Early Phelps in Perquimans, NC: "A Quaker Woman and Her Offspring"

Written by GWEN BOYER BJORKMAN.

This 1987 prize winning paper details the saga and early settlement of Phelps and their genealogy in Perquimans County, NC. Most important is the first recorded proof that a James Phelps - elsewhere named as husband of Mary Bateman - "died early" by 1858 (the date of the death proof). Many have therefore incorrectly named this James as the James of Caswell CO who died in 1785.

The paper begins with this: "It is usually difficult to document the lives of colonial women. As a category, they left few legal documents. Yet, through sundry records, it is possible to reconstruct the life of one remarkable woman—Hannah (Baskel) Phelps Phelps Hill. One does not read about Hannah in standard histories of early America, yet she held the first Quaker meeting in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in her home in Salem and later opened her home to the first Quaker meeting in the Albemarle settlement of Carolina. She was truly the Proverbs 31 lady. After all these years “her children [will now] rise up and bless her;... saying: ‘Many daughters have done nobly, But you excell them all!’ “‘ Despite her accomplishments, however, Hannah did not set out to be a noble heroine. She emerges in history as a young woman—human and alone, as far as family is concerned. TO SEE THE REST CLICK ON THE ABOVE URL.