| In the fall of 1962, Mrs.
Catherine Yerby of Columbia donned boots and
dungarees and with son, Columbia merchant T. K. Yerby,
Jr., started exploring the forbidding forest of
Tyrrell's Alligator Township. Had anyone asked Miss
Katy the purpose of her intrusion into this mosquito
and cottonmouth infested wilderness he would hardly have
believed her, for the Yerbys were searching for a man
dead almost two hundred years. Partly through good
luck and good clues the Yerbys located and uncovered the
tomb of a member of Tyrrell's most illustrious lost
generation. The grave was that of Colonel Hezekiah
Spruill (born 1732, died 1804), planter, member of
the Provincial Congress, and Revolutionary leader.
Reclaimed by the dense forest a century ago, the weather-beaten
tombstone is probably one of the few physical mementoes
of a family that was as much a part of Tyrrell for two
centuries as the quiet black Scuppernong itself.
Dr. Godfrey Spruill, patriarch of the family,
was born in 1650, thirteen years before King Charles
issued the celebrated Carolina Charter. A tobacco
planter, surgeon and patron of the sport of kings in the
Cavalier colony, he had probably heard stories from ship
captains who had plied the Carolina River (Albemarle
Sound) in search of hides, furs and naval stores, of the
inviting forests along this body's south shore. Between
1693 and 1697 he and his wife Joanna bought land
in the area and moved to Carolina. They were among the
section's first white settlers.
The original Spruill grant included over a thousand
acres of the south shore of Albemarle Sound and west side
of Scuppernong River between Back Creek and Bunting Bay (now
Bull's Bay). In this beautiful, primitive setting, called
Heart's Delight by explorers a decade before, the
Spruills set down their roots. Behind the high banks of
the sound shore lay ridges cut here and there by quiet
creeks and forested with virgin timber.
On this location about 1705 was founded Roundabout
Plantation, the seat of the Tyrrell Spruills for the next
century.
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Unlike many of Scuppernong's
colonial land barons -- the Pettigrews, Collinses
and others who held land on the South Shore but whose
interests lay elsewhere -- the Spruills settled in
Scuppernong and began the task of clearing and exploiting
the rich dark land. Dr. Godfrey Spruill,
probably one of Carolina's first medical men, became well-known
throughout the struggling Albemarle Colony, being called
on numerous occasions across the sound to Queen Anne's
Creek, the site of present Edenton, to care for the sick.
At his death the Roundabout fell to his son Samuel
Spruill and then to his grandson Joseph Spruill.
Around 1710 near Backlanding, the private wharves of the
Roundabout, was erected Saint Paul's Chapel, one of the
earliest churches in Carolina. Thirty years later Joseph
Spruill gave this chapel to St. Andrew's Parish.
The Roundabout and the Spruill lands at Backlanding
were the center of colonial activity in Scuppernong. Here
in 1746 was erected "His Majesties Warehouse"
and twenty years later Benjamin Spruill invited
the county court to meet at the "big house."
Subsequently he gave the land for the building of the
Tyrrell Courthouse at Backlanding following the outbreak
of the Revolution. Here also sailing schooners docked
momentarily on their voyage from Ocracoke to Edenton.
For the next five generations Spruills played
important roles in local as well as state religious and
political life. Probably not many families in Carolina
can boast such a continuous record of public service. Samuel
Spruill served in the Provincial Assembly from 1754
until his death in 1760. His brother Joseph Spruill,
an early vestryman of South Chowan Parish, was major of
the county militia, magistrate and supervisor of "the
King's high roads." He also served as sheriff and a
member of the Assembly. It was his brother Colonel
Hezekiah Spruill who was among Tyrrell's leaders in
the Revolution. Benjamin Spruill, a member of the
General Assembly, introduced the bill creating Martin
County from Tyrrell in 1774.
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Nemeniah Spruill
built the first bridge across Scuppernong River near Cool
Springs (now Creswell) during early colonial times. This
crossing is still called Spruill's Bridge today. It
opened transportation into a new territory above Creswell
and Lake Phelps to settlers. Two Spruills, Joseph
and Benjamin, were members of the First and Second
Provincial Congresses in the turbulent opening days of
the Revolution. Joseph Spruill was a signer of the
Halifax Resolves and was appointed a major in the
battalion being gathered in Tyrrell at Lee's Mill under
the leadership of Colonel Edward Buncombe. Hezekiah
Spruill and Stephen Lee were appointed by the
Second Provincial Congress to "receive, procure and
purchase firearms for the use of the troops and to
receive, maintain and repair all swords, dirks, pistols
and other implements of war which have been taken by the
Tories."
Like many of the hard-pressed farmers of the southern
Albemarle many Spruills migrated to the Deep South and to
the Mid-West. Today seldom a week passes that the Tyrrell
Register of Deeds office does not receive inquiries from
genealogists and researchers about this now fairly
widespread name. Many take the time and expense to come
to Columbia to search the county's colonial records for
information about this lost generation of early
Carolinians. John W. Melson of Columbia, who has
for several years done research on the history of the
Spruills, has uncovered most of the information known
today about the family.
From 1750 until 1860 there was hardly a North Carolina
General Assembly without a Spruill representing Tyrrell
or neighboring Washington County.
The main branch of the Spruill family, established in
Alligator by Colonel Hezekiah, remained on the
north shore until the latter part of the 1800's when the
place was sold and gradually passed away, much of it
reclaimed by the dense forests. Only a few Tyrrell
countians now bear this old name.
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