Qualla: Chowan County, North Carolina

Chowan County, North Carolina: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Partnerjohn, CC BY-SA 4.0. It is the smallest county in North Carolina by land area - 172 square miles of cypress-shaded peninsula jutting into Albemarle Sound. It carries the name of a people who lived here when none of those words existed: the Chowanoc, who fished the river and the sound that still bear a version of their name. By 1685 the county was Chowan, named for that tribe. By 1722 the seat was Edenton, named for a governor who never set foot in it. Chowan's story is mostly the story of one town - and one town's story is mostly the story of how a colonial port talked itself into being a capital, and then politely stepped aside.

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Chowan County, North Carolina: Shaftesbury, Then Chowan

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Indy beetle, CC0. In 1670 the precinct was carved out of Albemarle County and called Shaftesbury, after one of the Lords Proprietors of the colony. By 1685 the name had quietly migrated to honor the Chowanoc people - the Algonquian-speaking nation that had occupied the lower Chowan River when Engl...

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Chowan County, North Carolina: The Edenton Tea Party

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Indy beetle, CC0. On October 25, 1774, fifty-one women in Edenton signed a public resolution pledging to give up British tea and cloth in support of the Continental Congress. Their leader was Penelope Barker. London papers printed the news with a sneering cartoon - women conducting politics. The E...

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Chowan County, North Carolina: Bells Recast as Cannons

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Indy beetle, CC0. In 1862, with the Confederate war machine running short of bronze, the people of Edenton answered a call to donate church bells and courthouse bells to be melted down for cannon. A local attorney named William Badham Jr. raised a battery from Chowan and Tyrrell men. The four guns...

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Chowan County, North Carolina: Water on Three Sides

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Indy beetle, CC0. Geography defines Chowan. Albemarle Sound borders the south, the Chowan River the west, and small creeks knit the rest of the boundary. Twenty-six percent of the county is open water. The land that remains is flat, low, and well-drained pine flats giving way to cypress swamp at t...

Image: Indy beetle | CC0