Forgotten Bits of North Carolina’s Past
By MARY C. WILEY
A search through old books brings
to light interesting items concerning
our state long forgotten or not gen¬
erally known. For instance, in a
Volume of Legislative Documents,
published in Raleigh by Seaton Gales,
Printer to the Legislature, 1852, there
is a letter from Dr. S. McCIcnahan,
one of the assistants of Professor Ebc-
nezer Emmons in his first geological
survey of North Carolina, which tells
of the skeleton of a large animal em¬
bedded in Fishing Creek, northwestern
corner of Edgecombe County.
Dr. McCIcnahan writes that upon
visiting the locality where he had been
told the skeleton lay embedded in a
creek, he found the fossil, which he
ascertained to be the remains of an
enormous whale, some of the vertebrae
of which measured twenty-two inches
in diameter. So mutilated, however,
was the skeleton that the scientist at¬
tempted to disinter but a small portion
of it.
"I learned from the gentleman who
owns the land in which it is embedded.”
continues Dr. McClanahan, “that tho
largest portion of the bones had been
taken away by various persons, some
of whom lived at a great distance; and
he also informed me that a large num¬
ber of the bones had been washed away
by the ‘freshets.'
"I ascertained by finding one or two
of the vertebrae in place that the ani¬
mal had been deposited on his back,
and as the water is not more than two
or three feet above the vertebrae,
which is just covered with mud and
sand, I could readily account for the
absence of all the ribs by freshets
Nvhich swept them down the stream.
"This animal is lying on a bed of
marl, twelve or fifteen feet thick; and
the siliceous shelly limestone, which is
found between the green sand and shell
marl, is just above the remains; above
that is a bed of yellow sand and shell
marl which is about seven or eight
feet thick.
"Mr. Knight, the gentleman who
owns the land, told me that there was
a portion of the head still embedded
in the bank, and but for the rise which
took place in the creek while I was
there. I should have procured it.
"The animal lay diagonally across
the creek — the head in Edgecombe and
the tail in Halifax, the creek being the
line dividing the two counties. ... I
picked up a good many of the bones.
. . . I have a piece of the jawbone in
Raleigh which I got out of the water
near the spot where Mr. Knight told
me the head was embedded in the
bank."
The Unfought Duel
An authentic and widely read his¬
torical work. Annals of Philadelphia,
by John F. Watson, first issued in 1830,
gives an interesting story concerning
one of the three North Carolina Sign¬
ers of the Declaration of Independence,
John Penn, who was born in Virginia
and in 1774 removed from Virginia to
Granville County, North Carolina.
So public spirited was John Penn
and so forceful as a lawyer that one
year after removing into North Caro¬
lina he was chosen to succeed Richard
Caswell as a delegate to the Conti¬
nental Congress, Philadelphia, and thus
was enabled to sign his name to that
immortal document giving the Thirteen
United Colonics the right to be free
and independent states.
In 1777-7S and again in 1779 John
Penn was re-elected Member of Con¬
gress from North Carolina and it was
during one of these sessions that, ac¬
cording to Watson, he received from
the President of the Congress. Henry
Laurens, a challenge to fight a duel.
Watson docs not give the cause of
the trouble between Laurens and Penn;
he infers that the two men before the
challenge were on the best of terms,
seeing each other daily at the board¬
ing house in which they lodged while
in the City of Brotherly Love.
On the morning set aside for the
duel, they breakfasted together and
then, side by side started out for the
vacant lot some distance away where
they were to engage in deadly, personal
combat.
Upon reaching a street crossing
where there was a deep, side gully, the
Member from North Carolina, who was
much younger than the President of the
Congress, courteously extended his
hand to aid his companion; and when
it was accepted, ventured to say that
the alTair upon which they were en¬
gaged was a foolish affair and sug¬
gested that they call it off.
Promptly the older man agreed and.
grasping the hand of his companion in
token of friendship, closed the matter
on the spot — once and forever.
The Bishop's View
This view of the North Carolina of
200 years ago Bishop August Gott¬
lieb Spangenberg records in the Diary
which he kept while traveling over the
Province of North Carolina from cast
to west in search of suitable land upon
which to plant a colony of Moravians.
This Diary, written in old German
script, the late Dr. Adelaide Fries trans¬
lated for inclusion in her first volume
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THE STATE. AUOU9T 29. 19S3
