e approval of the
Proprietors, they went into effect; if not, they were null and void.

In the fall of 1664, Governor Drummond began organizing the government
of his new province; and on February 6, 1665, the "Grand Assembly of
Albemarle," as these early law-makers styled themselves, met to frame a
set of laws for this Albemarle Colony. The place chosen for the meeting
of this first legislative body ever assembled in our State, was a little
knoll overlooking Hall's Creek in Pasquotank County, about a mile from
Nixonton, a small town which was chartered nearly a hundred years later.

No record of the names of these hardy settlers who were present at this
Grand Assembly has been handed down to us; but on such an important
occasion we may be sure that all the prominent men in the Albemarle
region who could attend would make it a point to do so.

George Drummond and his secretary, Thomas Woodward, were surely there;
George Durant, Samuel Pricklove, John Harvey, all owners of great
plantations in Perquimans, doubtless were on hand. Thomas Raulfe,
Timothy Biggs, Valentine Byrd, Solomon Poole, all large landowners in
Pasquotank, must have been there; Thomas Jarvis, of Currituck, and
Thomas Pollock, of Chowan, may have represented their counties. And
all--the dignified, reserved Scotch Governor, his haughty secretary, the
wealthy, influential planters and the humble farmers and hunters--must
have felt the solemnity of the occasion and recognized its importance.

We may imagine the scene: Under the spreading boughs of a lordly oak,
this group of men were gathered. Around them the dark forest stretched,
the wind murmuring in the pines and fragrant with the aromatic odor of
the spicy needles. At a distance a group of red men, silent and
immovable, some with bow and arrow in hand, leaning against the trees,
others sitting on the ground, gazed with wondering eyes upon the
palefaces assembled for their first great pow-wow.

Down at the foot of the knoll the silver waves of the creek rippled
softly against the shore; on its waters the sloops of the planters from
the settlements nearby; here and there on its bosom, an Indian canoe
moored close to its shores.

As to the work accomplished by this first Albemarle Assembly, only one
fact is certain, and that is the drawing up by the members of a petition
to the Lords Proprietors, begging that these settlers in Carolina should
be allowed to hold their lands on the same conditions and t