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P is for Port

True Tales about Port Bath’s Colonial Children, Young

People, and early Maritime Commerce

CREATED FOR THE TOWN OF BATH AND BATHFEST 2016

300th PORT OF BATH

ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION SATURDAY, May 28 2016

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Note from the Editor

Moseley Map of Bath County and Beaufort Precinct 1733, Courtesy ECU Joyner Library, (approach by sea to Port Bath via Ocracoke Inlet)

After looking into the upcoming Port Bath 300

th anniversary history last year I came across history nuggets featuring Bath

Towne children and slave and young servant indenture records from the early 1700’s. These P is for Port vignettes are the result. Port Bath was founded by decree August 1, 1716 and was North Carolina’s first official seaport town, part of the British North Atlantic network of official ports of entry, trade monitoring by the mother country Great Britain. Port officials were charged with monitoring all merchant and passenger vessels as well as the import and export goods going out of the port. Court records about children and young people living in the early 1700’s were found in the Genealogy Society’s 2003 Beaufort County Deed Book, 1696-1729 available for sale to the public at the State Historic Bath site’s gift shop. Some of the children are known to locals, appreciative visitors and Carolina historians… names such as John Lawson’s daughter Isabella and Christopher Gale’s son Miles. The other slave and indentured apprentices and servant children seem to be relatively unknown footnotes to history. We know little about how they lived … or died. Their BathTowne home as they knew it was a harsh and crude yet exciting place: they or their parents moved to BathTowne by land and by sea to explore and settle in what was known then as the southern frontier. The Pamlico and Neuse River new settlements were only accessible by sailing vessels navigated by Ocracoke pilots and visiting captains with local knowledge of Pamlico Sound shallow waters, the Atlantic east coast’s largest inland body of water. Some new colonists arrived by land, via Indian trails and bumpy post roads led by Indian guides. The newcomers if arriving by horseback would ship separately household goods required to start a new life on plantation or farm. Farm tools, livestock and forged kitchenware and import goods were typically purchased and shipped by coastal sloop, schooner or brig from the larger 18

th c. commercial ports Boston,

Philadelphia, or Charleston. Most of the wood block capital letters (drop caps) and the cover image are from Mark Catesby’s 1754 book The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahamas Islands. His book was based on notes on flora and fauna observed during two long visits to the region between 1712 and 1726. The most interesting vignette source for me was discovering a 1737 letter written to the young man of Bath, Thomas Pilkington. It was sent by a planter-merchant father to a son who had been sent to learn the sugar plantation trade in St. Kitts; the letter was carried to the islands on the father’s Carolina built schooner via hired sea captain. With thanks to Leigh Swain, State Historic Bath Site manager, who suggested I create a short series of vignettes featuring these young people.

G Hookway Jones, Editor Historic Bath Volunteer, November 2015

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P is for young Philander a slave sold by a Bath Merchant

O is for Ocracoke Pilot Miles Gale of Bath

R is for Richard and Robert two young Bath Merchant Apprentices

T is for Tobit a young Indian indentured on a Bath plantation

B is for Boats, Local small craft and ocean going Sailing Ships

A is for Animals, Domestic and Wild in old Bath County

T is for Thomas and Trade, Carolina Exports and Imports

H is for House Servants Rachel and her sister

I is for Isabella a daughter of Bath’s founding father John Lawson

N is for Nat an English boy apprenticed to learn Navigation

1716 – Lords Proprietors decree Port Bath a royal seaport town and the

Official Port of Entry. The Port of Bath years of operation were 1716-1790

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INTRODUCTION TO PORT BATH HISTORY Bath is the state’s oldest town, founded 1705. Bath County was the state’s second oldest county, established in 1696. Early French Huguenots, Virginia farmers and English planter-merchants settled along the Pamlico River and the peninsula overlooking Bath Bay and Back Creek and Old Town Creek, the latter now named Bath Creek. Port Bath was North Carolina’s first SeaPort town and its third British port district following Port Currituck and Port Roanoke. The BathTowne settlement was formerly known as Pamticoe, named after a local Algonquin native tribe. In 1700 Col. Robert Quary, an ardent Anglican and British loyalist as well as a former South Carolina Governor, was a little known but key Bath resident contributing to increased attention from London about growing trade in Bathtown. Quary was a member of the Society for Propagation of Gospel and a strong supporter of the Church of England in Carolina and Philadelphia. Sometime between 1796 and 1701 he bought a plantation from William Glover outside Bath where he operated Bath’s first Pamlico River trading post and “store.” (Ed. Probably a warehouse or cellar type operation, common on plantation landings for loading and offloading commodities to visiting ships, the “stores” provisioned visiting ships and catered to locals with periaugers and rafts who could barter surplus crops for import goods and luxury items.) Quary succeeded Edward Randolph in 1703 as Surveyor General of British Customs Service for North America and nearby Islands. His riverside plantation near Rumley Marsh, on the other side of Kirby Grange and Back Creek, was a central southeast location between Pennsylvania Admiralty duties and his coastal Customs Service supervisory duties: in 1703 he was in charge of all established British Ports of Entry along the Atlantic Ocean seaboard from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. By 1710 there were 34 customs districts like Port Bath with 42 permanent port officials. At that time due to growth in the Atlantic economy trade, Quary’s post was split into two regions. Thus with Quary’s frequent trips from Bath up and down the East Coast as well as in trips and frequent correspondence to London so it was that the Colony of Carolina overseers, the eight Lords Proprietors, became aware of Bath County’s increasing trade and population growth. British officials and London investors were pleased to see Bath’s increase in vessel traffic carrying in British and foreign import goods and shipping out much needed Carolina export commodities like cypress shingles, staves for barrels, lumber for building homes and businesses, and naval stores for British ships such as masts, tar, pitch, turpentine and rosin. Port Bath export commodities also included pork, corn, and tobacco and re-exports of sugar, salt, molasses, rum, manufactured goods and merchandise, as well as luxury goods brought into port from other colonies and foreign ports.

Port Bath had numerous port collectors in its lifetime 1716 -1790. It began operations date unknown as Port Pamtico and a few years later James Leigh was commissioned by the Lords Proprietors to serve as a customs collector in 1702. Leigh bought 640 acres and brought his large family to live on the Pamlico River’s south shore opposite the mouth of Bath Creek. Leigh assigned William Barrow to be his deputy collector on the north shore of the Pamlico River …while he met ships’ captain from New Bern and incoming from Ocracoke on the south shore near the post road and Core Point tavern. Barrow seized the first vessel condemned in a NC Admiralty law case: in 1704 the sloop named the Pamtico Adventure owned by Levi Truewhitt Bath town clerk was found “breaking bulk” (unloading without declaring contents to officials) at Dereham Creek, now Durham Creek near Garrison Point where PCS Phosphate plant is today.

In 1703 Bath’s first British Customs Service district under officer James Leigh extended from Bath County down to Cape Fear. In 1705 Pamticoe was renamed Bath Towne. By 1716 the town of Bath and Port Bath was declared the official British port of Entry for all coastal and transatlantic vessels sailing in and out of Ocracoke Inlet. The original jurisdiction included Pamlico Sound, the Pamlico-Tar waterway system, and the Neuse River and tributaries. By the end of the proprietary era Bath County was divided into three port districts: Port Bath (1716), Port Beaufort (1722) and Port Brunswick (1731). Port duties included monitoring regulatory compliance of Britain’s Trade and Navigation law (shipping), collecting duties and customs (taxes), working with appointed British Navy warship commanders and local naval officers in Charleston and Edenton, and last but not least, paperwork. Reports some of which survive today included audited copies of shipping records to the London Custom house and London Board of Trade, as well as to the Carolina Colony’s provincial Governor and General Assembly.

No Port of Bath records have survived from the early proprietary years of North Carolina up to 1730 but we do know many details about maritime trade and fur trading and barter trade by local planter-merchants and Bath County residents. The

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primary source for much of this booklet is the early Beaufort County North Carolina Deed Book Volume One 1696 by Allen Hart Norris, Ed. John H Oden III, published in 2003 by the Beaufort County Genealogical Society.

King George I ordered eleven Royal Navy frigates to support Customs officials efforts to protect colonial shipping trade in his proclamation from Whitehall, Sept 15 1716. North Carolina and Virginia trade was often considered together. “A list of his majesty’s ships and vessels employed and to be employed at the British Government and Plantation in the West Indies:” Those at Jamaica Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, are to join upon Occasion for annoying the Pyrates & the Security of the Trade: And those at New England Virginia and New York are to do the like. Besides these Frigots, two Men of War were ordered to attend Captain Rogers, late Commander of two Bristol Ships called the Duke and Dutchess, that took the rich Acapulca ship and made a Tour round the Globe. “Most of the Royal Navy ships were the smaller and faster 5

th and 6

th rated

frigates with 30-40 guns (for ex. HMS Pearl) or 20 guns respectively (for ex. HMS Lyme).

Although Blackbeard and other pirates had received the 1717 King’s Pardon, coastal port and British Navy officials were suspicious that piracy was still interfering with merchant vessels in the mid Atlantic between Virginia and Charleston. In 1718 Blackbeard was ordered captured by Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood and was found and killed in a fight at Ocracoke. Despite the interference by Virginia Vice Admiralty court in North Carolina waters, Spotswood is considered one of the first British colonial governors of North America to appreciate the economic value of the “southern” (what is now North Carolina) and “western” frontier (the mountains of Virginia North Carolina and Tennessee). In November of 1718 British Navy Officers Lieutenant Robert Maynard and Captain Ellis Brand from the HMS Lyme and HMS Pearl warships brought their wounded Navy sailors and wounded pirates to BathTowne for medical care. Maynard also brought Blackbeard’s head which he carried on to Virginia for display.

In 1730 the New Bern and Neuse River customs collections were re-assigned to Port Beaufort. About this time seven of the eight Lords Proprietors sold their interest back to the Crown thus ending the proprietary years and beginning of the Royal Crown Colony years which ended in 1776 with the American Revolution.

Between 1716 and 1776, there were varied port officials William Alexander to 1724, Isaac Ottiwell 1724-1731, William Owen 1731-1735, Roger Ormond 1735-1736, John Rieusset 1736-1739, George Gould 1739-1753.but Col. Robert Palmer was the longest serving Royal Port of Bath customs collector 1753-1772. His home, an imposing Georgian frame house with twin chimneys, still stands today and is open six days a week to the public as part of the Bath State Historic Site. The house was built by Merchant Michael Coutanche in 1751.

Robert Palmer, son of a Scottish merchant, was born 30 Sept 1723 in Dumfries, Scotland and died in 1802. When he was twenty eight he was sent in 1753 with a warrant from King George I appointing him Surveyor General of North Carolina and with a commission naming him Collector in the Port of Bath. He arrived with his wife Lady Margaret and two young sons Robert and William and he bought a plantation five miles east of Bath. In 1761 after Merchant Michael Coutanche’s widow married the minister of St. Thomas Church, Palmer negotiated to buy the house, lots and water frontage. After Margaret Palmer died in 1767 her husband placed a handsome slate tablet in St. Thomas church where it can be seen today. Palmer’s words were copied centuries later by playwright Edna Ferber and used in her 1925 best seller “Showboat.” Palmer’s words testify that his wife “although away from her native land had labored under severe bodily afflictions, and born them with uncommon Resolution and Resignation to the last.” In 1771 Colonel Palmer deeded the house, fifteen Negro slaves, and 250 acres in Beaufort County to his younger son William and his wife Mary. Palmer returned to England in 1771 and although he continued his transatlantic shipping to North Carolina with the help of his son William he resigned his office of Collector of the port of Bath in 1772. By 1786 Robert Palmer and his son owned over 13,780 acres including 2338 acres in Beaufort County, 3900 acres in Hyde county, 2825 acres in Anson County, and other large parcels in Mecklenburg County, Johnson County, Bladen County New Hanover County, Dobbs County, and Craven County.

Port Bath’s last serving Custom Collector was Continental Army Capt. Nathan Keias. Keias lived first in Bath then Washington. Keias moved with the Port Bath district customs house operation when the County courthouse after the American Revolution in 1776 moved to Little Washington a few miles up the Pamlico River. John Gray Blount a well known merchant and landowner and Richard Blackledge, his partner, were two of Port Bath’s last commissioners. The district was renamed Federal Port of Washington in 1790 and both Keias and Blount were instrumental in its early years of the new town’s growth. Both Keias and Blount are buried at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Washington where you can see their gravestones on the south side of the church cemetery.

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P is for Young Philander. Young Philander, a slave boy from Maryland, arrived in Bath January of 1706 one year after the Town of Bath was chartered by the Lords Proprietors.

Young Philander was named after his father Philander, and like him and most slaves, they both had no last

name. He was sold in Maryland and shipped down to the new town of Bath along with two other slaves, his

father and a female Negro slave Sarah. Shipped with the slaves was a large shipment of household goods

including mattresses, furniture, utensils and tools that from (Beaufort County Deedbook Vol I) records appear to

be suitable for a new settler’s first home. Young Philander’s new owner was

a successful merchant from Bath, George Birkenhead. The seller Thomas

Sparrow was from Arundel County, Maryland, one of many known inter-

colonial merchants who first traded in Bath then bought town lots.

Witnesses to his bill of sale were Bath’s town clerk Levy Truewhitt and Bath’s

French Huguenot doctor/surgeon, Maurice Lluwellen, who built one of Bath’s

first Water Street homes (now called Main Street). The three slaves and

assorted household goods were sold as a package for 150 British pounds

sterling money.

Other slaves’ first names in old Bath County Deed Book to 1729; NEGROES –First Names Index p. 213:

Ann (mustee) Andrew, Barsue, Bess, Bristal, Bursten, Caesar, Charles, Cesar, Cezar, Cupid, Diana (mustee), Dego, Dick, Dido,

Frank, George, Gratia, Hagar, Harry, Hector, Henry, Jack, Joan, John, Jupiter, Kate, Lawrence, Maria, Manuel, Matthew, Minda,

Mingo, Molly, Oliver, Peter, Philander, Phillis, Pompey, Pamptico, Pungo, Richard, Rustkin, Sampson, Sandy, Sarah, (mulatto),

Scipio, Slocomb, Stephen, Thomas, Tom, Tony, Tom, Wan, William.

Philander sailed into Port Bath in the cold winter of January 1706, mostly

likely on a sloop or a schooner. He might have been picked up by his new

owner in a wagon or transferred to a plantation workboat to get to his

new home’s river landing or he might have had to walk on local foot

paths and wagon roads with other slaves. Depending on his skills, he

might have been selected to be a house slave or a field slave. Some jobs

as a plantation slave boy might have included packing lumber, shingles,

barrel staves or helping to grow crops, catch fish or load barrels of tar,

salted pork or corn or beans. Every fall after harvest slaves would help the

planter-merchants at their river landings prepare surplus commodities for

shipment to Port Bath by raft, flat, scow, periaguer, or even by canoe.

Below are two images of periauger workboats from the Caribbean similar to those in use on the early 18th c.

Bath waterfront. Periaugers were commonly used up and down the waterways along the Pamlico River and

Pamlico Sound in colonial times. They could be sailed or rowed between plantations, ports, and large ocean

going ships which with their keel draft greater than eight feet were forced to remain moored some distance

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away in deep water. Most of the planter-merchants had periaugers, even pirates like Blackbeard. One image

shows slaves rolling barrels of sugar onto a small two masted periauger on the beach in the West Indies.

Carolina and Virginia colonial planter-merchants used small river work boats like the periauger (2 masts) or a

shallop (1 mast) but they also floated goods downriver in large canoes, skiffs, and rafts. Planter farmers loaded

their work boats with commodities packed in all sizes of wood barrels, kegs, or wooden crates. Barrels

especially those made by Bath coopers like Blackbeard’s crew Edward Salter were the colonial version of today’s

cardboard boxes. They were sturdy, easy to roll in and out of ship’s holds, extra parts for new barrels could be

stored flat to save space (staves and hoops) both on board ships and in merchant cellars. Once cargo was

cleared for unloading by port officials, barrels could be rolled on and off boat decks, then hoisted by rope and

pulley onto horse and mule drawn wagons and carts.

Each slave or free servant working for a plantation or merchant making port cargo deliveries would eventually

know all the British Customs Service Port officials: most often seen around the wharves and the Port Bath

Customs House were the customs collectors and naval officers. But there were other employees as well such as

deputy collectors, riding surveyors watching the river and sound for sails on the horizon, tidewaiters boarding

vessels upon arrival, stevedores and slaves for loading and unloading cargo, and a comptroller to verify

paperwork. The officials were appointed by the Lords Proprietors and reported to the London Customs House

which was a division of the British Treasury. Some customs service officials also were appointed by the Carolina

Governor. Duties were paid based on the burthen tonnage of each ship and outbound cargo was weighed and

inspected by naval officers and customs collectors. Sometimes goods were transferred to larger merchant sailing

vessels like two masted sloops and schooners, or even larger ocean going brigs and merchant ships. Carolina

commodities were used to provision visiting merchant ships and warships passing through the mid-Atlantic and

of course they were sold in other American colonies, the West Indies and by early English, Scottish, Irish and

French merchants with transatlantic vessels. Local Port Bath merchants and wealthy planters exported cypress

and other wood shingles, staves for barrels, lumber, tar and pitch, farm produce and even whale oil, honey and

tallow to make candles They also imported rum, sugar and spirits in wooden barrels and kegs. In some cases

cargo of olive oil and other liquids were loaded by merchant shippers into Mediterranean type ceramic clay pots

and jugs, the openings were sealed with either muslin or wax or cork plugs.

Young Philander may have even aspired to become a skilled river sailor or a mariner on larger ocean going

vessels. Both slaves and free men of color with river, sound and sea navigation and piloting skills were known as

plantation watermen and highly valued.

Barbadian and St. Croix two masted periaugers used at West Indian sugar

plantations. Charleston Barbadian planters were influences on trade

development and maritime commerce in the early colony of Carolina.

Images: School of London Tropical Medicine and Public Hygiene

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O is for Ocracoke and Ocracoke

Pilot Young Miles Gale, a navigation and pilot apprentice.

Miles Gale (b 1702 – d Aft. 1748). Miles would have been 14 years old in

1716 when Port Bath was created. He was one of four children of

Christopher Gale, and was named after his grandfather and uncle in England.

His father, NC’s first chief justice, most likely taught Miles navigation since

Christopher Gale despite his legal training was known to be a fur trader

explorer and navigator and contemporary of John Lawson before he married

the wealthy widow of Governor Harvey. Records show Mile’s father even after being appointed President of the

NC Courts and Chief Justice taught Miles, one of his four children, , and also at least one other navigation

apprentice Nathaniel Ming. (See N is for Nat).

Miles grew up to be a sea captain, master of his own ship,

sailing frequently between North Carolina and New England.

In 1723 Miles married a woman in Boston , had two children

a boy and a girl, and eventually returned to North Carolina.

In 1734 Miles was named an official Ocracoke Pilot. Below is

a painting of a pilot ship guiding a larger ship into port. Back

then a pilot ship might have led the way or the pilot may

have boarded the schooner and relieved its unfamiliar

captain from the helm, steering the ship’s wheel . The pilot

would stay on board with the visiting vessel until it arrived

in port. Meanwhile the pilot ship might also deliver a second pilot while waiting. Incoming vessels often waited

outside Ocracoke inlet in the Atlantic Ocean waiting for a pilot to help

them navigate to Port Bath.

An ongoing commission of five Port Bath townspeople was charged to

supervise Ocracoke to Bath routes, maintain beacons and buoys along

the channel, as well as oversee pilots. However, colonial records show

little evidence that a pilot was appointed to Ocracoke inlet before

Captain Miles Gale took up the position in 1734, Colonial Records, vol. 3,

638. Decades later, a 1795 visitor who paddled down the Atlantic coast

and through the Outer Banks in a “paper canoe” (Jonathan Price) noted

of the inhabitants of Ocracoke, “They are all pilots; and their number of

head of families is about thirty.”

Source Price quote, “A Description of Occacock Inlet.” Newbern: Francois-X Martin, 1795.

The North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 3, (Oct. 1926): 624-634. Moseley Map 1733 inset of Ocracoke Inlet approach , courtesy of ECU

Joyner Library.

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Without a local Carolina pilot foreign captains or sailors from other colonies were reluctant to come inside the

shallow and tricky but protected waters of the Pamlico Sound. In the 18th century hurricanes and storms caused

inlets from the Atlantic to open and close. Ocracoke was considered the only usable inlet in 1731 in Colonial

Records, vol. 3, p. 210; Many pilots and supporting trades lived on Ocracoke back then including slaves and free

people of all races and mixed races. To have an idea of early 18th century maps sold in London and Carolina with

directions see the below two inlet description examples: Miles might have studied them as an apprentice.

O

k

e

r

e

c

o

c

kMake towards the Bar and You’ll see a flag staff or a flag hoisted which the Pilots generally do on the W End of the Island when

they see a ship off then make towards Okerecock I, bring Beacon I to Bear W by N. that Course will lead you close to the

Breakers in 17 fe. For Beacon Island keeping close to the said Island till you come towards the N. End.Then steer away E NE for

Teache’s Hole in 4 fathom. Come to an Anchor & take in a Pilot. This Harbour serves for Albemarle Sound as well as for Pamlico.

All the rest of the Bars shift often and are not to be trusted by those who are not well acquainted with them. ..The tide runs in

till half ebb where the Tide rises 5 ft on all the bars. Winds generally blow from Nov till March NWly from March til May, SWly

May to July, NEly July to Nov SEly 20 leagues from land the current sets NE 4 Miles hour, along shore. Source 1729 Wimble Map:

The Chart of his Majesties Province of North Carolina, drawn by James Wimble for the Lords Proprietors, using scale of 15

leagues per inch.

As a child navigation apprentice Miles might also have grown up knowing his father’s friend Colony surveyor and Bath Town Clerk John Lawson who was also a partner in his father’s horse drawn grist mill. Both Miles and his father would have carefully studied Lawson’s earlier 1709 map of Carolina with its instructions to come into Hatteras Inlet.

Hatteras. As you come into the Inlet keep close to the South Breakers, till you are over the Bar, where you will have

two Fathom at Low-Water. You may come to an Anchor in two Fathom and a Half when you are over, then steer over close aboard the North-Shoar, where is four Fathom close to a Point of Marsh; then stir up the Sound a long League, till you bring the North-Cape of the Inlet to bear S. S. E. half E., then steer W. N. W., the East-point of Bluff-Land at Hatteras bearing E. N. E. the Southernmost large Hammock towards Ocacock, bearing S. S. W. half S. then you are in the Sound, over the Bar of Sand, whereon is but six Foot Water; then your Course to Pampticough (Pamlico) is almost West. Source: John Lawson, History of North Carolina, p 64.

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R is for Robert and Richard - Two Young

Merchant Apprentices of Bath Towne

In January of 1708 young Robert Alderson age 25 and Richard Walker age

unknown had articles of apprenticeship recorded one day apart by

Merchant Sparrow in old Bath Towne. Did you know that much of the

town of Beaufort and nearby Harker’s Island were once owned by planter-

merchants from colonial BathTowne?

Robert came from Virginia and Richard may have been much younger since

his father signed his paperwork. We don’t know much about what

happened to Sparrow’s two merchant apprentices although the older young man’s articles of indenture were

transferred to Governor Thomas Cary after a short period of time. By 1716 Robert would have been 33 years

old, three years earlier he would have finished his four year apprenticeship period with his second master

Governor Cary and moved on to better himself.

Sparrow was very busy and successful as a merchant following his move from Maryland: evidently successful

enough to purchase much coastal land in 1700-1730 during Bath’s early years: a 330 ac. Bath plantation and

land near the village of Beaufort and Cape Lookout, 2400 acres on Harker Island, formerly known as Craney

Island. His friend merchant Turner also bought much land near Beaufort which was growing and which became

North Carolina’s second official port town in 1723.

Below Image: The Shipping Merchant's Office A.C. Hauck, probably Rotterdam, 1783

This watercolor painting shows a merchant in

his busy office seated behind his big desk

wearing a blue outfit and tricorn hat. His

patterned dress, influenced by Oriental

fashion and dyed with costly indigo, indicates

the wealth and worldliness associated with

the mercantile business. Robert and Richard

would have been dressed like the two

merchant apprentices with quill feathers and

ink in hand maybe even wearing wigs. Notice

the courier delivering sealed correspondence,

open chests filled with money, along with

globes, maps, statue of Mercury (messenger

of the gods and god of commerce and travel).

Apprentices and family members from Europe were often sent by their families to Carolina and Virginia and the

West Indies. Children of successful merchants families needed to gain business training in plantation trade

bookkeeping and inventory control. Merchants in the eighteenth century used apprentices to maintain account

books to keep track of customer debts and payments and to keep up to date letter book with copies of

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correspondence. Tracking a customer's account in daily

ledgers and journals was crucial to maintaining a profitable

and trustworthy business.

Below are some transcribed examples of Sparrow’s many

deed book entries made to record apprentice contracts and

terms as well as land and business transactions.

January 6, 1708 - Robert ALDERSON, late of Virginia, age about 25 years, to Thomas SPARROW, merchant. Robert ALDERSON agrees to serve 4 years in any lawful occupation. Thomas SPARROW to "allow said servant sufficient meat, drink and apparel and other things needful for a servant and to pay him his freedom dues according to the custom of the country at the expiration of 4 years." Witness: Levi TRUEWHITT

Jan. 5, 1708 - John WALKER binds his son, Richard WALKER, age unknown, as apprentice to Thomas SPARROW, Bath Co., until he reaches age of 21 years. SPARROW to teach to read and write a legible hand. Wit: Nicholas DAWS, James LEIGH, Joel MARTIN Acknowledged Jan. 8, 1708/9

Two months after Robert signed on to Thomas Sparrow; his papers were transferred to become an apprentice

servant to Governor Cary. March 11, 1708/9 - Thomas SPARROW assigns above indenture to Honorable Thos.

CARY, Esquire. The below recorded entries give an idea of Merchant Sparrow’s success enabling him between

1706 and 1709 to buy large parcels of land between Bath and Beaufort.

June 10, 1706 - Levi TRUEWHITT's patent of 330 acres assigned to Mr. SPARROW - land at fork of Mr. DEREHAM's Creek, running SW up lesser creek, etc. Signed: Tho. CARY, Samuel SWANN, Ed. MOSELEY, Francis FOSTER, Wm. GLOVER Apr. 8, 1709 - Elizabeth DEREHAM, widow, to Thomas SPARROW 6 pounds - 640 acres south side Pamtico river, east side Dereham's Creek adj. Land of Thomas SPARROW bought of Levi TRUEWHITT in the fork of said creek. Mar. 24, 1708/9 - Fornifold GREEN's patent of Craney Island assigned to William BRICE and from him to Thomas SPARROW - 240 acres lying in Core Sound within 6 or 8 miles off to the East of Topsaid Inlet. Signed: Tho. CARY, Ed MOSELEY, Fr. FOSTER, John HAWKINS Mar. 11, 1708/9 - Bath Town - "Thomas CARY, President of North Carolina have received and acknowledged receipt of 24 pounds current pay, it being the purchase money due to the Lord's Proprietors for an island lying in Core Sound known by the name of Craney Island, surveyed and laid out for 2400 acres and 3 pounds for all other fees due concerning the same of Thomas SPARROW." The Plat of Craney Island beginning at the east end next to the sound next to Cape Lookout.

James Davis, printer’s early North Caroline five shillings note. From the

collection of Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens, New Bern, North

Carolina; Courtesy of North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources,

Division of Archive and History.”

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T is for Tobit –a 12 year old unknown

Indian boy and plantation slave.

He seemed to have no parents since he signed x on his own servant

indenture papers. Sept. 10, 1707 - Tobias or Tobit Knight/Knighton was a

homeless Indian boy, probably of a Tuscarora tribe but he could have been

from one of five known tribes in the area. He lived and worked on the

Hopton’s plantation outside Bath town. In 1716 he would have just been

twenty one approaching his freedom, at the time of the Port Bath decree.

Tobit’s name appears in the Bath County deed book volume I twice, first in 1707 at age 12 when his original

plantation owner (Charles Hopton’s father) recorded a nine year servant contract called articles of indentureship

giving Tobias his freedom at 21. After five years he was to be given two cows and calves to start a cow herd of

his own. Then at completion of his term he was to receive a gift of breeder hogs to get a pig herd started. After

the plantation owner died, Tobias wanted to make sure he was allowed to continue the arrangement and

evidently had someone help him draw up a second revised indenture agreement. In the

second one Tobit signed his mark again that he wanted to live with the son who had inherited

the plantation.

Tobias KNIGHTON, Indian, aged 12 years, apprentices self to Charles HOPTON of Bath County, "to dwell

and serve from this present date until he shall arrive at 21 years of age, which shall be 9 years" -

HOPTON to give 2 cows and calves when Tobias 17 years, and 2 sows and pigs at expiration of

apprenticeship. Signed: "The mark of Tobieas KNIGHT, the Indian" Witness: Ch. GALE, John BRETT

Acknowledged at court at Bath Town October 8, 1707

Map Image below source: http://www.classzone.com/cz/books/north_carolina_08/resources

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Shortly after arriving in America, Europeans began trading with Indians in the backcountry. South Carolina

traders in particular sold Indian children and women as slaves to other colonies and shipped them to West

Indian sugar plantations. Colonists and Bath Fur Traders hired Indian porters to carry their trade goods and

traded beads and colored goods for valuable fur pelts. Indian men, women, boys, and girls all served as porters,

because the Indians around the South did not have draft animals like horses or mules. As soon as Indian children

were able to tote an eighty pound load of trade, they became a worker for the tribe. It was the way trade was

done. Eventually colonial furtraders with packhorses replaced Indian porters. After Carolina roads improved

wagons replaced packhorses in the 1720s and 1730s.

In the colony of Carolina before the split into North and South Carolina, Indian wars and trade had a dark side

besides the history book story of hunting and trade of trinkets for fur and skins, and land settlement expansion.

A native slave trade developed bartering, buying and selling Carolina Indian women and children. One Carolina

Indian slave brought, according to trader Thomas Nairne, “a Gun, ammunition, horse, hatchet, and a suit of

Cloathes, which would not be procured with much tedious toil a hunting;” compared to a trade of one gun for

twelve to sixteen deer hides (Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America. (New York: Penguin

Books, 2001, p. 230.) Slave-raids and capture of Indians by traders and also by warring local North and South

Carolina tribes promoted inter-Indian conflict, and eventual tribal genocide.

In 1700, the local Native American Indian population was 15,000 -16,000. In 1730, in both Carolinas, there were

only 4,000 natives left (Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America. (New York: Penguin

Books, 2001 p. 235.) Indian slaves were exploited for farm and plantation labor locally or sold to South Carolina

Indian traders. The Indian slave trader captured Tuscarora, Matchapungo, Bear, and Neusioc females and

children for export to sugar plantation, males were killed and a reward for scalps offered ten pounds each… until

south Carolina rice planters and West Indian sugar planters had adequate capital to purchase slaves from Africa.

Shatzman Evidently Tobit also known as Tobias was well liked on the plantation since the inheriting son modified

the indenture articles. This allowed him to continue his servant years with the family on the plantation giving

young Tobias food, clothing, and a place to live until he was a freed man. This Tobias Knight /Knighton would

have been twenty three the year Blackbeard was captured and killed. Oddly in the small colonial county seat

with less than sixty people, there was another young man with the same name, Tobias Knight of Bath. This

Tobias owned a plantation on Bath’s Town Creek plantation row, was Secretary of State, as well as friends with

both Governor Eden and Blackbeard. Perhaps they all were friends!

Carolina Demographics Population Chart showing the

drop of Indian slaves after 1720 and the escalation in

Black slaves after in the 1720’s Retrieved 3.10.16

“Understanding the Socio-Economy of the Early

Colonial South”

http://ballstatehistorydept.org/digitalhistory/student

projects/aaschreier/Context/socioeconomy.html

15

B IS FOR BOATS

A GLOSSARY OF TYPICAL SMALL CRAFT and SAILING VESSELS 18TH C

RAFTS, SCOWS, FLATS, and FERRIES- would float downstream to transport

barrels and commodities from plantation to the port, tobacco, pitch, tar, corn,

shingles, and lumber. To go upstream used oars and poles, but in swift current

would have to be warped or poled up stream by ropes fastened between trees on

the river banks

CANOES, CANOOS, DUGOUTS and KUNNARS – small size using oars and

paddles. Could be quickly made from logs. PERIAUGER – small size also made from logs, used oars and paddles,

but large ones with one or two masts and sail could carry up to 100 barrels of pitch or tar, used to transport

horses, cattle and goods from one plantation to another, costing as much as 20 pounds NC currency.

SHALLOPS- one mast, small enough to be dismantled and mounted on decks of larger sailing vessels. Appear in

the Bath County deed books in wills as owned by colonial farmers and merchant-shippers. Usually under twenty

feet in length.

SLOOPS – one mast, very long bowsprit to add more canvas area, rigging copied from Bermuda sloops. 30-60 feet

long, top speed 10 knots, crew of 4-20 men. Weight or burthen 6 to 80 tons, 6-15 cannons. shallow 8 foot draft.

Most in Port Bath were less than 50 tons. The post 1761 shipping records say 1080 sloops passed through Port

Bath, min. 10 tons, max 95 tons, avg 33 tons.

SCHOONERS – two masts, rigging copied from Chesapeake and New England schooners, narrow hull, shallow draft

of 5 feet. Same gun capacity but smaller hold for goods. Frequent on Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds and on the

Pamlico and Neuse Rivers. The post 1761 shipping records say 1006 schooners passed through Port Bath with min.

burden of 6 tons, max 126 and avg 41 tons.

BRIGANTINE or BRIG -two masts, average crew seven

men, shallow draft with square and various sail combinations.

Heavier, longer, and roomier than the smaller sloops and

schooners, rarely used in coasting trade, more for West Indies.

Adequate firepower and a larger hold meant the versatile ship

used for trade and occasionally as a pirate ship. 70-80 foot

length, average 100 tons, 12 guns. Post 1761 shipping records

say 335 brigs and snows cleared Port Batrh, min. tons 40, max

tons 178, avg 80 tons burden.

SHIPS, SNOWS, FRIGATES would have anchored in deeper water at the entry of Bath Creek or outside inlets to

rivers and sounds – three or more masts, square rigged sails, average size 150 tons. Slower and heavier than

sloops and schooners and brigs, owners and captains would compensate slow speed with more cannons, traveling

in convoys, and military navy escorts. Merchant carriers were up to 80 feet long, 275 tons, small crew of 20 or

less. (Crittenden 1936, p 10-11). The post 1761 shipping records indicate 22 ships cleared Port Bath with sizes

ranging from 90 ton minimum burden, 250 max ton, and avg 136 tons.

16

BRITISH NAVY MEN OF WAR – English warships were rated 1-6 depending on size and number of cannons and

number of gun decks. The largest warships with triple rows of 100 or more guns were known as ships of the line.

The smaller 5th

and 6th

rated warships, known as frigates, with 20-40 cannon, were faster and assigned to do anti-

piracy patrol duty or to accompany Carolina and Virginia tobacco fleets sailing as a convoy on transatlantic

crossings. The Royal Navy protected merchant fleets full of passengers and cargo when they sailed with prevailing

winds to and from England several times a year. Depending on their destination and the time of the year,

transatlantic sailing ships from Britain used the longer southerly trade route stopping by the Canary Islands and

Africa. After arriving in the Caribbean they typically sailed north with the Gulf Stream current from the Caribbean

to Carolina, then made the return transatlantic crossing using the shorter northerly route from Boston to England.

Image: English fleets of sailing ships. Dominic Serres R.A.1750s.

The HMS PEARL and the HMS LYME, two British Warships with links to Bath and Ocracoke. After Blackbeard’s

death Lieutenant Robert Maynard brought wounded Navy sailors and officers to Bath. The killed British

officers and crew from the sloop Ranger and sloop Jane were buried at Ocracoke.

In 1716 the HMS Pearl a fifth rated vessel British warship was commissioned under Captain George

Gordon by King George I. The Pearl sailed to Virginia in 1717. By 1718 the Pearl was stationed in

Hampton, Virginia, under Captain Gordon, and with Robert Maynard first lieutenant. Also the HMS

Lyme was ordered to Hampton. That year Governor Alexander Spotswood issued an order for the

capture of the pirate Blackbeard who had taken the King’s Pardon from North Carolina Governor Eden.

Blackbeard had supposedly retired from piracy and was living in and around Bath. Spotswood felt that

he was an immediate threat to Virginia commerce should he resume pirating.

Using information gathered from a captured member of Blackbeard's crew, Spotswood dispatched 33

crewmen from HMS Pearl and 24 crewmen from HMS Lyme and commandeered two small fast

merchant sloops to sail down the coast to North Carolina. With Maynard in command, the group

located Blackbeard's ship, the Adventure, and attacked, resulting in his subsequent death at Ocracoke

and post-mortem decapitation by Maynard. Maynard returned to Bath with Blackbeard’s head to meet

Capt. Ellis Brand from the HMS Lyme who had arrived in Bath with sailors by land. Maynard had sailed

to Bath bringing his wounded Navy sailors from Ocracoke to Bath for medical care and he re-

provisioned with Bath merchants before returning in the chartered sloops to Virginia.

17

A is for Animals. Colonists and their families of all

ages whether gentry, working class or slave and servant relied on wild and

domestic animals for home use and trade. Port Bath early merchants traded wild animals, birds and fish bartering for other goods and commodities. Every plantation and farm had domestic animals and free range livestock and poultry which they raised for food and resale to other farms and plantations as well as for export to other colonies. Some livestock was herded to Virginia delivered “on the hoof” due to salt shortages, livestock also was exported to Caribbean islands in exchange for sugar, rum and spices. The town of Bath had a fenced in common for grazing and a town ordinance was necessary to stop hogs and pigs from running wild in the streets.

Bath’s early maritime trade relied on furtrading to Indians and selling surplus crops at harvest time from

plantations and small farms. At the time Bath’s founding fathers were laying out the Town Plan the new

colonists traded trinkets to Indians in exchange for furs such as beaver, deer, fox, bear. Early Bath families

also relied on the sale of domestic hides and tanned leather from cows

and deer, even whale oil, honey, and pigeon oil which they sold to other

colonies and exported to foreign ports. A few of the well known colonial

animals are now extinct… like the Carolina Bison, the Carolina passenger

pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet. The last known Carolina Bison was

killed in Buncombe County in 1799 seven miles east of Asheville and the

birds disappeared in the early 1900’s.

Mark Catesby's illustrations of the bison and parakeet are well known

from his book Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama

Islands, which was

published in several

editions in the mid

1700s. (Images

Courtesy of UNC CH

Wilson Library).

The Carolina parakeet, a small, gregarious parrot with

bright green, yellow and blood-orange plumage, once

flew in large flocks roosting in cypress trees and

lowland swamps (Conuropsis carolinensis). Its habitat included the Carolinas and was known at one time

from Florida to New York and was considered to be the parrot of eastern North America. A nuisance to

farmers the parakeets gradually disappeared over a period or 90 years. By the 1890's, the parakeets were

already uncommon, and collectors eagerly caught the few remaining birds to sell them to zoos. The last

known pair of parakeets lived in the Cincinnati Zoo for some 35 years. They were called "Incas" and "Lady

Jane." In the late summer of 1917, Lady Jane passed away, and her mate Incas quietly "died of grief" on

February 21, 1918.

18

T is for Thomas and Trade. We do not know much about young Thomas Pilkington son on Seth Pilkington, a Bath Merchant. But we do know his father sent him to work with a business partner in the West Indies to learn the profitable sugar trade business on St. Christopher, now known as St. Kitts. Seth Pilkington is important to Bath because his daughter Sarah married Michael Coutanche, a French sea captain and merchant from the Channel Islands. Coutanche became successful enough to build the Palmer-Marsh house in 1751. Seth Pilkington’s will survived and Michael Coutanche was his executor. There is no mention of son Thomas in his will so perhaps the son by then was dead or perhaps Michael became the son Seth wished

he had.

Fortunately one lone letter from a merchant letter book has survived from father Seth to son Thomas. It was written in 1737 and addressed to the son at the family business in St. Kitts: In the letter he writes about the schooner he is building in Carolina and points out the types of merchandise and commodities he wants the Captain to send from Bath and ship back from the West Indies:

Here so many disappointments attend this trade that it’s enough to discourage any person that has a fortune …. Here’s such swarms of N.E. pedlars, running from house to house, that I am afraid these lazy planters will not easily be reconciled to any other way of business. … enclosed you will find account of what I have sold…the scooner is fitted as well as our country will admit, but could not put any oak plank aboard without great loss in storage. I will dispatch her in about 12 days, with beef, pork and tallow. I shall keep a periaguer running to collect and bring to a storehouse I have rented. This fall has proved hotter than usual made me afraid to kill beef till October, then Rantree (his captain) has been sick, or the Negroes running away continually, which has given one more uneasiness than you can imagine. This three months past I’ve been hurried about to pick up this little modicum (and lumber for the sloop). However, I’ve brought the better sort to despise N.E. stinkabugs, which gives me encouragement. …I’ve provided an able seaman and artist to bring you the new scooner which I hope you will have the pleasure of seeing next May. If you send again, please send 5 hhds rum, 3 hhds malt, 4 carls sugar, 5 bolts ozenburg, 3 ps garlix, 3 ps, checks, and 1 ream of paper. I’ve sent your peas in carls. That will serve for rum and be more handy than hhds. (Ed. Carls are small kegs and hogsheads are large barrels). I am, gentlemen, your most ob’t humble serv’t, S P

P.S. I should have sent you more livestock of the feathered kind but Rantree would not carry them.

Pilkington Merchant Letter Book Source: Edenton American Banner, May 8 1854, Edenton Library.

19

H is for House servants Rachel and Mary Ingoe were two sisters from a poor family in Bath.

The girls were 6 and 11 in 1709 when their mother signed them into

domestic service, putting together to work for ten years in the home

of a successful Bath merchant George Birkinhead.

By 1716, the time of the Lord Proprietor’s decree creating Port Bath, the

two Ingoe sisters would have been 13 and 18 years old. Rachel would

still have had three more remaining years left to complete her servant

indentureship obligation. However, by then her older sister Mary would

have been released with a final payment to start her new adult life the year before. During Mary’s last year of

service she would have dreamed of getting married and worked hard to find a suitable husband. House servants

were given no wages while in service only food, clothing, and shelter. This was a common practice at the time

and a way for girls with no education, who couldn’t read and write, to aspire to a better way of life. Women

were expected to learn how to run a house and manage a farm but they were not allowed to work in trade or

run taverns and inns. However it was common practice and acceptable for a widow to run their husband’s

business after his death. For example widow Hardy ran a ferry and tavern in Bath for many years as did the

widow Bond.

April 7, 1709 - Marhue INGOE agrees with George BIRKINHEAD that her

daughter Rachel INGOE, serve George BIRKINHEAD until age 16, she being

6 years old next May. George BIRKINHEAD to "allow sufficient meat, drink

and apparel and other things necessary to a servant and to pay her at the

expiration of her time what the law allows."

Witness: Samuel NORTON, Charles MAGER

Acknowledged Bath Town, 7th of April 1709.

April 6, 1709 - Marhue INGOE agrees with George BIRKINHEAD that her

daughter Mary INGOE, serve George BIRKINHEAD until age 16, she being

eleven next July 20. (Terms same as above.) Witness: Levi TRUEWHIT

Source http://ncpedia.org/indentured-servants

An 18th c. example of a Virginia newspaper

announcement of a sailing ship from London

full of indentured servants of many skilled

trades seeking new masters, for sale with cash

credit or tobacco barter.

20

I is for Isabella (b April 15 1707- d after 1767) Isabella was nine years old in 1716 when the Port Bath decree was signed. She was the oldest child of John Lawson, botanist-surveyor and naturalist author. Her father died when she was four, killed by Tuscarora Indians in 1711. Isabella was only a newborn baby when she received a gift from her father of two little calves with two breeding cow mothers, a thoughtful gift common at the time for children to start their own herd. The cows arrived complete with Isabella’s own unique owner ear marks, distinctive notches cut in their ears. The cattle were brought from New Bern by land and river ferry, a brindle heifer and calf, along with a black heifer and yearling, and all four evidently left for her mother to retrieve from the Bath town pen.

There were two operating ferries in Bath at the time and they might have looked like the colonial ferry salvaged from the Cape Fear River a few years ago or even the one still in use in North Carolina in the photo below taken as recently as 100 years ago. Some river ferries had a small pen for livestock in addition to benches for passengers, maybe one day one of the ferries used in Colonial Bath will be found sunk on the river bottom like the Blossom Ferry was in the Cape Fear River. The two Blossom ferry hulls* found by ECU underwater archeologists tell us typical colonial river ferries had drop ramps at each end for wagons and barrels to roll off and on as well as for people and livestock to disembark. Below image: Hannah's Ferry on the Yadkin River between Davie and Rowan Counties, ca. 1900. Image Courtesy of North Carolina

Office of Archives and History.

We know Isabella’s parents were not married which was

common at the time in a region with few clergy. Before

John Lawson sailed for London out of Hampton Virginia

(to have his book published and portrait painted) his will

was recorded and witnessed by Isabella’s maternal

grandfather Richard Smith who lived on Archbell Point

opposite old BathTowne. In his 1708 will her well- known

father John Lawson left his Bonner Point house and a 2/3

estate interest to her mother who was expecting their

next child, William. Isabella inherited the other 1/3

interest when she was sixteen.

Isabella’s father in addition to his government duties

made money for his family as a fur trader: he bartered

for household goods exchanging trinkets for furs, then

selling Indian skins, pelts and furs to middlemen for

inter-colonial and overseas export. We know from a

lawsuit and arrest order filed by his friend and town neighbor Christopher Gale that at one point he owed Gale

over 300 pounds worth of dressed buck skins, valued at barter pricing rate of two shillings each and dressed doe

skins 18 pence each. Gale was also one of Lawson’s two partners in the town’s first grist mill and evidently

21

subscribed to the theory I like you as a friend and partner but don’t interfere with my money or I will take you to

court. Like other entrepreneurs in BathTowne, Isabella’s father had both a town house in Bath town and a

plantation farm with acreage to raise cattle and crops elsewhere. Isabella and her mother lived on Bonner Point

across Bath creek from her grandfather‘s plantation, you can still see the remains of the old chimney from the

house where she and her mother lived on the 1830 Bonner House grounds. Lawson’s primary plantation was

near the Neuse River on Clubfoot Creek outside New Bern. While town clerk her father drew up the Bath town

map to sell lots, in 1709 he was named Surveyor General by the Lords Proprietors, and in 1711 despite his being

an advocate for fairness to local Indians he was killed by the Tuscaroras.

Isabella grew up to be married twice, the first time at age 16 at which time she would have inherited her 1/3 of

her father’s estate. We know she had two sons, from first husband John Chilly and at some point moved to the

New Bern area with second husband Martin Futch/Fuchs, a New Bern German Palantine. She was lost to

history after recording the 1767 inventory.following her second husband’s death.

An image below of colonial Port of Philadelphia shows a ferry landing and many colonial sailing vessels with

cargo and passengers. Bath’s ferry landings would not have been as grand but were just as busy with horses and

wagons and boats of all sizes and shapes. The Bath gentry (wealthy planter-merchants and families) often

relied on shopping expeditions to larger towns like Williamsburg, Philadelphia and Charleston. On special

occasions Isabella and her mother might have placed orders from Philadelphia and London merchants sending

their orders and letters of credit to pay with sea captains for luxury and hard to find household items.

* Gordon P. Watts Jr. and Wesley K. Hall, An Investigation of Blossom's Ferry on the Northeast Cape Fear River

(East Carolina University Department of History, ECU Research Report no. 1, January 1986).

Image: Arch Street Ferry, Port of Philadelphia, Bridge & Sons engraving. 1790

22

N is for Nat and Navigation

Nat Ming was an English immigrant’s son and a navigation apprentice.

In August 1716 Nathaniel would have been close to 17 years old with a

few years left on his long 13 year apprenticeship at Kirby Grange

plantation with the Gales. Nat at 8 years of age was indentured by his

mother to learn the Art of Navigation and to live with Christopher Gale

and wife in Bath at Kirby Grange. Nat’s English parents had sailed over a

few years before and bought a plantation outside Bath Towne in the

county. In 1707 after his father a sea captain and planter-merchant died

his mother decided that it would be best that he learn navigation as an

apprentice to Gale. Gale’s son Miles was 5 years old at the time, born in 1702, so they would have been

playmates too. (See O is for Ocracoke.)

The St. Thomas Church had not yet been built, so he may have studied books from the state’s first library, the

“Bray Library” which circulated at colonist homes until it had a permanent home. We are told at times readings

from the Bray books were held at Kirby Grange. Many of the books were religious books but a few were general

education since visiting missionaries and clergy were expected to teach children as part of their duties. Among

the 1000 books sent to Bath one used to teach navigation was Richard Blome’s “The Gentlemen’s Recreation”

series about gardening, hunting, hawking, navigation and other pursuits. A copy can be seen today in the Van de

Vere house exhibit at the Bath state visitor center and at the Pepsi education center at Tryon Palace in New

Bern. Nathaniel’s apprenticeship papers to Chief Justice and Mrs. Christopher Gale were recorded and

witnessed by John Lawson, Isabella’s father.

The 1707 entry from the 1699-1729 Bath County Deed Book says: He is 8 years old on 17 Nov next.

Apprenticeship to be 13 yrs 3 mo and odd days and to expire 17 Nov 1720. Gale to give Nathaniel apparel, teach

him to read and write and teach him the art of navigation. Wit: Wm Glover, John Lawson. Ack in Ct in Bath town

8 Oct 1707. Test John Lawson, Coun CL (county clerk)

The name Nat Ming appears a few years after the 1715 Port Bath decree

but this time in a runaway Indian slave intrigue. If this is the same Nat Ming,

in 1718 a few weeks before Blackbeard was killed he was still a servant but

no longer with the Gales. His indenture papers appear to have been

transferred to another wealthy Bath family, the Worsleys. (One of Merchant

Worsley family’s green glass bottles was found locally and reproduced and

is for sale at the Bath site gift shop.) At a Council held at the Court House in

Chowan Nov 11, 1718, one Nathaniel Ming, servant to Thomas Worsley,

apparently discovered “roguery involving a confederacy of Mr. Worseley’s

children and Servants.” The roguery incident involved a runaway Indian

Slave Pompey, who subsequently was ordered to be taken dead or alive. Nat was given 29 lashes on his bare

back at the same time and Mr. Worsley’s son was to be given “39 lashes, well laid on,” on his bare back. Indian

scouts were ordered out to apprehend the runaway Pompey with promises of a reward.

Pastel portrait of Christopher Gale, painted while Chief Justice of Bahamas.

23

Nat would have dreamed of one day completing his apprenticeship term, being at the

helm or even owning a pilot ship and to one day being a sea captain and Ocracoke pilot

like his boyhood friend Miles Gale. Being a sea captain was a good way to earn enough

money to be a successful merchant and member of colonial society.

Here is a copy of

the Navigation

learning page

from one of

Bath’s Bray

library books The

Gentleman’s

Recreation by

Richard Blome

1686.

While living at

Kirby Grange

with the Gale

family Nat might

have studied out

of this book with

Christopher Gale

and his son Miles

Gale, one of

Gale’s four

children,.

The gentleman’s

recreation in two

parts : the first being

an encyclopedia of the

arts and sciences ...

the second part treats

of horsemanship,

hawking, hunting,

fowling, fishing, and

agriculture : with a

short treatise of cock-

fighting

...London: Printed by

S. Roycroft for Richard

Blome, 1686.

This was one of Bath’s

one thousand Bray

Library books sent

over from England by

SPG, the Society for

Propagation of Gospel

in Foreign Parts. Bath

had the first library of

North Carolina. There

were actually two

libraries, one religious

and one for clergy and

laymen to teach

children. Many

missionaries passed

through Bath

baptizing children and

teaching them to

read. Their duties also

included wedding,

church services and

officiating at burials.

24

1716 Port of Bath

PORT BATH Source Image drawn by Mark Moore, NC Dept History and Archives, red star shows the original Bath County jurisdiction of Colonial Customs Service from 1716-1739, Pink star indicates reduced Port Bath district 1730-1790.

Letter to the Governor of North Carolina from the Lords Proprietors

To Charles Eden Esquire August 1st 1716:

…We have consented that Bath Town according to the Petition sent by you shall be made a Sea Port

Town, and we have given our Secretary Orders accordingly. But how or after what manner it shall be

made a Corporation we have taken time to consider of. We wish you all happiness and success in your

Government and are,

Your very loving Friends,

CARTERET Palatin, JA: BERTIE for BEAUFORT, FULWAR SKIPWITH

25

RESOURCES

Angley, Wilson Unpublished Historical Research Port of Bath (1981, Bath Historic Site Visitors Center).

Bath County Deed Book I 1696-1729. Allen Hart Norris, the Beaufort County Genealogical Society 2003

Watson, Alan D., Latham, Bea and Samford, Patricia Bath the First Town in North Carolina 2005.

Links to early 18th c. Colonial Carolina Maps:

John Lawson 1709 Map of Carolina coast, http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/lawson/ill3.html

John Homann 1714 Hand colored Map of VA, MD, Coastal Carolina, Tryon Palace, New Bern NC http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/6069

Edward Moseley 1733 ECU Joyner Library Map of Carolina with Inset of Ocracoke Approach http://oldesttowns.blogspot.com/p/bath.html

James Wimble 1738 Map of Carolina, printed in 1738, drawn in 1729 http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/7010

Claude Sauthier 1769 Map of Bath Town, Brown Library Washington NC http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bath/sauthier Other Links: Historic Bath State Visitor Center http://www.nchistoricsites.org/bath/ History of Port Bath and British Colonial Customs Service http://www.ncpedia.org/port-bath

TIMELINE for COLONIAL BATH AND PORT OF BATH

Individual’s names in bold type and transcribed extracts from surviving documents are shown as italicized.

(1663) King Charles II granted Carolina charter for a new English proprietary colony, revised

boundaries 1665 from Virginia south to St.Mary’s River, north of St. Augustine, which was then Spanish

Florida. Land grant given to eight court favorites and generals who helped him regain power.

(1669) Colonial Carolina Fundamental Constitution written by John Locke, Carolina first colony to

legislate recording of births and death and which also legalized slavery.

(1670-90) Explorers and Fur traders explore eastern North Carolina, Albemarle was the state’s first

county, followed by Bath and Clarendon, the first three counties named after three Lords Proprietors

(1694) Earl of Bath becomes a Lords Proprietor, Chowan planter Thomas Pollock named customs

collector*

(1696) County of Bath created, established between Pamlico River and Albemarle River, first community

known as Pamtico, later known as BathTowne some years prior to 1705 incorporation.

(1697) Earl of Bath succeeds as Palatine of Carolina Colony, most powerful Lords Proprietor. Also

March 8 Nicholas Trott commissioned naval officer 1697-1701 include, a vessel inspection Port

Roanoke Sloop Sara Oct 1701

(1699) Henry Brabant, of Edinburgh new “comptroller his Maj. Customs”, Currotuck River

customhouse*

(1700) First Library in the state sent to Bath, actually two Bray libraries: one parochial and one layman’s

for clergy to use teaching children and adults, Over 1000 books sent by Rev. Thomas Bray founder of

the Anglican Society for Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Gold stamped on each volume:

Belonging to ye Library of St. Thomas Parish in Pamplico. At some point Pamplico or Pamtico settlement

renamed BathTowne.

(1702) Queen Anne’s War begins, increasing demand for Carolina naval stores, also known as War of

26

Spanish Succession

(1703) James Leigh First known Bath Customs collector commissioned by the Crown, sworn into office

1704 by Christopher Gale Chief Justice who was also a Bath Resident.

(1705) First town in North Carolina Bath receives town charter after David Perkins gets clear title to 160

acres in the area, formerly part of the Seth Sothel land grant. John Lawson draws up Bath Town Plan

Bath County divided into three precincts with two General Assembly representatives each: Pamtecough,

Wickham and Archdale

(1706) Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions held in Bath for the first time, also 300 acres set aside as

glebe for St. Thomas Parish, first glebe in North Carolina

(1707) Horse drawn grist mill built on Christopher Gale’s lot, first industry in Bath

(1709) Instructions from Lords Proprietors to Colonel Edward Tynte, Governor of South & North

Carolina on Trade and Navigation Law in Carolina. John Lawson publishes directions for sailing into all

five major port inlets in his new book A New Voyage to Carolina.

(1708-1710) Gov. Cary in alliance with Quakers had backing of Pamlico area residents

(1711) Deputy Gov Hyde arrives with commission to be Governor, first separation of NC/SC

government from province of Carolina. Cary Rebellion occurs with fighting at several locations. Royal

Marines sent in. Drought and yellow fever plague Bath area. John Lawson captured and killed by

Tuscaroras on canoe trip up Neuse River. Tributary, Contentnea creek. A fort built on Bath peninsula,

reports of 200-300 widows and orphans garrisoned in the town.

(1712) North Carolina made separate colony; war with Tuscarora Indians began, Pamticough precinct

renamed Beaufort precinct, Wickham changed to Hyde precinct after Governor Hyde came from

England. Archdale precinct changed to Craven. Christopher Gale appointed NC Chief Justice.

(1713) Treaty of Utrecht marks end of Queen Anne’s War. St. Paul’s vestry of Edenton and Rev

Urmston missionary tries unsuccessfully to gain possession of Bray Library.

(1714/15) Tuscarora Indians defeated, moved north to join Iroquois nation and/or new Hyde County

reservation

1715 Many new General Assembly laws affecting Bath, revised incorporation, revised lots, new

beautification laws, Port Bath created including Pamlico Sound, Neuse River and Pamlico River vessel

traffic. Law passed to build courthouses in both Hyde and Beaufort precincts. Bath given borough power

(an extra separate representative if sixty families inhabiting the town). Library law was revised with

Board of trustees and a keeper.

(1715/1716) Governor Charles Eden’s petition and resultant Port of Bath decree proclamation by Lords

Proprietors

(1717-1718) Edward Teach aka Pirate Blackbeard and crew located in Bath, pardoned by Gov. Eden

in court of Vice-Admiralty

(1718) King George issues orders to protect trade, including British Navy warships off Virginia and

Carolina coast, Pirate Blackbeard killed by British Royal Navy Lieut. Robert Maynard, sent by

Virginia Gov. Spottwood,. Maynard was second in command of HMS Lyme. Maynard sails with

wounded to Bath for medical care. Capt. Brand of HMS Pearl arrived in Bath by land to interrogate crew,

Gov. Eden and Tobias Knight Currituck port collector

(1722) Port officials established in Bath. Court of Pleas and Quarter sessions held, as well as maritime

courts.

(1723) John Dunston state wide naval officer appointment, district includes all waterways north of Cape

Fear

(1723) New poll tax levied to build Bath prison. Wharves allowed on some waterfront lots. NC General

Assembly legislative act appoints five commissioners for the Port of Bath: Maurice Moore, John

Porter, John Baptisti Ashe, Thomas Boyd, and Patrick Maule

(1726) Among list of NC port customs officers: three Bath Town residents in charge of five port

districts, Port Beaufort and Port Currituck-John Lovick, Port Roanoke-Christopher Gale, and Port

Bath- Isaac Ottiwell

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(1729) North Carolina became royal English crown colony when George II purchases Carolina from the

Lords Proprietors. Edward Moseley Bath resident and state Treasurer draws 1729 map of Carolina,

published in London 1733 a few years later.

(1730) Port Bath district shrinks when New Bern customs collections and inspections reassigned to Port

Beaufort as mentioned in correspondence to London by Governor Burrington the next year.

1731 to the American Revolution

(1731) Governor Burrington sends letter about Maritime commerce to Board of Trade in London. Bath

Naval officer Stephen Gold submits accounts to London Lords Commissioners for Trade and

Plantations.

(1733) – Edenton Council minutes mention naval officer Stephen Gold in custody, posted bond 800

pound GB to guarantee repayment Customs office monies.

(1739) Rev. George Whitefield, Methodist preacher, made first journey to Bath

(1743/44/45) General Assembly met in Bath, often met at Andrew Duncan’s Inn outside Bath town gate.

(1753) Col. Robert Palmer, native of Scotland arrived in Bath with King’s warrant as Surveyor

General of NC, and also with commission as Collector for Port Bath. His home today part of the Bath

state historic site.

(1756 ) Assembly ordered Bath court officials to move court to Washington

(1760) Pitt County removed from Bath county, courthouse moved back to Bath

(1775) North Carolina Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence

(1776 ) Town upriver Washington founded

(1777) Port of Bath customs official Nathan Keias relocated to Forks of the Tar, now Washington NC

(1785) County government and Port Bath removed from Bath to Washington.

(1789) North Carolina joined union as the 12th state

(1790) Last known year of shipping records showing Imports and Duties paid to Port Bath customs

Port Bath’s Early North Carolina Governors:

Deputy Governors (deputy to South Carolina Governor) “Ye Lands North and East of Cape Feare." John Gibbs 1689-

1690 Thomas Jarvis 1690-1694 Thomas Harvey 1694-1699 Henderson Walker 1699-1703 Robert Daniell 1703-1705

Thomas Cary 1705-1711 (refused to abandon his office to Glover) William Glover 1706-1710

Governors (South Carolina) William Sayle, Joseph West 3 times, Col. Robert Quary 1684-1685

Seth Sothel 1690-1692 Philip Ludwell 1692-1693 Thomas Smith 1693-1694 Joseph Blake 1694

John Archdale 1695-1696 (at one point governed from the North) Joseph Blake 1696-1700 James Moore 1700-1703

Nathaniel Johnson 1703-1709 Edward Tynte 1709-1710 Robert Gibbes 1710-1711

Governors of North Carolina, 1711-1731 Edward Hyde 1711-1712 Thomas Pollock 1712-1714 (acting) Charles Eden

1714-1722 Thomas Pollock 1722 (acting) William Reed 1722-1724 (acting) George Burrington 1724-1725 Richard Everard

1725-1731

Royal colony, 1731-1775 George Burrington 1731-1734 Nathaniel Rice 1734 (acting) Gabriel Johnston 1734-1752

Nathaniel Rice 1752-1753 (acting) Matthew Rowan 1753-1754 (acting) Arthur Dobbs 1753-1765 William Tryon 1765-1771

James Hasell 1771, 1774 (acting) Josiah Martin 1771-1775

Post Revolution Last Years of Port Bath, 1776-1780 Richard Caswell, 1780-1781 Abner Nash, 1781-1782 Thomas

Burke, 1782-1785 Alexander Martin, 1785-1787 Richard Caswell, 1787-1789 Samuel Johnston, 1789-1792 Alexander

Martin

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'A view of the Custom House with part of the Tower, taken from ye River Thames, London.’ All Port Bath Customs

Service Reports were sent to the London Customs House several times each year from 1716-1790. Image Credit: Maurer (artist), John Bowles (engrave) Robert Sayer (publisher) 1753. National Maritime Museum, London.

SRP $5.95 THIS VOLUNTEER-CREATED BOOKLET DONATED TO THE NC HISTORIC BATH COMMISSION IN SUPPORT OF PORT BATH’S 300th ANNIVERSARY 1716-2016. FREE e-COPIES AVAILABLE FOR STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS Historic Bath Phone: (252) 923-3971 Box 148, Bath, N.C. 27808 [207 Carteret St.] E-mail: bath@ncdcr.gov GPS: 35.47708562990, -76.81270367950

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