HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA with Maps and Illustrations, Vols. 1 & 2

Orig. pub. Fayetteville, NC, 1857-58. Reprinted 1961, 1966, 1969. Print on Demand Edition 2016. the set

Francis L. Hawks was born in New Bern, NC. He was a lawyer, Episcopal priest, and college president. According to the late North Carolina historian, Dr. Hugh T. Lefler, "He had the broadest scholarship and literary attainments of any of the nineteenth-century North Carolina historians. . . .his two-volume history is of high quality, scholarly, original, and according to a competent contemporary reviewer remarkably sound and accurate." Volume One reprints many rare and valuable documents including the Raleigh charter of 1584, Barlowe's narrative, the account of the Grenville expedition, and Thomas Hariot's narrative, all dealing with the four separate expeditions (1584-1590) sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh to settle "Virginia." Although these expeditions ended up on the North Carolina coast, they helped lay the groundwork for the first permanent settlement at Jamestown twenty years later. Hawks's second volume covers the political, social, and economic history of North Carolina during the Proprietary Period (1663-1729). Using a topical plan there are chapters, accompanied by documents, on exploration and settlement, law and its administration, agriculture and manufactures, navigation and trade, religion and learning, civil and military history, and manners and customs. Genealogists should find of particular interest the lists of approximately 800 freeholders as of 1723 in the Albemarle district. Present-day counties included in this area are: Chowan, Perquimans,Pasquotank, Currituck, Bertie, Beaufort, Hyde, Craven, and Carteret. While this is a history of North Carolina, there is considerable material relating to emigration of settlers from Virginia and later commerce with that neighboring state. There is also information on its relation to South Carolina when it was still a part of the Carolina colony. Owing to the lack of a major port, the point is made that the majority of North Carolina's first permanent settlers did not come directly from England and other parts of Europe but came from Virginia, New England, and Barbados.