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CHOWAN
BEACH
RECREATION ASSOCIATION, INC.
CHOWAN BEACH, NORTH CAROLINA
The History
of Chowan Beach
by George Farrell and Rawl Gelinas
Preface Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Part One
Hundreds
of
years
before
Europeans
came
to
the North America, the Chowanoke Indians
gathered every summer at a certain river
beach. It was the breeding ground of a
yellow mussel much savored by the people.
Over time the shells, along with pottery
shards, bones, arrowheads and other
discarded items, formed a mound five to
six hundred yards long, sixty yards wide,
and five feet deep along the river bank.
It had become the rubbish heap for the
village, named Waratan, Mavaton, or
Weyanoke, depending upon the source
consulted, which had been established
there. The mound is shown on a map drawn
by James Wimble in 1738 and is described
as "...covered with about one foot of sand
and soil. It is composed almost
exclusively of mussel shells taken from
the river, pieces of pottery, ashes,
arrowheads and human bones."
As
late
as
the
1950's
Indian
relics such as tomahawks were being found
in the area. In 1585 the white man made
his first attempt to colonize what is now
known as Roanoke Island. This first
expedition, led by Sir Richard Grenville,
a cousin of Sir Walter Raleigh, was doomed
to failure by Queen Elizabeth's choice of
Ralph Lane as the colony's Governor. Lane
was interested not in establishing a
successful colony, but in the gold and
jewels which he expected to find in the
'new world.' After Grenville sailed back
to England for more supplies Lane
alienated the Indians who had helped and
supplied the colonists, taking prisoner
the son of a chieftain for the theft of a
"table piece." The would-be settlers
became so hungry and disillusioned that
they stayed less than a year and left with
Sir Francis Drake just before Grenville
returned with fresh supplies. In the
meantime, just before Easter in 1585, Lane
sailed up the river later to be known as
the Chowan with some of his men looking,
not for food although they were starving,
but for gold and jewels. At a certain
point, where the land was very "high and
steepe" they saw Indians on the shore.
Hearing them singing, Lane decided that it
was a song of welcome and sailed toward
them. Manteo, who accompanied the
Englishmen as their guide, informed them
that it was a song, not of welcome but of
war! The words were no sooner "spoken by
him... but there lighted a vollie of their
arrowes amongst them in the boat". The
white men returned fire, beached the boat
and chased the Indians, who "wooded
themselves, we know not where." The white
man had discovered the spot, which would,
almost two hundred years later, become
Bandon Plantation.
Notes:
The
'high
and
steepe'
bluff mentioned by Lane could have been
either just North or South of the
Arrowhead Beach Property Owners
Association’s “clubhouse beach".
It
is equally likely that the 'high and
steepe' bluff mentioned in the previous
NOTE is the bluff that used to exist along
Chowan Trail between 102 Chowan Trail and
206 Chowan Trail in Chowan Beach. There is
still a vertical bluff at 206 Chowan
Trail. Until the homes at 202 and 204
Chowan Trail were built, there was a truly
vertical cliff along the water at these
properties. That cliff was about 32 feet
high.
The
location
of
the
Indian mound, if indeed it still exists,
is a mystery. It may have been completely
erased to provide building sites. Since
the land just above and below what was the
pier of Bandon is privately owned it could
not be explored. There were the remains of
purported burial mounds to the left of
Bandon Road between Pocahontas and
Potawatomi that were bulldozed in 2007 –
2008 prior to listing that property “For
Sale”. They would seem, however, to be too
far away from the water to be described as
"along the river bank." In Spring of 2010
the septic drain field at 306 Chowan Trail
(just North of the Chowan Beach Recreation
Association “Park”) was excavated and
replaced. After digging down about 12 to
18 inches, a layer of shells, pottery and
other debris was discovered. It extended
several feet further down and ran the
entire length and width of the area
excavated for the drain field. As far as
could be determined, it continued North
and South from the area excavated
indefinitely, parallel and just adjacent
to the Chowan River. This could easily be
part of the aforementioned “rubbish heap”.
Most of the information in this segment of
the history was obtained from a set of
notes, author unknown, kindly supplied to
by Capt. Al Howard and from the book
Ingles Fletcher of Bandon Plantation by
Richard Walser (Chapel Hill, University of
North Carolina Library, 1952).
On To Part Two
Copyright © 2013 The Chowan
Beach Recreation Association, Inc.
Portions Copyright © 2010 George Farrell
and Rawl Gelinas