I. Wikacome in Weapomeiok, the Home of George Durant 1
II. The First Albemarle Assembly--Hall's Creek, near Nixonton 13
III. Enfield Farm--Where the Culpeper Rebellion Began 19
V. Colonial Days in Church and School on Little River, Pasquotank County 46
VII. The Old Brick House--a True History of the Historic Dwelling Reputed to be the Home of the Famous Pirate 62
VIII. "Elmwood," the Old Swann Homestead In Pasquotank County 66
X. Pasquotank in Colonial Wars--"The War of Jenkins' Ear" 78
XI. A Soldier of the Revolution--The Story of a Pasquotank Boy Who Followed Washington 84
XII. General Isaac Gregory, a Revolutionary Officer of Pasquotank-Camden 93
XIII. Perquimans County--"Land of Beautiful Women," and the Colonial Town of Hertford 114
XIV. Currituck, the Haunt of the Wild Fowl 134
Old Float Bridge Across the Perquimans River _Frontispiece_
"The Old Brick House," on Pasquotank River 62
Fairfax, the Home of General Isaac Gregory 112
WIKACOME IN WEAPOMEIOK, THE HOME OF GEORGE DURANT
In Perquimans County, North Carolina, there lies between the beautiful Perquimans River on the west, and her fair and placid sister, the Katoline or Little River, on the east, a lovely strip of land to which the red man in days long gone, gave the name of Wikacome. The broad sound whose tawny waters wash the southern shores of this peninsula, as well as all that tract of land lying between the Chowan River and the Atlantic Ocean, were known to the primitive dwellers in that region as Weapomeiok.
Not until George Durant came into Carolina, and following him a thin stream of settlers that finally overflowed the surrounding country, did the beautiful Indian names give place to those by which they are now known. Then Wikacome became the familiar Durant's Neck, and the waters of Weapomeiok and the territory known to the aborigines by the same name, changed to the historic cognomen of Albemarle.
George Durant and Samuel Pricklove were the first of the Anglo-Saxon race to establish a permanent settlement in Wikacome, though they were not the first Englishmen whose eyes had rested upon its virgin forests and fair green meadows, for in the early spring of 1586 Ralph Lane, who had been sent with Sir Richard Grenville by Sir Walter Raleigh to colonize Roanoke Island, set out with fourteen comrades from that place on an exploring expedition, hoping to find the golden "Will-o'-the-Wisp," which led so many English adventurers of the day to seek their fortunes in the New World.