Becoming Americans (40 page)

      Catherine was confident that she and John would have sons one day. They'd tried, they'd prayed, but she'd not yet conceived. She would, though, and Aunt Mary—surely!—would will her estate to John—her husband's namesake. After all, it was John who had tripled the size of the estate with his wise management, and by advising Aunt Mary on the purchase of nearby estates. John had organized her plantation as strictly as the militia. Aunt Mary's plantation was like the beehive or the ant colony the Williams boys had admired. Life was organized; everyone knew his or her place. John and Joseph and their mother had started that system during the hard years before Anne had married Shaw.

      This was a different world from the sandy, barren outer-banks beaches of Currituck Precinct where she'd played as a girl. She lived a life that, as a child, she'd hardly dreamed of. Her husband was manager of nearly two thousand acres for his aunt. The original part of this plantation was from an inheritance the old woman had been left years ago. Uncle John's confiscated land was never returned to him by any of the king's governor's, even though Uncle John had been openly and fiercely loyal to Sir William Berkeley during Bacon's Rebellion. Aunt Mary bore a grudge for that, though she had benefited from the changes in the world that came with the establishment on the throne of King William and Queen Mary.

      The idea that the king's rights and prerogatives derived directly from God was abolished. The people—landed and wealthy people—could limit those royal rights and prerogatives. They'd done so in overthrowing the Stuart, James II, when he'd perversely insisted on naming his Catholic son as heir to the throne. Protestant England would not have it. The landed gentry in America took note; the colonies would not have capricious rule, either. They demanded, and took, increasing power from the royal governor. After James Town burned again, there was determined talk of a new seat of government for the prosperous colony. A college and new State House and town would be built on land at Middle Plantation. These were heady years for the Empire, for Virginia, and for John and Catherine.

      With the departure of the Fewoxes from Deep Creek, with Richard, Edward and Edy Williams off to Carolina, and with John and Catherine gone, the Williams manor on Deep Creek seemed quiet and empty. Only Joseph, his wife Mary, and two hired men were left to run the plantation, not that the three hundred acres were farmed, now. Increasingly, with the growth of Norfolk Town, demand heightened for staves and tar and shingles. Only food, flax, and tobacco for their own use were cultivated for harvest. To everyone's benefit, Joseph's inlaws, Daniel and Mary Bourne, moved in with them after losing their small plantation in what they'd been led to believe was lower Nansemond County. More and more commonly, vying claimants fought in Virginia and Carolina Courts for land that was claimed by both colonies. Still, no dividing line had been drawn.

      Daniel and Mary Bourne had been children, stolen from the streets of London, who were transported to Virginia as servants. They met and become lovers while bonded to an Isle of Wight County planter in the 1660's. Having been sold as children, they were bound to their master until the age of twenty-four. But, by the time Daniel and Mary were seventeen, they'd determined not to wait the additional seven years for freedom. They stole an Indian's pirogue and escaped to the Swamp. In that misty haven they declared themselves man and wife and survived on nature's bounty, secure from constables and sheriffs and magistrates. The Bourne's were introduced to Richard Williams at Maddog's river landing. Joseph Williams met their daughter there, too—his wild bride-to-be. Daniel Bourne provided a handsome dowry for his beautiful daughter: large bundles of valuable furs and tanned hides. It was a small treasure the swampdwellers offered to secure respectability for their daughter, Mary—named for her mother. It came at a time when marriage to a daughter of Anne Shaw offered respectability, and Anne's son badly needed the handsome dowry.

      From the beginning, Anne had ruled the girl. She reminded her daughterin-law that the Williams manor—even though Anne was married to Charles Shaw—remained for Anne's use—by Richard's will—for the remainder of Anne's life. Two mistresses could not run a household, so Mary was to remember her place as merely the wife of Anne's second son, living in Anne's home. Too, Anne's heritage as the daughter of a Ware mother and a Biggs father grew in importance to her as her living situation diminished. This girl of unwed and runaway parents was fortunate, indeed, to snare her son, Joseph. Even the girl's gift to Anne of her first two grandchildren was given short shrift. When would the girl produce sons? Sons were what the family needed.

      Finally, with her mother-in-law gone, Mary was mistress of the Deep Creek plantation, and she determined it would be hers—and her
own
family's— independent of brother-in-law John or the scheming shrew, Anne.

      The Bourne family had valuable connections. The outspoken young bride was quick to remind her husband of this when he dared speak in the condescending tones used by his mother. The population of Norfolk County was growing fast. The number of ships that docked at the port in Norfolk Town kept the many inns and ordinaries full of sailors who plied the Barbados-Virginia trade route. Runaway servants and slaves, and deserters from harsh ship captains still fled to the safety of the Great Swamp. These men and women formed small, hidden communities. They supplied traders like Joseph with furs to barter, and cheaper labor than could be rented or bonded. Joseph could thank Daniel Bourne for that connection.

      So, Joseph's business grew, and after Captain Ingolbreitsen was lost at sea during a harsh storm in late 1693, Joseph merely acquired a new factor for the increasing shingle, stave, and tar trade with Barbados. Life went on, and grew better, at Deep Creek.

Carolina seemed familiar to Anne. Albemarle was made up of fingers—or, necks—of land divided by parallel rivers that flowed into a large body of water. The thin, first finger of Currituck came down—as mostly marsh and dune—from Princess Anne County in Virginia to the Currituck Inlet, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and the Currituck Sound. Then, a long finger—still Currituck Precinct— bounded to the west by the North River, stuck into the Albemarle Sound; the next precinct—Pasquotank—was bordered by the broad Pasquotank River; then, Perquimans Precinct, bordered by the Little River and by the wide Perquimans River. The westernmost, wide, tooth-shaped peninsula was stopped at the imposing Chowan River. Unlike Virginia's Necks, these waters flowed south; south from—or around—the Great Swamp.

      James Fewox's land in Albemarle looked like a lovely bit of Grandfather Ware's Virginia land, torn out roughly and dropped off the northern shore of the Albemarle Sound. Fewox's twenty-five acres of this island were the majority and best acres; the remaining ten acres, or so, belonged to Benjamin Laker, a prestigious member of the colony.

      Batts Grave was the name of the island.

      Nathaniel Batts was the earliest or, at least, the most celebrated of the settlers of Old Virginia, as many people called Albemarle before Carolina became a proprietary colony in 1660. Batts had arrived years before that, joined soon by George Durant, John Harvey, and others of the colony's longest-seated, most hard-headed, and independent planters of 1691.

      Nathaniel Batts had moved south into Old Virginia before it was renamed, and had purchased his lands directly from the Indians. He began a brisk trade with the Indians and had prospered. He established his base and home at the western end of the Sound, between the mouths of the Chowan and the Roanoke Rivers. Although Batts was sufficiently rough and daring to demand the respect of his fellow traders and settlers, he was remembered in the century's last decade as a dashing, romantic cavalier. They called him, "Captain Nathaniel Batts, Governor of Roanoke."

      Batts Grave nestled in a bay that indented the northern shoreline of Perquimans Precinct, between the Perquimans and the Chowan Rivers. Two short waterways—the Yaupim River and Yaupim Creek fed into the little bay. The island's loamy soil was rich, and the island was situated in a perfect spot for a trading post and for watching traffic in the Sound. To the older inhabitants of North Carolina, the island of Batts Grave bore a sentimental importance second only to Roanoke Island, the place where ghosts were often seen and where, on sunny winter days, families would sail to pick among the century-old ruins of Sir Walter Raleigh's lost expedition of colonists.

      It was told that Batts, who was popular with the Chowanoke Indians, fell helplessly in love with Kickowanna, daughter of the Chowanoke chief, Kilcocanen. She returned Batts's affections and jilted his rival, a chief of the Pamunkey. During the ensuing war, Batts was adopted by the Chowanoke for his bravery and loyalty.

      Kickowanna often visited Batts at his island post and retreat. On one such visit, a raging storm capsized her canoe and Kickowanna drowned. Batts vowed never to leave the island, and it ultimately became "Batts Grave." His actual grave and inscribed stone were placed near the southern shore of the island, but in the thirty-odd years since then, wind and waves had eroded that portion of the island. Only stumps and lonely cypress stood above the water that now covered the burial location, and continued to nibble at the low bluff.

      The old house was like the first one Richard Williams had built at Deep Creek. It settled towards the northwest corner, and there were no glass windows; but it was a two-room house, with sleeping-space above, and it had wooden floors and a brick fireplace. The house caught the first rays of sunlight reflecting from the usually calm waters of the Sound. But, making it different and special, from the rear of the house Anne could watch the sun setting in the western water of the Sound. The gardens and orchards were old and well-tended. This was no frontier wilderness island. Englishmen had lived here even as Grandfather Ware settled in Lancaster County!

      Anne was familiar, too, with the people of Albemarle. She knew many of them. In Chowan Precinct, to the west, and in Currituck Precinct, to the east, the settlements had been established by exploring, seasoned planters and trappers from Nansemond or Lower Norfolk Counties. Chowan and Currituck Precincts had direct and easier contact with Virginia; Chowan, up through the Chowan River and its tributaries, Currituck, by a mere six-league sail from Currituck Sound to Cape Henry. The central Perquimans and Pasquotank Precincts were bordered in the north by the impenetrable swamp and were the center of Carolina's powerful Quaker population.

      Implicit in Carolina's Fundamental Constitutions were religious freedom and the ability of every freeholder of fifty acres to vote and to hold office. It was recognized as acceptable for a Quaker to "affirm" his loyalty, rather than to "swear" it. With this freedom, and with their own ambition and loyalty, a majority of the government was Quaker. Anne Fewox, the former Widow Shaw, daughter of John Biggs, niece of Timothy Biggs, arrived to friends she would not have chosen. She was adopted as a "cause" soon after arriving to Batts Grave in 1691, the Quaker women of the community passing her from one to the other, assuming from her pedigree and previous marriage that she had "seen the Light."

      James made no immediate claim to the headrights to which he was entitled. He was in no rush to claim more land before considerable thought and exploration, he said. But Anne was anxious that he hurry and find rich land up the Chowan River to establish a plantation. The road to Carolina's future growth wasn't with the Quakers and the other, undefined, dissenters.

      Anne's hopes were dashed very early, though, when James told her his reasoning, and reiterated his need for Carolina's five-year stay of suits on all debts, or other causes of legal action. He still owed debts in Virginia. Could there be a better place for a tavern and ordinary than on Batts Grave, he asked? A welllocated ordinary and inn would be the means of repaying his Virginia debts. Batts Grave was convenient to all, and by tying-up on the rear side of the island, prying eyes from boats passing in the Sound wouldn't know who was there! The few acres on this lovely island were adequate for growing food, there were wild swine in the woods, and the existing, floating dock could provide profitable convenience for New England traders tying-up for business in this central location.

      With encouragement from the aging George Durant, word was spread of Fewox's place on Batts Grave. Anne was interested in being befriended by the likes of George Durant and the Harvey families. These long-time powers in Albemarle were nearby neighbors, and they weren't Quakers. So it was with pride, at first, that Anne received these better people when they befriended James. But it was Durant who pointed out to James the importance of ships flying a black or blood-red flag—and loaded with ill-gotten goods—that plied the local waters. They were abundant, had spendthrift crews, and were quietly welcomed in the Sound. More than welcomed, they were a mainstay of trade and commerce. Fewox must offer them hospitality, too. They had doubloons and pieces of eight!

      Soon, on more nights than not, the sounds of laughter, or shouts of anger and fighting drifted out from Batts Island, and Anne worried for her children. Her hopes in bringing the children along were that this new frontier would present opportunities for them that were closed in Virginia. Anne wanted respectability for her sons, but they were, sometimes, witnesses to debauchery.

      Richard was too much like his father. He looked like him and he acted like him, Anne told James. She realized that gambling and drink were the rights and expectations for a man, but she wanted more for Richard. There was more land south of the Sound that would soon be opening! She pleaded with James to let Richard, with Edward, when he was able, explore the land opposite them on the southern shore of the Sound; land along the Scuppernong River. But James needed the boys to help him, he said.