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Alison Terry Hendrix just released “The Funny Tree,” a picture book about Riverton, the neighborhood in Edenton where she lived. “The Funny Tree” takes Place in Edenton and Encourages Kindness and Gratitude.

Children’s book author and illustrator Alison Hendrix is launching her newest picture book, The Funny Tree. This beautifully illustrated story helps show children and parents how easy it can be to show kindness to others. It’s important to learn, at an early age, that showing up in someone’s life matters.

The Funny Tree tells a story about a young boy named Kenny who rides his bike around the neighborhood of Riverton. He passes an uncleared lot where a tree grows that looks “funny,” because it grows differently than the other trees. He often visits this tree, and discovers that it can talk, and it needs a friend. This neighborhood is an actual neighborhood located just outside the Edenton, NC city limits. And there really was a “funny tree.”

Greetings, readers, from the western bank of the Chowan River in Bertie County! I’m pleased to be asked to contribute to the Edenton Gazette. I anticipate, expect, and hope that this is the first of a series of columns that will be largely about the deep history of human occupation along the banks of our beautiful Chowan River, interspersed with current news and observations from my vantage point along the mighty Chowan’s western shore.

As a resident of the Black Rock neighborhood just across the Edenhouse (aka “Highway 17”) Bridge in Bertie County, I realize that I am writing mostly to Chowan County readers from across the river. That is like admitting, especially to the Edenton residents among you, that I live “across the tracks,” but I hope you will not hold that against me, too much.

Also, I hope you’ll not hold against me that I’m a relatively new resident of the area, having moved here in February 2019 after my semi-retirement from an environmental engineering career based mostly in Charlotte, where I could conveniently fly to project sites around the country and overseas. I say “semi-retirement” because I still have an email address from my employer of some 40 years, and they occasionally ask me to do a little “work” on behalf of my company and profession. Even my Linked-In profile says that I am “ready to work, a little.”

After four years in semi-retirement, those “work” requests from my soon-to-be former employer are thankfully becoming fewer and farther between. This allows me to devote my time to more important tasks such as fishing, gardening, doing whatever my wife tells me, and hopefully, writing more about my lifelong interest in the history of eastern North Carolina, a subject on which I have some credibility. The only downside of retiring completely from my profession is that I may soon have to give up my company’s laptop computer and tech support, but is that not a small price to pay for freedom?

Back to my credibility concerning local history, I was born and raised on a Pitt County farm along the Tar River, about an hour’s drive from my current abode in Bertie County. That farm, part of which my brother and I still jointly own, was acquired by our great-great-great-great grandfather, John Forbes, around 1740 as part of a land grant from the Lord’s Proprietors of the Colony of North Carolina.

Research into the scant information I have found so far on my paternal ancestor, John Forbes, shows that he did government work for the Colony of North Carolina. He was officially the Colony’s Deputy Surveyor-General, right up until his untimely death in 1750. He also performed official duties as Clerk of Bath County for several years. His name shows up at the bottom of many colonial deeds in his capacity as land surveyor, and it appears on quite a few other documents in his capacity as County Clerk. His compensation for fulfilling those duties came not
in the form of money, but instead, in the form of land.

As I mentioned, my brother and I still own a small sliver of the land that was granted to our ancestor, John Forbes. That land is mostly in the Tar River floodplain, so putting any houses there would not be prudent or even permissible. But the deer, wild turkey, and wood ducks love the place, among other less desirable wildlife, such as snakes, deer flies, ticks, and swarms of mosquitoes in the warmer months of April through October.

I still like to walk around our land from November through March, but I must remember to wear orange in deference to the Sam Branch Hunt Club, which leases our land every hunting season, much to the chagrin of our deer-loving neighbors at the Ironwood Country Club. Too bad for them; the deer and their hunters were roaming our land way before those suburban neighbors moved in next door.

Based on a bit of circumstantial evidence, I believe that my colonial ancestor, John Forbes, may have grown up in North Carolina’s Albemarle County, which in the early 1700’s covered the so-called “finger counties” that have since been named Currituck, Camden, Pasquotank, Perquimans, and Chowan.

A man named John Forbes shows up as a witness to a will in Albemarle County in 1683, and I believe he may have been the father or grandfather of my confirmed ancestor, also named John Forbes, a civil servant to the Colony of North Carolina. That is as far into the past as I have managed to trace my ancestry so far, but I am still looking, and I plan to keep you posted on any significant findings along the way.

It is time to wrap up this opening chapter before I lose your attention, but not before I divulge my plans in general for what I hope to be a long series of columns. I plan to take us back to the times when the lands around the Chowan River were inhabited by Native Americans, followed by early European explorers, followed by colonial land grabbers and their laborers (many of whom, regretfully, were enslaved), followed in turn by all their descendants and other wanderers who worked, played, lived, and died in these parts.

They left some amazing stories, many of which have been largely forgotten along the way. My plan is to resurrect and retell some of those forgotten stories for you, dear reader. Please wish me luck and providence.

On a recent Connect Edenton question on Facebook, we captured feedback and information concerning who would like to contribute and what topics you want to see covered. We will reach out to those who have provided input on how to get started.

We at the Edenton Gazette would like to extend a warm thank you to everyone who has provided their input and suggestions for article topics in the past. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us prioritize informative and engaging content for our readers.

We would like to take this opportunity to ask for further input from our readers. We are always looking for interesting new topics and believe our readers are the best source of inspiration. So if there’s an issue, event, or trend in your community that you want to see covered on our pages, please let us know.

On Saturday, 26 February 2022, citizens gathered at the confederate statue located at the end of South Broad Street to protest what the group highlighted as a lack of progress and clarity over the timeline for the statues removal.

Rod Phillips of Edenton who organized the protest, highlighted that while the town council has made a decision to remove the statue, the decision lacked timing of the move and what the plan would be for the space once the statue was removed. He indicated that the protest would happen every Saturday until the statue is removed.

Cloth & Twine has relocated its retail and studio location to 405 South Broad Street and is hosting an end-of-the-week opening TODAY with a grand opening scheduled for tomorrow.

Annette Ringeisen, a Fiber Artist, and Handwork teacher was a finalist to the Made in North Carolina competition in 2020 for her Edenton Inspired Tea Towels and was also featured on WRAL’s Smart Kids Series in 2016 demonstrating how to create colorful balls wrapped in wool out of her Chapel Hill, North Carolina home.

Annette is originally from Bad Nauheim Germany, where she developed a passion for fiber arts. Her father and mother are both accomplished artists who supported their local art community for many years.

Annette is making a huge impact in Edenton and surrounding areas with her arts and training programs, soon her new location will be known throughout the Albemarle area for her programs, skills, and artwork.

Stop by and see her creations and products, or just stop by to say hi and enjoy free coffee and treats. Do not forget to enter the raffle to have a chance to win one of three products, a Felting Kit, an Edenton Inspired Tea Towel Set, or a Gift Card! While you are on South Broad Street today and tomorrow visiting Cloth & Twine stop by some of her neighbors such as the Edenton Bay Trading Company or the new Surf Wind and Fire!