QUAKER COMMUNITIES IN ALBEMARLE
                      from The Hill Family of Chowan County North Carolina 
                                     by Anne L. McCarthy

The land configurations of Albemarle made the area attractive and accessible. Laced with small 
streams, creeks, and deep rivers, the easy access by water into the untamed region offered 
ports for ocean-going ships able to take the settlers' products directly to Caribbean ports and to 
the other colonies. Abundance of water also aided the farmers with their crops and for their 
homes. The Chowan, Perquimans, Pasquotank, and Little Rivers were linked with the smaller 
streams making a veritable water highway throughout the area. The source of these rivers was 
the Great Dismal Swamp, where the color of the water was a deep red, caused by the waters 
passing through the roots of the cypress trees. The water, however, was perfectly clear, tasted 
by no means unpleasant, and was quite wholesome. It had a diuretic effect on those who drank 
it, and prevented agues and fevers, or so it was claimed. Filled with the perils of virgin forests, 
native Indians, wild animals, insects, snakes, and reptiles, this area south of the Great Dismal 
Swamp was also more isolated from the English authorities. 

Following the first landowners who settled along the main rivers and shores of Albemarle Sound, 
new arrivals were finding homesites father up near the heads of the four main rivers. When the 
word spread that this was a place where people were able to worship in freedom and that the 
Virginia government had less influence in the region, the Quakers in southern Virginia came to 
Albemarle in increasing numbers. They were an industrious, plain, sober, and hardy people who 
had already endured much hardship and privation. They were soon joined by other Quakers from 
the New England colonies who had heard that new Quaker settlements were being started in the 
south. One of these couples who came in the 1660’s was Henry and Hannah (Baskel) Phelps 
from Salem, Massachusetts. Among those who came from the Charlestown settlement in 
southern Carolina were Patrick Henley, John Culpeper, and Edward Mayo who had come 
originally from Barbados in the Caribbean.

On February 6, 1665, the first group of six freeholders met beneath a giant oak tree on the 
banks of Hall's (Hill's ?) Creek in Pasquotank Precinct1 to organize community affairs. William 
Drummond, one of those present at that meeting, had been appointed the first Governor of 
Albemarle in 1664 by Gov. Berkeley, acting on orders of the Lord Proprietors. George 
Catchmaid of Perquimans was chosen Assembly Speaker.2 Samuel Pricklove and George 
Durant were probably also among the original six at the meeting. Both served as local officials 
and were the first two settlers of the area. The isolation of Albemarle and the independent 
nature of it's people were factors contributing to unstable government in the young colony in its 
first years of existence. 

In 1676 Drummond returned to Virginia where he became actively involved in Bacon's Rebellion. 
He was an ardent supporter of Nathaniel Bacon and thereby angered Governor Berkeley. When 
the rebellion was put down after Bacon’s death from illness, the Governor made Drummond the 
first of the rebels to pay the price for their disloyalty to his authority. Drummond was sentenced 
to be hanged. Mrs. Drummond and the children were put out of their home and were left 
wandering in the swamps near starvation. 

The Lord Proprietors next named Samuel Stephens as Governor of Albemarle. He served from 
1667-1669. Stephens was born in Jamestown in 1629 and was the first governor of any colony 
to be born in America. He was married to Frances Culpeper, the sister of Lord John Culpeper. 
When Stephens died in1669, she married Governor William Berkeley. After Berkeley's death in 
1677, she married thirdly Phillip Ludwell, Governor of Charlestown, in 'south' Carolina.3 Stephens 
had owned a tract of 4,000 acres of land in Albemarle which was sold upon his death to John
Hill of York County. In 1693 this same tract of land was sold by John Hill's son, Samuel Hill of 
Warwick Co. and his wife, Mary, to Governor Seth Sothel (Southwell).
Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia had reverberations in Albemarle. Some of Albemarle's residents 
had been active in the Virginia revolt, and they returned to Albemarle to continue stirring up 
discontent there. John Culpeper, who had come to Pasquotank in 1675 from the Charlestown 
settlement where he had been accused of inciting the people against their government, was 
one of these. He left Pasquotank in 1676 to become Nathaniel Bacon's lieutenant during the 
rebellion in Virginia. When the revolt was put down, he escaped to Albemarle, where he 
continued to sow seeds of discontent. 

Disagreement between the early settlers who bought their lands from the Indians and those 
who had received land patents from the Lord Proprietors was an underlying cause of dispute. 
In addition, conflict between Quakers and non-Quakers, while government attempts to restrict 
export of tobacco (the money crop) also resulted in discontent. Nine Friends were fined and 
imprisoned in 1680 for refusing to bear arms. Samuel Hill of Warwick was one of these men. 
When unrest in Albemarle broke out in Culpeper's Rebellion, in 1677, Thomas Miller, an 
apothecary from Pasquotank, was serving as Deputy Governor in place of Thomas Eastchurch. 
The rebels, led by John Culpeper, arrested Gov. Miller and Customs Collector, Timothy Biggs, 
and took over the government. In Pasquotank County, Culpeper is proudly claimed as 
America's first governor of a free people in this country and Albemarle as the first independent 
colony in the new world.4 Culpeper's widow, Sarah Mayo, daughter of Edward Mayo, again 
married in 1693 to Patrick Henley, the earliest Henley ancestor of the family that later became 
closely associated with the Hills.

Bacon's and Culpeper's Rebellions came perilously close to the members of the Hill family. 
As Quakers they did not take active roles in the insurrection, but they were closely 
associated with the officials who did.

For the first thirty years Albemarle was governed by independent men, and Quakers served 
in all levels of political office. While there was a steady conflict for governmental control in 
Albemarle between members of the established church and the Quaker faction, the Quakers 
dominated in early Pasquotank. John Archdale followed Culpeper as Governor from 1694-1696. 
He was a Quaker and a Lord Proprietor, having purchased John Berkeley's share. When a law 
was passed requiring officeholders to take an oath to serve the English crown, the Quakers, 
who believed oaths should be made only to God, met opposition and were prohibited from 
holding public office. From that time on their influence waned.

In this new setting life was a constant challenge for survival. Families were more isolated and 
vied with the Indians for sustenance off the land. Living on lands bought from the Indians meant 
they were living among the natives. Early on the Quakers learned how to treat the Indians with 
respect and to coexist with them. In the process their children acquired the Indian skills of 
living with nature. In the next generation these were skills that enabled the young men to lead 
their people into newer untouched lands to the west.

In Albemarle life spans were short. With little medical resources other than the remedies 
handed down from generation to generation and surrounded by accidental risks, fevers, 
poisonous snakes and wild animals, men and women often were suddenly widowed and left 
with small children to care for without a home-maker or protector-provider. The widowed 
remarried quickly and often, some having three or four wives or husbands in their lifetimes. 
New marriage partners often came from within the small circle of neighboring families. These 
families came to be linked by intermarriage many times over. Marriage occurred at a young 
age for girls in particular. They learned the skills of home-making as a necessity to assist their 
mothers. Providing food, clothing, and health care for a family in the wilderness was no easy 
task and required the help of every hand at an early age. Without a pair of hardworking parents, 
a family could not survive. Families were large and children learned early to contribute to the 
work.

                          SAMUEL PRICKLOVE: AGITATOR

 Samuel Pricklove was one of the first residents of Perquimans Precinct, arriving even before 
settler George Durant, in 1662.5 Pricklove was the first known purchaser of Indian lands in 
Albemarle and held a grant from Governor Berkeley of Virginia for a large tract on the 
Perquimans River near Durant, where the two men became life-long friends. Pricklove had 
moved from Nansemond County in Virginia with his wife, Rachel Lawrence, whose brother, 
Thomas Lawrence, was one of Nathaniel Bacon’s supporters in Bacon’s Rebellion. Pricklove 
held the offices of Registrar of deeds and Clerk of the Inferior Court under the administrations 
of two early Quaker Governors of Carolina in the 1650’s: Governor William Drummond
 (executed by Governor Berkeley in Bacon's Rebellion) and Governor Archdale.6 Both Pricklove 
and Durant took part in the Culpepper Rebellion of 1677 and assisted in "leading the rabble" to 
depose the Deputy Governor Thomas Miller. For this crime of activism, Pricklove was 
sentenced to have his right ear amputated and be banished from the colony. The sentence 
was never carried out because Miller was deposed. Samuel Pricklove died in Perquimans 
County in 1692. He and his wife left two sons, Samuel and John. John Pritloe and his wife, 
Elizabeth, had six daughters, all of whom married men of substance and influence in 
Albemarle:

 • Priscilla married John Sanders 
 • Judeth married Abram Sanders, son of John Sanders of Virginia 
 • Rachel married Robert Wilson, son of a Virginia Burgess 
 • Elizabeth married William Elliott 
 • Rebecca married Zacariah Chancy 
 • Leah married Joseph Smith.  Leah and Joseph Smith were the grandparents of Mary 
Smith, wife of William Hill. John Smith, brother of Mary Hill, was one of the founders of 
Richmond, Indiana. Basil Sanders, who left 860 acres of land in Chowan County to a William 
Hill of Antigua in 1721, was likely the son of one of the above Sanders couples.

The early Quaker communities were models of life based on their Christian beliefs. The Quaker 
believed that God speaks directly to the human heart, and that no ministers or priests are 
needed to receive the blessings of God, which are available to every man and woman. They 
believed in the equality of men and women. They used no hymns or outward manifestations 
in their worship, keeping silent until a person felt moved by God to share a message. The 
Quakers tithed. They refused to take an oath of any kind, as they owed their allegiance only 
to God. They believed in simplicity which strips away the accretions of the centuries and used 
the term Thee because Jesus used Thee to His Friends. The appellation, Quaker, came from 
their enemies who accused them of Quaking in the presence of God, which they did. 

The Quaker dissenters in England had been prohibited from attending the public schools there, 
leading the Friends to establish their own schools to provide their young people with the education 
and religious precepts of their faith. A high priority was placed on having the best teachers and 
schools possible in order to preserve their sect.

The Quaker Meeting House had two sides separated by partitions which could be removed for 
general meetings. The men had their meetings on one side and conducted their affairs with 
their own appointed committees. The women, treated as equals, had their own meetings and 
committees to deal with their own particular concerns. Each group assigned overseers to 
monitor the conduct of their members, arrange for disputes between members to be settled in 
a peaceful and fair manner, and to "look into and approve or disapprove" of the appropriateness 
of the intention of members to marry. The poor and orphaned children were provided for by funds 
set aside in each meeting from tithes for that purpose, and new homes were arranged for the 
orphans where they would be clothed, fed, and taught a trade.

In the frontier communities the safety and welfare of the people depended on the cooperation of 
all and a commitment to the good of the community. Because they lived in primitive 
circumstances and close proximity to the Indians from whom they had bought their land, the 
Quakers took care to treat the Indians fairly and to learn their ways of survival off the land. 
They set up schools for the native children to help them come to understand the ways of the 
white man. The earliest religious meetings in Albemarle were held in the homes of their leaders. 

While the Quaker communities continued to grow in North Carolina and in Isle of Wight Co., 
Virginia, there remained a lingering unease over the tight control of the mother country affecting 
both the settler's religious and economic lives. Young men were being conscripted into the 
militia to fight Indians on the western borders of Virginia and North Carolina and brought home 
with them news of the beautiful, undeveloped lands in the western parts of those states. The 
Quakers were assessing their local problems and the possibility of starting new settlements
in the west. 

The early Quaker communities were models of life based on their Christian beliefs. The Quaker 
believed that God speaks directly to the human heart, and that no ministers or priests are 
needed to receive the blessings of God, which are available to every man and woman. They 
believed in the equality of men and women. They used no hymns or outward manifestations 
in their worship, keeping silent until a person felt moved by God to share a message. The 
Quakers tithed. They refused to take an oath of any kind, as they owed their allegiance only 
to God. They believed in simplicity which strips away the accretions of the centuries and 
used the term Thee because Jesus used Thee to His Friends. The appellation, Quaker, 
came from their enemies who accused them of Quaking in the presence of God, which they did.

The Quaker dissenters in England had been prohibited from attending the public schools there, 
leading the Friends to establish their own schools to provide their young people with the 
education and religious precepts of their faith. A high priority was placed on having the best 
teachers and schools possible in order to preserve their sect.
The Quaker Meeting House had two sides separated by partitions which could be removed for 
general meetings. The men had their meetings on one side and conducted their affairs with their 
own appointed committees. The women, treated as equals, had their own meetings and 
committees to deal with their own particular concerns. Each group assigned overseers to monitor 
the conduct of their members, arrange for disputes between members to be settled in a peaceful 
and fair manner, and to "look into and approve or disapprove" of the appropriateness of the 
intention of members to marry. The poor and orphaned children were provided for by funds set 
aside in each meeting from tithes for that purpose, and new homes were arranged for the 
orphans where they would be clothed, fed, and taught a trade.
In the frontier communities the safety and welfare of the people depended on the cooperation 
of all and a commitment to the good of the community. Because they lived in primitive 
circumstances and close proximity to the Indians from whom they had bought their land, the
Quakers took care to treat the Indians fairly and to learn their ways of survival off the land. 
They set up schools for the native children to help them come to understand the ways of the 
white man. The earliest religious meetings in Albemarle were held in the homes of their leaders. 

While the Quaker communities continued to grow in North Carolina and in Isle of Wight Co., 
Virginia, there remained a lingering unease over the tight control of the mother country 
affecting both the settler's religious and economic lives. Young men were being conscripted 
into the militia to fight Indians on the western borders of Virginia and North Carolina and 
brought home with them news of the beautiful, undeveloped lands in the western parts of 
those states. The Quakers were assessing their local problems and the possibility of starting 
new settlements in the west. 

Concerned with the question of slavery, they knew they could not operate their farms without 
slave help. They preferred living in frontier areas where they were free of the social pressures 
of concentrated population. Albemarle was becoming quite populated.

                                          HENRY WHITE

One of the earliest Quakers in Pasquotank County was Henry White who had come from Isle of 
Wight County, Virginia, around 1670. He had purchased lands at the head of Little River where 
a preparatory meeting had been established as early as 1663. White served as Registrar for 
Little River Meeting and for the Pasquotank Monthly Meeting which included four other meetings 
besides Little River. He served on the North Carolina Higher court and for short periods of time 
on the Precinct County Court.
White gave land for the building of a school alongside the meeting house which was the first 
school built in North Carolina, and he taught in that school. A poem White wrote in 1698 as a 
teaching tool for his students came to light at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. This long 
poem is said to be the oldest extant work of poetry from the southern states. It apparently 
was used as a form of communication with other Quaker meetings in various regions and to 
instruct his pupils with a religious message of the Quaker faith at the same time.
As a young man White had attended school in Isle of Wight County, where his father made a 
living as a cooper and served as Justice of the Peace. His grandfather, Henry White, had lived 
on Queen's Creek in York County, north of Williamsburg. 
In 1631 Governor John Harvey determined to secure the area between the James and York 
Rivers by building a palisade across the peninsula between Archer's Hope (College Creek) and 
Queen's Creek. Incentives were offered to any settler who would relocate to that area to defend 
and protect the development of the area. Fifty acres were offered to each man who would 
relocate there for the first year, twenty-five acres for a second year. This may have been the 
incentive for families like the Whites and the Hills to spend a short period at Queen's Creek in 
York county, later returning to the counties south of the James River.

********************************************************************





Back to the Glimpses of the Past
Back to Pasquotank County Page