Olde Kinston Gazette: The historic Parrott Family of Kinston, Part 1
Editor’s note: Neuse News is reprinting selected articles from the archives of the Olde Kinston Gazette. Some light edits have been made from the original reports.
Enjoy!
Original story by Bonnie Edwards
Originally published: December 1997
The small band of colonists fled before the intimidating cardinal-clad mercenaries in white wigs who the British Crown had hired to terrorize them into submission.
The simple farmer of the young town of Kingston knew nothing about fighting this impressive Hessian war machine until a man named Francis Marion showed up on the scene. This man taught the colonists to “pick out one Red Coat, shoot to kill, mount your horse and disappear into the forest.”
It was quite a change from the established European way of formalizing straight lines displaying and posturing with great regalia designed to strike fear in the hearts of the enemy. The Red Coats had come to expect the colonists to flee at the first show of force, but the rebels quickly learned to hit and run in what today is termed “guerrilla” warfare.
One of the colonists who fought under Marion was Thomas Parrott. One of his descendants, Marion Parrott of Kinston, says battles are won by discipline. Running in the absence of sound training is not cowardice, he says. There was no way for the colonists to win until they learned from Marion how to fight the British.
Francis Marion was a little man, but a great horseman. He was very popular with the colonists. Marion Parrott says that’s why every state in America has a town or a county named after the man who taught the colonists to fight and win the Revolutionary War. And he is descended from Francis Marion’s only sister on his mother’s side.
The Parrott family came to what is now Lenoir County as farmers from England. The family was named after a river in England which changes in spelling at various stages. When it rises in Dorset, the river is called Perrott. In Somerset, it becomes Parrott, and when it goes into the sea, it is called Parrett.
When colonists began settling in the New World, a lot of them had not had surnames very long. Before King Henry VIII started requiring people to use surnames, a lot of families were known simply by where they lived or by their occupation.
What is now North Carolina and South Carolina was part of the colony of Virginia until 1663. Settlements branched out from the main port of Jamestown. It was complicated to own land in Virginia, and land costs were extremely high. Some settlers moved south to escape high taxes from the British government and the Anglican Church. Some fled strict enforcement of religious beliefs. Many moved to escape attack from the French and Indians. All were looking for a new start.
Immigration from the Old World to America was encouraged, and various incentives offered. A young boy could sell himself to a sea captain for free passage to the New World. On arrival, the captain would sell him as an indentured servant for seven years, his former owner was obliged to give him at least 100 acres of land, a gun and other basic necessities.
A young girl could do the same, and she would sell for more than the boy would. Once she married, she too got her freedom and her 100 acres of land. That was not bad for a woman back then, says Marion Parrott. But they didn’t live very long. Life was very hard on them in the wilderness of the New World.
As settlers moved inland from the Albemarle Sound area and up the Neuse River into Neusiok country in the 1660s, the Neusiok, a part of the Tuscarora nation, didn’t take too kindly to the encroachment of the Europeans. The Indians found some of the settlers to be rude and disrespectful.
A long war with the settlers ensued. By the time the war ended, the Neusioks migrated to what would later become New York State. In the area, the displaced Neusioks met up with the Iroquois, who were distant relatives.
Some people believe the Parrott family has been in the area 200-300 years, and Marion Parrott has heard stories about his early ancestors. He says that, although there are no written records from the earlier times of the Parrott family, some people think that one of his ancestors, Francis Parrott, was killed during the Tuscarora War in 1711.
The indians in 1711 had captured surveyor John Lawson and Baron Christopher and DeGraffenried of a Swiss land company while they were taken from a village near the present site of Kinston to another Indian settlement on Contentnea Creek between Hookerton and Edward Bridge. Blaming the explorers for the intrusion by settlers on their lands, the Indians executed Lawson and sent DeGraffenreid back to New Bern with a message: “You can remain in New Bern, but we will not tolerate any further instruction on Neusiok lands.”
By the time Lawson and DeGraffenreid had their unfortunate meeting with the Indians, the tribe had already planned to attack nearby settlers. Marion Parrott’s ancestor is believed to have died in that attack.
An oak tree marks the grave. There were no tombstones used in 1858, although Marion Parrott says they could have used some of the slate that can still be found on the banks of the Neuse at a place called Blue Banks. Sometimes mourners would plant a tree or just place a wooden marker on the grave.
Shortly after North Carolina became a royal province in 1729, Robert Atkins received a land grant of 640 acres that would someday be Kinston. At that time, it was called Tower Hill.
Development of the area increased significantly after the French and Indian attacks of the 1750s drove even more settlers south from the original Virginia settlements.
In 1762, the British Crown established Kingston. There were only two buildings inside the town limits, a warehouse and a chapel. The building code stipulated that each grantee would build a brick or well-framed house at least 16 feet square with “nine feet pitch in the clear” to the roof. This had to be done within three years.
More than a year later, there were only 19 deeds recorded. The people who had received the land grants preferred to live in the country on their large tracts of land.
The area had been part of Johnston County, then Dobbs County. After Dobbs County was divided in 1779, their was finally incentive for people to live in the new Lenoir County seat. A frame courthouse was erected in the center of Queen and King Streets.
…
(to be continued next week).
Olde Kinston Gazette Editor’s Note — Sources for this story include 200 Years of Progress by the Lenoir County Board of Commissioners and the Kinston-Lenoir County Bicentennial Commission, Kinston’s Architecture Inventory by Martha A. Dreyer and Kenneth E. Hill and Heritage Place at Lenoir Community College.
