Newspapers / The Coastland Times (Manteo, … / April 2, 1937, edition 1 / Page 19
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Friday, April 2, 193.'} The Dare County Times, Manteo, N. C Soiffe-'^eenes in Swsn Quarter, Capitol of Hyde County ijinno;- thai clav soriip of iiif- bovf in rbp pwninp ami blvonacen in , nie oinmg room fiooi for us" 'white and oae negro man—and :c.'■c a roast of beef j prepa. tre town Cap: ytieitaricif . as i;o ^arge es'P''c.'.ons of the Fed- that was prior to 1836. Onc’ncgtp cd at u farm luai'i .u U la' in d i' i ir.’ fmm'l a if:o;l placi for s'anc ' erals cnnu' to tir n ..oti ataln man was lynched during the Clv- iuva% and as a fuiilifiil ( Mi.'it!'' oi "■ i'';’ i 'o .t i 1’ ,i diiiinr 'in- war il War It is said that Hyde count- 1 must confess that I lanir.ol. oi It 1 ! 11 I'l ,j' h Mr I 1 -A I .iild slept on feiUlii-r lied.s whicli | Onl\ Two £• v|.| iitions 111 Hvdp Tliere have li'.tii out two legal "We arrived at Swan Quailei ' .she wu.s .'■rind enoiiffh to .spread on | executions In Hyde county—one ty has the smallest per cent of criminals of any county in the (Continued on Page 6)' ' WITH ALBEMARLE SWAN QUARTER l.s a pretty place, as may be seen from the nbov e snapshot In the upper right may be seen the Williams building whicli houses the law offices.of Hon. O. L. Williams, and also the b ranch of the Engelhard Banking and Trust Company. Next to this building is the Berry Company "bui Idlng, where Dan Berry, Swan Qu arter booster, operates a large store. In the upper left is Dan Berry’s modern Texaco filling station The central picture shows t he Swan Quarter Methodist Church, the new church built to re place the famous church "moviyl'.by the hand of God,” about which you will read elsewhere, and which has been outgrown. The lOwcr left .shows a view' along the main'street of Swan Quarter, and the lo w'er right a scene along the splendid harbor leading up to the village HYDE’S GLORIOUS New. York Calvary Company P and were commanded by Capt. en knew how to weave and make cloth (CniAtiiAue-) tvem PSVG •?) buildings were being im- Collier Richardson, with a Howit- thrift "nd ‘•uuerior intelligence to Proved on all the time, until once , zsr Company G Inst. North Gavo- become“ rfch.'and from whom the debarked at Rose Lords Proprietor.s u.sually selected “ br ek could oe found and near- ; Bay Endge their deputies; and the freemen who were the ordinary and’Un-" Instructed emigrant Among fills class was another set. crimes had reduced them to tem porary slavery. There were the transported convicts who had been brought in and sold to tfie I ly all of the houses had brick chimneys. When the people first cmigrale'd to America the houses whose I 'vere nothing but little log huts. The women and children were a great help to the early settlers They could handle a canoe well and their wives were always ready In his report the Capt. says. “The crossings of the roads were destroyed by the negroes under orders of one Henry Credle, whom they took to New Bern as a pris oner. About three miles from Fairfield they found some of the enemy, and when they arrived there the place was nearly desert- nlentpis under tcmuurarv bond-1 ace 'Their conditii n was worse l '’He "'ey The girls were taught to ed. I then moved on and drove than any other of the white peo- ""H attend to the house- In mounted pickets during the nle ln^he colony but they werc bold affairs and dairy The chil- ■ whole march from Lake Landing H f dren of both sexes were very quick i to within one and a half mile of Swan Quarter, when I was attack ed from the swamp on the right of the wood by about eighty Rang ers, and ordered to surrender. A a great deal better off than the poor people of London were. They were bound out for a certain term of years, at the expiration ' of which they became full citizens. Sent Dccigatcs lo Assembly The earliest record o' represen tatives of Hyde in any Assembly is of the delegates sent to the gen- , eral mectmi! at New Bern on i went forwaid by felling the August 25. 17V4 Hyde county at learning. There were few, if any, good-for-nothing ones among them, and Instead of wasting what the Industry of their parents liad left them, they improved and ad ded more to it. They were mar ried when quite young. The improvement of the coun- sent Samuel Smith and Roc|\eas Latham. To the meeting at Hills boro in 1775 Hj’de also sent dele gates, and lo the Congress at Hal ifax, April 4, 1778, she sent sever- ' ar delegates. The inhabitants of Hyde lived far apart and there was only oc casional intercourse between tlicm. For many years the General Co^'t and Assembly had no fixed place for session and the meetings were oflimes at the private residence of one of the Counselors. There was no mall service, and all communi cation except by personal inter course had to be by private mes senger. This difficulty wa.s felt a great der.l by the uppei' c lass, but more so by the servants and laborers^ No white bondsman could leave his master’s land bat under re strictions as amounted to virtual proliibltion. and a hired laborer could not ceme and go as he pleas ed. Sunday was the day of rest and freedom, but not even then co-W the people gather togethei^ at the places ot worship, for there were no such places for many years. The English hunter and the wild Indian were the only-ones tliat did much visiting, and they probably saw more of the inhabi tants than any one else in the providence. Man Was Ifcail of Houcsliold Circumstances made society simple in those pioneer days. Stic- man was tb.c armed protector and’ the woman was the house-wife. Most all were hunters, many de pending in r. great mensuro for their meat upon venison and bear’s flesh procured by the rifle The first lo.sson that Hyde county .settlers learned was tlie necessity of self help; the next, all must help one another. Log-rollings, house-raisings, corn-shuckings. (in Hyde called corn gatherings,! when all the neighbors came to gether to do what the family iltl self could hardly accomplish alone, was the occasion of a frolic.qnd_ dance for the young people. OthcT amusements rvere foot-races, cud gel playing and wrestling. The young men prided themselves on- their bodily strength, and were al ways eager to contend against one anotlier in athletic games, such as wrestling, racing. Jumping and’ lifting bariTls. The young peo ple were often invited to cp^on pickings, which were occaslohs’ol a great deal of fun and amuse ment. The cotton was spread out In a big roll in front of the Blaz ing fire made in the spacious fire place. The task to cash one, yir^ to pick one shoe full of cottonseed, after which all could engage in iHay. , - The costumes of the rich'folks were the same ns those in England under Queen Anno and Georgejf reign. Tlio common people liv^ in comfort and were genera^ clad by the industry of the wom- of the providence; for they en made first the cloth and then the garments from cotton, wool and flax. Almost every house contain ed .a loom and nsarlj’ all the worn- trees and draining out the rich lands, until about 1330, when the development of the county had grov/n with astonishing rapidity. Those who came to the county as fotnUies separated and went to their farms,, usually' called, clear-, ings, as they were always made by first cutting off the timber. The stumps were left to dot the fields of gi'ain and Indian corn Corn was the invariable resources of the Hyde county settler. The title to some of the land was obtained from the Indian Chief, Long Tom, as a record of it has been found In the courthouse of Hyde county. Not only was the clearing of the forests the first prelimlnaiy to cultivation, but It was also the surest means of caus ing the Indians to move westward In search of hunting grounds. All the land was shrouded in one vast forest, and stretched in sombre and melancholy wastes from Lake to Sound. In those trying times prior to the 1812 War. the settlers of Hyde coimiy had but little money; bar ter was the common form of ex change, and peltries were often used as a circulating medium. Real estate was almost without value. A Lake farm of about one hun dred acres, it Is said, sold for en ough calico to make a lady’s dress. The same farm today can be bought for one hundred dollars per acre. Gooscmcal Used for Bread It has been told that early dic ing the eighteenth centuiy, the settlers had been cut off from a crop by excessive rains and storms until some of the people were on the point of starvation. A lady with a family residing about five miles from Swan Quarter had but one goose left to eat. She baked the goose as dry as she could to serve both as bread and meat for a while, after which she would gather her children about her and die of starvation, but Providence would have it differently News came to the home that a boat had arrived at Swan Quarter with corn. The corn and wheat was ground into meal and flour by a small hand grist mill cut from rock. During the period just prior to the Civil War, the rich lands of •Hyde county, owing to cheap lab or, became vciy valuable. Judge John R. Donnell owned a farm of isix thousand acres, three thousand ^of which were cultivated by two hundred to three hundred slaves. Confederates Put Up a Fight The great Civil strife came on in 1860. There was one battle fought In Hyde county In 1863, between the Confederate and Fed eral troops, on the main thorough fare from Swan Quarter to Lake Mattamuskeet. and within one and a half mile of Swan Quarter. The Confederates attacked the Fed- .erals from ambush. As there is no written record of this battle I will quote from a letter written by L. S. Dickey of Chicago, Illinois: who was in a raid to the county a few days after the fight: "I was not along with the ambushed poi’ty. Tlioy bsiciiged to the 3rd A Bank That Has Contributed of deep canal eight feet wide ran betw’een me and the attacking party. As my vedettes were pass ing, the Rangers fired one shot. “Lieutenant Benson immediately charged the first platoon of cav alry and received a volley killing three of my men and wounding the Lieutenant and several others. Six horses were killed and many Wounded. 1 ordered the infan try to. deploy., into ,the. woods as skirmishers and ordered Ueiit; Burke to give the enemy a few rounds of canister. Here Lieut. Burke was wounded. The enemy were dispersed and fled. This liappened Wednesday, March 4, 1863. The following week, March 8, 9. 10, 11 and 12 the expedition that followed marched around the * Lake L. S. Dickey wa.s in com mand of this c.xpcdition." Ke give.s an account of it in the following "We reached the residence of the people we were to move and their household effects were put in to a rickety cart with a .son-y specimen of a hor.se to liaul 11 When we were about to start llie return trip a little boy of five or | six years of age stood by weeping j bitlei'ly because Ire was being lefi behind. lie was an orplu’.n who had been living with the folks we were taking away, and they did, not wish to take him along The ’ grateful look of the little fellow as he dried his tears was my re ward. , In'-our circuit around the Lake toward the sound wc had .^tai ted on this raid as foot sotJier.s. but by this time, a majority of our force was riding, mounted upon horses, mules, donkeys, oxen and oven cov/s, or were drawn by Ihoin | in vehicles of various kinds, from the family carriage lo the home made wagon. It was a grotesque and comical procc.s.sion and 11 a- mused me gi-eatly, but there was such a lack of order and discipline that from another view of it I was disgusted. ' “Once r mountcd -a 'diminutiiK; donkey and rode along with nw feet dangling clo.so to the ground The animal went alone nicely for i a while, but becoming tired of my company, he suddenly rushed under the wagon and scraped me off his back. When we halted for Much to the Upbuilding Dare County and the Albemarle Section OFFICERS C. O. ROBINSON. Chiiirinan of ihi‘ A. B. HOLTZ, Fn siili iii DR. L. S. BLADES, Vii-o IVcsi.lei!! W. E. Griffin, Vir*'-IVr.-'id«‘r,i iS G. W. BELL, Assislnnt Vii r Dsc-? ft 'i’l Offierr M. R. GRIFFIN, Assislanl Ciisiiirr D. G. BROCKE'!''!'. .Ar>.si'-'.!..:j'. (ui-liii uiril : *r iisl *z* DIRECTORS V. . O. ROBINSON A. B. HOLTZ !.. .S. BLADES W. .L WOODLEY C. B, MORRLSE'ITE J. B. LEIGH .M. IL JONES JOHNSON FOREMAN’ W. C. DAWSON A. S. DANIELS M. L. CLARK The First Estublislied ‘1891 Citizens National Bank Elizabeth City, N. C. -- MEMBER Federal Deposit Insuravce Corf^oralion Federal Her.rrve S\s‘r::i II .1 Dare County Pe This Section’s Furniture Store '^(CTzc Can. A Business Built on 5 Sound Principles Value Quality Economy o/ Courtesy Satisfaction QUINN FUR S. W. Twiford, Owner 105 to 115 North Poindexter St. ITURE Elizahetli Oty,
The Coastland Times (Manteo, N.C.)
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April 2, 1937, edition 1
19
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