Edenton, NC, draws me like a bear to honey. This colonial seaport town has layers of history like stacked clouds formed in a fast moving weather front, and thus stories, my bread and butter, so to speak.
I made my third pilgrimage to Edenton last month to explore three curiosities: historic homes and their caretakers; the life of a bright and feisty slave girl, Harriet Ann Jacobs, and a promise to my brother. Each of my pursuits was a teacher, reminding me to dig below the surface If I want to understand life's complexities and motivations.
The town website describes Edenton's special characteristics: "North Carolina's second oldest town, Edenton, was one of the fledgling nation's chief political, cultural, and commercial centers. The state's first colonial capital, it was established in the late 17th century and incorporated in 1722.
Once its second largest port, Edenton provided enslaved people with a means of escape via the Maritime Underground Railroad before Emancipation. Today it features an extensive historic district with architectural styles spanning 250 years, such as the 1767 Chowan County Courthouse National Historic Landmark."
The Edenton Woman's club has hosted a biennial tour of historic homes and sites since 1949. Ticket sales support historic preservation and public education on colonial life in America. As Edenton proclaims, "We don't have a museum; we are a museum."
Generally scheduled in April, the 2021 tour was postponed until October. I attended two previous pilgrimages with a bus load of women from the Beaufort Garden Club. Those brief day trips, more like parties on wheels, were snapshot tours that whet my appetite to know more, to see more. So this year my husband and I booked two nights, with a plan in mind to scratch the surface of Edenton's past, and my own.
Historic Homes and Their Caretakers
Edenton boasts a significant concentration of 18th and 19th century houses in a picturesque waterfront setting, which lures lovers of old homes to come for a visit, or perhaps even to buy and restore an old house. As in Beaufort, NC, where I live, local historians say, "Beaufort citizens were too poor to tear down the old houses and build modernized replacements. That's why we have so many old houses."
On a Beaufort walking tour, visitors note an occasional 1950's brick ranch style house, and remorse that an historic home was torn down to build something so unfitting to the neighborhood's character. Beaufort historic guides laugh and say, "These were the wealthier residents of the day, those who had money to install central heat and modern plumbing."
Such was the case in Edenton, as well. For example, a Baptist church parking lot and the nearby gas station sit on two grazed historic home sites related to Harriet Jacob, who published a powerful autobiography in 1861 of her life as a slave, Incidents in The Life of A Slave Girl.
The up side of poverty is that it makes people hold on to the things they have out of necessity, including a drafty old house. The owners of the Cupola House (1758) and the Penelope Barker House (1782), both National Historical Landmarks, fell to such dire straits of poverty that the owners sold off what they could from the houses to survive.
When The Cupola House was built in 1758, it was called the finest Jacobean house south of Connecticut, and it became “North Carolina’s most significant early dwelling.”
The house stayed in possession of the Dickinson family for 141 years.
In 1918, faced with financial difficulties, Miss Tillie Bond, the last Dickinson inheritor, decided to sell the elaborate Georgian woodwork from the downstairs of the Cupola House to the Brooklyn Museum and much of the historic furnishings.
Alarmed by the sale of architectural artifacts, Edenton historical preservationists organized the Cupola House Association and collected the necessary funds to buy the property to be used as a public building. In the 1960s, the woodwork from the first floor was reproduced and the building was opened as a house museum, refurbished with original pieces from the time of construction. Later, in 1971, the Cupola House was registered as a National Historic Landmark.
The Penelope Barker house stands as a landmark in women's history. The Barker House, built in 1782 by Thomas and Penelope Barker, features a conglomeration of Georgian, Greek Revival, and Federal architecture styles. It is currently used as the Edenton Historical Commission’s headquarters and town visitor's center.
Just before the outbreak of the American Revolution, Thomas Barker went to England to serve as a diplomat for the colony of North Carolina and was detained there when the war broke out. Back home, his free-thinking wife, Penelope, launched a campaign against Britain's taxation without representation. At that time, men had begun to protest England's taxation without representation. Penelope decided that it was important for women to stand up and be heard.
Penelope has been described as one of the most courageous women in U.S. history. At a time when women did not publicly engage in politics, she gathered fifty Edenton women for a tea party and a proclamation. Penelope told them, “Maybe it has only been men who have protested the king up to now. That only means we women have taken too long to let our voices be heard. We are signing our names to a document, not hiding ourselves behind costumes like the men in Boston did at their tea party. The British will know who we are.”
The women signed a petition on October 25, 1774. At the Edenton Tea Party, they prepared local teas from the native yaupon holly and rose hips, vowing to forgo British teas. The Edenton Tea Party is cited as the first political activism by women in the colonies. A London newspaper responded to the proclamation by making a caricature of the women, depicting them as horrible mothers and harlots.
Similar to the Cupola House, ancestors of the Barker house had to sell off historic artifacts from the house to survive. Penelope Barker's infamous tea table, where the Tea Party Declaration was signed, was one of the artifacts sold. It was purchased by owners of the Greenfield Plantation in Edenton. Later, the DuPont Historical Museum, took steps to obtain the tea table, which dates to the 1700's. The Museum purchased it from the Greenfields and made good on its promise to give the Greenfield's an exact replica of the table that included the chipped corner.
Luckily in historic towns, there are some residents, who view their home as their legacy. The family stories and ghosts that abide speak to them through the walls. Although the owners might not have money or will to restore the home, they live on with pride. There are always a handful of these stories in every Edenton Pilgrimage.
At the Greenfield Plantation the home literally tells the story of the people and pets who lived there since 1752. A mural, painted on ship's sails, covers many of the walls. When the delightful owner (9th generation) and her son (10th generation) share anecdotes from the past they point to the painted record of it on their walls.
Bit by bit, derelict homes, are being restored by visionary history buffs like Alex and Sally Francis Kehayes, who rescued the Long Beach home (1901) from dense overgrowth and moved it from the Albemarle Sound to Yeopin River on the outskirts of Edenton. The West Indies style architecture and fine cabinetry features in the home were maintained, along with the open passage plan that enabled a visitor at the front door to see all the way through the house to the spectacular water view behind.
Once restored, this old house provided a palette for Sally's exceptional decorating talents. The current owners proudly show photos of the historic home and the families who lived there, honoring the home's past while creating a new chapter in their family's history.
Another fine example of history lost and then found by Edenton's restoration zealots is the Lane House, which is periodically opened for tours. The Lane House cottage was purchased to use as a rental. In the process of renovations, it became evident that the age of the building was much older than expected. Experts from the state were called in and the home's construction date was set back two hundred years from the date given at purchase, to 1710, the oldest standing home in North Carolina.
I went to Edenton with an interest to learn about its African American heritage. I was delighted that the Nehemiah Holley House (1893) was on tour. The home was built by an African American couple, Mr. Holley, a railroad mechanic, and his wife, Bettie Creecy, a teacher Ms. Creecey's parents provided the land for the house.
While African American homes were found throughout the town during the 1800's, the Holley house is on the corner of a street which was predominantly African American. At first glance, I thought the street was unpaved, but then noticed there was a bit of poor quality asphalt. I asked a tour guide if this was where town ended and country homes started back in the old days. She said, "No this is where the Black folk lived." A reminder of ever present racism that exists even in the quality of street paving provided.
Edenton's African American Heritage
As mentioned, one pursuit of interest during the Pilgrimage was to find out more about the lives of African Americans living in the south before, during, and shortly after the civil war. We are all familiar with stories about the cruel treatment of slaves on plantations. I wondered if town life provided a different experience for enslaved Africans whose owners were reportedly less harsh in sight of town peers than those living on remote farms where barbaric punishment could be unleased on their slave farm hands, without any concerns about who might be watching.
Free African Americans lived in colonial Edenton, owning homes and businesses. Some were free because their African ancestors had completed contracts of indentured servitude, which was practiced from 1619 -1670, first in colonial Virginia but then also in other colonies. Other Freemen and women in colonial Edenton were granted freedom by humanistic owners, mostly women, who developed feelings of love, respect and familial attachment to slaves working in their home. Others purchased their freedom or those of family members, earning money as skilled laborers for valued services.
Clyde Ford, Seattle Times, wrote in 2019 that it is important to understand the history of indentured servitude as background to understanding racism in America. Indentured servants were men and women who signed a contract (also known as an indenture or a covenant) by which they agreed to work for four to seven years in exchange for transportation to the colony, and, once they arrived, to be provided with food, clothing, and shelter. Initially, most indentured servant contracts were made with white migrants from the British Isles.
The first Africans came to Hampton, Virginia in 1619 on board the ship of an English privateer who traded the Africans for supplies. The first African arrivals in the colonies were initially treated as indentured servants because the concept of slavery did not exist in the colonies. These early arrivals were given the same opportunities for freedom as white workers brought to the colonies during that period. Natives, working-class whites and Africans coexisted in early colonial America under indentured servitude. They worked together and they intermarried. From these relationships, we can trace African ancestry in many whites whose ancestors arrived during this period.
By 1630, most of these Black bondsmen had worked off their indentures and were free. As demands for labor grew, so did the cost of indentured servants. Many landowners also felt threatened by newly freed servants demand for land. The colonial elite realized the problems of indentured servitude as an impediment to their long-term wealth.
By 1640, some landowners turned to enslaved Africans as a more profitable and ever-renewable source of labor, and the shift from indentured servants to racial slavery had begun. By 1670 indentured servitude ended and the practice of slavery became the norm for Africans. According to Clyde Ford, slavery, and the racism that undergirded it, had taken hold so firmly in the colonies that even Free Blacks lived in great peril. Ford writes that it is important to realize that slavery in America was a deliberate choice.
For Africans, their indentured servitude became perpetual servitude, then ultimately outright slavery, which brutalized their bodies, their minds and their spirits. These new laws enabled slave owners to enforce what Africans could and could not do, whom they could and could not love, whom they were and were not better than. From legislatures to churches to newspapers, a racial divide was constructed, and vigorously enforced. (Ford, Clyde; Servants or slaves? How Africans first came to America matters; Seattle Times; August 29, 2019.)
By 1675 slavery was well established, and by 1700 slaves had almost entirely replaced indentured servants. With plentiful land and slave labor available to grow a lucrative crop, southern planters prospered, and family-based cotton and tobacco plantations became the economic and social norm. Free African Americans were likely to live in urban centers. The chance for developing ties to others that were free plus greater economic opportunities made town living sensible. Unfortunately, this "freedom" was rather limited. Free African Americans were rarely accepted into white society.
In my pursuit of African history in Edenton, I had the honor to speak with Dr. Ben Speller, who is now retired from his post as Dean of the School of Library and Information Sciences at North Carolina Central University in Durham, and lives in Edenton, near his ancestral home in Bertie County. Dr. Speller is a distinguished figure in Edenton, particularly in the area of African American historical preservation.
Dr. Speller explained that the first fifty years or so that free people of color who were former indentured servants in Virginia migrated to Edenton and Chowan County where they were welcomed and prospered as artisans, yeoman farmers, and plantations owners. He also revealed his own fascinating family history, which illuminated how his former enslaved great great grandfather’s white father treated him.
Dr. Speller's paternal grandmother’s father was the first-born son of a white plantation owner (Outlaw). He was born in 1858 and lived in the home of his white father who was single. He continued to live with his father after he was freed at the end of the Civil War. When his father married in 1868, he deeded his mixed-race child a 500-acre farm which included a house. A similar relationship of mixed race family ties occurred with his paternal ancestors.
[Photo of Maggie Outlaw Speller, 1888-1985 pictured on right.]
Dr. Speller's family prospered as did many other freed Blacks at the end of slavery who were deeded land by their white progenitors or purchased land from them.
Dr. Speller told me that it was not uncommon for those freed at the end of slavery to aid the white families who became destitute after the Civil War, losing both their slaves and investments made in confederate currency. Dr. Speller’s family gave aid to the white family during these tough times. Dr. Speller said that some of the white Spellers and the African American Spellers have been close for generations and this story is one shared by both families. Both of Dr. Speller's parents were mixed race. His mother was a Bond, Gilliam, and Rascoe.. [Photo of Outlaw, Speller, and Bond cousins pictured below.]
Skilled African American slaves also lived in Edenton with their families, worked independently and payed an agreed percentage of their wages to their owner. Dr. Ben Speller told me that skilled carpenters, cabinet and furniture makers, who were in high demand, were sources of great income and wealth to their owners. This created a different relationship between slave and owner than those of field hands and owners.
In some cases, the wealth amassed by the white owner made the owner reluctant to give freedom to the skilled artisan. In other cases, an agreement was predetermined and honored. For example, after earning a certain income or years of service, the artisan could buy his freedom. Having access to cash from their labors also enabled African artisans to buy freedom for their children, other relatives and friends. In this way, the freed population continued to grow before the civil war.
Besides remarkable Dr. Speller, I also followed another source for learning about African American heritage. Immediately upon arrival I went to the Barker House Welcome Center and purchased the autobiography of Harriet Jacobs, Incidents of Life as a Slave Girl, published in 1861. I also picked up a brochure about Harriet's life and a map of key Edenton sites where incidents in her story took place.
I devoured the book because her personal history is laid out in such a compelling way, and because of the facts revealed about life in that era. Harriet Jacobs and her brother John were born into slavery in Edenton in 1813 and 1815, and baptized in St Paul's Episcopal church. She was owned by a kindly woman, Margaret Horniblow, who taught her to read, write and sew. Harriet spent her childhood in and out of the Horniblow home and tavern, the town's only colonial hotel, near the Court House, as well as the home of her grandmother, Molly Horniblow, a freed slave, who made a living as a baker, and lived on West King Street.
Harriet expected to be freed upon Margaret's Horniblow's death, but Horniblow's family members refused her dying wish and passed Harriet on to an abusive master, James Norcom, who lived on West Eden Street. Norcom sexually stalked Harriet from the time she was twelve. She sometimes fled to her grandmother's house or her grandmother's white friend, Blount, out of his reach, which suited Mrs. Norcom, who was jealous of her husband's obsession with Harriet. Harriet, in an act of self-preservation, had two children with a local white lawyer, Samuel Tredwell Sawyer.
In anger, Norcom, sent Harriet to work for his son and new wife at a plantation outside town.
Harried escaped and first hid in the swamps, then in Mrs. Blount's house, and finally in a small crawl space above her grandmother's storeroom, that was secretly built by her uncle. Harriet stayed in the crawl space for nearly seven years, watching her children play outdoors through a tiny peep-hole in the roof. Her grandmother brought her food and talked to her at night when deemed safe. Some nights Harriet came down into the storeroom to stretch her cramped body.
Eventually Harriet escaped to New York by the Edenton maritime underground railroad. Samuel Tredwell Sawyer, father of the children, tricked Norcom into selling Harriet's children. Sawyer purchased and freed them, then sent them north to be re-united with their mother. Harriet Ann Jacob's life in Edenton and in northern cities revealed the realities of her life and struggles. A friend encouraged Harriet to write her autobiography which she completed in 1859. [Photo depicts Harriet with an "x" standing with students from a school she founded in the north.]
Many of the names in Harriet's story are prominent citizens in Edenton, so there have been attempts by some of these families to discredit her story. Others vouch for the authenticity of her autobiography. I read several reviews and summaries of Harriet's story, the most interesting being a piece, "Edenton, North Carolina, 'A Round Unvarnish'd Tale' ", written by Rene' Gordon for the Philadelphia Sun Times, May 31, 2015. Gordon told what he believed to be the "unvarnished" truth about Harriet's story. In this interesting article he also provided historical background on the maritime underground railroad that operated out of Edenton. (See link below.)
A Promise to My Brother
I visited my brother, Ron Bowen, regularly in the months before his death and in the evenings he told me stories about our ancestors. Ron was wheelchair bound from Parkinson's disease, but never lost his keen wit and gift for storytelling.
Prior to his illness he was a master woodworker who reproduced fine colonial furniture from his 1860's historical home in Erwin, NC, and also provided expertise on historical preservation projects.
His final project was restoration of a Ford Model-A Woody Wagon, and with aid of his brothers-in-law Terry Williams and Arnold Gregory, he met his goal to finish the car and drive it around Beaufort during the Old Homes Weekend in June, 2018. This car carried his pallbearers to Ron's grave site in May 2020.
My brother was an early American history buff, and chased down our family tree, one branch at a time. He was also a master storyteller with a brilliant memory for historical facts. He made few written records of his research on our family's genealogy, but instead held the facts in his head. If you wanted to find out, it was a call to story hour with my brother. I often think of those final chats, just the two of us, and will forever remember his twinkling blue eyes and mischievous smile when he revealed the latest clue he had unraveled.
In one of our last visits before COVID-lockdown, I mentioned my Edenton fascination and asked if he had visited the town chasing its treasure trove of history. He told me that in fact, our family has connections to Edenton from both our maternal grandmother and grandfather.
The maternal great grandfather of my maternal grandmother, Golda May Byrd Norris Denton, was John Byrd. Circa 1697 John Byrd came from England to Virginia and migrated to Edenton, North Carolina. I recall my brother saying that my ancestor had been granted land, but do not know if the land was received for payment for completing indenture or if it was a land grant he received from England or the colonial governor.
John Byrd was cousin to William Byrd, a well-known Virginia surveyor. William Byrd played an interesting historical role in Edenton, according to a courthouse placard that revealed the following information:
“We are indebted to Virginia aristocrat William Byrd for this elegant building that has survived two centuries. Byrd, who did not have a high opinion of his North Carolina neighbors and was never reluctant to express himself, took one look at the old 1718 wood courthouse, which cost 187 pounds, and said, ‘it has the appearance of a common tobacco barn.’ Shamed by Byrd’s acerbic tongue, the people of Edenton responded.”
The "new" courthouse built in 1767 stands today as the longest continually used court house in North Carolina. A courthouse brochure describes the 250-year history this way: " its strength of design has symbolically communicated justice and its bell tower serves as a beacon for all to defend freedom."
Harriet Jacob's grandmother, Molly Horniblow, was emancipated at this courthouse in 1828 after she was purchased by Hannah Pritchard using money Molly had earned selling baked goods. Certainly some mixed justice there.
For most African Americans, the courthouse was a site and symbol of injustice. The Edenton courthouse was the setting for the infamous 1829 decision by the NC State Supreme Court in State v. John Mann.
Lydia, a hired slave, was shot and wounded by John Mann when she attempted to flee punishment. Mann had been convicted by a lower court and appealed. The State Supreme Court overturned the ruling stating that slaves are doomed by virtue of the fact that they are slaves therefore masters were not subject to judicial scrutiny if they committed battery against them and to subject masters to criminal prosecution would lessen the hold they had over the enslaved.
John Byrd, in fact, served as a judge at the courthouse, and was also a farmer. He was a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which was constructed in 1736. My brother told me that Byrd was buried in the church cemetery but he had been unable to find his grave when he visited Edenton. I also looked for his grave, but so many markings have faded from the early graves.
Many of John Byrd's children married Quakers. We are descendants of John Byrd's grandson, George Washington Byrd, who migrated to the Black Creek area in Johnson country. He lost his farm in a land dispute and moved to Harnett County. His son or grandson owned the land that is now Dunn, NC. Their daughter Sara Penelope Byrd was my great grandmother.
When my mother and I went to visit my great granny "Pen" in the 1950's, she tied on her calico bonnet and marched my mother around the scrappy farmyard to admire all her flowers, hydrangeas and roses. I watched from a distance as she was intolerant of young children, but looking back I can now see the roots of my green thumb, that was passed from her, to my grandmother, to my mother, and on to me.
My mother's father, Raymond Denton, also had links to Edenton. His mother, Trecinda Holland Denton, had been a widow for three years when Raymond was born. Through more sleuthing my brother found out that Raymond's father was a farm neighbor, Charlie Edwards. Charlie Edwards maternal ancestry has linkages to the Aycocks, the Revell's and the Peacock's who all lived in the Edenton area.
My brother was delighted to find that a chest made for our Revell ancestor is pictured in a collection of furniture produced by one of the most famous cabinet makers in colonial America, William Sheay who lived and worked in Edenton. This was such a delightful finding for my brother, the cabinet maker.
During those final visits with my brother in the fall/winter of 2019, we talked about taking a trip to Edenton in the spring of 2020. Sadly, we never made that journey, due to COVID and his worsening health, so this one was for him.
Journey completed, or maybe not
I am putting this journey to rest for now, although there is much more to explore in a future trip to Edenton.
I promised our kids that next summer we will go canoeing in the Great Dismal Swamp, which is near Edenton. By my accounts, an overnight or two in Edenton will provide due rest after our swamp adventure. And just maybe, I can interest them to help me find John Byrd's grave.
Credits and Links:
Photos of Edenton taken by the author, except for three photos of Dr. Ben Speller's cousins and great grandmother provided by Dr. Speller
Cabinet Maker William Sheay, who used the signature WH on his furniture:
Harriet Jacobs biographical information and Edenton landmarks of her life
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