From North Carolina to the ‘va’ in Delmarva

After checking out of our hotel, we decided to have a quick look around Edenton North Carolina before heading north toward the Delmarva Peninsula and our 2 night stay along the Atlantic coast of Virginia.

Basically, all we did was drive through downtown Edenton and see what it looked like (nice!) and then down to the harbor just to have a look at the water.

We’d arrived in Edenton North Carolina on our first night, overnighting at the local Hampton Inn with Laurie’s sister Bonnie and Bonnie’s husband, Bill.  Before we headed north toward the Norfolk-Virginia Beach metropolitan area and our multiple destinations on the Delmarva Peninsula, we took a quick look around Edenton’s waterfront.  Beautiful big homes in the third photo...

Since it was early in the morning, nothing was open downtown and the ladies didn’t have a shopping opportunity and the local attractions were still closed.  Edenton is the county seat for Chowan County North Carolina.  It sits along Edenton Harbor, which is part of Albemarle Sound. 

There is a lot of history here… In 1658 explorers from the Jamestown Virginia area discovered the location and the county was created between 1668 – 1671 as the Shaftesbury Precinct and later, the Chowan Precinct.  Edenton itself was established in 1712 as “the Towne on Queen Anne’s Creek”.  After having a couple other names, in 1722 it was named Edenton in honor of Governor Charles Eden.  During the colonial era, Edenton served as the second capital of the Province of North Carolina.

Given the town’s long history with its attractive setting on Albemarle Sound, the town is a popular center for both retirees and heritage focused tourism.  Chowan County has a population of almost 14,000 while Edenton’s residents total about 4,400.

Barker House is located on the Edenton waterfront.  The original portion of this house, now a combination of Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival styles, was built in 1782 and the home was further expanded in the 1800s.  Today it serves as the Welcome Center for the City of Edenton.

The house commemorates the life of Penelope Barker.  She organized 51 ladies to sign a petition sent to King George III, which said ‘NO’ to taxation on tea and cloth.  Unlike the colonists who carried out the Boston Tea Party, these women signed their names to the petition.  This led to British newspapers to headline this first political demonstration by women in North America.

Other significant residents of Edenton included Joseph Hewes, the owner of a merchant marine fleet, who was appointed as the first Secretary of the Navy in 1776.  Hewes also signed the Declaration of Independence.  As per John Adams, Hewes “laid the foundation…the cornerstone of the American Navy”.  Another resident was James Iredell, who at 38 years of age, was appointed by George Washington to be a member of the first United States Supreme Court.

The Roanoke River Lighthouse was built in 1886.  Now decommissioned and restored, it once stood in Albemarle Sound at the mouth of the Roanoke River, across the Sound from its current location on the Edenton waterfront.  The lighthouse was in operation from 1887 until 1941.

This old lighthouse is a ‘screw-pile’ design, named such because of the original support system.  Each piling was literally screwed into the river or sound bottom so they would remain in place even in heavy storms or hurricanes.  This particular lighthouse is thought to be the last example in the USA of a rectangular building built for a screw-pile base.

We would have enjoyed a boat tour of Albemarle Sound…but the weather was not conducive to such an adventure and we had some distance to cover in order to reach our goal for the next couple of nights. 

The Sound is a large estuary on the coast of North Carolina at the confluence of a number of rivers, including the Chowan and the Roanoke.  Albemarle Sound is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Currituck Banks, the barrier peninsula where the town of Kitty Hawk is located.  Because it’s largely separated from the ocean and a number of rivers are feeding into the Sound, the water ranges from fresh to brackish and it’s not as salty as ocean water. 

Part of the Sound serves as a segment of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.  In the ‘olden days’, a number of ferries connected the towns along the fringes of Albemarle Sound.   One ferry service from Edenton to Mackeys North Carolina was in service from 1734 until 1938.  Bridges and paved highways supplanted the need for ferries but Harbor Towns Cruises connects many of the same places.  The number of available routes and tours is quite remarkable.  You can check out the options at Harbor Towns | North Carolina Cruises on Albemarle Sound (harbortownscruises.com).  We could easily spend a couple of days just riding around the Sound and exploring some of the historic towns along the way…

From Edenton North Carolina, we drove north on US Hwy 17 into and through the Norfolk – Virginia Beach Metropolitan area and across the 4.35 mile long Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnels. 

Our first stop was in Northampton County, one of the two counties that comprise the ‘eastern shore’ of Virginia and the southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula.  

This is one of the buildings that comprise the Northampton County Court Green and Historic District.  The Green is part of the Eastville Virginia’s Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.  Eastville, with a population of only 339 residents, is the county seat for Northampton county...population ca. 12,300.

This ‘newer’ courthouse was the 6^th one built for the county and it’s on the site of a previous courthouse from 1795.  It was built by the B.F. Smith Fireproof Construction Company…  The structure has been fully restored and it now serves as part of the county’s administrative offices, provides meeting rooms and it houses an exhibit curated by the Northampton Historic Preservation Society.

Along one side of the Courthouse Green, there are 4 offices of varying styles.  They are referred to as “Lawyer’s Row” and they were built between the 1820s and 1985. 

This small brick building was the 4^th courthouse for Northampton County.  It was built in 1731 by John Marshall, a Founding Father of the United States.  It cost 50,000 pounds (25 tons) of tobacco to build.  Built in the Flemish bond style, the building measures roughly 35 feet by 23 feet.  The courthouse remained in use through 1795 when another courthouse was constructed nearby.

Note: John Marshall also served as the 4^th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 until he died in 1835.  He is the longest-serving chief justice in the history of the court and is highly regarded as one of the most influential justices ever to serve.

The building was then turned into a storehouse for a rent of $1.00 per year on the condition that the new lessee put a new roof on the building.  The courthouse stayed in the possession of the lessee and his descendants until it was purchased by Northampton County in 1913.  It has been extensively repaired and restored.

The County Clerk’s Office was built next to the old courthouse ca. 1800.  It was designed to hold court records.  The building consists of one room with the original cabinets lining the walls from the flagstone floor to the vaulted ceiling.  The exterior brick work is in the Flemish Bond style.

OK…I didn’t know anything about “Flemish Bond” style brick laying…and I still don’t understand the terminology despite looking it up on the Internet.  If you’re interested, go to Brickwork - Wikipedia.

Note: Since Eastville Virginia was founded ca. 1690 as the first permanent county seat of Northampton County, it is home to the oldest surviving court records in the United States. (333 years of history)

This little structure was built in 1814.  It was the Debtor’s Prison.  Those who were convicted of not paying their debts were locked up here…separate from those who were convicted of crimes.  No windows…massive oak planking inside and a single door that is completely encased in iron on the inside.  This looks pretty rough!  I can’t imagine what the jail or prison for real criminals must have looked like.

Debtor’s prisons were banned in the USA via a Federal statute passed in 1833.  Currently, there is a movement to do away with bail for minor offences across the USA, with many regarding bail bonds as creating a new form of debtor imprisonment that impacts the less privileged members of society. 

The Northampton Court Bell was originally installed in the attic of the 1899 courthouse.  Back in the day, when court was called to order, the Sheriff would ring the bell and then stand on the porch or balcony of the courthouse to announce that the court was in session.

When the courthouse was refurbished and repaired, the bell was removed to its current site on the Courthouse Green.  It’s now dedicated to the memory of US Army Sgt. Tromain of Eastville.  He was killed in action in Iraq. 

This is a memorial to “Debedeavon”, the leader of the Accomac Native American peoples.  He governed about 2,000 Accomacs.  When English colonists first arrived in the area in 1608, Debedeavon was paramount chief in the region.  He was called the “Laughing King”. 

He allied with the English settlers who regarded him as a gallant warrior and a loyal friend.  Although the stories differ, it is thought that Debedeavon warned the settlers of a Native American uprising in 1621.  That warning is credited as saving the colonists from total annihilation in the massacre of 1622.  As it was, about 400 European settlers were killed in 1622.  That was about a third of all the colonists in Virginia at the time.  The “Laughing King” died in 1657.

That’s all for now… Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by to join us on another road trip!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave