Let’s get to know Chowan and Perquimans counties

Chowan County is fondly known in North Carolina as the “Cradle of the Colony.”

Edenton, the county seat, was settled in 1712 and chartered in 1715. Within North Carolina, it appears that only the communities of Bath, New Bern and Beaufort are older.

 

Edenton takes its name from the second colonial governor, Charles Eden, who served from 1714 until his death in 1722. Edenton was the capital of the North Carolina colony from 1722-43. 

Historian J. D. Lewis said: “From its very beginning to the time when freedom from England was finally achieved, Edenton was a hot-bed and center of continuous revolt and resistance to the Crown.” 

A perfect example is the famous “Edenton Tea Party” in 1774, when Penelope Barker and Elizabeth King formed an alliance of 50 local women to protest against “taxation without representation” by boycotting British tea and fabrics coming into North Carolina.

 

One journalist wrote: “There are but few places in America that possess so much female artillery as Edenton.” 

Geographically, Chowan County is bounded on the south by the Albemarle Sound and to the west by the Chowan River. It is one of seven counties that has been attached to Carteret County to form the state senate’s new 1st District.

 

The district is a strange configuration where part of the North Carolina Outer Banks meets a portion of the “inner banks” region. 

We need to forge strong bonds with our new partners in the 1st District to advocate for interests of eastern and coastal North Carolina. All communities in this district are heavily dependent on the various forms of tourism, and as they say…a “rising tide lifts all boats.”

 

Chowan’s eastern neighbor is Perquimans County. Each of these counties is about the same size, with respective populations approaching 14,000 people. (Perquimans is also a part of the state senate’s new 1st District.)

 

Hertford, located on the Perquimans River, is the county seat of Perquimans County. The settlement was originally known as Phelps Point. Quaker Jonathan Phelps was the primary landowner. 

However, the bill to charter the community that was put forth in the colonial legislature in 1758 specified that the town be called Hertford. 

Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford in England, was the “political patron” of North Carolina colonial governor Arthur Dobbs.

 

Francis Seymour-Conway

Better to be named after Hertford than Dobbs, said the outspoken Robert Digges Wimberly Connor, who was North Carolina’s first state archivist. Dobbs served as governor from 1753-64…but he wasn’t very popular. Connor labeled Dobbs as “a dull, overbearing Irishman” whose administration “was a total failure.” 

Connor wrote: “It was the misfortune of the colony to be governed by Arthur Dobbs. He cared nothing for the privileges of the people and was eager only to please the king and his ministry.” 

“In an outburst of wrath, Dobbs wrote to the authorities in England that (the North Carolina subjects) ‘were stubborn as mules.’”

 

Gov. Dobbs

Dobbs asked the king to grant him greater authority to rule with an iron fist to “prevent the rising spirit of independency stealing into this colony,” Connor said. 

The man who really got under Dobbs’ skin was John Harvey, a native of Harvey’s Neck in Perquimans County, who fueled the flames of “civil disobedience” in the legislature. 

John Harvey earned the reputation as the “Father of the Revolution in North Carolina,” according to Connor. 

“Sadly, less is known of his life than of any of the other Revolutionary leaders of North Carolina,” Connor noted.