Federal Constitution. He was married three times, and as the family
chronicle quaintly puts it, "was always married on Sunday and on the
fourteenth day of the month."

Among the prominent families of Currituck during the colonial and
Revolutionary days, as well as in our own times, was the Jarvis family,
whose members have been men of note in the State since her history
began.

At the two conventions, called at New Bern by John Harvey, in 1774-'75,
Samuel Jarvis represented his county, and he also figured prominently in
the Halifax Convention that framed our State Constitution. In 1775 he
was appointed Colonel of the Minute Men from Currituck, in 1777 he was
the recruiting officer from his county, and in 1779 he received his
commission as Colonel of the militia, by the advice of the Governor's
Council, in place of Colonel Perkins, who had recently died. During this
year Jarvis wrote to Governor Ashe, asking that he would grant the
petition of the men living on the "Banks," who had asked to be excused
from enlisting. The dwellers on the coast were exposed to attacks from
the enemy, and should the husbands and fathers of that section of the
county be forced to the field, their homes would be defenceless. How
great the danger was had been realized a few days before Jarvis wrote
this letter, for a British ship had entered the inlet, burned two
vessels belonging to the patriots, and killed the cattle in the nearby
marshes. The Governor granted the petition, and seeing the peril to
which the dwellers on the "Banks" were exposed, he ordered ammunition
and food to be sent to Jarvis for their use and protection.

The names of Thomas Jarvis, Judge of the Admiralty Court of Currituck,
and later Lieutenant Colonel in Samuel Jarvis' regiment, and of John
Jarvis, First Lieutenant in an independent company stationed between
Currituck and Roanoke inlets for the safeguard of the coast section, are
also familiar to students of the Revolutionary history of our State;
while in recent times ex-Governor Thomas Jarvis, in his services to the
South during the War between the States, his educational campaign while
Governor of North Carolina, his distinguished career as Minister to
Brazil and as one of the most prominent members of the State Bar, has
added further distinction to the honored name he bears.

Throughout the Revolution, from the Battle of Great Bridge, where her
men fought gallantly in repelling Lord Dunmore's invasion, through t