134

XV. Edenton in the Revolution 153

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

Old Float Bridge Across the Perquimans River _Frontispiece_

"The Old Brick House," on Pasquotank River 62

Fairfax, the Home of General Isaac Gregory 112

The Eagle Tavern, Hertford 130

The Cupola House, Edenton 154

IN ANCIENT ALBEMARLE

CHAPTER I

WIKACOME IN WEAPOMEIOK, THE HOME OF GEORGE DURANT

In Perquimans County, North Carolina, there lies between the beautiful
Perquimans River on the west, and her fair and placid sister, the
Katoline or Little River, on the east, a lovely strip of land to which
the red man in days long gone, gave the name of Wikacome. The broad
sound whose tawny waters wash the southern shores of this peninsula, as
well as all that tract of land lying between the Chowan River and the
Atlantic Ocean, were known to the primitive dwellers in that region as
Weapomeiok.

Not until George Durant came into Carolina, and following him a thin
stream of settlers that finally overflowed the surrounding country, did
the beautiful Indian names give place to those by which they are now
known. Then Wikacome became the familiar Durant's Neck, and the waters
of Weapomeiok and the territory known to the aborigines by the same
name, changed to the historic cognomen of Albemarle.

George Durant and Samuel Pricklove were the first of the Anglo-Saxon
race to establish a permanent settlement in Wikacome, though they were
not the first Englishmen whose eyes had rested upon its virgin forests
and fair green meadows, for in the early spring of 1586 Ralph Lane, who
had been sent with Sir Richard Grenville by Sir Walter Raleigh to
colonize Roanoke Island, set out with fourteen comrades from that place
on an exploring expedition, hoping to find the golden "Will-o'-the-Wisp,"
which led so many English adventurers of the day to seek their fortunes in
the New World.

As far as the Roanoke River sailed the bold explorer and his comrades,
among whom were Philip Amadas and the historian Hakluyt. To the south as
far as Craven County they pushed their little boat, and northward to the
shores of Chesapeake Bay. In the course of their journey they touched at
Chepano