The earliest everlasting settlement of North Carolina by Europeans occurred north of the Albemarle Sound. However elevated migration and the will for land quickly pushed these settlers outdoors of this restricted space.

The women and men who moved south of the Sound discovered a swampy, inhospitable area. Their perseverance helped create Washington County, at one time a affluent county that gave the state a number of of its most well-known leaders.

The story of Washington County is one among isolation, success and an eventual renewal on the banks of the Roanoke River.

Following the earliest settlement of the Albemarle area within the late seventeenth century, English immigrants to North Carolina craved extra arable land for tobacco cultivation. Whereas some went west, others moved south throughout the Albemarle Sound.

Early North Carolinians additionally secured land grants on a number of of the world’s main rivers. One in every of these was the Roanoke River, which begins in Virginia and enters North Carolina close to present-day Roanoke Rapids. The group that later grew to become Plymouth, situated on a bend of the Roanoke River, was first settled in 1727, based on the North Carolina Gazetteer. Different communities like Roper and Mackeys grew up across the county’s creeks and on the sound. 

The realm south of the Albemarle Sound remained sparsely populated for a number of many years. Over time, a rise in inhabitants led to the necessity for extra counties. In 1729, the part of North Carolina north of former Tub County and south of Albemarle Sound grew to become Tyrrell County. In 1799, Tyrrell County’s westernmost part grew to become Washington County, named for George Washington.

In line with “The formation of the North Carolina counties, 1663-1943” by David Leroy Corbitt, the japanese boundary was a line “starting at Bull-point … to the centre of the Indian swamp, the place the highway crosses … [extending] to the west finish of lake Phelps… to [the] Hyde county line.” An 1801 annex gave Washington County all of what was then generally known as Indian Swamp.

Within the antebellum interval, Washington County was outlined by a few of the largest plantations in North Carolina. The Roanoke River and Albemarle Sound had been ample sources of transportation. Tobacco and corn had been planted within the wealthy soil of river-adjacent districts. The county additionally had communications with the northern aspect of Albemarle Sound by the use of Mackey’s Ferry. The ferry operated for greater than 200 years and was a key hyperlink between the older communities north of the Albemarle and the rising areas to the south and west. 

Probably the most prized plantation within the county was Somerset Place, which was based by a gaggle led by Josiah Collins on Lake Phelps within the 1780s. In line with the plantation’s Nationwide Register of Historic Locations nomination, Collins was a political chief within the state who acquired a large quantity of land, constructed mills, and launched agricultural strategies new to North Carolina reminiscent of rice cultivation. A close-by plantation proprietor, James Johnston Pettigrew, grew to become a famed Accomplice common that was killed at Gettysburg.

As in the remainder of the state, slave labor was prevalent. Over 40% of the county’s inhabitants was enslaved, based on the Hergesheimer map of 1860. Somerset Place has turn out to be noteworthy not solely as a middle for antebellum wealth but additionally a website of reminiscence for the lots of of enslaved African People who lived there within the nineteenth century.

Within the Eighties, historian Dorothy Spruill Redford traced the lives of many of those households and helped organized a reunion of round 1,500 descendants of slaves and their house owners. The reunion garnered nationwide consideration and plenty of distinguished guests, together with the North Carolina governor and “Roots” writer Alex Haley, based on the New York Instances.

In his introduction to Redford’s “Somerset Homecoming,” Haley wrote that when he realized of the mission, “I used to be thrilled — thrilled not simply at what was occurring there that day, however for the connections that such a gathering of households spoke of — for the thread that ran again by means of the generations and can most absolutely run forward into the longer term.” Redford’s work reworked the interpretation of slavery at Somerset Place and different plantations all through the South.

Through the Civil Conflict, Plymouth performed an necessary position in an often-ignored marketing campaign late within the battle. In 1864, the Confederacy tried to take again japanese North Carolina from the Union. Accomplice Gen. Robert F. Hoke, together with the ironclad ram Albemarle, launched an distinctive raid that defeated Union leaders Henry W. Wessells and Charles W. Flusser and led to Accomplice management of Plymouth.

The victory was short-lived, for Hoke was recalled again to Virginia just a few months later and the Union reoccupied the city for the rest of the struggle. Analysis has proven that the Confederates had been additionally accountable for struggle crimes in opposition to African People after recapturing the world.

Following the struggle, Washington County launched into an financial mission like these of surrounding counties in japanese North Carolina. A lot of the county remained agricultural. Tenant farming changed the plantation system, and a few farmers moved from tobacco and corn to peanut and truck farming. However in some areas, business started to take a maintain.

This business centered on Plymouth, the place the inhabitants doubled between 1900 and 1910. Plymouth grew to become a middle for the manufacture of picket handles, lumber, and paper. Industrial prosperity led to the development of the neoclassical Washington County Courthouse in 1919.

Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, quite a few notables referred to as Washington County dwelling. These included stage director Augustin Daly, writer and activist Don Brown, and NFL linebacker Charles Bowser.

Comic J.B. Smoove, identified for his work on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” was born in Plymouth and infrequently visited his maternal kinfolk there.

These well-known residents didn’t result in prosperity within the county, nonetheless. Following the decline of business, Washington County grew to become one of many poorest within the state. Unemployment remained excessive and the city of Plymouth emptied out, shedding inhabitants each decade from 1970 to the current.

Immediately, Washington County is exhibiting indicators of renewal. Farms nonetheless dominate the panorama, and agriculture stays the first financial engine. However the county can be beginning to appeal to tourism. Somerset Place and Pettigrew State Park appeal to hundreds of tourists annually. Plymouth has been the location of latest improvement, particularly on its waterfront. There are new eating places and a number of other museums within the city, together with a number of historic restoration initiatives.

The county’s cities additionally profit from Outer Banks site visitors due to their location on U.S. 64. However due to its distance from the seaside or main cities reminiscent of Elizabeth Metropolis or Greenville, Washington County will probably stay a testomony to North Carolina’s agricultural, small-community previous.