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Down the Pamlico, Chowan, Perquimans and Pasquotank the white-sailed vessels bore their passengers into Albemarle Sound and a short distance up Little River; then disembarking at the Hecklefield Landing, where the hospitable host of the occasion was doubtless waiting to receive the travelers, they made their way with many a friendly interchange of gossip and jest to the great house, standing back from the river beneath the arching branches of the sheltering sycamores.
On a low bluff, overlooking the waters of the beautiful Pasquotank River, some five or six miles from Elizabeth City, there stood until a few years before the outbreak of the Civil War, an old colonial mansion known as "Elmwood," the home for many years of the historic Swann family, who were among the earliest settlers in our State, and played a prominent part in the colonial history of North Carolina.
When Lord Dunmore issued his proclamation offering freedom to the slaves and indentured servants who should join his majesty's forces, and then followed up this notice by burning and ravaging the plantations around Norfolk, Virginia, called upon her sister State for help, and Long and Sumner, from Halifax, and Warren, Skinner and Daugé from Perquimans and Pasquotank counties, hastened with their minute men and volunteers to Great Bridge, where Colonel Woodford in command of the Virginia troops, had thrown up fortifications.
During the bloody struggle, Pasquotank, which, with the other northern counties suffered but little in comparison with the counties south of the Albemarle, had sent what help she could to those upon whom the horrors of the war had fallen most heavily.
Captain John Pailin and Captain John Norton, both of Pasquotank, are ordered "to draw out their companies and go to the assistance of South Carolina in the Yamassie War." And furthermore the command reads: "If men refuse, each captain is ordered to draft ten men who have small families or none, and to put them under Captain Hastins."
Standing on a low cliff overlooking the Pasquotank, whose amber waters come winding down from the great Dismal Swamp some ten miles away, the old house commands a good view of the river, which makes a wide bend just where the ancient edifice stands. And a better spot the pirate could not have found to keep a lookout for the avenging ship that should track him to his hiding place.
But enough instances have been recorded to show that our county did take an active part in breaking the power of the Tuscaroras and in driving them from the State. In 1715, when South Carolina in her turn underwent the horrors of an Indian war, and appealed to North Carolina for aid, we find that men from Pasquotank joined with other forces from the colony in response to this appeal.
Miller was kept a prisoner for two years in a little log cabin built for the purpose at the upper end of Pasquotank, near where the old brick house now stands. In two years' time Miller also contrived to escape, and found his way back to the mother country.
To this convention Isaac Gregory, Henry Abbott, Devotion Davis, Dempsey Burgess and Lemuel Burgess were elected to represent Pasquotank, and Abbott was appointed on the committee to frame the constitution. By the 18th of December the work was completed and the constitution adopted, which, with amendments, is still the organic law of the State.
Hawk's History of North Carolina, we find the following entry: "Ordered that Capt. Edward Allard shall depart with his sloop "Core Sound Merchant" to Pasquotank River, and there take from on board the "Return," Mr. Charles Worth Glover, so much corn as will load his sloop, give to Mr.
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