The North Carolina Department of Transportation Presents
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Setting the Stage
The first settlers in the Albemarle region arrived from the Virginia colony in the 1660s. Since there were few roads, these colonists settled along the sounds, rivers and broad creeks of the region, which they used as highways. When the first settlers moved to the area, they probably found forested lands along the river. One of the first things they would have done upon arrival was cut trees and clear lands for building houses and planting crops. Because they needed lots of land to grow tobacco, the colonists built their houses at some distance from one another. To earn money, the occupants of these plantations, as their farms were called, also did other types of work. They trapped animals for their furs, which they sold to other colonists living in Virginia and New England. Tar, turpentine, and pitch, important materials for shipbuilding, were made from pine trees.
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| Life was difficult for these early North Carolina settlers. They had to worry about attack from pirates and the nearby Tuscarora Indians. Many of the settlers died from diseases such as malaria and smallpox. Complications from childbirth caused many women to die while they were still very young. there were no towns in the area until Edenton began developing in the 1690s. Things that the colonists could not produce for themselves, like fabric, dishes, and some types of building supplies, had to come from England or the colonies to the north. Often colonists had to wait many months for these supplies to arrive. |