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This Week's Stories

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THE RIVER: BEAUTY, HISTORY
AND MYSTERY

The portion of the Virginia-Carolina waterway that is known as the Chowan River is about 50 miles in length, drifting generally north-to-south from the state line to Edenton. It varies in width from a quarter-mile to almost three miles.

It is a geological anomaly that ~ combined with the Albemarle Sound ~ separates much of low-lying Northeastern North Carolina from the rest of the state.

The land east of the big river is a broad, flat plateau ~ mostly swampy.

The land west of the river also is a broad, flat plateau ~ also mostly swampy ~ but the plateau on that bank of the Chowan is generally 20 feet or so higher than the plateau to the east.

Looking to the east when traveling the river, the water takes a long while to blend into forested higher ground.

But to the west ~ all up and down the watercourse ~ there is a very noticeable bluff, the base of which has been eroded over eons by the action of the wind and the waves.

This bluff is punctuated frequently by breaks, or ravines, where runoff from the higher ground has long fought its way toward the sea.

Some of these ravines are narrow and short, from 40 to 50 yards wide and several hundred yards in length, with only a trickle of water at their bottoms.

But some are wide and long ~ up to a half-mile in width at the river and many miles in their lengthy meanders as swamp-drainers. These ravines carry big creeks and waterways, some of which in their own right are worthy of the name "river." These include the Potecasi-Meherrin, the Wiccacon and the Salmon.

Below Petty Shore the Chowan is virtually at sea level, and the only noticeable current is wind-current. Tunis has a tide of about six inches.

The river, which was patrolled by Union gunboats all through the Civil War, probably is one of the prettiest in the world.

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Two intriguing mysteries have long gone unexplained in Northeastern North Carolina, and they both have connections to the Chowan River.

One is the disappearance of the Lost Colony from Roanoke Island while John White was in England trying to round up supplies.

The other is "the Schooner of the Dismal Swamp."

According to Don Upchurch, the rotting hulk of this two-masted boat was discovered in the mid-1800s near Acorn Hill (between Sunbury and the Dismal Swamp) in Gates County ~ but was soon forgotten and then never located again.

A letter written by Upchurch and published in Roanoke-Chowan area papers in 1997 pointed out the intriguing parts:

1.--The colonists were left with a two-masted pinnace and other smaller boats.

2.--They wanted to go to Chesapeake Bay.

3.--The Albemarle Sound and Chowan River would have been the safest inland deep-water route of the time between Roanoke Island and Chesapeake, and the colonists had maps and were well aware of this route.

The problem: The place where the two-masted wreck was discovered in the 1800s is around the narrow headwaters of Bennetts Creek and as the crows still fly, it's at least 10 long miles northeast of the Chowan.

Upchurch's 1997 letter theorized that the Colonists were using the Chowan as their chosen route to their original destination at Chesapeake Bay, and for some reason proceeded up Bennetts Creek when they arrived at the broad entrance to that waterway.

As we said, intriguing, to say the least.

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Four hundred years of intensive ditching and drainage have gone by since the Colonists would have headed for Chesapeake. Today's big "swamp" is hardly half the size it was at that time. Where we see plowed fields today, once there were wide creeks, beaver dams and a lot of standing water.

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The Gates County theory put forth by Upchurch is not as far-fetched as a lot of other ideas that have been pursued on the subject.

It certainly is not reasonable to think that the Colonists would have headed for "Robeson County" (Lumbee country) or "Warren County" (Haliwas). They knew where "South Carolina" was located, and if they had wanted to go there, they would not have headed for Chesapeake in the first place.

They knew that when White returned, he would look around Roanoke Island and then assume they had headed generally north to the place they had wanted to go when they were put ashore prematurely.

They weren't looking for "Wilmington," "Charleston," or even "Jamestown."

They just wanted to reach the south shore of Chesapeake Bay ~ "Norfolk," on today's maps.

They didn't want to take their little boats back out into the fearsome Atlantic Ocean to get there. And the northern sound was too wide, too choppy, too shallow, too short and too marshy. The nearer northern rivers were short, and wound up in wet, almost impenetrable forest.

And all their ideas of travel focused on boats. They had no mules and wagons, and they didn't want to carry their supplies on their backs any further than necessary.

The Upchurch theory gains credence from the fact that the Chowan River was explored country. The Colonists knew where it was, and they knew the general direction of its creeks.

It is entirely possible they may have headed up Bennetts Creek deliberately when they reached the point where the Chowan takes its abrupt ~ if temporary ~ western turn.

They may have intended to go as far as they could by boat, and then trek the remainder of the distance.

And it cannot be denied that this particular tributary would have taken them closer to their intended destination than any other route.

They probably didn't know that along the way they would encounter what we now call the Great Dismal Swamp, however, and it may have been an impassable barrier.

But then, again, they may have reached Chesapeake.

That's the way you'd go to Suffolk and Chesapeake today.

There has been previous historical conjecture that the Colonists did reach the south shore of the Chesapeake and lived with a few Indians there who were not under Powhatan's control. Also, that later, Powhatan attacked this group and killed and enslaved them along with the Colonists, and later tried to hide that fact from John Smith's people.

The Upchurch Theory of the Lost Colony is worthy of a lot of study. When you really get down and ponder the maps, it's the most logical idea yet.

And Don is still working on it today ~ searching and studying.

We hope he finds it.

eMail Don Upchurch ~ wqdk@yahoo.com

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WHAT RALPH LANE SAID
IN 1586

To the Northwest the farthest place of our discovery was to Chawanook distant from Roanoak about 130 miles. Our passage thither lies through a broad sound, but all fresh water, and the channel of a great depth, navigable for good shipping, but out of the channel full of shoals...

Chawanook itself is the greatest province and Seigniorie lying upon that river, and that the town itself is able to put 700 fighting men into the field, besides the force of the province itself.

The king of the said province is called Menatonon, a man impotent in his limbs, but otherwise for a savage, a very grave and wise man, and of a very singular good discourse in matters concerning the state, not only of his own country, and the disposition of his own men, but also of his neighbors round about him as well far as near, and of the commodities that each country yields.

When I had him prisoner with me, for two days that we were together, he gave me more understanding and light of the country than I had received by all the searches and savages that before I or any of my company had had conference with: it was in March last past 1586.

Among other things he told me, that going three days' journey in a canoe up his river of Chawanook, and then descending to the land, you are within four days' journey to pass over land Northeast to a certain king's country, whose province lies upon the Sea, but his place of greatest strength is an island situated, as he described unto me, in a bay, the water round about the island very deep.

Out of this bay he signified unto me, that this King had so great quantity of pearls, and does so ordinarily take the same, as that not only his own skins that he wears, and the better sort of his gentlemen and followers are full set with the said pearls, but also his beds, and houses are garnished with them, and that he has such quantity of them, that it is a wonder to see...

The king of Chawanook promised to give me guides to go overland into that king's country whensoever I would: but he advised me to take good store of men with me, and good store of victual, for he said, that king would be loth to suffer any strangers to enter into his country, and especially to meddle with the fishing for any pearls there, and that he was able to make a great many of men in to the field, which he said would fight very well...

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(Ralph) Lane's 1586 description of the location of Chowanoke (Chawanook) is one of the most specific in the English records; he says: "From Muscamunge (near Edenton) we enter the river, and the jurisdiction of Chowanoke (the society): there the river (the Chowan) beginneth to straighten until it comes to Chowanoke (the town) and then groweth to be as narrowe as the Thames betweene Westminster and Lambeth" (Quinn and Quinn 1982:25). The archaeological site of Chowanoke is located exactly on the only high bluffs at that point where the river begins to narrow between Hertford and Gates counties, and where environmental factors and location below the mouth of the Wiccacon River at its confluence with the Chowan confirm both Lane's description and the location shown on two of John White's maps. ~ From The Carolina Algonkian Project, copyright 2001.

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THE TRAGIC TIMES OF A CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN

© 2002 Neil Baker

Calvin Hoggard was born in 1830 in Bertie County. His parents were John and Eleanor Hoggard. One of his brothers was John Norfleet Hoggard (born 1824), a pastor at Capeharts Church from 1855 to 1861. He was also a pastor at Ross Baptist Church. Another brother, Frazier Hoggard (born 1827) and Calvin were elected deacons at Capeharts Church.

Calvin married Rebecca Miller Feb. 22, 1854. His life was all downhill from there. Rebecca died Oct. 24, 1857. The following year, on Sept. 23, 1858, he married Margaret A. Smithwick.

In the early 1860s, during the Civil War, both Calvin and his brother Frazier joined the Union Army. Calvin served as a recruiter for the Union in the Plymouth area.

Calvin and his wife Margaret had their first child, Sarah Temperance Hoggard, on Dec. 25, 1859. She died Jan. 31, 1863. Their second child, Mary Ellen Hoggard, was born Oct. 16, 1862. She died Sept. 29, 1867. On July 6, 1864 their son, Thomas M. Hoggard, was born, and he died Sept. 29, 1867. A fourth child, Annie M. Hoggard, was born Dec. 9, 1866. She died May 12, 1885. A fifth child, Mary C. Hoggard, was born March 20, 1869. She died Oct. 19, 1869. A sixth child, Margaret A. Hoggard, was born June 3, 1871, and died Oct. 13, 1871. A seventh child, Joshua T., was born Nov. 30, 1872, and died Dec. 13, 1873.

Their eighth and final child, Madeane Graves Hoggard, was born Nov. 7, 1874. She lived until September 9, 1955.

Madeane married William Henry Sallenger and they had one son, Kenneth William Sallenger.

In 1874, Brother Calvin Hoggard asked for a "letter of dismission" from Capeharts Church, and it was granted. This probably was done in order to join in fellowship with Lawrence Baptist Church, which was organized from Capeharts in 1874.

Calvin, who resided only about two miles from the newly formed Lawrence church, died March 23, 1876, at the age of 46, having lived through some of the worst national and individual suffering Americans have had to endure.

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Frazier Hoggard, Calvin’s brother, married Elizabeth White on Jan. 17, 1857. They had one daughter, William Ann Hoggard, in 1859. Frazier joined Capeharts Baptist Church in September 1845. The church received a letter on April 9, 1864, from Frazier that was read to the church. The church clerk was ordered to write Brother Hoggard in response to the letter. Capeharts Baptist Church has records showing that Frazier died in 1864 ~ the book "Divided Allegiances" by Gerald Thomas lists him as having died Jan. 25, 1865.

eMail Neil Baker ~ nbaker@coastalnet.com

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This Week's Verse

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Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft as mild evening weeps over the lea,
the sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.

Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
and winds by the cot where my Mary resides;
How wanton thy waters her snawy feet lave,
as gath'ring sweet flowerets she stems thy clear wave.

Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

(Robert Burns)

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This Week's Mailbox

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To the Poor Town News ~ Keep up the good work with the Poor Town News. It should be required reading for the younger generation. ~ Carl Pollard. ~ cpollard@ec.rr.com

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To the Poor Town News ~ Hi, folks ~ I've just enjoyed reading your story. Genealogy is always so much more interesting when it has stories interspersed with names and dates! In the process of researching my mom's roots, I've learned that her maternal line lived in Phoebus, but I haven't been able to really find any available data on Routten, Drummond, Kingsbury, or Parrish. Do you have any suggestions where I might access information, or ~ in your own research ~ have you by chance come across these names? I'll be most appreciative of any suggestions you may have. ~ Anne in Winchester VA. ~ mrsnb@adelphia.net

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To the Poor Town News ~ Hello. I was just going through the internet looking for people with the same surname as me and my family when I came across the poem written by James (Burgwyn Pearce). I wonder if you could please pass this information on to him ...... I thought he might like to know that my family lives in Perth, Western Australia. We came to Australia when I was just a child, from Wales in the United Kingdom. I have three brothers, Michael, Patrick and John Burgwyn and two sisters, Maureen and Sharon. I have a little boy named Morgan James David Burgwyn and he is seven years of age. Of all the children born to my brothers, sisters and me, there are only two with the Burgwyn surname ~ my son and my nephew David who is 15 years of age. As far as I am aware, other than my immediate family, there are no other people in Australia with the Burgwyn surname. If James is interested he can eMail me at (this) eMail address, which is a work address, as I don't have internet facilities at home. He may be interested in becoming a pen pal to my son, although Morgan's letter-writing skills are not too well developed yet. Or if (James) is doing any school projects on Australia we could possibly help him ...... From the poem that James has written, he seems to be a fairly bright young boy and the main purpose to this correspondence is that, as previously stated, I thought he may be interested to know that there are some Burgwyns in Australia. ~ Jacquie Burgwyn, Perth, Australia. ~ jacquie@wa.techresources.com.au

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To the Poor Town News ~ Hello in Poor Town. Just wanted to let you know that Cox Communication saw fit to change my eMail address. My new one is cousinshirley@cox.net. I don't want to miss an issue of The Poor Town News. I am sending it to relatives who love it. One is cousin Ron Lupton out in Colorado. So Poor Town is getting press. Thanks so much. ~ Shirley Edwards, Bridgeton NC.

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