3# LENOIR THE COUNTRY OF THE NEUSIOK The first reference to the area that was to become Lenoir County was found in the report made by captain Arthur Barlowe and Captair Phillip Amadas to Sir Walter Raleigh. They had landed in 1584 on the North Carolina coast between Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout and took possession in the name of the Oueen Elizabeth. The region Captain Barlowe referred to a secotan consisted of what now is Dare Count and "the country of the Neusiok" as the present Kinston area on ''a goodly river called Neuse". The Neusiok were part of the Tuscarora Nation. They were the nomadic sixth of the Iroquian Six Nations. They marveled at the tall red cedars, the abundance of wild grapes, deer, rabbits and birds. The Indians gave them fresh fish in exchange for a shirt and hat and some wine and food. Barlowe commented to Raleigh on the deer and buffalo skins, they received in trade from the Indians, on the meat, fish, corn, pease, pumpkins, melons and grapes, and the Indian methods of farming. The Indians were excellent farmers and among their crops was "an herb which is sewed apart by itself and is called by the inhabitants upponwoc. Thomas Hariot, one of the early English explorers, wrote. "The Spaniards generally called it tobacco. The leaves thereof being dried and brought into powder, they use to take the fume or smoke thereof, by sucking it through pipes of clay, into their stomach and head, from where it purges superfluous phlegm, and other gross humors and opens all the pores and passages of the body, by which means the use thereof not only preserves the body from obstructions, but also (if any be, so that they have been of too long continuance) in short time breaks them, whereby their bodies are notably preserved in health and know not many grievous diseases, wherewithal we in England are often afflicted." Cordially, Earl Sasser ewsass@writeme.com