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| 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.
