Individual Details
Col. Edward Buncombe
(1742 - 1777)
BUNCOMBE HALL
BY THOMAS BLOUNT.
Amid the fens and breaks and forests of juniper, covering the crest of the low divide running up from the sea, between Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, Kendrick's creek takes its rise. Slipping thence northwardly, into the open country, it winds between fertile hills dotted over with well tilled farms, and rushing through roaring gates, or whirring wheels, gliding past busy villages and sleepy woodlands, its amber tide pours into Albemarle sound, south of Edenton. Narrow of mouth, and no more than fifteen miles in length, this modest stream does not attract the attention of the passing navigator of the Albemarle, nor does it make any great figure in the topography of the country. Yet every foot of its shore line is pregnant with facts in the primal history of North Carolina.
During the Culpepper rebellion, and the unhappy administration of Seth Sothel, many hardy spirits slipped away from the North Albemarle colony, and settled along the banks of Kendrick's creek, preferring the solitude of the wilderness, and the society of the simple savage, to the doubtful protection of an unstable government administered by avaricious tyrants. In vain the authorities �commanded them back.� They blazed a rugged trail from the mouth of the creek along its western shore, and on through the forest, to the banks of the Pamlico where Bath Town was later located, and planted a thin line of humble homes by its side; the seed-bud of that wondrous growth which has since expanded into a mighty state. Along this rout, flowed for half a century the ceaseless tide of imigration coming up from the Virginia coast, and peopling the wilderness to the south and west. It was a part of the first mail rout in the province, and was the course taken by the impatient Governor Dobbs when hastening from Virginia to Newbern to take the oath of office, after being detained at Edenton �above a whole day by contrary winds so fresh he could not cross the ferry some eight miles.� On the south side of this road, about three-quarters of a mile from the Tyrrell court house at Lee's Mills, was the entrance to the Buncombe Hall grounds, over which was suspended the famous distich:
�Welcome all,
To Buncombe Hall.�
This was no empty invitation posted to make the vulgar stare. It meant rest and good cheer for any travel-stained pilgrim who would avail himself of it, dispensed with a lavish hand by the princely owner himself, to rich and poor alike. For no matter how humble the traveler, while he was within the gates of Buncombe Hall he was its master's guest, and as such was treated with the most courtly consideration. If a boon companion showed a premature disposition to depart, trusty slaves knew how to remove certain bridges on either side of the estate and the wooing of that guest's fair charmer was deferred to another day.
Near this same road, but a little higher up stream than the Buncombe plantation, Captain Thomas Blount of the first Chowan vestry, erected a mill in 1702. This man was a blacksmith and ship carpenter by trade. He came from Virginia to Perquimans where he married Mary, the widow of Joseph Scott. During the winter of 1698-'99 he removed with his family to the �east side of the mouth of Kendrick's creek.� Later he purchased �Cabin Ridge plantation� where the town of Roper now stands and immediately began the erection of a mill on the creek hard by. This was for a while the �one miil in the whole province� and in time came to be the industrial centre of the �South Shore� settlement. At it, was manufactured the lumber for many of the earlier buildings at Edenton, such as flooring for the first church (never used), material for the first court house, and much more. With a continuous service of two centuries rounded out to its credit, this mill is now the oldest developed water-power in North Carolina.
Captain Blount died in 1706 and Thos. Lee, marrying his widow, subsequently got possession of his mill and most of his other property.
To this circumstance is due the scattering of his immediate descendants to the four-winds and the opportunities of advancement which they thus found. Verily-
�There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out.�
With one brief exception the mill remained the property of the Lee family until 1814, hence the place came to be called �Lee's Mills.� The assembly which Gov. Gabriel Johnston called to meet him in Edenton in the winter of 1735-'6, was the first to which Tyrrell had sent delegates. Prominent among her representatives that year was Capt. William Downing of Lee's Mills, who was unanimously elected speaker of the house.
This Assembly fixed Tyrrell's court house at Lee's Mills where it remained until the erection of Martin county in 1774, when it was removed to the house of Benjamin Spruill on Scuppernong river.
At the first session of the court held at that place, which was on �third Tuesday in May, 1774,� Colonel Edward Buncombe presented his commission from the Honorable Samuel Strudwick, Esq'r, dated December 18, 1773, appointing him Clerk of the court. He immediately qualified, giving bond in the sum of one thousand pounds, with Stevens Lee and Archibald Corrie as sureties. His successor qualified on the tenth day of February, 1777, hence Colonel Buncombe was the last clerk of the county court for Tyrrell under the colonial government. Mr. Corrie often performed the duties of the office as Colonel Buncombe's deputy. They were �Co-partners and merchants� at Lee's Mills.
It is said that Colonel Buncombe's fine Tyrrell estate came to him by the terms of his uncle Joseph's will.
Some years before Colonel Edward Buncombe was born, Joseph Buncombe went from England to St. Kitts hoping to improve his fortune. While there his brother Thomas sent him money with which to buy land. Being a bachelor �heart whole and fancy free� and hearing of the fair women and fertile lands of Albemarle, he sold his holdings in the �tight little island� to his brother, and came to North Carolina. On the 20th of March, 1732, he purchased from Edward Moseley one thousand and twenty-five acres of land in Tyrrell county, �bounded on the east by Kendrick's creek, and on the south by Kendrick's creek and Beaver Dam branch.� About this time he married Ann, the oldest daughter of Geo. Durant who had died in 1730. They made their home on the Tyrrell lands near what is now known as Buncombe Landing. On the 17th day of August 1735, Joseph Buncombe qualified as the guardian of Geo. Durant's children, giving bond in the sum of 2,994 pounds, with Stevens Lee and William Downing as sureties. On the 10th of September following he executed to these bondsmen an indemnifying deed covering all his lands and including several slaves. This deed recorded in the Tyrrell office 16th April, 1736, was the first instrument registered in that county.
Later we find Mr. Buncombe renewing this deed, and adding a sum of money �adjudged to be due him from the public� for slaves executed at Edenton. November 30th, 1739, he assigned negroes to his wife Ann and his daughter Mary. A few years later Thomas Corprew who had married Mr. Buncombe's widow, settled up the Durant guardianship. Mary Buncombe married a Mr. Sutton, and her mother who was born July 14th, 1714, died in 1741, leaving two sons by her Corprew marriage.
Colonel Edward Buncombe who was born in 1742, was probably sent when quite a young man to look after his father's St. Kitts' property. At any rate he married Elizabeth Dawson Taylor there April 10th, 1766. Their first child, Elizabeth Taylor, was born in St. Kitts, March 11th, 1767, and the second, Thomas, was born in North Carolina, February 3d, 1769, while the last child Hester, was born April 25th, 1771.
Colonel Buncombe's first public act in his new home was to sit as a member of an �Inferior court� held at the Tyrrell court house, �On the second Tuesday in May, 1769.� His name appears last in the list of justices at this term, but he was one of the three who remained to sign the docket at the end of the session.
From these circumstances it would appear probable that Colonel Buncombe removed with his family to North Carolina as early as the spring of 1768. The story of his coming as popularly related, is as follows:
One Mr. Cox of Edenton learning that Colonel Buncombe had come into possession of the Tyrrell lands, went to St. Kitts and offered to buy the property. But young Mrs. Buncombe advised her husband that if it was worth all that trouble on the part of Mr. Cox, it surely was worth a visit from its owner before confirming a sale of it. Acting upon this suggestion Colonel Buncombe came to North Carolina, and was so much pleased with the place that he at once gave orders to Stevens Lee of Lee's Mills to build a house for him on the farm, while he returned for his family.
Considering the fact that lumber could only be sawed during the winter months, and that bricks were only made in the summer, and taking into account the fact that all processes of building at that time were very slow, it seems probable that this first visit of Colonel Buncombe's was made during the summer of 1766.
It has been said that the bricks used in the building were brought from England. But Governor Tryon wrote that very year �We do not import lime, lumber or bricks, either from the northern colonies, or from England.� There were brick yards at Lee's Mills.
One who had read the �Buncombe Notes�-an elaborate account of Colonel Buncombe's removal to North Carolina, preserved until 1874-says that in these it was related that the vessels in which he came were loaded with great quantities of valuable stores, farming implements, seed, stock, slaves, furniture, and all things necessary for the farm in the new country. These were landed at the place now known as Buncombe landing, at the east end of the beautiful ridge on which Buncombe Hall stood, some three-quarter of a mile to the west. Vessels trading with the West Indies, New York, Boston and other points along the coast came regularly to Kendrick's creek in those days for cargoes of lumber, and farm produce. So profitable was this trade, that Colonel Buncombe built a vessel of his own to engage in it, and on the 20th of September, 1775, the schooner �Buncombe� was registered at Port Roanoke, Edenton, N. C., Jno. McCrohon being her first master.
Just below the landing at Buncombe Hall the dark waters of the stream are unusually deep, so much so that the place was popularly said to have no bottom. This was called the �Guinea Hole� from a very pathetic circumstance said to have occured there.
During the days of Mr. Joseph Buncombe a vessel from the West Indies was unloading at this wharf which had among her crew a young man who had �shipped� one trip in a Guinea slave trader. He recognized among the negroes handling the cargo, some natives of Guinea, whom Mr. Buncombe had recently purchased from a New England dealer, and getting into conversation with one of the men, our wag managed to make him understand that he was but recently in the man's own country. After answering many eager inquiries as best suited his whim, the sailor was finally urged to point in the direction of Guinea. Either in a spirit of mischief, or intending to indicate that the place was on the other side of the world, he pointed over the stearn of the ship down through the deep hole. The simple child of the Niger understood the gesture to mean that here was a secret passage to Guinea, and hugging his precious secret he took the first opportunity imparting it in all confidence to his fellow countrymen, who like himself were longing for their native jungles. Getting a long pole, they secretly sounded the place, and finding no bottom, they concluded the kindly looking young sailor had told them truly, so selecting a dark night when no one was watching, and loading themselves with weights, that they might sink quickly, plunged beneath the inky waters on their long journey to the other shore. Though their unfortunate lives were lost, may we not hope that they found an eternal abiding place in the presence of Him who said �Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.�
Be this legend true or false there were among Mr. Buncombes slaves some desperate men, who in their efforts to escape, slew their keepers, and were executed.
�It is along the borders of streams that men usually seat,� wrote Thomas Woodward the first Surveyor General of Albermarle. This custom fixed the early roads paralled with the water courses, and usually next to them. The one leading from �Edenton's sound� to Lee's Mills was no exception to the rule. It zigzagged along the edge of the hills next the stream until it reached the end of the long ridge composing the southern portion of the Buncombe estate, then leaving the creek it turned down the northern side of this, going in a westernly direction. It was on top of this ridge, and about half a mile west of the spot where Joseph Buncombe had lived, that Buncombe Hall was erected. As originally constructed, it was a long two story frame building, containing four large rooms, wide halls, and three cellars. It faced the road on the north and had on that side a rather pretentious double piazza, through which the lower hall was entered by wide double doors. The cooking was done in a great open fireplace in the east cellar, and the dining room was immediately above. The stairs leading to the upper chambers was entered through a door from the piazza. Later, and certainly during Colonel Buncombe's life, a long wing was erected from the south side of the west end of the building, making it L shaped. This new wing contained two large rooms on the first floor, and one above, which was entered by stairs leading up from the room next the main building. There were two cellars under this wing. The basement walls of brick, were about five feet above ground, and had small windows in the top. There were chimneys outside at the end of each wing, and probably one double chimney running up through the middle. The lower rooms had high ceilings, and were carefully finished inside, but the dormered walls of the second story were low, through which numerous little windows jutted out, like many eyes peeping from under the heavy eaves of the quaint hipped roof above. In front of the building was a plot of ground devoted to the cultivation of flowers, oramental shrubs, and border plants. At the end of a pretty walk on the east side of this, was Colonel Buncombe's office. In the rear of the building broad piazzas extended the entire length of both wings. From this piazza the two rooms in the annex, or south wing, were entered. In the rear of the building, and on the broad hill-side sloping to the south-east, were the orchards of peaches and other fruits. To the west of this, nestling in a grove of virgin oak, and hickory trees, were the ample slave quarters. A few of these venerable oaks are still standing, majestic witnesses of a dead past. The branches of one of them has a spread of more than two-hundred feet, and its gnarled trunk measures eighteen feet in circumference above spurs. Near this stood the �smithy� and �wood shop� of the plantation. In these were manufactured many domestic utensils, the farm implements in use at the time, the carts, wagons great carry-logs, the light chair, or gig in which the master rode forth on journeys, and even the mahogony chariot, or carriage in which the mistress was wont to travel abroad could be repaired there. It is highly probable that in these shops were mended, and �made fit for use� the heterogenous collection of arms with which the fifth battalion was at first equipped. For the day after the election of Colonel Buncombe to the command of this regiment, the Provincial Congress sitting at Halifax appointed Stevens Lee and Hezekiah Spruill, a committee for Tyrrell, �to receive, procure and purchase firearms for the use of the troops,� and to have such as required it repaired with all possible dispatch. If one had stopped to rest under the shade of this old tree in those busy days at Buncombe Hall, he would have heard above the din of the anvil, and the roar of the forge, the quaint songs of many dusky damsels in the cabins hard by, as they busily �seeded� the cotton, carded the wool or sped the soughing spindles of many great wheels, while the clatter of resounding looms would have told him that the �tasks� of yarn from the spinners of yesterday, were supplying those of the weavers of today. These, with the dyers, the shoemakers and the tailors were all busy with the mighty task of equipping a regiment of fighting men. For they were here nearly a year, arming and drilling for the fray, and we are told that Col. Buncombe practically bore the expense himself.
The original deed from Edward Moseley placed the acreage of the Buncombe tract of land at one thousand and twenty-five acres, but when we remember that rent was paid on land in those days at so much per acre, and then taking into account the general callings by which the surveyor had bounded it, we need not be surprised to find two thousand acres in the tract, and to this Colonel Buncombe added until the estate consisted of four square miles of the finest farm, and timber lands in the Albermarle section. The land drained naturally, and was easily brought into cultivation, the removal of the forest growth being the chief difficulty. During the eight or nine years Colonel Buncombe resided on this property he made at least two thousand acres of it fit for tillage. The Hall was so situated that one could view the entire plantatation from the upper floor of the front piazza, and a magnificent sight it was said to be, those seas of golden wheat ripe for the sickle, surrounded by the gleaming green of great fields of corn just budding into tassel.
Colonel Buncombe was loyal to the crown, and supported the colonial government heartily, as is shown by his unwillingness to aid Governor Tryon in suppressing the insurrection of the Regulators, and the promptness with which he always discharged his duties, either as a militia officer, or member of the county court. But when Colonel Harvey came riding from Halfax, and his conference with Willie Jones on that eventful fourth of April, 1774, and lodging that night with Colonel Buncombe, poured out to him and Samuel Johnston, the story of Governor Martin's tyranny and with fervid eloquence unfolded to them his plans of resistance and defiance, not only was the impetuous young lion of Buncombe Hall won to the cause of popular liberty, but the calm, calculating prudence of the astute Johnston, surrendered to him. It was just two years and ten days later that Colonel Bunombe's adopted country called upon him to prove his faith by his works. On the 15th of April, 1776, the Halifax Assembly, of which Archibald Corrie was the sole representitive from Tyrrell, elected him Colonel of the fifth batallion of North Carolina troops. He had just laid his loved young wife to rest within the sacred precincts of old St. Paul's at Edenton, and his bruised heart had turned for �surcease of sorrow� to the care of the three bright pledges of her love, their children. But like the patriot soldier that he was, he never hesitated. Proceeding at once to gather about him a band of devoted men, who like himself, preferred the privations, and uncertain fortunes of the tented field, with honor, to inglorious submission to foreign tyrants, he equipped and drilled them with all possible dispatch, largely at his own expense. Then taking such order with his private affairs as the unsettled state of the country would permit, he bade his children adieu, and turning his back forever upon them, and the home which his ardent soul had sought so faithfully to make the aery of loves bright dream, he placed himself at the head of his regiment, and began that career which was to end so disasterously at German Town. Here he was wounded, captured by the enemy, and according to a letter of his sister, Mrs. Cain, dated March 23rd, 1780, died a prisoner of war at Philadelphia, 1779, aged thirty-seven years.
Of Colonel Buncombe's children, Elizabeth Taylor, the oldest, was sent when eleven years old, 1778 for education to Abraham Lot in New Jersey, Thomas and Hester were placed under the care of Mrs. Ann Booth Pollock of North Carolina. For many years after this Buncombe Hall became the prey of the spoiler.
While Colonel Buncombe was organizing his regiment, the Tories about Lee's Mills were very active. At their head was one Daniel Legget, who taking to himself the title of �Senior Warden,� went from farm to farm during the summer of 1776, and with notched sticks, tripple oaths, mysterious grips, and spelled-out pass-words, initiated all who would join him into a society for the protection of the Protestant religion, the maintainance of King George's authority, the assistance of deserters, and the protection of members from service in the patriot army. They were promised that as soon as Colonel Buncombe should march with his command, that Gen. Howe would certainly come to their assistance, and give over to their tender mercies his estate, and the property of all those who had enlisted with him. Gaining some strength, they began formulating a plan for assassinating all the chief men in the province, when their bloody purpose was disclosed, the ring-leaders apprehended, and loged in jail at Edenton. One of them at least, one Llewellyn, was executed, and this so frightened Leggett that he had a fit of hysteria, and wrote Governor Caswell a most penitent letter, begging that his unprofitable life should be spared, and assuring him that his penitence was so great that he would ever after be incapable of harm. He appears to have escaped with his neck.
Elizabeth Taylor Buncombe, Col. Buncombe's oldest daughter was married, by Bishop Benjamin Moore, to Jno. Goelet of New York, October 23rd, 1784. Eight children were the result of this union, three being born prior to their removal to North Carolina, which was about 1793. About this time Colonel Buncombe's estate was divided among his three children. Mrs. Goelet's part being the south-eastern portion of the Tyrrell plantation, on which Buncobe Hall stood. It was probably during the minority of these heirs, certainly prior to 1811, that the public road was changed, and laid out through the middle of the farm running nearly north and south, leaving the Buncombe Hall fully three hundred yards to the east, and side to the road. They planted long rows of shade trees, principally sycamores, along the top of the ridge between the house and the road, and on either side of the latter through the entire estate, making the change as attractive as possible, but there was no attempt at altering the house to front the new road. This could easily have been done, as either wing was about equal in length, and contained the same number of rooms. But there was no disposition to make any alteration. In fact the reverential affection of Mrs. Goelet for everything that had been her father's, made her exceedingly averse to any change in Buncombe Hall, the home he had made. And thus it remained until 1876, when the Connecticut carpetbagger began to demolish it. True the piazza on the north side had fallen away, but the building itself was pratically as good at the close of tsi century of service, as when first erected.
After the division of the Buncombe property, the several parts were quickly taken by two or three good families, the Washington county Court House was erected at Lee's Mills, Mr. and Mrs. Goelet's large family of children, began to be �grown up,� and altogether Buncombe Hall was again a social centre of first importance, on the �South Shore.� ' In 1836 they erected a chapel in the centre of the little colony, placing it on the west side of the public road, and only a few hundred yards from the entrance to the Buncombe Hall grounds.
This church, St. Luke's, was the scene of the early priestly ministrations of Bishop A. A. Watson, as it also was of Rev. Dr. George Patterson, who recently died in Tennessee.
About the centre of this church-yard, marked by a modest marble slab, is the grave of Mrs. Elizabeth Taylor Buncombe Goelet, wife of John Goelet, and oldest daughter of Colonel Edward Buncombe. Mrs. Goelet died in Greenville, N. C., at the home of her son, Dr. Peter Goelet, March 9th, 1840, being within two days of seventy-three years old. She was first interred in the family burying ground on the farm, but was later removed to the churchyard. By her side, and to her left is the unmarked grave of Mr. Jno. Goelet, her husband. Mr. Goelet was born in 1759, on the day of the fall of Quebec, and died at Buncombe Hall, October 6th, 1853, and was buried in St. Luke's churchyard by Rev. Dr. Geo. Patterson, two days later. Mr. Goelet was a man of small stature, and slight figure, but he had the voice of a Boanerges, being able to make himself heard at a great distance. He was remarkable for his activity in his old age, frequently walking to Plymouth and back, a distance of eighteen miles, in half a day, even after he was eighty years old. On the right of Mrs. Goelet is the grave of her seventh child, and third son, Major John Edward Buncombe Goelet, who was born January 4th, 1807, and died November 13th, 1857. This grave is also unmarked. It is highly probable that the plot contains the graves of others of the Goelet children, but the two I have mentioned are the only ones certainly identified.
In 1811 Mr. and Mrs. Jno. Goelet gave their daughter who married a Mr. Haughton, one hundred and seventy acres of the Buncombe Hall land, as her portion, one of the callings being a sycamore now the north-east corner of St. Lukes churchyard. It was their son who in 1859 purchased the homestead, it having been sold for division. The terms of the purchase not having been complied with, it was again in 1868 sold by decree of court, this time to an adventurer from Connecticut, who obtained very liberal terms from his political friends of the court. He completed the payment of the purchase price, $800.00, in 1874, perfecting his title. Pushing an old office building into the grove, between the house and the public road, he moved into this, not feeling himself equal to the presumption of residing in such a dignified looking building as Buncombe Hall was even in its ruins. To provide himself with spending money, he would sell with equal readiness, to negroes or political associates, a piece of the land, or a part of the house. Thus it came about that in 1878 there was nothing of the old building left save the naked framework of the dining room, and the kitchen walls under it. That nothing of its destruction might be wanting, the Norfolk and Southern railroad, whose track crosses the ridge about in line with the western walls of Buncombe Hall, dug away the earth on which it stood, to a depth of about five feet, leaving nothing to indicate its location save a slight depression at the side of the cut where the kitchen cellar was.
The last time I saw Buncombe Hall was in the spring of 1874, I had been sent to Lee's Mills on some errand by my father, and returning late, passed by the place after dark. The evening moon hung low in the west, its faint light throwing indistinct shadows across the fenceless, fennel covered grounds, revealing the moss covered, sombre looking old building standing tenantless at the end of the long vista of sycamores. The upper windows, lined with the accumulated dust of years of neglect, threw back the light of the moon so brightly at times, that I nearly fancied these reflections were the spirit lights of ancient heroes holding high carnival in those silent upper chambers. About it, in perfect alignment were rows of great sycamores, their whitened branches pointing heavenward, like the bleached bones of many armed skeletons, hands uplifted. From the thicket jungle north-east of the house, containing the old burying ground, came the disquieting call of a lone whippoorwill, while way down by the Guinea hole on the creek, a horned owl sounded his melancholy note. Such were the last days of Buncombe Hall. ("Great Events in North Carolina History," North Carolina Society of the Daughters of the Revolution, 1901, Vol. 1, No. 1 (May 10, 1901). )
(Thomas W. Blount was born on January 28, 1856, in Lees Mills (now Roper), Washington County, North Carolina, to E. F. and Sally Ann Spruill Blount. He worked as a banker, businessman, and civic leader in Roper. He owned and managed a local cotton gin and the Roper Electric Company, as well as several other businesses. In politics, he represented Washington County in the North Carolina General Assembly in 1901-1903, and in 1907, he led an effort to move the Washington County seat back to Lees Mills, but the movement failed. He was an avid supporter of schools in Roper, and his enthusiasm spread to the local residents. Around 1900, there were two private schools in Roper: the Roper Academy and another school with one teacher in Blount's T. W. Blount Milling Company Store, which was located next to his grist mill. The school was open to anyone who could pay the tuition fee of $1 for eight months. Thomas Blount and his wife Ida Hardison had no children. They were members of St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where Ida served as the organist for several years. Blount was also a member of the North Carolina Historical Commission from 1905 until his death on October 4, 1911. He is buried in the Grace Episcopal Church Cemetery in Washington County. )
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Col. Edward Buncombe (1742 - 1777) was a Revolutionary War Soldier. At first he was loyal to the crown. An event changed that. Governor Josiah Martin, the last Royal Governor of North Carolina, had addressed the Assembly, at Newbern, in a vituperative, abusive anti-American speech, demanding that Carolinians not send representatives to the Continental Congress. This turned Buncombe to the cause of liberty. On the April 15, 1776, the Halifax Assembly elected Buncombe colonel of the 5th batallion of North Carolina troops. He had just buried his wife. The new colonel equipped and drilled the troop at his own expense. Then, settling his affairs he said goodbye to his children. He rode at the head of his regiment, and began that career that would end disasterously at Germantown. Buncombe fought in the Battle of Brandywine, but he was wounded, captured, and, according to a letter by his sister, Mrs. Cain, dated March 23, 1780, died a prisoner of war at Philadelphia, 1777, at the age of thirty-seven. Buncombe County, North Carolina, is named after him. It's sad that this Tory turned patriot's name was sullied by its assocation with the word Bunk! Bunk, longwinded and useless speech, stuff and nonsense, was a word coined and applied in 1820 to Felix Walker, a member of the House of Representatives from Buncombe County." (findagrave.com website)
BY THOMAS BLOUNT.
Amid the fens and breaks and forests of juniper, covering the crest of the low divide running up from the sea, between Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, Kendrick's creek takes its rise. Slipping thence northwardly, into the open country, it winds between fertile hills dotted over with well tilled farms, and rushing through roaring gates, or whirring wheels, gliding past busy villages and sleepy woodlands, its amber tide pours into Albemarle sound, south of Edenton. Narrow of mouth, and no more than fifteen miles in length, this modest stream does not attract the attention of the passing navigator of the Albemarle, nor does it make any great figure in the topography of the country. Yet every foot of its shore line is pregnant with facts in the primal history of North Carolina.
During the Culpepper rebellion, and the unhappy administration of Seth Sothel, many hardy spirits slipped away from the North Albemarle colony, and settled along the banks of Kendrick's creek, preferring the solitude of the wilderness, and the society of the simple savage, to the doubtful protection of an unstable government administered by avaricious tyrants. In vain the authorities �commanded them back.� They blazed a rugged trail from the mouth of the creek along its western shore, and on through the forest, to the banks of the Pamlico where Bath Town was later located, and planted a thin line of humble homes by its side; the seed-bud of that wondrous growth which has since expanded into a mighty state. Along this rout, flowed for half a century the ceaseless tide of imigration coming up from the Virginia coast, and peopling the wilderness to the south and west. It was a part of the first mail rout in the province, and was the course taken by the impatient Governor Dobbs when hastening from Virginia to Newbern to take the oath of office, after being detained at Edenton �above a whole day by contrary winds so fresh he could not cross the ferry some eight miles.� On the south side of this road, about three-quarters of a mile from the Tyrrell court house at Lee's Mills, was the entrance to the Buncombe Hall grounds, over which was suspended the famous distich:
�Welcome all,
To Buncombe Hall.�
This was no empty invitation posted to make the vulgar stare. It meant rest and good cheer for any travel-stained pilgrim who would avail himself of it, dispensed with a lavish hand by the princely owner himself, to rich and poor alike. For no matter how humble the traveler, while he was within the gates of Buncombe Hall he was its master's guest, and as such was treated with the most courtly consideration. If a boon companion showed a premature disposition to depart, trusty slaves knew how to remove certain bridges on either side of the estate and the wooing of that guest's fair charmer was deferred to another day.
Near this same road, but a little higher up stream than the Buncombe plantation, Captain Thomas Blount of the first Chowan vestry, erected a mill in 1702. This man was a blacksmith and ship carpenter by trade. He came from Virginia to Perquimans where he married Mary, the widow of Joseph Scott. During the winter of 1698-'99 he removed with his family to the �east side of the mouth of Kendrick's creek.� Later he purchased �Cabin Ridge plantation� where the town of Roper now stands and immediately began the erection of a mill on the creek hard by. This was for a while the �one miil in the whole province� and in time came to be the industrial centre of the �South Shore� settlement. At it, was manufactured the lumber for many of the earlier buildings at Edenton, such as flooring for the first church (never used), material for the first court house, and much more. With a continuous service of two centuries rounded out to its credit, this mill is now the oldest developed water-power in North Carolina.
Captain Blount died in 1706 and Thos. Lee, marrying his widow, subsequently got possession of his mill and most of his other property.
To this circumstance is due the scattering of his immediate descendants to the four-winds and the opportunities of advancement which they thus found. Verily-
�There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out.�
With one brief exception the mill remained the property of the Lee family until 1814, hence the place came to be called �Lee's Mills.� The assembly which Gov. Gabriel Johnston called to meet him in Edenton in the winter of 1735-'6, was the first to which Tyrrell had sent delegates. Prominent among her representatives that year was Capt. William Downing of Lee's Mills, who was unanimously elected speaker of the house.
This Assembly fixed Tyrrell's court house at Lee's Mills where it remained until the erection of Martin county in 1774, when it was removed to the house of Benjamin Spruill on Scuppernong river.
At the first session of the court held at that place, which was on �third Tuesday in May, 1774,� Colonel Edward Buncombe presented his commission from the Honorable Samuel Strudwick, Esq'r, dated December 18, 1773, appointing him Clerk of the court. He immediately qualified, giving bond in the sum of one thousand pounds, with Stevens Lee and Archibald Corrie as sureties. His successor qualified on the tenth day of February, 1777, hence Colonel Buncombe was the last clerk of the county court for Tyrrell under the colonial government. Mr. Corrie often performed the duties of the office as Colonel Buncombe's deputy. They were �Co-partners and merchants� at Lee's Mills.
It is said that Colonel Buncombe's fine Tyrrell estate came to him by the terms of his uncle Joseph's will.
Some years before Colonel Edward Buncombe was born, Joseph Buncombe went from England to St. Kitts hoping to improve his fortune. While there his brother Thomas sent him money with which to buy land. Being a bachelor �heart whole and fancy free� and hearing of the fair women and fertile lands of Albemarle, he sold his holdings in the �tight little island� to his brother, and came to North Carolina. On the 20th of March, 1732, he purchased from Edward Moseley one thousand and twenty-five acres of land in Tyrrell county, �bounded on the east by Kendrick's creek, and on the south by Kendrick's creek and Beaver Dam branch.� About this time he married Ann, the oldest daughter of Geo. Durant who had died in 1730. They made their home on the Tyrrell lands near what is now known as Buncombe Landing. On the 17th day of August 1735, Joseph Buncombe qualified as the guardian of Geo. Durant's children, giving bond in the sum of 2,994 pounds, with Stevens Lee and William Downing as sureties. On the 10th of September following he executed to these bondsmen an indemnifying deed covering all his lands and including several slaves. This deed recorded in the Tyrrell office 16th April, 1736, was the first instrument registered in that county.
Later we find Mr. Buncombe renewing this deed, and adding a sum of money �adjudged to be due him from the public� for slaves executed at Edenton. November 30th, 1739, he assigned negroes to his wife Ann and his daughter Mary. A few years later Thomas Corprew who had married Mr. Buncombe's widow, settled up the Durant guardianship. Mary Buncombe married a Mr. Sutton, and her mother who was born July 14th, 1714, died in 1741, leaving two sons by her Corprew marriage.
Colonel Edward Buncombe who was born in 1742, was probably sent when quite a young man to look after his father's St. Kitts' property. At any rate he married Elizabeth Dawson Taylor there April 10th, 1766. Their first child, Elizabeth Taylor, was born in St. Kitts, March 11th, 1767, and the second, Thomas, was born in North Carolina, February 3d, 1769, while the last child Hester, was born April 25th, 1771.
Colonel Buncombe's first public act in his new home was to sit as a member of an �Inferior court� held at the Tyrrell court house, �On the second Tuesday in May, 1769.� His name appears last in the list of justices at this term, but he was one of the three who remained to sign the docket at the end of the session.
From these circumstances it would appear probable that Colonel Buncombe removed with his family to North Carolina as early as the spring of 1768. The story of his coming as popularly related, is as follows:
One Mr. Cox of Edenton learning that Colonel Buncombe had come into possession of the Tyrrell lands, went to St. Kitts and offered to buy the property. But young Mrs. Buncombe advised her husband that if it was worth all that trouble on the part of Mr. Cox, it surely was worth a visit from its owner before confirming a sale of it. Acting upon this suggestion Colonel Buncombe came to North Carolina, and was so much pleased with the place that he at once gave orders to Stevens Lee of Lee's Mills to build a house for him on the farm, while he returned for his family.
Considering the fact that lumber could only be sawed during the winter months, and that bricks were only made in the summer, and taking into account the fact that all processes of building at that time were very slow, it seems probable that this first visit of Colonel Buncombe's was made during the summer of 1766.
It has been said that the bricks used in the building were brought from England. But Governor Tryon wrote that very year �We do not import lime, lumber or bricks, either from the northern colonies, or from England.� There were brick yards at Lee's Mills.
One who had read the �Buncombe Notes�-an elaborate account of Colonel Buncombe's removal to North Carolina, preserved until 1874-says that in these it was related that the vessels in which he came were loaded with great quantities of valuable stores, farming implements, seed, stock, slaves, furniture, and all things necessary for the farm in the new country. These were landed at the place now known as Buncombe landing, at the east end of the beautiful ridge on which Buncombe Hall stood, some three-quarter of a mile to the west. Vessels trading with the West Indies, New York, Boston and other points along the coast came regularly to Kendrick's creek in those days for cargoes of lumber, and farm produce. So profitable was this trade, that Colonel Buncombe built a vessel of his own to engage in it, and on the 20th of September, 1775, the schooner �Buncombe� was registered at Port Roanoke, Edenton, N. C., Jno. McCrohon being her first master.
Just below the landing at Buncombe Hall the dark waters of the stream are unusually deep, so much so that the place was popularly said to have no bottom. This was called the �Guinea Hole� from a very pathetic circumstance said to have occured there.
During the days of Mr. Joseph Buncombe a vessel from the West Indies was unloading at this wharf which had among her crew a young man who had �shipped� one trip in a Guinea slave trader. He recognized among the negroes handling the cargo, some natives of Guinea, whom Mr. Buncombe had recently purchased from a New England dealer, and getting into conversation with one of the men, our wag managed to make him understand that he was but recently in the man's own country. After answering many eager inquiries as best suited his whim, the sailor was finally urged to point in the direction of Guinea. Either in a spirit of mischief, or intending to indicate that the place was on the other side of the world, he pointed over the stearn of the ship down through the deep hole. The simple child of the Niger understood the gesture to mean that here was a secret passage to Guinea, and hugging his precious secret he took the first opportunity imparting it in all confidence to his fellow countrymen, who like himself were longing for their native jungles. Getting a long pole, they secretly sounded the place, and finding no bottom, they concluded the kindly looking young sailor had told them truly, so selecting a dark night when no one was watching, and loading themselves with weights, that they might sink quickly, plunged beneath the inky waters on their long journey to the other shore. Though their unfortunate lives were lost, may we not hope that they found an eternal abiding place in the presence of Him who said �Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.�
Be this legend true or false there were among Mr. Buncombes slaves some desperate men, who in their efforts to escape, slew their keepers, and were executed.
�It is along the borders of streams that men usually seat,� wrote Thomas Woodward the first Surveyor General of Albermarle. This custom fixed the early roads paralled with the water courses, and usually next to them. The one leading from �Edenton's sound� to Lee's Mills was no exception to the rule. It zigzagged along the edge of the hills next the stream until it reached the end of the long ridge composing the southern portion of the Buncombe estate, then leaving the creek it turned down the northern side of this, going in a westernly direction. It was on top of this ridge, and about half a mile west of the spot where Joseph Buncombe had lived, that Buncombe Hall was erected. As originally constructed, it was a long two story frame building, containing four large rooms, wide halls, and three cellars. It faced the road on the north and had on that side a rather pretentious double piazza, through which the lower hall was entered by wide double doors. The cooking was done in a great open fireplace in the east cellar, and the dining room was immediately above. The stairs leading to the upper chambers was entered through a door from the piazza. Later, and certainly during Colonel Buncombe's life, a long wing was erected from the south side of the west end of the building, making it L shaped. This new wing contained two large rooms on the first floor, and one above, which was entered by stairs leading up from the room next the main building. There were two cellars under this wing. The basement walls of brick, were about five feet above ground, and had small windows in the top. There were chimneys outside at the end of each wing, and probably one double chimney running up through the middle. The lower rooms had high ceilings, and were carefully finished inside, but the dormered walls of the second story were low, through which numerous little windows jutted out, like many eyes peeping from under the heavy eaves of the quaint hipped roof above. In front of the building was a plot of ground devoted to the cultivation of flowers, oramental shrubs, and border plants. At the end of a pretty walk on the east side of this, was Colonel Buncombe's office. In the rear of the building broad piazzas extended the entire length of both wings. From this piazza the two rooms in the annex, or south wing, were entered. In the rear of the building, and on the broad hill-side sloping to the south-east, were the orchards of peaches and other fruits. To the west of this, nestling in a grove of virgin oak, and hickory trees, were the ample slave quarters. A few of these venerable oaks are still standing, majestic witnesses of a dead past. The branches of one of them has a spread of more than two-hundred feet, and its gnarled trunk measures eighteen feet in circumference above spurs. Near this stood the �smithy� and �wood shop� of the plantation. In these were manufactured many domestic utensils, the farm implements in use at the time, the carts, wagons great carry-logs, the light chair, or gig in which the master rode forth on journeys, and even the mahogony chariot, or carriage in which the mistress was wont to travel abroad could be repaired there. It is highly probable that in these shops were mended, and �made fit for use� the heterogenous collection of arms with which the fifth battalion was at first equipped. For the day after the election of Colonel Buncombe to the command of this regiment, the Provincial Congress sitting at Halifax appointed Stevens Lee and Hezekiah Spruill, a committee for Tyrrell, �to receive, procure and purchase firearms for the use of the troops,� and to have such as required it repaired with all possible dispatch. If one had stopped to rest under the shade of this old tree in those busy days at Buncombe Hall, he would have heard above the din of the anvil, and the roar of the forge, the quaint songs of many dusky damsels in the cabins hard by, as they busily �seeded� the cotton, carded the wool or sped the soughing spindles of many great wheels, while the clatter of resounding looms would have told him that the �tasks� of yarn from the spinners of yesterday, were supplying those of the weavers of today. These, with the dyers, the shoemakers and the tailors were all busy with the mighty task of equipping a regiment of fighting men. For they were here nearly a year, arming and drilling for the fray, and we are told that Col. Buncombe practically bore the expense himself.
The original deed from Edward Moseley placed the acreage of the Buncombe tract of land at one thousand and twenty-five acres, but when we remember that rent was paid on land in those days at so much per acre, and then taking into account the general callings by which the surveyor had bounded it, we need not be surprised to find two thousand acres in the tract, and to this Colonel Buncombe added until the estate consisted of four square miles of the finest farm, and timber lands in the Albermarle section. The land drained naturally, and was easily brought into cultivation, the removal of the forest growth being the chief difficulty. During the eight or nine years Colonel Buncombe resided on this property he made at least two thousand acres of it fit for tillage. The Hall was so situated that one could view the entire plantatation from the upper floor of the front piazza, and a magnificent sight it was said to be, those seas of golden wheat ripe for the sickle, surrounded by the gleaming green of great fields of corn just budding into tassel.
Colonel Buncombe was loyal to the crown, and supported the colonial government heartily, as is shown by his unwillingness to aid Governor Tryon in suppressing the insurrection of the Regulators, and the promptness with which he always discharged his duties, either as a militia officer, or member of the county court. But when Colonel Harvey came riding from Halfax, and his conference with Willie Jones on that eventful fourth of April, 1774, and lodging that night with Colonel Buncombe, poured out to him and Samuel Johnston, the story of Governor Martin's tyranny and with fervid eloquence unfolded to them his plans of resistance and defiance, not only was the impetuous young lion of Buncombe Hall won to the cause of popular liberty, but the calm, calculating prudence of the astute Johnston, surrendered to him. It was just two years and ten days later that Colonel Bunombe's adopted country called upon him to prove his faith by his works. On the 15th of April, 1776, the Halifax Assembly, of which Archibald Corrie was the sole representitive from Tyrrell, elected him Colonel of the fifth batallion of North Carolina troops. He had just laid his loved young wife to rest within the sacred precincts of old St. Paul's at Edenton, and his bruised heart had turned for �surcease of sorrow� to the care of the three bright pledges of her love, their children. But like the patriot soldier that he was, he never hesitated. Proceeding at once to gather about him a band of devoted men, who like himself, preferred the privations, and uncertain fortunes of the tented field, with honor, to inglorious submission to foreign tyrants, he equipped and drilled them with all possible dispatch, largely at his own expense. Then taking such order with his private affairs as the unsettled state of the country would permit, he bade his children adieu, and turning his back forever upon them, and the home which his ardent soul had sought so faithfully to make the aery of loves bright dream, he placed himself at the head of his regiment, and began that career which was to end so disasterously at German Town. Here he was wounded, captured by the enemy, and according to a letter of his sister, Mrs. Cain, dated March 23rd, 1780, died a prisoner of war at Philadelphia, 1779, aged thirty-seven years.
Of Colonel Buncombe's children, Elizabeth Taylor, the oldest, was sent when eleven years old, 1778 for education to Abraham Lot in New Jersey, Thomas and Hester were placed under the care of Mrs. Ann Booth Pollock of North Carolina. For many years after this Buncombe Hall became the prey of the spoiler.
While Colonel Buncombe was organizing his regiment, the Tories about Lee's Mills were very active. At their head was one Daniel Legget, who taking to himself the title of �Senior Warden,� went from farm to farm during the summer of 1776, and with notched sticks, tripple oaths, mysterious grips, and spelled-out pass-words, initiated all who would join him into a society for the protection of the Protestant religion, the maintainance of King George's authority, the assistance of deserters, and the protection of members from service in the patriot army. They were promised that as soon as Colonel Buncombe should march with his command, that Gen. Howe would certainly come to their assistance, and give over to their tender mercies his estate, and the property of all those who had enlisted with him. Gaining some strength, they began formulating a plan for assassinating all the chief men in the province, when their bloody purpose was disclosed, the ring-leaders apprehended, and loged in jail at Edenton. One of them at least, one Llewellyn, was executed, and this so frightened Leggett that he had a fit of hysteria, and wrote Governor Caswell a most penitent letter, begging that his unprofitable life should be spared, and assuring him that his penitence was so great that he would ever after be incapable of harm. He appears to have escaped with his neck.
Elizabeth Taylor Buncombe, Col. Buncombe's oldest daughter was married, by Bishop Benjamin Moore, to Jno. Goelet of New York, October 23rd, 1784. Eight children were the result of this union, three being born prior to their removal to North Carolina, which was about 1793. About this time Colonel Buncombe's estate was divided among his three children. Mrs. Goelet's part being the south-eastern portion of the Tyrrell plantation, on which Buncobe Hall stood. It was probably during the minority of these heirs, certainly prior to 1811, that the public road was changed, and laid out through the middle of the farm running nearly north and south, leaving the Buncombe Hall fully three hundred yards to the east, and side to the road. They planted long rows of shade trees, principally sycamores, along the top of the ridge between the house and the road, and on either side of the latter through the entire estate, making the change as attractive as possible, but there was no attempt at altering the house to front the new road. This could easily have been done, as either wing was about equal in length, and contained the same number of rooms. But there was no disposition to make any alteration. In fact the reverential affection of Mrs. Goelet for everything that had been her father's, made her exceedingly averse to any change in Buncombe Hall, the home he had made. And thus it remained until 1876, when the Connecticut carpetbagger began to demolish it. True the piazza on the north side had fallen away, but the building itself was pratically as good at the close of tsi century of service, as when first erected.
After the division of the Buncombe property, the several parts were quickly taken by two or three good families, the Washington county Court House was erected at Lee's Mills, Mr. and Mrs. Goelet's large family of children, began to be �grown up,� and altogether Buncombe Hall was again a social centre of first importance, on the �South Shore.� ' In 1836 they erected a chapel in the centre of the little colony, placing it on the west side of the public road, and only a few hundred yards from the entrance to the Buncombe Hall grounds.
This church, St. Luke's, was the scene of the early priestly ministrations of Bishop A. A. Watson, as it also was of Rev. Dr. George Patterson, who recently died in Tennessee.
About the centre of this church-yard, marked by a modest marble slab, is the grave of Mrs. Elizabeth Taylor Buncombe Goelet, wife of John Goelet, and oldest daughter of Colonel Edward Buncombe. Mrs. Goelet died in Greenville, N. C., at the home of her son, Dr. Peter Goelet, March 9th, 1840, being within two days of seventy-three years old. She was first interred in the family burying ground on the farm, but was later removed to the churchyard. By her side, and to her left is the unmarked grave of Mr. Jno. Goelet, her husband. Mr. Goelet was born in 1759, on the day of the fall of Quebec, and died at Buncombe Hall, October 6th, 1853, and was buried in St. Luke's churchyard by Rev. Dr. Geo. Patterson, two days later. Mr. Goelet was a man of small stature, and slight figure, but he had the voice of a Boanerges, being able to make himself heard at a great distance. He was remarkable for his activity in his old age, frequently walking to Plymouth and back, a distance of eighteen miles, in half a day, even after he was eighty years old. On the right of Mrs. Goelet is the grave of her seventh child, and third son, Major John Edward Buncombe Goelet, who was born January 4th, 1807, and died November 13th, 1857. This grave is also unmarked. It is highly probable that the plot contains the graves of others of the Goelet children, but the two I have mentioned are the only ones certainly identified.
In 1811 Mr. and Mrs. Jno. Goelet gave their daughter who married a Mr. Haughton, one hundred and seventy acres of the Buncombe Hall land, as her portion, one of the callings being a sycamore now the north-east corner of St. Lukes churchyard. It was their son who in 1859 purchased the homestead, it having been sold for division. The terms of the purchase not having been complied with, it was again in 1868 sold by decree of court, this time to an adventurer from Connecticut, who obtained very liberal terms from his political friends of the court. He completed the payment of the purchase price, $800.00, in 1874, perfecting his title. Pushing an old office building into the grove, between the house and the public road, he moved into this, not feeling himself equal to the presumption of residing in such a dignified looking building as Buncombe Hall was even in its ruins. To provide himself with spending money, he would sell with equal readiness, to negroes or political associates, a piece of the land, or a part of the house. Thus it came about that in 1878 there was nothing of the old building left save the naked framework of the dining room, and the kitchen walls under it. That nothing of its destruction might be wanting, the Norfolk and Southern railroad, whose track crosses the ridge about in line with the western walls of Buncombe Hall, dug away the earth on which it stood, to a depth of about five feet, leaving nothing to indicate its location save a slight depression at the side of the cut where the kitchen cellar was.
The last time I saw Buncombe Hall was in the spring of 1874, I had been sent to Lee's Mills on some errand by my father, and returning late, passed by the place after dark. The evening moon hung low in the west, its faint light throwing indistinct shadows across the fenceless, fennel covered grounds, revealing the moss covered, sombre looking old building standing tenantless at the end of the long vista of sycamores. The upper windows, lined with the accumulated dust of years of neglect, threw back the light of the moon so brightly at times, that I nearly fancied these reflections were the spirit lights of ancient heroes holding high carnival in those silent upper chambers. About it, in perfect alignment were rows of great sycamores, their whitened branches pointing heavenward, like the bleached bones of many armed skeletons, hands uplifted. From the thicket jungle north-east of the house, containing the old burying ground, came the disquieting call of a lone whippoorwill, while way down by the Guinea hole on the creek, a horned owl sounded his melancholy note. Such were the last days of Buncombe Hall. ("Great Events in North Carolina History," North Carolina Society of the Daughters of the Revolution, 1901, Vol. 1, No. 1 (May 10, 1901). )
(Thomas W. Blount was born on January 28, 1856, in Lees Mills (now Roper), Washington County, North Carolina, to E. F. and Sally Ann Spruill Blount. He worked as a banker, businessman, and civic leader in Roper. He owned and managed a local cotton gin and the Roper Electric Company, as well as several other businesses. In politics, he represented Washington County in the North Carolina General Assembly in 1901-1903, and in 1907, he led an effort to move the Washington County seat back to Lees Mills, but the movement failed. He was an avid supporter of schools in Roper, and his enthusiasm spread to the local residents. Around 1900, there were two private schools in Roper: the Roper Academy and another school with one teacher in Blount's T. W. Blount Milling Company Store, which was located next to his grist mill. The school was open to anyone who could pay the tuition fee of $1 for eight months. Thomas Blount and his wife Ida Hardison had no children. They were members of St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where Ida served as the organist for several years. Blount was also a member of the North Carolina Historical Commission from 1905 until his death on October 4, 1911. He is buried in the Grace Episcopal Church Cemetery in Washington County. )
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Col. Edward Buncombe (1742 - 1777) was a Revolutionary War Soldier. At first he was loyal to the crown. An event changed that. Governor Josiah Martin, the last Royal Governor of North Carolina, had addressed the Assembly, at Newbern, in a vituperative, abusive anti-American speech, demanding that Carolinians not send representatives to the Continental Congress. This turned Buncombe to the cause of liberty. On the April 15, 1776, the Halifax Assembly elected Buncombe colonel of the 5th batallion of North Carolina troops. He had just buried his wife. The new colonel equipped and drilled the troop at his own expense. Then, settling his affairs he said goodbye to his children. He rode at the head of his regiment, and began that career that would end disasterously at Germantown. Buncombe fought in the Battle of Brandywine, but he was wounded, captured, and, according to a letter by his sister, Mrs. Cain, dated March 23, 1780, died a prisoner of war at Philadelphia, 1777, at the age of thirty-seven. Buncombe County, North Carolina, is named after him. It's sad that this Tory turned patriot's name was sullied by its assocation with the word Bunk! Bunk, longwinded and useless speech, stuff and nonsense, was a word coined and applied in 1820 to Felix Walker, a member of the House of Representatives from Buncombe County." (findagrave.com website)
Events
| Birth | 1742 | North Carolina | |||
| Marriage | Abt, 1765 | Elizabeth Dawson Taylor | |||
| Death | 1777 | Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania | |||
| Burial | Christ Church Burial Ground, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania |
Families
| Spouse | Elizabeth Dawson Taylor ( - 1776) |
| Child | Elizabeth Taylor Buncombe (1766 - 1840) |
| Child | Thomas Buncombe (1769 - 1787) |
| Child | Hester Ann Buncombe (1771 - ) |