State

The Birthplace of Cotton According to historical records. North Carolina enjoys the dis¬ tinction of having grow ii the first holl of cotton on the North American Continent. Ry FRANCES LATHAM IIARKISS WE wore driving past a law cotton field ill Pender County not long ago when one of my friends, sittinp on the rear seat of the car. spoke up and said: •'I wonder where the first cotton was raised in this country?" And all of us discovered, ноте- what to our surprise, that we did not have the faintest idea concern¬ ing the correct answer to that query. We had just been taking cotton for granted and it had never occurred to any of us to find out how it had originated in this country. One of the other occupants of the car re¬ marked I had never thought about it, but I imagine that cotton has always been growing in the South, just like pine trees, potatoes or other things.” That, however, is not true. It was only after doing considerable re¬ search work that I came across the correct answer. In North America cotton had its birth right here in North Carolina, at the mouth of Town Creek where that stream empties into the Cape Fear River in Brunswick County. And it happened in this manner: New Settlements In 1662 the Lords Proprietors of Carolina wished to start settlements in their Province of Clarendon, so they authorized Sir John Yeamans, who was living in the Barbadoes, to organize the venture. Sir John was the son of an English cavalier who ha<l been deprived of his lands by Oliver Cromwell at about the same time that Charles I of England was deprived of his head. He had gone to Barbadoes in an ef¬ fort to regain his fortunes. Evidently bis father's services had not been tor- gotten because he was given assist¬ ance by those in power under the reign of the Stuarts, who had re¬ gained t li e English throne. At the time the Lords Proprietors reached the decision to start their new colonies Sir John evidently was a man of considerable prominence in political circles. He accepted the responsibility of estab¬ lishing the new settle¬ ments, and his first move was to send out an exploring party in the good ship. Adventurer, with three commission¬ ers in charge. They were Anthony Ixing. Peter Fabian, and William Hilton. They explored about seventy- five miles of the Cape Fear River and its branches and bought from the Indians thirty-two square miles of land for коте beads and other trinkets. The Lords Proprietors de¬ clined to confirm this sale but did make a satisfactory grant of land to them. Started in 1665 A few months later. Sir John, governor and commander-in-chief, set sail with his colonists from Bar¬ badoes and began their settlement in May 1665. Some historians say there were six hundred of them, but the Colonial Records indicate that there were considerably less than that number. Sir John remained with them only a short time before re¬ turning to Barbadoes, where he held large interests. The colonists located their settle¬ ment at the junction of a small stream with the Cape Fear River. They called it. ‘‘Charles Townc," and for two centuries the little stream has been known as Old Tow n Creek, or Town Creek. It is on the west side of the river, about seven miles south of Wilmington. It was here that these British col¬ onists from Barbadoes planted for the first time in North America and grew successfully the Barhudosinn. or black-seeded cotton, known as the Sea Island cotton, which has the longest staple in the world. The new crop did well in its new location, but the settlement on the Cape Fear lasted only a bruit two years. The people were dissatisfied with their location and decided to move further south. This they did. but they were careful to take enough cotton seed along with them in order that they might continue planting the crop on their new farms. And that, according to the Col¬ onial Records of North Carolina, is the way that King Cotton received its start on the Amerh ’an continent. It has spread far and wide since that time, but Charles Townie, on the Cape Fear River, will always have the distinction of being the birth¬ place of the crop in this country. 7