EDENTON  , a

town and the county-seat of Chowan county, North Carolina, U.S.A., on Edenton Bay, an estuary of Albemarle sound, near the mouth of Chowan, river, in the N.E. part of the state . Pop . (1890) 2205; (1900) 3046 (2090 negroes); (1910) 2789 . It is served by the Norfolk & Southern railway, and by the Albemarle Steam Navigation Co . In 19o7 the former projected a great bridge across Albemarle sound near the city., Edenton is an old and interesting town, has a number of fine old homesteads, and has broad and well-shaded streets . Lumbering and the shad and herring fisheries are the most important industrial interests, and the town is a shipping point for fish, truck and other farm products, cotton and peanuts . There is a Fish Cultural Station here, established by the Federal government` The court-house was built about 1750 . Edenton was settled about 1658, and was for some time known as the " Towne on Queen Anne's Creek " or the " Port of Roanoke "; in 1722 the present name was adopted in honour of Governor Charles Eden (1673-1722), whose grave is in St Paul's churchyard here . Throughout the 18th century Edenton was a place of considerable social and political importance; the legislative assembly of North Carolina met here occasionally,' and 'here lived the royal governors and various well-known citizens of the province, among them: Joseph Hewes (1730.-1779), a signer of the Declaration of Independence; James Iredell, Sr . (1750-1799), a Federalist leader and after 1790 a justice of the United States Supreme Court, and his son' James Iredell, Jr . (1788-1853), a prominent lawyer, for many years a member of the state legislature, governor of North Carolina in 1827-1828, and a member of the United States Senate in 1828 1831 . Near Edenton lived Samuel Johnston (1733-1816), a prominent leader of the American Whigs preceding and during the War of American Independence, a member of the Continental Congress in 1780—1782, governor of North Carolina in 1787-1789, and a Federalist member of the United States Senate in 1790-1793 .

In 1907 the Hewes, Iredell and Johnston homesteads were still

standing . In a house facing the court-house green the famous " Edenton Tea Party of fifty-one ladies met on the 24th of October 1774 and signed resolutions that they would not conform " to that Pernicious Custom of Drinking Tea " and would not "promote the wear of any manufacture from England" until the tax on tea should be repealed . Near Edenton _ the' Confederate ram " Albemarle," on emerging from the Roanoke river, was met by the Union " double-enders," " Sassacus," " Mattabesett," and " Miami," on the 5th of May 1864; the battle, which resulted in favour of the Confederates, was a duel between the Cbnfederate ironclad and the Union wooden side-wheeler, the " Sassacus," which rammed the " Albemarle " and had her bows, fitted with a three-ton bronze beak, twisted off and carried away .