Home
Page News Page Community Watch Page Bylaws Page Yard of the Month Page
About The Beach Page History of Chowan Beach
Old News Page
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 Seven
Inglis
Fletcher,
while
not
a native North Carolinian, had family ties
in the area and had visited Edenton
several times, gathering background
information for her well-known historical
novels. In fact she and her husband, John,
had lived for some period of time,
probably the summer of 1941, in the
Fishery, a guesthouse on the grounds of
Greenfield, near Edenton. Starting in
1940, they had been looking for a place in
or near Edenton to make their home. While
traveling in California in 1944, they
heard that Bandon was on the market. On
August 18th, they bought the plantation
house and 63.5 acres of land, sight
unseen. The deed states that the price was
$10 and "other valuable considerations."
According to one neighbor the ten dollars
alone was more than it was worth at the
time!
It
is entirely possible that they would never
have bought it if they had seen it: the
place was in such deplorable condition.
Some years later she recalled her first
sight of the dilapidated building and
grounds. The house with its faded, peeling
paint, rotted steps and unsupported porch
railings swinging in the winds from the
river must indeed have been a
disheartening sight. Even in the midst of
such chaos she did note the chandelier in
the drawing room, the heart pine floors,
the graceful arched doorways and the
reeded mantles. She was struck, too, by
the 'hidden stairway' to the second floor.
John Martin Forehand's modern
improvements, now fifty years old, had
fallen into disrepair and the pump had
been stolen from the pump house. The
Fletchers had to use the two 'little
houses' out back until repairs could be
made. While the Forehands had considered
their attached kitchen convenient, the
Fletchers referred to it as "a long
rattletrap building connected with the
back gallery by a covered bridge." They
installed an indoor kitchen and had the
'covered bridge' removed because it
obscured the view of the Chowan River.
Jack,
as
he was called, and Inglis moved into
Bandon just before Christmas of 1944.
Although it took quite some time to put
Bandon back into livable condition, the
Fletchers occupied it during the
reconstruction, living in the finished
parts as the restoration went on in the
rest of the house. Sources do not
completely agree on whether or not the
Fletchers had Bandon restored to be
historically accurate as to architecture
but do agree that the first floor was
furnished with antiques and that the
carved mantels, corniced ceilings and
arched entranceways on the ground floor
were original. Mrs. Fletcher seems to have
been particularly fond of the "spirit
doors." These are doors designed with
overlaid crosses in them, protection
against the entrance of witches!
Although
they
did
not
use the outdoor kitchen, it was renovated
and furnished as a display of older times.
Some of the other 'dependencies' were also
put in order, presumable by Jack, who
seems to have done quite a lot of the
restoration work on the house. He turned
the icehouse into a studio for his sister,
Anne, who came to visit from Richmond.
Parson Earl's schoolhouse was "charmingly
restored" and served, at least part of the
time, as a writing room for Inglis
Fletcher while she continued her
'Carolina' series.
Most
of
the information for this chapter was
obtained from "Inglis Fletcher of Bandon
Plantation" by Richard Walser; The UNC
Library, 1952; "Mrs. Fletcher's Eden" by
Roy Thompson; The Chowan Herald, 1975 and
"Bandon a Brief History of a Chowan County
Plantation by Jerry L. Cross, 1986.
On To Part Eight
Copyright © 2013 The Chowan
Beach Recreation Association, Inc.
Portions Copyright © 2010 George Farrell
and Rawl Gelinas