Part 5: The Avoca Site

As outlined in the previous blog installment, the John White map of the Carolina coast was relatively accurate--at least the most accurate of his day--though the intended fort/settlement map placement appears to have been more symbolic than practical. When placed on a present-day map of similar scale to the White map, the proposed fort footprint itself covers an area of roughly 2 miles long by 2 miles wide, making for an over-ambitious plan. The site's geographical limitations would have prevented such an expansive formal layout. Nonetheless, the site remained well-coveted by the English after the Roanoke colony's disappearance, and in fact hosted some of the very first permanent colonial settlements within the bounds of present-day North Carolina.

The Site
This land site is located in Bertie County on the south side of Salmon Creek, at the confluence of the Chowan and Roanoke rivers. Salmon Creek, originally named "Flatts Creek", indeed flows through a flat tract of lowland swamp, rich in timber but offering poor ground for construction. Less than a mile south, running generally parallel to Salmon Creek (east to west) is Black Walnut Swamp, also a low-lying marshy creek system. Between the creeks is a relatively high, flat tract of ground that English colonists in the area later built on, and is the most likely building site. By the late-1600s fur traders and settlers there were calling this place "Avoca", a term derived from a local Native American place name meaning "where the the waters converge".

Explorations and Settlement at Avoca
In the Spring of 1586, Roanoke's governor Ralph Lane sent Captain Philip Amadas and an expedition of 20 men west into Albemarle Sound to explore the inland. They made landfall at the Avoca site and others nearby, and made very favorable reports of possible gold and copper mines upstream. The Avoca site eventually became one of the first permanent English settlements in North Carolina. Nathaniel Batts, a pioneering fur trader and explorer built a dwelling/trading post at Avoca sometime between 1653 and 1657. "Batts House" is represented by a house-shaped symbol on Comberford's 1657 map entitled "The South Part of Virginia, Now Part of Carolina". Other settlers had migrated south from Virginia on an inland route to North Carolina during that time, some populating the Avoca vicinity by the early-1660s. In fact the present-day "Avoca Farm Road"--running east to west--was begun at this time, linking the Avoca tobacco farms with a wharf at the mouth of Salmon Creek. This is undoubtedly one of the oldest Colonial roads in North Carolina still in use. The Avoca settlement constituted one of the so-called "Albemarle Settlements" that predated even the royal Proprietary lands granted in 1664. Early on, Avoca became the first "seat of power" in what would become the North Carolina colony, as three colonial governors resided there into the 1720s. At least three different fur traders operated near the mouth of Salmon Creek (1650s-1690s), and the area's tobacco farms were busy enough that Salmon Creek was named one of three original "ports of entry" to the Carolina colony. Through the 1700s and 1800s the lumber industry thrived there, and several fisheries were in operation by the 1860s.

Can a Roanoke Relocation Be Found at Avoca?
Since Lane and Amadas' exploration of Avoca in 1586, the Virginia Company had good reason to take advantage of its strategic location for future settlement. The Virginia Company's original intent was to settle in the Chesapeake bay, farther north up the coast; they amended their plans once a lack of resources (namely ships and supplies) forced the colonists to remain on the Outer Banks of present-day North Carolina. The patched-over map symbol at Avoca appears to represent at very least a plan to build here, some time AFTER the map was drawn in 1586. Does John White's assertion that the colonists considered relocating "50 miles into the mayne" ("mayne" or "main" signifying a sea or large body of water) mean that they intended to sail west through Albemarle Sound and relocate at Avoca? This place was on the mainland, with access to infinitely more food and material resources than their insular post at Roanoke Island. Avoca offered a better defensive advantage, hidden from view of Spanish ships passing the Carolina coast, and with improved strategic access to the entire region. It appears the Virginia Company amended the plan to move the Roanoke settlement about 52 miles inland to Avoca, a plan which John White would certainly be privy to. White infers that he also informed his colonists of the relocation plan to Avoca, sometime before returning to England in 1587. Whether or not the colonists knew of this relocation plan, it appears the colonists chose to abandon the Virginia Company mission after waiting a year in vain for White's return, opting instead to live with their friends the Croatoan Indians. This leads me to believe that the colonists probably sailed directly for Croatoan Island sometime in 1588 (and before the Spanish ship arrived to reconnoiter the area), and I doubt the colonists ever seriously considered moving to Avoca. Remember that Lane and Amadas made some enemies on the Chowan River during their expedition there; the Roanoke colonists likely would have avoided any move into hostile territory.

Even if the Roanoke colonists did indeed relocate to Avoca on a permanent basis, we must be prepared for the possibility that conclusive evidence will not be found. There are no known accounts from early Avoca settlers (1650s-1720s) mentioning the discovery of any building ruins, English graves or any inkling that Europeans ever occupied the place previously. Today Avoca is developed by farms, the Avoca Chemical Corporation, and even a golf course is currently under construction. Nearly 400 years of constant farming, industrial activities and land development will certainly have disturbed at least the "plow zone" surface ground. Depending upon the depth of potential archaeological features, any number of land-use disturbances could have destroyed any existing clues, namely the postholes of former structures. The Roanoke colonists, if removed to this place, would have built earthfast, post-and-beam buildings as they had at Roanoke Island. This building type does not leave much evidence: for example, no trace of the Batts House was found after two archaeological surveys, and it is now believed to lie beneath the Avoca Corporation's facility. Remnants of a 1660s ("Proprietary period") earthfast farmstead were found on the Governor Eden House site during highway construction in 1996, but in a much-less developed area a few miles north of Avoca.

Hopefully archaeological test excavations will be possible despite the area's continuing development. Any discoveries of English or other European artifacts predating the Early Proprietary Period would  raise some eyebrows. But it may prove a "needle in a haystack" search, the Avoca "haystack" constituting 27,000 acres of mixed-use land.