Sir John Yeamans (1611-1674) Governor of Clarendon County

1665 - 1667 Clarendon

"Clarendon was one of three counties authorized by the Lords Proprietors of Carolina to be set up in 1664. The Concessions and Agreement of 1665 directed that this county be confined to 'one side of the main river near Cape Faire, on which some of the adventurers are already settled, or Intend to settle, and the Islands in or near the said River next the side they settle on, Unless they have already settled, or Intend to settle, and the Islands in or near the said River next the side they settle on, Unless they have already settled some Island thereon.' It was named for Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, one of the Lords Proprietors. By July 1663 and perhaps as early as November 1663, or even earlier, a colony from Charleston, Massachusetts, was established here under the leadership of William Hilton. The site was abandoned by 1664 when a colony from Barbados under Sir John Yeamans arrived. The colony occupied 'Charles Town" which the New Englanders had left. Yeamans was commissioned governor of Clarendon County in January 1665, and the population reached an estimated eight hundred before the county was abandoned in 1667. The site of this settlement was later in New Hanover (and now in Brunswick) County.

[Written by William S. Powell]" p. xxiv in Corbitt's "Formation of The North Carolina Counties."

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Charles Towne

Charles Towne on the Cape Fear River was the first overseas effort to colonize the Carolinas after the 1663 Carolina grant from Charles II to the eight Lords Proprietors. As early as 1662, William Hilton had explored the Cape Fear River (briefly called the Charles River) for the Adventurers about Cape Fayre, a group of Puritans from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Following Hilton's favorable report, the Puritans sent a colonizing expedition early in 1663 that remained only a short time.

Meanwhile on Barbados, which was already plagued by overcrowding, the Corporation of Barbadian Adventurers petitioned the Lords Proprietors for permission to settle in Carolina. Hilton, having shifted his base to the Caribbean colony, set forth again in August 1663 for the Carolina coast. Although there was greater interest in the more southerly Port Royal Sound area, on 29 May 1664 John Vassall landed a colony of Barbadians and possibly a few New Englanders on the Cape Fear, founding Charles Towne. The settlement was included in the newly formed Clarendon County, with Sir John Yeamans of Barbados as governor and Vassall as deputy governor. The two earliest governmental documents for Carolina, the Declaration and Proposals of 1663 and the Concessions and Agreement of 1665, were developed essentially for the promotion and governance of Charles Towne.

[Linda Butler, NCPedia]

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New Hanover County

History from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The county was formed in 1729 as New Hanover Precinct of Bath County, from Craven Precinct. It was named for the House of Hanover, which was then ruling Great Britain.

In 1734 parts of New Hanover Precinct became Bladen Precinct and Onslow Precinct. With the abolition of Bath County in 1739, all of its constituent precincts became counties.

In 1750 the northern part of New Hanover County became Duplin County. In 1764 another part of New Hanover County was combined with part of Bladen County to form Brunswick County. Finally, in 1875 the separation of northern New Hanover County to form Pender County reduced it to its present dimensions. Some of the closing battles of the American Civil War happened in the county with the Second Battle of Fort Fisher (the last major coastal stronghold of the Confederacy) and the Battle of Wilmington. The Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 and its establishment of Jim Crow laws closed out the 19th-Century with civil rights injustices which would last until the African-American Civil Rights Movement through the second half of the 20th century, three generations later. The insurrection was planned by a group of nine conspirators which included Hugh MacRae. He later donated land to New Hanover County for a park which was named for him. In the park still stands a plaque in his honor that does not mention his role in the 1898 insurrection

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Brunswick County

The county was formed in 1764 from parts of Bladen County and New Hanover County. It was named for the colonial port of Brunswick Town (now in ruins) which was itself named for Duchy of Brunswick-Lünenburg; at the time held by the British kings of the House of Hanover

History from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1665, Sir John Yeamans, an English nobleman of broken fortunes, came from the Barbadoes with a company of planters and joined the few New Englanders who had remained on the Cape Fear River. This district was called Clarendon.
Owing to incompetent and thieving governors, appointed through favoritism and not fitness for the office, and to abortive attempts to introduce the Fundamental Constitutions on an unwilling people, the Albemarle colony did not prosper, and in 1693 the population was but half what it had been fifteen years before, while the Clarendon colony planted by Yeamans on the Cape Fear had been wholly abandoned. Meantime another colony had been planted at the mouths of the Ashley and Cooper rivers (as will be noticed under South Carolina). These two surviving colonies, several hundred miles apart, now began to be called North and South Carolina. Their governments were combined into one, and better times were now at hand. In 1695, John Archdale, a good Quaker, became governor of both Carolinas, and from this time the settlements were much more prosperous that before.

This is from:

Source: "History of the United States of America," by Henry William Elson, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1904. Chapter IV pp. 83-88. Transcribed by Kathy Leigh.
 

For more information on Clarendon Co., go to  "The Lords Proprietors: on NCPedia