Creation of the Albemarle
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of the land in this great territory was
granted to eight English nohlemen. Seven
of them turned in their share, hut the eighth
hung on
EORGE Monk was quite an
Englishman in his day.
When old Oliver Cromwell
rode the crest of power as Lord
Protector of England, after the
execution of King Charles I, Monk
was his right-hand man as a Gen¬
eral in the armies of the Round-
heads. After the death of Crom¬
well he commanded the allegiance
of the English army, and was
therefore in position to virtually
dictate whether the Protectorship
should be continued, with himself
as Protector, or whether King
Charles II should be recalled to
his throne from his exile in France.
Monk decided upon the latter
course and an English warship was
sent to bring the exiled king back
to his native land and to the throne
of his fathers. That most delight¬
ful of diarists, Samuel Pepys, tells
quite a lot about General Monk
and his political activities during
this period.
The King’s Gratitude
The Merry Monarch, Charles II
was duly grateful for the immense
service thus rendered him by Gen¬
eral Monk and promptly created
the General DUKE OF ALBE¬
MARLE. Moreover, on March 24,
1663, the King granted to said
Duke of Albemarle and seven
other of his Lords, all that little
strip of territory between parallels
31 and 36 of latitude, and extend¬
ing from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The names of these eight gentle¬
men should hold some interest to
Carolinians: Edward, Earl of
Clarendon; George, Duke of Albe¬
marle; William, Earl of Craven;
John, Lord of Berkeley; Anthony,
Lord of Ashley; Sir George Carte¬
ret; Sir John Colleton; and Sir
William Berkeley. The names of
some of these gentlemen are pre¬
served in the North Carolina coun¬
ties of Craven and Carteret; the
names of others in the South Caro¬
lina counties of Colleton and Berke¬
ley and in the Ashley River. More¬
over, the great Carolina sound was
named in honor of the powerful
Duke of Albemarle; as well as a
to his possessions.
By R. C. LAWRENCE
county which embraced all the
territory between the Virginia
line and the Cape Fear River. The
only other Carolina county —
Clarendon — extended from Cape
Fear to Florida, and from the At¬
lantic to the Mississippi. The
county of Albemarle disappeared
from the map long since, but the
sound is still doing business at the
old stand, under the same old
name.
Greedy as the Lords Proprietors
appear to have been for land, it
seems that enterprising realtors
Keceded them in North Carolina,
r as early as 1633 the chief of
the Yeopim Indians granted to
George Durant a tract of land in
what is now Perquimans County,
in a locality known to this day as
Durant’s Neck.
Formation of Government
The Lords Proprietors under¬
took to form a government in one
small corner of their vast territory,
and to North Carolina came Wil¬
liam Drummond as its first Gover¬
nor. The only trace of his name is
found in the lake of that name in
the midst of Dismal Swamp — a
somewhat dismal memorial. Drum¬
mond died in 1667, leaving an
infant colony of some 4,000 souls,
a few fat cattle and 800 hogsheads
of tobacco. In 1669 the famous
John Locke drew up the “Funda¬
mental Constitution of Carolina"
and the government gradually be¬
gan to function.
The Lords Proprietors did not
find the new world so profitable,
and in 1743 seven of them recon¬
veyed all their interest in Carolina
back to the English crown in con¬
sideration of 2,500 pounds paid to
each. The sale was duly approved
by Parliament by the act of George
II. But the owner of the remain¬
ing one eighth, JOHN, Lord Carte¬
ret, who was later created Earl
of Granville, refused to convey
his interest to the King and de¬
manded that his share of the land
be set aside to him by metes and
bounds! This was by far the great¬
est partition proceeding ever
undertaken in North Carolina.
Five Commissioners
The Earl appointed five Com¬
missioners, and a like number
were appointed by the Crown.
These Commissioners laid off to
the Earl of Granville the northern
tier of North Carolina counties,
including the present county of
Granville which bears his name.
His share was bounded on the
north by Virginia, on the south by
latitude 35 degrees, 34 minutes,
on the east by the Atlantic, on the
west by the Pacific: a nice little
farm to which the Earl could retire
in his old age. And the agents of
the Earl proceeded to do quite a
bit of real estate business and
issued various "Granville Grants"
to divers persons, and this con¬
tinued down to the Revolution. But
upon the formation of North Caro¬
lina as a State, its courts were rude
enough to hold that the Earl’s
heirs did not own the remaining
land embraced within the parti¬
tion, and therefore could not give
a good and valid title thereto.
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