THINGS OF INTEREST
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PERQUIMANS CO.
Bff EARL DEW
Ashland, located on Harvey’s Point. Perquimans County. It was erected
before the Revolutionary War took place, and is one of many homes in
the county that arc approximately 200 years old.
WITH its tree-shaded streets
running down to the banks
of the Perquimans River.
Hertford is as good a place as any
to start out on a tour of historic
Perquimans County, one of the
most interesting in all northeast¬
ern North Carolina because it was
one of the very first to be settled.
An important port of entry as
far back as 1701, Hertford today
serves, as it has from earliest
times, as the focal point for a fer¬
tile area of rich farm land where
crops of corn, cotton, soy beans,
peanuts and potatoes are yielded
in abundance.
Settlers began filtering into
Perquimans County as early as
1650 and there are records of a
courthouse which stood on the nar¬
rows of tlie Perquimans River,
near the present town of Hertford,
as early as 1722. In the present
Georgian Colonial courthouse at
Hertford, which dates back to
about 1812. is preserved the record
of North Carolina's oldest real
estate transaction deed dated
March 1. 1662 in which George
Durant purchased 1.000 acres cf
land from Kilcocancn. King of the
Yeopim Indians, a tract lying be¬
tween the Perquimans and Little
6
rivers, still known as Durant's
Neck
Harvey's Neck
Harvey's Neck, a peninsula 12
miles long between the Perqui¬
mans and Yeopim rivers, which
also forms another important part
of Perquimans County, was pur¬
chased a little later by John Har¬
vey. Governor of North Carolina's
Albemarle Province in 1679. and
founder of a line which was to
make important contributions to
the development of this section for
more than a century.
A man of wealth and culture.
John Harvey was the ninth gover¬
nor of the Albemarle under the
Lords proprietors, and one of his
descendants. Thomas Harvey, was
governor from 1694 to 1699.
Another John Harvey, his son.
was speaker of the Grand Assem¬
bly of the Albemarle in the days
before the American Revolution
where he won for himself the name
of ‘‘Bold John" by his many out¬
spoken attacks against the tyranny
of the Bristish. In later years he
came to be referred to as the
"Father of the Revolution in North
Carolina." However, he died on the
eve of the Revolution he helped
bring about.
It was “Bold John” who intro¬
duced into the Assembly of the
Albemarle a bill to incorporate
the town of Hertford in 1758. and
who was appointed one of the
trustees of the newly-created com¬
munity.
Near New Hope is the home of
Capt. John Hccklefield, another
pioneer citizen prominent in the
affairs of the Albemarle Colony,
this was the meeting place of the
first lawmakers in this section
about 1715. However, the old
Hccklefield house, like the homes
of Durant and Harvey, have long
since disappeared, their sites er-
roded away by the rivers near
which they stood, but Perquimans
County still has scattered through
its area many interesting and well-
preserved old homes which date
from the early Colonial era.
The Leigh Mansion
One of these, the old Leigh
Mansion, on Durant's Neck, is of
Classic Greek Revival architecture
built in 1825 by Col. James Leigh.
It might well be selected as an
ideal example of the opulence of
plantation life in the Old South
several decades before the War Be¬
tween the States. It has massive
red brick walls, identical double¬
galley columned verandahs, in
both front and rear, and its broad
fields, sloping down to where the
Perquimans River flows into Albe¬
marle Sound, make it a pictur¬
esque place indeed.
In the yard of the old Leigh
Plantation is a marble slab said to
be the tombstone of Seth Sothel.
North Carolina's "worst" Gover¬
nor. Appointed by the British
Crown in 1678 he was captured by
pirates on his way to Carolina. He
took office in 1683 but during his
6-year term he conducted himself
so* disgracefully that he was
seized by the colonists and ban¬
ished.
Visitors from overseas came to
the site of Hertford as far back as
1672 when settlers from the coun¬
tryside gathered to hear William
Edmundson and George Fox
preach the Quaker doctrine under
THE STATE May 28. 1949
