Pamlico County Logging

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
Pamlico County was a small, perhaps minor, part of the Southern lumber trade after the Civil War. Before the American Revolution, New Bern and Craven County, which then included the Pamlico peninsula, was the largest supplier of naval stores to the United Kingdom. [1]

The North Carolina colony provided 70% of the tar exports, and 50% of the turpentine. [2] In 1894, William Ashe noted remains of kilns used to burn long-leaf pine boughs to produce tar still were "seen as one rides along the road" on the peninsula. [3]

In 1850, Craven County had 36 turpentine producers, 10 distilleries that produced spirits of turpentine, 4 shingle makers, 3 lumbermen, and 1 saw mill. [4] Cornelius Dixon owned 1,112 unimproved acres near Olympia [5] that produced turpentine, lumber, and shingles. [6]

In addition to the farms and plantations along Upper Broad and Goose creeks, which were oriented toward New Bern, a second economic center developed in the county at the mouth of the Bay River. In 1840, Stonewall, then called Jackson, had a saw mill, grist mill, boat works, and Methodist church that may have looked along the Pamlico river for supplies and markets. [7]

As soon as Union troops took control of New Bern during the Civil War, Pamlico peninsula slaves absconded. [8] Whites with connections fled; trains evacuated New Bern as Union navy ships approached the city. [9] Henrietta Sparrow, the largest peninsula landowner, [10] moved to High Point. [11] Most of the rest remained on their farms. [12]

Soldiers from both the Union and Confederate sides raided peninsular farms for food and livestock. [13] Presumably, the land lay fallow and forests recovered. Long leaf pines were dying in the 1840s, [14] and probably were replaced by loblolly. [15]

Sparrow died at the end of the war, and left the China Grove plantation to her grandson, William Snell. [16] When her husband died in 1827, he was producing naval stores with 31 slaves on 3,000 acres [17] at the mouth of Dawson Creek near Janeiro. [18] In 1850, she still had the land, but the census did not mention any industry. [19] In 1860, she had 28 slaves in five cabins. [20]

Amos Wade bought the property at auction in 1869. [21] The same year the first A.M.E Zion church was founded in Oriental, less than four miles to the east. [22] Since A.M.E Zion was the principal African-American denomination in New Bern at this time, [23] one can assume at least some members had come from there. Whether they had stayed in the area during the war, returned from New Bern, or had gone to New Bern from elsewhere during the conflict is not known.

Wade probably did not want the house, which was all that was documented. [24] He was a turpentine and lumber dealer in New Bern. [25] In 1877, he began experimenting with growing tobacco at some unmentioned locations. [26] By the time Arapahoe got a name and post office in 1886, the sandy ridge was being used for tobacco. [27]

The renewal of farming followed from lumbering. After loggers cleared land, men still needed to dig ditches to drain the wetlands that supported the forests. Everything required labor. Some was local. Bill Smith found George, [28] Bias, [29] and Simon McCotter, [30] were farm laborers in 1880, probably somewhere around Broad Creek. [31] They all were born in Pamlico County and were descendants of Tamer, mentioned in the post for 2 February 2020.

Other farm workers in 1880 had come from other areas. In the Bayboro area, Warren Kenyon had moved from Duplin County, [32] while George Midgett [33] and William Gibbs had migrated from Hyde County to the northeastern part of the county. [34] Gibbs thirteen-year-old son Willie also was listed as a farm laborer by the Census. [35.]

While local residents were recovering from the Civil War, Northerners began moving South to exploit the lumber. Many were from woodlands and had served in the military where they had seen pine lands they recognized as having commercial potential.

Delon Abbot enlisted as a hospital steward in Maine’s Ninth Volunteer Infantry. [36] It spent the early years of the war around Hilton Head, South Carolina, then moved with the Army of the Potomac. In the final phase of the war, the unit took Wilmington, North Carolina, then marched to Raleigh. The men returned to Maine where they were paid. [37]

Abbott returned South where he bought 3,000 acres on the northern side of the Bay River. In 1874, he incorporated the town of Vandemere. By 1882, he had built wharves and a saw mill. [38] In 1896, he was running a combination saw and corn mill run by steam. [39] When he died in 1917, his body was returned to Maine. [40]

Farmers in that area may have been growing cotton. Three steam-powered gins existed in Pamlico County in 1877. [41] In 1896, there was one in Vandemere, two in Stonewall, two in Merritt, and one in Bayboro. Other parts of the county only had two. [42] By 1912, Abbott was growing cotton. [43]

I found no mention of Abbott’s labor force. [44] Vandemere itself became a center for local, white farmers. As mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019, John Robert McCotter gave Methodists and Disciples of Christ land for churches in 1885. [45] The nearest African-American church was in the county seat of Bayboro, 7.5 miles west. The first known burial in the Greenhill Missionary Baptist church was made in 1887. [46]

While Abbott was introducing the culture of New England, small, mill towns to Pamlico County, another entrepreneur relied on the older business of leases, mortgages, and rents to support his lumber business. Why he chose the Pamlico peninsula is unknown. Someone wrote to "Joshua Dean II" in Taunton, Massachusetts, from the Gaston Hotel in New Bern on June 25, 1865. [47] Since Robert E. Lee had surrendered in April of that year, the correspondent may have been a government agent or a friend looking for opportunities.

The forty-four year old man [48] arrived from Fall River, Massachusetts in 1867 to set up a saw and planing mill in Stonewall. He claimed to have had an operation in Fall River, [49] which was a textile mill town. Even before the industry expanded after the war, every usable site on the Quequechan River was utilized. [50] Increased real estate costs may have driven Dean out.

Dean opened a second facility at Broad Creek in 1872, [51] which was the next waterway south of Bay River. The Panic of 1873 apparently reminded him running a business was risky when times were bad, but rents were a constant source of income. In 1874, he transferred the mill to George Dail. [52]

The work must have been seasonal. In December of 1877, the mill was running two saws. In spring, "steamers and sailing craft come to freight away the lumber accumulated through the winter." [53] The next year, Dail Brothers was employing thirty men. [54]

George’s elder brother, Elias Exum Dail, [55] seems to have been the principal in the company. He too operated through leases rather than ownership. In 1892, he was in court over timber rights he had been told came when he took control of land on a mortgage. [56] The next year he was in court over a lease for lumber that the court ruled in fact had been a mortgage. [57]

While the Dails were not from the immediate area, they were part of the regional culture. George’s father, Elbert moved from Greenville, North Carolina, to a farm near Vanceboro [58] where he was active in the Free Will Baptist church. [59] Elias was on the board of directors of the denomination’s school near Greenville in 1896. [60]

Dean established a post office in 1878 that changed the village name to Pamlico. [61] In 1882, he had control again of the Broad Creek mill when it burned, along with a cotton gin and grist mill. [62] Two years later, Joseph McCotter’s descendants moved from the old plantation house to Pamlico. [63] The Dean Lumber Company was running a saw and planning mill there in 1896. [64]

Meantime, Dean was selling land on mortgages he controlled. He foreclosed on one in 1891, [65] and several in 1903. [66] The buyers could not be identified, although at least one may have been an African American. [67] Dean finally incorporated Pamlico in 1913. [68] He disappeared from the internet record after that.

Map
Selection from United States Department of the Interior. Geological Survey. "North Carolina." Compiled in 1957; revised in 1972.

End Notes
1. Alan D. Watson. A History of New Bern and Craven County. New Bern, North Carolina: Tyron Palace Commission, 1987. 128.

2. Robert B. Outland III. Tapping the Pines. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004. 32.

3. W. W. Ashe. "The Long Leaf Pine and Its Struggle for Existence." Elisha Mitchell Society Journal 11:1–16;1894. 5.

4. United States Census. Schedule 5, Products of Industry in the County of Craven State of North Carolina. 1850. Abstracted by R. Allen Humphrey. 2001.

5. C Trudel. "Cornelius Dixon." Find a Grave website. 21 April 2012. The county had 215,680 acres of land; [69] so he owned more than .5%.

6. Joe A. Mobley. Pamlico County. Raleigh: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1991. 31.

7. Mobley. 29.
8. This was discussed in the post for 6 February 2019.
9. Watson. 379.
10. Mobley. 41.
11. Lisa. "Pitt County Families." Roots Web website. 20 May 2009. Entry on "John Nelson."
12. Mobley. 41.

13. Mobley. 41. The raid on Hyde County, mentioned in the post for 2 February 2020, brought back corn and bacon to feed troops in New Bern. [70] While they were in the county they fed themselves on local chickens and hams cooked in commandeered iron pots. [71]

14. Watson. 268. His source was the Newbernian. 22 December 1847. There had been a drought in 1845, [72] which probably weakened trees already stressed by being milked for turpentine. [73] Then the winter of 1847-1848 was mild, so beetles did not die. They then killed the trees, leaving pine barrens. [74]

15. Ashe. 10–11.
16. Lisa.
17. Mobley. 17. 3,000 was a bit more than 1.5% of the future county’s land.
18. Lisa.
19. United States Census, 1850.

20. North Carolina. State Department of Archives and History. "China Grove." National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form. 8 June 1972.

21. North Carolina, China Grove.

22. Annette Hill Jones, Gladys Ford Sodoma, and Salona Jensen McCotter. The History of Vandemere United Methodist Church. Baltimore: Otter Bay Books, 2010. 9.

23. The AME Zion church in New Bern was discussed in the post for 15 March 2020.

24. North Carolina, China Grove. "There were no fewer than fifteen successive owners from that year until 1934." A descendant said Sparrow only gave 200 acres which was 50 acres less than the amount that was being cultivated in 1850. [75] It was not clear if the deed only mentioned the cultivated land, or if the unimproved land had been sold. Wade only would have been interested in the timber on the latter.

25. United States Census, 1850.
26. Watson. 521.
27. Charles Crossfield Ware. Pamlico Profile. New Bern: Owen G. Dunn Company, 1961. 11.

28. Sonny William Smith. "In Search Of Rodger 1710-2004." Genealogy website. 28 July 2004. "Descendants of Tamer McCotter." Page 39. His source was the United States Census for 1880 for Township 2.

29. Smith. "Descendants of Tamer McCotter." Page 38. His source was the United States Census for 1880 for Township 2.

30. Smith. "Descendants of Tamer McCotter." Page 39. His source was the United States Census for 1880 for Township 2.

31. They were in Township 2, which included what are now Arapahoe, Oriental, and Pamlico.

32. Smith. "Descendants of Maricay Midyett." Page 12. His source was the United States Census for 1880 for Township 3.

33. Smith. "Descendants of Maricay Midyett." Page 12. His source was the United States Census for 1880 for Township 3. Midgett’s sister married Kenyon.

34. Smith. "Descendants of Anson Gibbs." Page 29. His source was the United States Census for 1880 for Township 4.

35. Smith. "Descendants of Anson Gibbs." Page 29. His source was the United States Census for 1880 for Township 4.

36. Dale & Patti. "Dr Delon H. Abbott." Find a Grave website. 19 November 2009.
37. Wikipedia. "9th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment."
38. Mobley. 74.

39. Levi Branson. Branson’s North Carolina Business Directory. Raleigh: Levi Branson, 1896 edition. 14.

40. Dale.
41. Mobley. 68.
42. Branson. 474.
43. D. H. Abbott. Letter. Gas Review 5:74:January 1912.

44. Smith did not name anyone who worked in the saw mill. He did say "the men would string their logs together and float them across the river from ‘The lumber landing’ to the saw mill." He also said Rodger Smith and his wife, Mahalia Green, were living on Abbott’s farm in 1896. [76]

45. In 1916 Abbott sold land to the Missionary Baptist Church. [77] This was associated with Ulysis Cicero Holton, who was mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019 and was buried there in 1929. [78] The denomination descended from the Separate Baptists discussed in the post for 19 January 2020. Missionary Baptist usually refers to later evangelizing groups who split from the Primitive Baptists.

46. "Greenhill Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery." Find a Grave website.

47. Maurice M. Bursey. "New Bern Postal Service During The Civil War." North Carolina Postal Historian 35:3–15:Summer 2016. 14–15. The envelope apparently was saved for its stamp or postmark.

48. United States Census. 1910. Entry for Jashua Dean, Pamlico, North Carolina. Posted on Ancestry website. It said he was born in 1826, but gave no location.

49. Mobley. 48.
50. Wikipedia. "Fall River, Massachusetts."
51. Mobley. 48.
52. Mobley. 62.
53. Mobley. 62. His source was a Newbernian article.
54. Mobley. 74. Dail Brothers were selling yellow pine, which most likely was loblolly.

55. Anna Taylor. "Elias Exum Dail." Find a Grave website. 14 June 2015. George was born in 1856, which would have made him only nineteen-years-old in 1874. [79]

56. North Carolina. Supreme Court. "The Beaufort County Lumber Company v. Elias Dail." 1 September 1892. Cite Case Law website.

57. North Carolina. Supreme Court. "Brown v. Dail." 1895. Court Listener website.
58. Roland Howard, Sr. "Re: Dail’s in Pitt County, NC." Genealogy website. 6 August 2002.

59. T. F. Harrison and J. M. Barfield. History of the Free Will Baptists of North Carolina. Ayden, North Carolina: Free Will Baptist Press, 1898. 274.

60. Harrison. 427.

61. William S. Powell and Michael Hill. "Pamlico." North Carolina Gazetteer. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Reprinted by NC Pedia website. Dean was identified as Joseph P. Dean when he was the Pamlico postmaster from 1868 to 1872, but was Joshua Dean when he became postmaster again in 1878. [80]

62. Mobley. 74.

63. Linda Dail. "Descendants of Hezekiah McCotter." NC Gen website. Joseph was the brother of Burney, and his were the slaves mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019 who left for New Bern early in the Civil War. The plantation house burned soon after they left.

64. Branson. 14.

65. Item. The [New Bern] Daily Journal. 10 April 1891. 1. He was foreclosing on people with the last names Coolidge, Andrews, and Toppan. Apparently he and Mrs. Emmins Chapman held the mortgage.

66. "Mortgage Sale." The Bayboro [North Carolina] Sentinel. 20 April 1905. 4. "Deed from Joshua Dean and Mrs. Chapman to Derry Mann."

67. Mann’s mortgage was made 16 April 1903. On 20 April 1903, Derry Mann and Georgiana Willis were arrested for killing a newborn infant. They were identified as "colored people of Pamlico." [81]

68. North Carolina. "An Act To Incorporate the Town of Pamlico." 789 in Session Laws and Resolutions Passed by the General Assembly. 1913.

69. Wikipedia. "Pamlico County, North Carolina." The county had 567 square miles, with 337 square miles of land and 230 of water.

70. John A. Reed. Diary entry, 10 March 1863. History of the 101st PA Veteran Volunteer Infantry. Chicago: L. S. Dickey and Company, 1910. 24. "On the morning of the 12th instant Capt. Richardson, with 300 men and all available transportation, was sent out seven miles, to the farm of Judge Donald, for the purpose of bringing in a quantity of cotton, corn, and bacon."

71. Reed. 69.
72. James Lawrence Watkins. King Cotton. New York: J. L. Watkins and Sons, 1908. 59.
73. Oatland. 101.
74. Oatland. 105.
75. Lisa.
76. Smith. Page 6.
77. Jones. 23.
78. J.D. Larimore. "Ulysis Cicero Holton." Find a Grave website. 19 February 2015.
79. Kjell-Ottar Olsen. "Elbert M Dail." Geni website. 3 December 2014.
80. J. D. Lewis. "All Known NC Post Offices - 1785 to 1971." Carolana website. 2007.
81. Item. The [Kinston, North Carolina] Daily Free Press. 20 April 1903. 1.