Stantons - Early Beaufort NC Settlers

This image was included in the 1922 William Henry Stanton book "Our Ancestors the Stantons." While visiting Beaufort, while researching the book, Stanton was obviously told this was the "oldest" house. Known then as "Jennie Thomas" home, in the first  block of Orange Street, the story-and-a-jump house faced the water, and was just south of the 1827 Hatsell House, as seen in the photograph. 

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Early Stanton Settlers

Born in Newport, Rhode Island 22 May 1688, Henry Stanton (1688-1751) was the son of John Stanton (1645-1713) and Mary Clarke (1641-1711).

When Henry and Mary Stanton made their way to the Beaufort area of Carteret County, they brought with them children Alice, Hannah, Henry and Joseph. In addition to the acreage bought from Porter in 1721, Henry added to his area landholdings with purchases from George Cogdell and Carey Godby in 1732 as well as from King George II in 1736, 1740 and 1741. 


Henry Stanton had the first shipyard in the new Quaker Colony on Core Creek/Newport River just north of Beaufort. Henry’s wife Mary died after 1742; he married Lydia Albertson in 1745. Their children were Benjamin, Sarah, Avis and John—all born in Beaufort.

The first Quaker meeting in Carteret County was organized on August 1, 1733, at the home of shipbuilder William Borden (who had come from R.I. about 1732 and had a shipyard off Harlowe Creek/Newport River). Subsequent meetings were held at the home of Henry Stanton until a meeting house could be erected.

Henry Stanton died about 1751. His son Benjamin, born 1746, added to the Stanton properties. According to Maurice Davis’ History of the Hammock House, Benjamin Stanton owned and used the "White House" as a “townhouse” from 1777 until 1785. Stanton and other Quakers, “made effective use of the hammock/hummock property while they owned it, erecting a windmill to grind grain and using the frontage on Carrot Island Channel/Taylor’s Creek to dock their ships. Part of this was during the period when Beaufort was an important port of supply for the Continental Army. The Quakers were pacifists, but they were not averse to helping in other ways to support a cause in which they had an important stake.”


In March 1790, Benjamin Stanton purchased Carrot Island from Nehemiah Harris. Two years later, Benjamin purchased “Banks land” from Joseph W. Davis.

After son Benjamin’s death in 1798, his wife Abigail, and other Quakers in the area, made their way, by horse and covered wagon, to the Ohio wilderness; Abigail took a brood of still minor children and left behind the few who had married.  

See my research on the Stanton family...

NOTES:

  • About 1733, Richard Jr. (son of the second proprietor of Beaufort) first married one of the daughters of Henry Stanton; she died before 1739. 
  • Miss Annie Morton; daughter of D.W. Morton and Minnie Stanton.  
  • James Davis; eldest son of Joseph W. Davis Jr. and Susanna Stanton.