THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 16, 1996 TAG: 9605150133
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 184 lines
THE HISTORY OF Gates and Hertford counties is well covered in two recent publications.
Veteran historian/author E. Frank Stephenson Jr. offers a photo-filled, coffeetable book titled ``Parker's Ferry.'' The book documents the history of a two-car boat that, for more than 100 years, has taken people for the 5-minute ride across the Meherrin River.
The history of the ferryboat, and the surrounding area, covers more than four centuries.
Gates County history is Paulette Felton Wester's topic in her first book, ``A Journey in Time,'' which summarizes the history of Gates and surrounding counties from the 18th century to present.
Here is a look at the books:
``Parker's Ferry'' On June 1, 1980, it was the love boat of the Meherrin River. Vickie Wilson and Jesse Thomas Cobb came from Raleigh to wed on the cable-guided Parker's Ferry.
In mid-river, ``Captain'' Johnnie Miller cut the engine on the little boat long enough for the Rev. H.C. Francis of Sanford to pronounce the couple man and wife.
Stephenson said recently the marriage is still in good working order.
In his book, he lovingly calls the boat one of the ``ugly ducklings'' of the North Carolina Department of Transportation's Equipment Division. Its sister ships, also in out-of-the-way places, are the Sans Souci Ferry on the Cashie River in Bertie County and the Elwell Ferry on the Cape Fear River in Bladen County.
Stephenson, born and raised near Parker's Ferry, has been a Chowan College administrative officer for 27 years. He wrote ``Gatling - A Photographic Remembrance'' and will soon start on ``North Carolina's Herring Fishermen'' and ``Carolina Moonshine Raiders.''
His current book focuses on a small boat that began life as the Jordan Ferry, property of a prominent Hertford County clan. They owned large tracts of land on both sides of the Meherrin River. In the 1850s, they put up a rope from one side to the other, attaching a small boat to it so they could get their animals and farm equipment across.
Today, a steel cable is the ``steering wheel'' of a 17-ton ferry powered by a John Deere diesel engine.
When it was still Jordan's Ferry, that family let some other people use it as a shortcut across the Meherrin. In 1880, the name was changed to Parker's Ferry, honoring A.I. Parker, the farm's overseer who married a family member, Pattie Jordan.
In 1886, the county took over the operation. In 1961, the state took over. In 1995, Britt Services of Dunn took charge.
In 1976, the wooden ferry was replaced with a steel hull boat.
Stephenson devotes several pages to directions to the ferry, noting, in understatement, that the landing is ``off the beaten path.''
To reach the boat, you go through a variety of back roads, passing such places as Horsepasture Creek and Devil's Elbow. When you get to the old Meherrin Indian village of Ramushouuong, you have almost reached the dock.
Through the years, the boat has had its share of troubles. A 1923 hurricane swept it downstream. A year later, six people drowned when their car plunged off the end of the ferry.
Similar ferries getting some coverage in Stephenson's book are the Wyanoke and Cheshire, which operated in the 18th century.
Several pages are devoted to the Meherrin Indians, who lived at various sites along the river that boasts their name.
The tribe, numbering about 550, most of them living in and around Winton, has a tribal office on U.S. 13, south of that town.
Part of their story reads like almost any history about native Americans.
``They have endured and survived extreme hardship, severe discrimination, prejudice, repression, oppression and,'' Stephenson adds, ``mistreatment of the ugliest kind.''
``A Journey in Time''
Paulette Felton Wester writes about native Americans in much the same manner, noting that the Chowan Indians, who settled in the area about A.D. 500 ``were forced to surrender'' much of their land. By 1707, they had ``only six square miles.''
Her book, with fewer pictures and more words than the Stephenson publication, adopts a ``you are there'' approach as it offers the history of Gates County since its formation in 1779.
Wester devotes many pages to her travels around the area, describing what is there for all to see.
What used to be there is something we should know about ``because,'' she explains, ``it is very important to future generations to have some form of written history of our county.''
Her history book begins with ``the first settlers'' who lived on the banks of the Chowan River because, she writes, ``it provided rich bottomlands and boat landings.''
The book tells about the sailboats and steamboats, the prosperous cotton crop and the cotton gin, and the history of the manufacture of the once economically important tar, pitch and turpentine.
Wester also tells about the weekend entertainment, especially the showboats.
Another form of entertainment, long gone from Gates County, was horse racing, complete with picnic lunches, brandy and other liquors.
Speaking of the hard stuff, Wester writes about the county's taverns and saloons, which charged a dime a drink. Half a pint of mint julep was a dime - 15 cents with ice.
Drinks and politics mixed in old Gates County. Wester tells about men attending political gatherings where the ``main attraction'' was not the politician, but the promised ``peck of whiskey.''
Matter of fact, rallies in those days were called ``hard cider meetings.''
Since ``A Journey in Time'' is so detailed, it is almost impossible to read without learning some fascinating facts, such as the following about a famed pirate:
``Blackbeard's best friend was Gov. Charles Eden. As we see him (the pirate) approach we have nothing to fear,'' Wester writes. ``He is strictly a sea robber.''
Inland, he was a celebrity who brought exotic items into unexotic Gates County, bringing wealth to several merchants.
``He was welcomed in any home in the region,'' Wester says. ``He was the king of his profession.''
Jim Felton is another fascinating character. From the 1930s to the 1950s, he occupied an island named for him - Hermit Island.
``He never thought very highly of civilization,'' Wester writes. ``He would come out just to buy supplies and get his annual haircut and beard trim.''
The Chowan River gets a lot of attention as do the areas surrounding it, beginning with Corapeake, founded about 1660, the county's first established community.
Wester lives in Roduco, named, she says, ``for the ROberts DrUg COmpany.''
There was a touch of the old west in Gates County during the early part of the 18th century when cattle rustlers came on the scene.
They were a two-edged sword, sometimes rounding up stray animals for the owner, at other times helping some unsavory folks increase their herds.
One of the county's most fascinating areas is the 37 mile long, 12 mile wide Great Dismal Swamp, ``still one of the wildest areas in eastern America,'' Wester writes.
Gates shares the mostly wilderness area, which lives up to its name, with the counties of Perquimans, Pasquotank, Camden and Currituck. That accounts for 60 percent. Virginia has the remainder.
Once a hiding place for Indians and outlaws, it has always been home for many kinds of trees, plants and animals.
George Washington made a good living from the swamp. He purchased 1,100 acres, which he intended to devote to logging and farming. That did not work out, so he produced juniper shingles. That worked.
His ``employees'' - slaves and poorly paid whites - engaged in the ``hard, dangerous work of cutting down trees,'' Wester wrote. ``They had to move around in the muddy ooze of the swamp, fight yellow flies, mosquitoes and snakes.
``As the result of the hard work and inhumane conditions of these men,'' she writes, ``large land owners like Washington became wealthy men.''
There is a wealth of mystery in the swamp, one concerning the hulk of a large ship near its center.
``How the ship got there, no one knows. It was unlike any the local people had ever seen,'' said Wester, a member of both the Advisory Board of the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center and the Gates County Historical Society.
The 54-year-old freelance writer/photographer for the Gates County Index has visited every area of the county, using her memories of those visits descriptively in ``A Journey In Time.''
``I've been thinking for a long time of doing this book,'' said Wester, who is a retired bookkeeper for the Gates County Board of Education.
She relied on research and riding - many hours in the library, many hours on the roads. And, she relied on conversations with some of the county's older residents.
``Next, I hope to be able to write about the history of our schools and churches,'' Wester said. ``One should not try to live in the past, but one should never forget the past, the importance it played on the present and the lessons that are there for the future.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
A JOURNEY TO THEN
History is the star of two new books - about Gates and Hertford
counties.
The cover of author E. Frank Stephenson's coffeetable book,
``Parker's Ferry,'' displays a side view of the empty ferryboat,
which can hold two cars.
Paulette Felton Wester documents Gates County's history of dairy
farming and livestock in ``A Journey in Time.''
TO BUY THE BOOKS
``Parker's Ferry'' - Write to author E. Frank Stephenson Jr., 301
E. Broad St., Murfreesboro, N.C. 27855, or call (919) 398-3554.
Cost: $20.
``A Journey In Time'' - Write to author Paulette Felton Wester,
Route 1, Box 181, Eure, N.C. 27935. Cost: $15.
by CNB