1661 left his Virginia home and came
into Albemarle; and being well pleased with the beauty and fertility of
fair Wikacome, was content to abide thenceforth in that favored spot.

On the banks of the streams flowing on either side of Wikacome, roamed
an Indian tribe, the Yeopims, whose great chief Kilcokonen gave to
George Durant the first deed for land ever recorded in our State.
Durant, his friend and comrade, Samuel Pricklove, and their families
and servants, proved to be the vanguard of a long procession of
settlers, who, following the footsteps of these first pioneers, made
their homes upon the shores of the Albemarle streams. Soon the dense
forests that stretched down to the river brinks fell beneath the axe of
these home-seekers, and small farms and great plantations fringed the
borders of the streams.

At the narrows of the Perquimans, where the waters widen into a broad,
majestic river, a sturdy pioneer, Henry Phillips (or Phelps) had built
his home. Thither in the spring of 1672, came a missionary, William
Edmundson, a friend and follower of George Fox, who some years before
had over in England founded the Society of Friends. Henry Phelps was a
member of this Society also, and the meeting between the two godly men
was a joyful one.

During the ten years that had passed since the Indian Chief had signed
his first grant of land to the white man, the settlers of Albemarle had
had no opportunity of assembling together for public worship. Phelps,
knowing how gladly the call would be answered, at the bidding of
Edmundson, summoned such of his friends and neighbors as he could reach,
to his home, to hear the Word preached by this zealous man of God.

Not since the days of little Virginia Dare had a body of Christian men
and women met together in Carolina to offer in public worship their
prayer and praises to the loving Father, who had led them safely over
storm-tossed waters, through tangled wilderness, into this Land of
Promise. Rough and uncultured as most of the congregation were, they
listened quietly and reverently to the good missionary, and received the
Word with gladness. There were present at the meeting "one Tems and his
wife," who earnestly entreated Edmundson to hold another service at
their home three miles away. So the next day he journeyed to the home of
Tems, and there another "blessed meeting" was held; and there was
founded a Society whose members were to be for many years the most
prominent re