BY MILES LAYTON

Inspired by a recent trip to the Chowan County Register of Deeds Office, I stopped by the Tyrrell County Register of Deeds the other day during my “circuit ride” throughout the region to talk to folks and pick up news tips.  

It’s always good to keep an eye on things at the Deeds’ office – newspapers used to do that. Nowadays… well… the local newspaper is different, diminished in scope if it exists at all. Remember the Scuppernong Reminder – now gone because corporate America doesn’t value Tyrrell County’s history like I do.   

Our goal with the Albemarle Observer is to preserve our region’s history.  

Register of Deeds Gene Boger was very hospitable as was Eric Roughton, Assistant Register of Deeds.  

They shared an ongoing project with the Albemarle Observer – restoring the county’s books filled with marriages, deaths, property transactions and much more. Remember, Tyrrell County was founded in 1729, one of North Carolina’s oldest counties, so there is more than a bit of history in these bound volumes that needs to be preserved.  Thanks to County Manager David Clegg, Register’s Office got a $50,000 state grant to restore the books, many of them filled with handwritten entries. 

“We were able to get a whole bunch of books done. And the county has been really generous with giving us much money to get our books preserved,” Boger said. 

Cursive — remember when they taught that in schools? Well, many of these volumes are written by a quill in longhand — cursive — with ink that may be at least a hundred years old, maybe old. 

Boger said of that ink, “Actually that stuff will disappear off of the pages because of what it’s written with, you know, the actual, the Quill and the writing. We’ve got some, you can see where they’re fading off and if something isn’t done with it, it’s going to fade away and be gone forever.”  

Boger added, “We still probably have another hundred plus years to go, but we pull out the ones that are in the worst condition and try to get those done first.”
    
Boger showed me passages written with beautiful, well, longhand cursive – deeds that had stood the test of time and had a story to tell.  

“These are deeds, strictly deeds. Deeds, deeds of trust,” she said. “Sometimes you will find in there where somebody has a deed and they’ve transferred the property, but along with it, the father has transferred the maids, the slaves, the chamber, pot, the bed, anything that went along with it.” 

Another book shows census records and how everyone had to pay for a license to conduct business – licenses that are listed in these books. 

Boger showed me a bound book from 1881.  

“We have our census, some census records and some licenses to trade in here, which are very interesting. You used to have to come to the sheriff to buy your license – even the lawyer, the undertaker, when the circus was coming to town, they had to come and buy their license.”

Boger continued, “So here it’s in the front of the book. Look at this — there’s gypsies, let’s see, horse dealers,  cigarette traders, physicians. Kind of funny, you know, my granddaddy’s actually in here. Lee Parish automobile, livery.” 

Births and deaths weren’t recorded until 1913, when a state law was passed requiring counties to list this information in their record keeping.  

Pointing to these “vitals” Boger said, “And so every one of these, and births and deaths weren’t reported until 1913. Basically they came in with proof or whatever to say, ‘This is when I was born, brought the Bible in or whatever, two witnesses to say, ‘Hey, yeah, I know that this child was born or whatever, and they filled out some paperwork, baptismal record, marriage record, Bible record registration, family Bible, school record, old family Bible, you know then grandma that said, ‘Yeah, I was there when he was born.’”  

Boger said restoring the books started before her when Melanie Armstrong served as Register of Deeds. Boger said soon after she was elected to that office in 2014, she made restoring the books her mission, too, because she’s passionate about Tyrrell County’s history.  

“Our records start from 1736 – this is our past – we need to preserve it not only for us in the present, but for future generations.”  

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