By
Bill Smith
1992-2006
After the Civil War was over, some time in the late 1860's. Old man
Jacob McCotter needed farm hands to work his farms, so he hired a
large boat to bring some of our ancestors from Hyde Co. this boat
landed in Lowland. Rodger and his family migrated to Pamlico Co. in
the early 1880's. They also came by boat and landed in Lowland.
The roads were not improved as they are today. They would walk miles
and miles on dirt, sand and muddy roads. Their pilgrimage sometimes
took weeks it required three days for them to travel the distance that
we now commonly make in three hours. When the members of our family
decided to move to Pamlico Co. they would meet at some stated time
and place and travel together. Some had mules and carts, some had
none. All could not ride, they would put all their belonging in their
carts, along with food for themselves and their animals, only the
driver would ride. Sometimes when a person had become unable to walk
without rest, he or she was persuaded to get up and ride. The driver
would dismount and walk. Often when the Carvan had hiked about thirty
miles, or a days journey, and they were not near some village, town
or other public place, they would camp out on the roadside that night,
eat and sleep until the next morning. Everyone did not sleep at
the same time, some kept watch while the others slept.
Like the self sufficient pioneers who settled this country, our families
built their homes, made their clothes, planted and harvested crops,
and proved for their every need. Resorting to the general store only
for things that couldn't be produced at home. In contrast with todays
prices, most food could be brought for pennies, like flour, lard, and
meat, costing three, five and seven cents a pound respectively. This
money was made by working cleaning white people homes or toiling
in the cotton fields. ;For forty or fifty cents a day, those meager
wages along with the money received from selling farm produce,
made up the family total income, just enough to pay bills.
Aunt Louisa said, That plenty of work and little play was the motto
by which they lived by. She would rise at the crack of dawn, do
her chores and then trot off to school, if it was in session, since
it lasted only two months of the summer and two months in the winter.
The schools were one room school houses,
crudely finisher and heated with wood burning stove.
They worked on the area farms, clearing farm land digging drainage
canals and in the lumber camps. They worked heard from sun up to
sunset and saved what they could so that they
could buy land and build their homes.
Rodger and Mahalia last child was Aunt Louisa, she was born in 1896
on the Abbott farm, Dr. Dellon Henry Abbott
was a former union army surgeon
who founded Vendmere in the 1870.He purchased 3000 acres of
farm and timber land. He was called a carpet bagger, by the Pamlico
Co. natives. He entered politics on a larger scope He became a member
of the NC General Assembly, serving as Senator for the
Second Senatorial District for two years, 1895-1897.
Dr. Abbott owned the steam powered saw mill across the
river at Vandmere and the men would string their
logs together and float them across the river from.
The lumber landing to the saw mill.
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