The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-06-14

III comment ana maxine
indeed a new world; and underneath
this inscriptions:
And a little child shall lead them.
many incidents have marked the
grown OF Ralelgh's ideas into our
present civilization, either one of
which would be proper and proitahle
Iof our study at this hour.
You render your State a rich ser
wee IN placing this tablet. 1t will
commemorate not only the first as
sem Dilng OF the people of North Car
DINA Tor law-making, but it will also
mark their first coming TO the State
They had been here but a few wears
when that first assembly was held
mere. l shall not enter into contro-
Versy with those who nave sought spe-
cial reasons for the settlement of
North Carolina. The early settlers
mere nave been on the one hand. de-
scTlbed as 1awless and fugitives from
justice, idle and thriftless and simply
adventurous and migratory; on the
other hand they have been held up
as the victims of religious persecu-
ton, fleeing thither for conscience
sahe.
The real situation and facts do not
bear out either theory. but both de-
ctded1y convince US that the first
North Carolina settlers came at the in
Estance of the agents Of the Lords Pro-
prletors to take up the valuable lands
they then had for settlement.
You will recall that it was a grad
ual mOvement-sO natural that the
particulars are not recorded in the
local annals of the time. The truth
is that a few active spirits. erhap
more adventurous than their neigh
boTs resolved to make new homes In
a more attractive locality, delightful
climate magnificent bottom lands, and
~bO0ntlful
1t was no great that
came from Nansemond through the
wilderness and brought their supplies
and implements for house building by
water from some convenient point in
Virginia.
They came not as c%onquerors, writ
ing their names in blood on the scroll
OF fame, nor yet were they eXiles from
the h~abitations OF ankin for con-
science sake. 1t was a time of pro-
found peace in Virginia, when the free
men still governed themselves. chose
their own officers, made their own
laws.
1T was not oppression that drove
these first settlers into the wilderness.
1t was a clergyman OF the Church of
England in Virginia, Roger Green,
who was given the first grant of land
in 1858 to be located on the Roanoke
river IN what is now BERTHE county,
as a reward for inducing settlements
to be made.
1fcSe hISl ~ WI W diS
contented with the Democratic-Repub-
lican Institutions under which they
were living. They were not fleeing
from the ills of life, nor pIunging into
the primeVal forest to escape the ty-
ranny of their fellowmen. They were
bold, enterprising hardy Virginians,
nurtured in freedoms ways, who were
WOoed to this ummer land by the ad-
vantages of its situation. The move
ment involved no great change. 1t
was merely a remOva of a few miles
beyond the outlying districts Of
NansemOnd with water communica-
ton to the marts of trade on the
Chesapeake Nor did they come with
out the sanction of the Indians, who
were to be their n%eighbors in these
new plantations. They came IN peace
and were received as friends by the
native inhabitants, who surrounded
them. LawIess men would have made
no such peacefuk approach. Dlscon-
tented men would not nave been SO
friendly. Beggars and fug1tlves from
Justice could not have brought the
| means Of buying homes ana could not
have bought them.
Some act of dishonesty, OF double
dealing, of attem pied fraud inevitably
follows the advent of the criminal
the vicious, the tramp. Neither ms
tory nor tradition gives us any stain
uDon the characters of these ounde
of our State. When they had wrongs
| to be redressed they petitfoned those
in authority. The vicious would have
/ had no such i~nclination; he would
have righted his own grievances. Those
| fleeing from persecution would not
| have petitioned those of like life ana
| aims and with those from
whom thew had heG. They would have
| borne in silence the new wrong as d
cherished privilege of again suffering
for conscience sake. Within SIX
Years. at most, of their coming we
find them In lawful assemblage asking
the Lords Proprietors for a redress OF
uronye Well authenticated tradition
tell. rs that the meeting was on TINS
spot. ,o+a
Colonel Richard Benbury Creecy tens
of a ride to this spot with 'enen'l