossed on May 9. The name was chosen, according to a well-established tradition, in honor of the Earl of Camden, Sir Charles Pratt. News of a speech, which he had made in Parliament defending the colonies, arrived while the new county bill was pending. Following is the measure which brought Camden into being: “I. Whereas by Reason of the Width of Pasquotank River, and the Difficulty of passing the same, especially in boisterous weather, it is extremely inconvenient for the Inhabitants who live on the North East side of said River to attend Courts and other Public Business in the County of Pasquotank; For Remedy whereof: II. Be it therefore Enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, and it is hereby Enacted by the Authority of the same, that all that part of Pasquotank County lying on the North East side of the said River, and a Line to run from the Head of the said River a North West Course to the Virginia Line, shall be, and is hereby established a County, by the name of Cambden.”

If the term statesman can be applied to any person who has matured in Camden, Joseph Jones would probably qualify. Beginning with 1760, he served in the Assembly seventeen years as a member from Pasquotank, and one year as a senator and one as a representative from Camden, after the formation of that county. Referring to the Provincial Congress held at New Bern in 1775, W. L. Saunders, editor of the Colonial Records, states, “It has never had a superior from that day to this.” To illustrate the caliber of the men assembled he mentions Thomas Jones, Joseph Hewes, John Harvey and Joseph Jones, all from the Albemarle counties. Walter Clark, editor of the State Records, also cites the Camden man as being one of the state leaders during the Revolutionary period. According to a local tradition, Jones came within one vote of being elected Speaker of the House when John Harvey was chosen for that position. Jones’ long tenure in the Provincial Assembly had given him both parliamentary experience and intimate acquaintance with political leaders in the state.

Some of the measures with which he was connected in the legislature have a significant relation to the times. For example, in 1766 he presented a certificate from the inhabitants of Pasquotank County setting forth the many great hardships “the said inhabitants as well as several other inhabitants of this province indure, for want of Paper money and other currency.” This lack of money made buying and selling a cumbersome and tedious process. If a man wished to sell a barrel of pork, for instance, a prospective buyer having no money might wish to offer an amount of tobacco equal to the purchase price. If the owner of the pork happened to desire clothing or food, but had no need of tobacco, he made no sale or if he took the tobacco he continued his search for someone having the articles desired. As a matter of fact, a large amount of the business transacted during the colonial period was on a barter basis. To facilitate matters, laws were passed assigning definite values for trading purposes to certain staple products, such as pork, tobacco and corn; indeed we find one disgruntled taxpayer reporting that he had paid his taxes with “tallow and hog’s lard.”

In 1769 Jones was a member of a committee which investigated Thomas Person of Granville County when an unsuccessful attempt was made to oust him from the Assembly because of his participation in the insurrection of the Regulators in the Orange and Alamance Counties region. Sentiment in the easternmost counties was generally antagonistic to the Regulators, and Governor Tryon had used the militia from this area to quell the insurrection. During the same session Jones was in favor of prohibiting shipments of corn from the province “due to the great scarcity of Indian corn likely to ensue.” Then as now storms sometimes caused heavy damage to crops.

His activities increased with the approach of the Revolution, one of the most spectacular instances of his participation being the clash with the Tory Thomas McKnight, as an outcome of the Provincial Congress held in New Bern in 1775. McKnight was one of the wealthiest members in the province, owning thousands of acres in Currituck and Pasquotank Counties and elsewhere, a shipyard at Indiantown, and a partnership in a commercial enterprise at Norfolk. At the time he was clerk of the court in Pasquotank, but he attended the Congress as a delegate from Currituck. When a move was made to express approval of the actions of the Continental Congress held in Philadelphia the past September, McKnight was the only one, at least openly, who refused to subscribe his approval. His stand aroused considerable resentment among the delegates who in consequence passed a resolution of condemnation on April 6, stating in part “that from the disingenuous and equivocal behavior of the said Thomas McKnight it is manifest his intentions are inimical to the cause of American liberty; and we do hold him up as a proper object of contempt to this Continent, and recommend that every person break off all connections and have no future intercourse with him.” Three of the delegates from Currituck and two from Pasquotank made a written protest in McKnight’s behalf and withdrew from the Congress, but to no avail. There was one very influential member from Pasquotank who aligned himself strongly with those denouncing McKnight, and he was Joseph Jones. He was largely responsible for the treatment accorded McKnight, in the opinion of the latter, and on June 21, a long letter defending himself and addressed to Jones was published in the Virginia Gazette. Jones was unrelenting in his attitude, however; he evidently felt that the time for quibbling had passed and that every man must throw his lot entirely with the colonies or be counted as an enemy.

In September, 1775, he was named a member of the Provincial Council of Safety for the District of Edenton, but his prodigious activities are best indicated by a description of the committees on which he served during the meeting of the State Legislature in 1777. The purposes or tasks of some of the more important committees were, using the phraseology of the minutes: To receive and consider all applications relative to military matters; to consider what Magazine of provisions and military stores it is necessary should be laid up, both for the Continental Army and for the State Militia; to consider the Expediency of stationing a body of militia on our Frontiers to protect the inhabitants of this State against the Indians; to devise ways and means to remove the enormous expense arising by the supernumerary officers in the Continental Regiments; to establish courts of justice; and to consider what price shall be allowed to commissioners for rations. After 1778 he served one year in the lower house during the session of 1782. At this time he was one of those placed in nomination as a delegate to the Continental Congress but was not elected.

As a result of his business enterprises Jones amassed a fortune. Among other undertakings he was a merchant and one of his chief interests seems to have centered around exportation and importation of commodities. Before the Revolution he conducted his trading enterprises chiefly from the developments at Old Trap Bay and Milltown near Shiloh. After the war he concentrated his interests at Plank Bridge near Camden, and at River Bridge in the vicinity of South Mills.

At Plank Bridge his efforts to establish a town met with considerable success for a while. From Murden’s landing all the way up Sawyers Creek to the Bridge appeared many wharves and storehouses. Plank Bridge was made a port of entry. In his Travel Memoirs the Duc de la Rochefaucauld-Liantour comments upon the activity of the location when he visited there in 1798 with Talleyrand, although it must be confessed he was greatly confused in his geography since he located Plank Bridge as being near Wilmington. A town was laid out on the north side of the Bridge and named Jonesborough in honor of the founder. In a deed which Jones made on July 17, 1792, to his daughter Sally and her husband Michael Fennell, the description of “certain Lotts in the Town of Jonesborough on Sawyers Creek” reads in part as follows:

“Lott No. 34—beginning on the north side of State Street, running north 87° west to Second Street thence running south 3° west to Market Street.” The project, however, was doomed to failure. The shipwrights were continually building vessels of heavier tonnage so that a greater depth of water was increasingly necessary. The Town of Redding, which was to be renamed Elizabeth City, had already been laid out at a site below on the river where deeper water could accommodate the larger craft, and to this location commercial craft were gradually but inevitably attracted. Today not a vestige of the Town of Jonesborough remains, and of the numerous warehouses and wharfs once standing there is visible only an occasional rotting pier in the waters, which have resumed their immemorial dark stillness.

Upon the formation of Camden County in 1777 Jones was naturally one of the five commissioners named by the legislature to set up the details of county government, select a site for the courthouse and attend to other initial requirements. His residence was used as a meeting place for the commissioners. It so happened that his dwelling was located almost in the geographical center of the county, and the site selected for the courthouse was directly oppoiste his manor plantation. No attempt was made to erect a building, however, until 1782, very probably because the energies of this highly patriotic county were entirely devoted to participation in the struggle for independence. In that year an acre and one quarter, the site previously selected, was purchased from Thomas Sawyer and his mother Margaret, and construction of a courthouse, jail, and stocks was authorized. According to tradition, Jones’ residence also served for the sessions of the county courts, he being one of the county justices as he had been also in the county of Pasquotank. Thus he was closely associated with the beginnings of Camden County in various capacities.

He was a member of a family which had long been active in the life of the northeast side. His father Isaac was a substantial planter; his uncle Nehemiah had been a captain in the Pasquotank militia during the French and Indian War period; his great-uncle Jarvis Jones had held the rank of major in earlier colonial wars. The military tradition was continued by his youngest brother, Timothy Jones, who was a lieutenant in the Continental Line.

Source: Three Hundred Years Along the Pasquotank, pages 101-105 by Jessie F. Pugh (1957).