here he lived, namely: "A good plantation with all the houses
and furniture, slaves, and their increase, and stock of cows, sheep and
horses and hogs, with their increase forever." This was later declared
void by the courts on account of Sanderson's incapacity.

So acceptable did Mr. Adams prove to the parish, that in 1710 the vestry
wrote a letter of thanks to Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, thanking
him for sending this godly clergyman of the Church of England to the
parish. In 1712, on the death of Mr. Adams, the Rev. Mr. Rainsford was
sent to take his place. He wrote back to England that on reaching
Currituck he found a small chapel at Indian Town, and there in June of
that year he "preached to vast crowds" that came to hear him.

In 1715 a legally appointed vestry was organized for the parish of
Currituck, among the most prominent of whose members were Richard
Saunderson, Colonel William Reed, Foster Jarvis, William Swann, and
William Williams. The services of the Church of England were conducted
in the county during those early days with as much regularity as the
scattered congregations and the lack of facilities for traveling in that
water-bound region permitted. In 1774 the General Assembly passed an act
to establish St. Martin's chapel at Belleville, and Isaac Gregory, Peter
Dauge and a Mr. Ferebee were appointed to take this matter in charge. In
educational matters Currituck was wonderfully alert in colonial days
for a county so inaccessible from the rest of the State. Probably the
most noted of her schools was the Indian Town Academy built in 1761 by
William Ferebee, one of the most prominent men in North Carolina, on his
plantation, called by the Indians "Culong," and by the whites, "Indian
Town." Many of the students at this academy were in later days to be
counted among the State's most famous and useful men. William Ferebee's
family alone furnished six members of the Legislature, three
Revolutionary officers, and one Colonel in the Confederacy in the War of
Secession. For a hundred years this famous old school kept up its career
of usefulness, but in the so-called "negro raid" of 1863 it met the fate
that befell so many of the South's cherished institutions during the
dark days of 1861-1865, and was reduced to ashes by the incendiary's
torch.

Another well known school in Indian Town, the most prominent settlement
in Currituck in colonial days, was the Currituck Seminary of Learning,
which was built i