Charles Towne, North Carolina

Charles Towne was the first English Colony founded by Barbadians in the Carolinas. It was founded on the Cape Fear River, and established and abandoned in the 1660s in favor for a settlement further south, that later became Charleston, South Carolina. It was one of the earliest European colonies on the Cape Fear River and was close to the location that later became Brunswick Town.^[1]

In 1663, soon after William Hilton Jr. and his exploration along the coast of Carolina in 1662, some New England adventurers entered Cape Fear River, purchased a tract of land from the Indians on Old Town Creek, about halfway between Wilmington and Brunswick, and planted a settlement there in what is present-day Brunswick County.^[2]

The colony did not prosper long; the local Indians lifted their hatchets against them, and in less than three months the settlement was abandoned temporarily. A little more than one year later, in 1664, several planters from Barbados purchased of the Indians a tract of land, thirty-two miles square, near the earlier abandoned settlement. They asked the Lords Proprietors for a confirmation of their purchase, and a separate charter of government. They didn't get everything they wanted, yet liberal concessions were made. Sir John Yeamans, the son of a cavalier, and then a Barbados planter, was, at the solicitation of the purchasers, appointed their governor. William Hilton Jr. was again sent to explore the region, this time by men from the British colony of Barbados. He entered the Cape Fear in October 1663 and left in December, evidently just before the New Englanders arrived. John Vassall of Barbados financed and led the first permanent settlers to the lower Cape Fear, landing in May 1664, and by November had established Charles Towne, twenty miles upstream on the west bank of the Charles River (Clarendon River at that time, later named the Cape Fear River). Vassall had not reached a satisfactory agreement with the Lords Proprietors. Instead they signed an agreement in January 1665 with William Yeamans of Port Royale.^[3]

Sir John Yeamans, William's father, was appointed "governor of our Country of Clarendon neare southerly ..." In October, Sir John Yeamans stopped at Charles Towne on his way to Port Royale and found the colonists in desperate need of supplies. He sent a ship to Virginia to relieve this need, but it was wrecked on the return trip. Sir John left in December and never returned. War with the Indians and the indifference of the Lords Proprietors led to the migration of settlers out of the Cape Fear area and by the end of 1667 the site was deserted. Further settlement was not attempted for fifty years because of the closing of the Carolina land office by the Lords Proprietors, the hostility of the Cape Fear Indians, and the ever-presence of pirates.^[4]

What most historians do not point out is the fact that in August 1667 there was a major hurricane, "The Dreadful Hurricane of 1667", that hit the entire East Coast. It severely damaged all the structures of the first Charles Towne, and this was the "straw that broke the camel's back" - the settlers had had enough, so they loaded up and left - most returning to Barbados, Virginia, or other colonies on the Albemarle Sound.^[5]

The cite of the seventeenth century settlement is located today near the grounds of Orton Plantation, in Brunswick County, North Carolina. The area is located on Old Town Creek, and the cite is called Old Town in reference to the settlement itself, and nearby Brunswick Town, another colonial settlement that was short lived.