Becoming Americans
Page 31
James Fewox's land in Albemarle looked like a lovely bit of Grandfather Ware's Virginia land, torn out roughly and dropped off the northern shore of the Albemarle Sound. Fewox's twenty-five acres of this island were the majority and best acres; the remaining ten acres, or so, belonged to Benjamin Laker, a prestigious member of the colony.
Batts Grave was the name of the island.
Nathaniel Batts was the earliest or, at least, the most celebrated of the settlers of Old Virginia, as many people called Albemarle before Carolina became a proprietary colony in 1660. Batts had arrived years before that, joined soon by George Durant, John Harvey, and others of the colony's longest-seated, most hard-headed, and independent planters of 1691.
Nathaniel Batts had moved south into Old Virginia before it was renamed, and had purchased his lands directly from the Indians. He began a brisk trade with the Indians and had prospered. He established his base and home at the western end of the Sound, between the mouths of the Chowan and the Roanoke Rivers. Although Batts was sufficiently rough and daring to demand the respect of his fellow traders and settlers, he was remembered in the century's last decade as a dashing, romantic cavalier. They called him, "Captain Nathaniel Batts, Governor of Roanoke."
Batts Grave nestled in a bay that indented the northern shoreline of Perquimans Precinct, between the Perquimans and the Chowan Rivers. Two short waterways—the Yaupim River and Yaupim Creek fed into the little bay. The island's loamy soil was rich, and the island was situated in a perfect spot for a trading post and for watching traffic in the Sound. To the older inhabitants of North Carolina, the island of Batts Grave bore a sentimental importance second only to Roanoke Island, the place where ghosts were often seen and where, on sunny winter days, families would sail to pick among the century-old ruins of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost expedition of colonists.
It was told that Batts, who was popular with the Chowanoke Indians, fell helplessly in love with Kickowanna, daughter of the Chowanoke chief, Kilcocanen. She returned Batts's affections and jilted his rival, a chief of the Pamunkey. During the ensuing war, Batts was adopted by the Chowanoke for his bravery and loyalty.
Kickowanna often visited Batts at his island post and retreat. On one such visit, a raging storm capsized her canoe and Kickowanna drowned. Batts vowed never to leave the island, and it ultimately became "Batts Grave." His actual grave and inscribed stone were placed near the southern shore of the island, but in the thirty-odd years since then, wind and waves had eroded that portion of the island. Only stumps and lonely cypress stood above the water that now covered the burial location, and continued to nibble at the low bluff.
The old house was like the first one Richard Williams had built at Deep Creek. It settled towards the northwest corner, and there were no glass windows; but it was a two-room house, with sleeping-space above, and it had wooden floors and a brick fireplace. The house caught the first rays of sunlight reflecting from the usually calm waters of the Sound. But, making it different and special, from the rear of the house Anne could watch the sun setting in the western water of the Sound. The gardens and orchards were old and well-tended. This was no frontier wilderness island. Englishmen had lived here even as Grandfather Ware settled in Lancaster County!
Anne was familiar, too, with the people of Albemarle. She knew many of them. In Chowan Precinct, to the west, and in Currituck Precinct, to the east, the settlements had been established by exploring, seasoned planters and trappers from Nansemond or Lower Norfolk Counties. Chowan and Currituck Precincts had direct and easier contact with Virginia; Chowan, up through the Chowan River and its tributaries, Currituck, by a mere six-league sail from Currituck Sound to Cape Henry. The central Perquimans and Pasquotank Precincts were bordered in the north by the impenetrable swamp and were the center of Carolina's powerful Quaker population.
Implicit in Carolina's Fundamental Constitutions were religious freedom and the ability of every freeholder of fifty acres to vote and to hold office. It was recognized as acceptable for a Quaker to "affirm" his loyalty, rather than to "swear" it. With this freedom, and with their own ambition and loyalty, a majority of the government was Quaker. Anne Fewox, the former Widow Shaw, daughter of John Biggs, niece of Timothy Biggs, arrived to friends she would not have chosen. She was adopted as a "cause" soon after arriving to Batts Grave in 1691, the Quaker women of the community passing her from one to the other, assuming from her pedigree and previous marriage that she had "seen the Light."
James made no immediate claim to the headrights to which he was entitled. He was in no rush to claim more land before considerable thought and exploration, he said. But Anne was anxious that he hurry and find rich land up the Chowan River to establish a plantation. The road to Carolina's future growth wasn't with the Quakers and the other, undefined, dissenters.
Anne's hopes were dashed very early, though, when James told her his reasoning, and reiterated his need for Carolina's five-year stay of suits on all debts, or other causes of legal action. He still owed debts in Virginia. Could there be a better place for a tavern and ordinary than on Batts Grave, he asked? A welllocated ordinary and inn would be the means of repaying his Virginia debts. Batts Grave was convenient to all, and by tying-up on the rear side of the island, prying eyes from boats passing in the Sound wouldn't know who was there! The few acres on this lovely island were adequate for growing food, there were wild swine in the woods, and the existing, floating dock could provide profitable convenience for New England traders tying-up for business in this central location.
With encouragement from the aging George Durant, word was spread of Fewox's place on Batts Grave. Anne was interested in being befriended by the likes of George Durant and the Harvey families. These long-time powers in Albemarle were nearby neighbors, and they weren't Quakers. So it was with pride, at first, that Anne received these better people when they befriended James. But it was Durant who pointed out to James the importance of ships flying a black or blood-red flag—and loaded with ill-gotten goods—that plied the local waters. They were abundant, had spendthrift crews, and were quietly welcomed in the Sound. More than welcomed, they were a mainstay of trade and commerce. Fewox must offer them hospitality, too. They had doubloons and pieces of eight!
Soon, on more nights than not, the sounds of laughter, or shouts of anger and fighting drifted out from Batts Island, and Anne worried for her children. Her hopes in bringing the children along were that this new frontier would present opportunities for them that were closed in Virginia. Anne wanted respectability for her sons, but they were, sometimes, witnesses to debauchery.
Richard was too much like his father. He looked like him and he acted like him, Anne told James. She realized that gambling and drink were the rights and expectations for a man, but she wanted more for Richard. There was more land south of the Sound that would soon be opening! She pleaded with James to let Richard, with Edward, when he was able, explore the land opposite them on the southern shore of the Sound; land along the Scuppernong River. But James needed the boys to help him, he said.
Anne prayed forgiveness for her willfulness, then arranged for word to arrive from Joseph, begging for the temporary help of Richard.
"My boys stick together," Anne told James. "You know that."
Within three years of the Fewox arrival, "Going over to Batts Grave" became synonymous with going to visit the Devil, for the few pious souls of Albemarle. Anne never called herself pious, but she didn't like to be ill-thought of by the few people—other than the Quakers—who made any pretensions to religion. Some people called themselves Presbyterians, but few Carolinians even bothered to do that.
"Going to Batts Grave" meant going to the huts and to the shed Fewox and the boys had built for sheltering patrons and observers of cock fights, wrestling and gouging bouts, dog fights, bull baiting, and the occasional bear baiting. Quaker-dominated Assemblies made laws to stop these sports, but fortunes were still made and lost by the bettors of these events; lives were made and lives were ruined.
>
Apprentice, servant, slave and master might rub shoulders at a match as spectators, but the participants in contests were generally separated by class and status. Anne would hear complaints about this democratic mixing from gentlemen patrons, just off a boat. She'd sympathized with their view and tell them that, in this backwater colony, even the leaders had started from the same stock and circumstance as many of the common people. There was no hierarchy, here, based on birth. It was the fault of being a mere proprietary colony, she felt.
Usually a smirk of dismissal answered her unsolicited opinions. Anne Fewox—the granddaughter of Mister Cade Ware, the daughter of the respected John Biggs—turned forty-six years old in 1694, and condescending reminders of her present status stung deeply. Finally, she lost the constant battle with her better side and spoke out to insist that her husband record his headrights and claim his land acreage. It was land ownership, only, that brought respectability.
The General Court session of February 1694 was remarkable, in some ways. It was at this Court that Anne was finally successful in getting James to register his headrights. As was often the case, Court was held in the home of Diana Foster, another tavern-keeper, but it was at this Court session that wills were proven of two giants of the times—ferocious enemies for years—George Durant and the still-hated Seth Sothel. Their closely-spaced deaths were the occasion for both grief and jubilation in Old Albemarle, and both sentiments brought profit to the Fewox business. Word had arrived that the Proprietors might send Archdale back—one of their own, although a Quaker—to be Governor, and that challenges would be issued to ancient land patents. Old Governor Berkeley must be turning in his grave, Anne thought, knowing that his widow had sold his Proprietary share in Carolina to a Quaker! As did everyone else, she wondered what land patents would be challenged. Fewox's claim to Batts Grave was locally recognized as stretching back to Nathaniel Batts's purchase from the Indians, but there was no paper. Should Fewox lose Batts Grave, where would they be? After the Court's approval they had headrights to 350 acres of unclaimed land which wouldn't be challenged.
Anne's cause of concern for haste proved justified in August when the crop of corn that she, Edy, and Edward had so carefully tended was invaded by hogs belonging to Benjamin Laker, Esquire, a man related to the Deputy Governor. In drunken inspiration, some of the Harveys and the Durants goaded James, reassured him, then pressed him to sue their friend Laker—only as a legal formality—to establish his title once and for all. They, too, had similar, ancientlyheld lands.
At the General Court session for September of 1694, James Fewox sued Benjamin Laker—himself a member of the Council—for trespassing. To assure a fair trial, his father-in-law, Deputy Governor Thomas Harvey, excused himself from the case. But then, to the amazement of the Fewoxes, gentlemen friends of Laker—patrons of the tavern!—swore that Laker had legal claim to the island, and that Fewox lacked a fence, anyway. James held no hope in fighting against both the intriguing old-timers and the pious Quaker powers in the precinct who'd have all amusements and recreations outlawed. Word had come that the Quaker Archdale was, indeed, now Governor and James lost his case. He was allowed two months to abandon the island but was immediately affirmed in his claim to the additional headrights of Richard—who had returned at his mother's summons— and of John Haswell, won in a bet.
Anne was not distressed, she was relieved. Soon they would have tobacco land. She held on to the hope of a better life for her grown children. She'd been especially worried about Edy.
Edy Williams turned twenty-five in 1694. She'd developed dexterity with hoods and scarves and handkerchiefs and laden trays and bundles of laundry—or just with her posed or fluttering hands—to hide her face. Not only was she badly scarred from the pox, she'd been kicked by her cow, Lady, and had lost two of her front teeth. Edy seldom spoke, thinking that she sounded worse than had Old Shaw, and that this was God's curse for having urged her mother to marry the old man.
The last months on Batts Grave were revealing to Anne. She saw in her husband what he'd not let her see before. Once, he knocked a servant senseless, and twice he knocked her to the ground.
James was humiliated by the betrayal from the wealthy patrons he'd considered friends. He was of better birth and background than these Carolina rogues! How dare they set themselves above him? The self-inflicted sting, though, came from the knowledge that he had let himself serve as tool for the likes of the Durants and the Harveys, who were eager for their friend Laker to have Batts Grave and who were hoping to win approval of the new Governor.
"The debauchery has become too public," they rebuffed James. "Perhaps you could be more profitable across the Sound?"
James's simmering resentment exploded on a snowy night in December. Chunks of dried mud had fallen from in-between most of the logs, and snow sifted through the cracks to make damp spots on the dirt floor. Edy and Robert were rolling a large piece of wood toward the daub and wattle fireplace, when an earthenware mug flew across the room and hit the crouching young woman in her head, knocking her unconscious. James ran to Edy and, when he was certain she was alive, rose to pounce upon the drunken patron whose mug it was: Thomas Philpott, a member of the Durant faction, and a friend of Benjamin Laker.
James pushed through the smoky room of drunken men and knocked the pleading Philpott to the ground, wrapped the man's long curls around his fist and began banging the man's head into the packed sand. Philpott struggled to throw off the older man, but James straddled him and, with his thumbs, tore into the corners of the man's eyes, popping one of the spheres from its socket. Philpott screamed as his friends struggled to pull James away and to get help for Philpott.
James went back to Edy, where Anne was now kneeling with a cloth, pressing it against the deep gash in her child's forehead. Though breathing, the girl had not come around. They carried her limp body to the house as Philpott's friends lifted him and dragged him to a boat.
For a month, Edy lay on her straw pallet and recuperated, as the Fewoxes and Williamses prepared to abandon the island to Laker. They went back and forth across the Sound, acquainting themselves with the southern shore. It was a time in which James Fewox cemented ties to old patrons that he'd previously made some effort to be wary of before his betrayal by the "better sorts."
The Albemarle Sound and, to the south, the even larger Pamticoe Sound, encompassed a fist-shaped, swampy peninsula. The area was home and open highway to scores of pirates. Their smaller boats could easily pass through and over shallow inlets to the sea, chase and capture bounty-laden cargo ships, relieve those of goods and treasure, then return to their havens in Carolina. The governments of Virginia and South Carolina were outraged and terrified by the blatant harboring of these pirates by the people and government of North Carolina. But the pirates were an important source of goods to the Albemarle colonists. Ships from England rarely bothered to tempt the shifting shoals, and the New England traders who did come charged double prices for goods. The pirates—though a class to be publicly condemned—performed a valuable service by delivering much-needed supplies and much-coveted luxuries. Everyone profited from this silent cooperation, and many North Carolinians applauded the misery ladled out to their arrogant neighbors to the north and to the south.
The Scuppernong River flowed from this fist into the south side of the Albemarle Sound, was almost directly across from Batts Grave and, like the island, was on the border of Perquimans and Chowan Precincts. The Scuppernong, like the Yeopim River and Yeopim Creek, emptied into a bay, although this broader bay held no large islands. The western headland cupped the bay, curved further back to the west, and rose above the marshland and swamp that fell behind it. The Scuppernong River, itself, was navigable for a short distance southward, then turned sharply to the south and east, fed by the low, swampy land that bounded it. James Fewox staked-out the high, western headland of the bay, and 350 acres of swamp and land between this headland and the northern shore of the western stretch of the Scuppernong.
Bull baiting was a popular sport and, second to knife fights, the favorite of pirates. A roaring bull was tied to a stake inside an enclosure, and then six or eight dogs were let loose upon the animal to torment it, to bite and tear at it until the dogs were killed, or the larger animal subdued. Heavy and ferocious bulldogs were bred for the purpose, and dogs that survived several matches were valuable properties. Pups sired by those animals fetched a large sum. Fewox's new establishment soon became known as the site for the most exciting, highestwagered bull baitings. The meat from these exhausted bulls was tender and delicious, and the tallow saved from the fat had a value, too, for more than lighting or for making soap.