Elmwood

     What I am about to relate concerning my own work and findings is consistent with Catherine Albertson’s account of Elmwood and its demise.

     Many, many years ago an elderly Negro woman, “Aunt Carrie”, born into slavery and whose family name was Pool first told me about Solomon and Martha Gaskin Pool’s grave site.  I always supposed Aunt Carrie’s family took the family name from the family in whose service they were bound.  Although I lived in Davis Bay, I never really took much notice of the graves before that.  Being “rural, non-farming” and not a hunter, I had no real reasons then to be in the middle of the field, and from the road, the grave site against a backdrop of distant woods, was not particularly discernable.   

     Following the rather simple directions Aunt Carrie gave me, before long, in the middle of a field, I was standing on the edge of an enormous thicket of twisted briars and bushes, reaching almost to my shoulders, and almost impenetrable.   With the help of a hatchet I knocked and kicked back as much of the briar patch as possible.  The first thing that became evident was the briar patch was the home of a very frightened rabbit.   That was encouraging because it always seemed to me, perhaps as a matter of coincidence, that briar patches and rabbits in the middle of a field were usually co-habitants of overgrown cemeteries.  Sure enough, with persistent kicking and hacking, I found four tombstones.  I cleared the tombstones and graves themselves of all overgrowth to read the following inscriptions:

Solomon Pool Born April 28, 1787 Died January 10, 1832	Martha, wife of Solomon Pool Born (month?) 10, 1797 Died (month?) 17, 1838	
Ann C. Pool Born June 8,  1823 Died September 3, 1827	Jane Pool Born October 13, 1818 Died October 25, 1827	

     Since the two young girls died within weeks of one another, I often wondered if they died from related causes - perhaps injuries from a fire that destroyed the plantation?  

     Following this, one of the first things I did was to contact local genealogists of that day (1957), but I could find no record or knowledge of the family plot.  It is even missing from Wilma Spence’s book of later date which endeavoured to record all family plots in Pasquotank County.

     I was eager for Aunt Carrie to know that I found the grave site and had cleared away as much of the overgrowth as I could .  In that subsequent visit, Aunt Carrie told me of a magnificent brick house - a plantation almost entirely from brick - along the Pasquotank River.  She had never seen the plantation herself before it burned, but heard about it from the elders of her day.  The oral traditions of slaves and the recently emancipated was very strong, since most could neither read nor write.  The spoken word was the only means of recording their particular history, and they strived to keep it accurate.   Aunt Carrie did not elaborate too much on the magnificent brick house except to say that it was one of the finest in the State, and not far from where Solomon and Martha Gaskins Pool were buried.   She seemed to allude to having seen the rubble of the plantation.   I presumed that’s how Brickhouse Point got it’s name.

     From Aunt Carrie’s description of the magnificent plantation,  the presence of the aforementioned graves, and the fact that prior to Emancipation she was most likely bound in service to the Pool family meaning she may have been the last living link to first-hand knowledge, I decided to investigate further  .. and that the site of Elmwood was probably nearby, and probably forever denigrated/desecrated by development around Brickhouse Point. 

     Throughout that summer I continued to look for evidence that such a plantation existed in the vicinity.  Eventually, I began to find some bricks in places where I did not expect to find them .... later I found more, and more.... many scorched black from fire, and some embedded in tree trunks and limbs that had grown up around the “debris”.  I reasoned that if the bricks were truly bricks from the magnificent plantation, Elmwood, then the debris area might also yield additional tangible evidence.  I began to dig and probe around in the area.  I have to admit that much of this was clandestine at first because I was trespassing on someone else’s property.   I was not looking for discouragement.   Although the digging and probing were on a “steady basis”, it certainly was not on a daily basis.  Eventually, I went away to university and later relocated overseas to work.  Nevertheless, Christmas breaks, summer holidays and frequent trips back to visit the family invariably found me (and my niece who was also interested) out in the field near the edge of the Pasquotank River furtively digging and turning up an enormous array of artifacts.  Over the span of time, from among the bricks, I unearthed some truly curious and interesting items. 

     Over time, among the scorched bricks I found fragments of clay-baked crocks, and clay jugs and porringers made of tin-glazed earthenware (similar to Spanish earthenware called “majolica”, “Majolica” itself dates from the 16th century.  There were also many, many pieces of (what appeared to be) fine porcelain, resembling Worcester porcelain from England and delft porcelain from The Netherlands.  (The Dutch had a very active trade in fine porcelain in the West Indies in the late 1600s and early 1700s, and I know from records that there was some trading between the Albemarle area and the West Indies during this period.).  Although I never found an intact item of  porcelain or earthenware, a sufficient quantity of pieces were unearthed to be able to put many pieces together.  Also unearthed was a long, heavy rust encrusted key, the side and one foot of an iron caldron, as well as large pieces of hand blown, dark bottles and a few metal objects...one being the spout of a tea pot.   

     There is a minor (in my heart a MAJOR) tragedy in all of this.  All bits and pieces collected were placed in plastic bags, labelled with dates and location of the find.  I left each year’s find at my brother’s house for safe keeping until I felt there was sufficient quantity to work with and on which to make a qualified decision on the entire matter.  Unfortunately, my constant reminder of the importance and potential historical value of those bags was not fully understood or appreciated.  For some reason, most of the bags disappeared, and I rather suspect thrown out..  Over 25 years of work!!!  Too much energy had been spent to simply abandon the work.   Digging continued, and more pieces unearthed.   Sometimes after digging and scratching the earth for what seemed like hours, I would sit on the side of the field and gaze at what was before me - especially the truly fine pieces - and wonder if I was truly looking at historical artifacts, or if I had simply spent all the time and energy digging through an early 20th century trash heap!

     Two or three times, around the digging site, there would appear a small area in the field which would sink in couple of feet, underneath of which appeared to be an open space...much like a cellar.   I was always reluctant to dig in the area or get too close to it, primarily for fear of the consequences if the ground gave way under my weight and I fell into a much deeper hole, and buried alive.  To this day, I regret I did not probe and dig there any way.

     Many of the artifacts were eventually sent to the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources for analysis.   The results that came back pointed to the fact that the artifacts themselves speak of an early life.  The earliest fragments of slipware and salt-glazed stoneware dated to 1670-1690.  Other fragments of porcelain and stoneware, and bottles, dated as late as the mid 1800s, so that the site shares a long history ... which is also consistent with the time lines of Elmwood.  

     From a section of the map Albemarle Sound Region (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan - it can be seen that the Swans owned land on the Pasquotank River, immediately southwest of the Davis, (Davis Bay) which is the area where I was digging.  On the 1733 Edward Mosely Map, there is a presence of the T Swan Plantation in the immediate vicinity of Brickhouse Point, again the area where I was digging.

    Following upon these findings concerning the artifacts and where they were found,  the Research Branch of the Archives and History in Raleigh reported from its investigations that the site was believed to have been occupied in the 1720s by Thomas Swan.  Thomas was prominent in Pasquotank County, serving as Treasurer of Pasquotank Precinct, member of the Colonial Assembly, and as speaker of the Lower House of that body.    The earliest claim of this land was made by Tomas Keele in 1663, the same year the Carolina Charter was made.  Keele was granted 800 acres of land in a bay on the southwest side of the Pasquotank River.  A little further down the same side of the river, Henry Palin received 450 acres at the mouth of New Begun Creek.  [Nell Marion Nugent, Cavaliers and Pioneers: Abstracts of Virginia Land Patents and Grants (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, 1963), pp. 425-429.]   This provides a solid line of evidence that the site on which I was working did, indeed, belong to Thomas Swan at one time.

    Given the weight of the evidence I have amassed:

S	ab	a near first-hand account by an ex-slave,
S	ab	the presence of Solomon and Martha Pools grave site,
S	ab	the discovery of numerous bricks - some scorched - on the southwest side of the Pasquotank River, some distance back from the road,
S	ab	many fragments of earthenware, porcelain, bottles etc dating from 1670-1690 to the mid 1800s were found in the debris area of the scorched bricks; consistent with the time lines of Elmwood,
S	ab	documented evidence that his land had previously been owned by Thomas Swan(n)

I do not hesitate to proclaim that this site can be none other than Elmwood. 

     At the time of the report of the Research Branch of Archives and History produced their report (1988) on the artifacts, they also stated very clearly that the area I excavated had great potential for future archaeological investigation.  However, I was then, as now, living outside of the country and simply lacked a power base to push this speculation into action.  The time has come ... and perhaps passed ... for the promised archeological investigation of the site.   The last time I visited the site, artifacts were washing out into the Pasquotank River.  Even worse, I fear real estate developers, who are not known to be great respecters of cultural heritage, will desecrate the area before its historical value can be declared.  

Epilogue

     Over the years, what I have found so incredulous is that although this magnificent plantation, Elmwood, at least by the time of its unfortunate demise, was separated from me by a mere three generations, four at the most.   Yet, with the sole exception of an ex-slave who recalled what she had seen (tombs of Solomon and Martha Pool) and what she was told when she was a child, the existence of Elmwood was just a romanticized local legend, cloaked in  mystery.   And people were so content to let it remain that way.  

“Aunt Carrie” Pool died in January 1963.  No one knew exactly how old she was - her death certificate states a later birth, which is not consistent with her life’s history.   When she was first employed by my grandmother (Patti Jennings Trueblood) to do light housework and ‘mind the kids’ in the 1920s, she was already in her 60s.   Aunt Carrie said she was born in slavery but had no real recollection of it aside from what her family told her.  She was likely 3 to 4 years old at the close of the Civil War.