[As I figure it the dates of the early settlers would be consistent with the dates of the birth of the father and uncles of Henry Sasser.] 2# THE COLONY OF NORTH CAROLINA The following story was taken from the Kinston Free Press, 1899. The colony of North Carolina was divided into three counties under the Lords Proprietors, viz Albermarle, to the north; Bath, in the center, with Clarendon, on the south. In 1709 Bath county was a wilderness, the few inhabitants being thinly scattered over its territory, but mainly following its water courses, the Neuse, Trent, Tar and Pamlico rivers, in their search of bottom lands. The whole colony had scarcely ten thousand settlers. Bath was divided into three parishes -Beaufort, Hyde and Craven - for purposes of taxation and sustaining the established religion of the mother country, the Episcopal church. Craven parish embraced the present counties of Lenoir, Craven, Pitt, Greene, Edgecombe, Nash, Wilson, Wayne, Jones, Johnston, Carteret, Pamlico, part of Beaufort and parts of some of the western counties, then in the undisputed possession of the Indian and the rattlesnake. FIRST PERMANENT WHITE SETTLEMENT IN NORTH CAROLINA The first permanent white settlement in North Carolina was made to the eastward of the Chowan river, by the English, extending in a few years down to and along Albemarle sound. It was probably made as early as 1650, and surely as early as 1660; but neither its exact date nor locality can be fixed with absolute certainty. In 1690, an offshoot of the James River French settlement in Virginia made a lodgment in this colony - following the course of the parent adventurers, and settled further south, a little to the north of the Trent and Neuse rivers. Then the Neuse was reached and passed by 1706. In 1707 another band of Frenchmen from the same James River settlement came seeking better lands and made their home between the Neuse and Trent rivers. Cordially, Earl Sasser ewsass@writeme.com