Wandering around upstairs in the Barker House among the displays on Edenton’s famous writer Inglis Fletcher, I began to inexplicably feel the presence of this formidable woman. From the photographs of her you might surmise that this was a prim and proper Victorian lady, long gone. And you’d be half right. She was refined and cultured, but also feisty with a surprising, inexorable sense of humor. Why should you know and care about Inglis Fletcher? There are myriad reasons, but foremost is that she had a tremendous role in making Edenton what it is today, and she continues to influence and sojourn among us.
Mrs. Fletcher was not an Edentonian by birth. According to her memoir, Pay, Pack and Follow(Henry Holt and Company, 1959), she was born in Illinois and raised in the Midwest (which somehow made her a “Yankee”). She and her husband John (Jack) a mining engineer, moved from San Francisco to Edenton in 1944 to be close to the source of the subject matter of her writing. She also had kin and connections here and in Tyrell County. She recalled how San Francisco society people thought they’d gone absolutely mad for moving to Edenton! But she loved it immediately and fiercely.
