To The Honorable the Senate and Commons of North Carolina in
General Assembly the Petition of the Inhabitants of Tyrrell County Sheweth
--------------
That the County of Tyrrell aforesaid from the line which
divides the same from Martin County to Stumpy Point is at least one hundred
& twenty miles in length & intersected by several large Rivers Creeks
& Deep Swamps which renders the attendance of your petitioners on Jurys
& at General Musters & Elections intolerably burthensome & expensive
as well as extreemly precarious from the uncertainty of being able to pass the
above mentioned Rivers & Creeks by which your Petitioners are not only
greatly oppressed & injured but the Business & publick Affairs of the
County frequently impeded & delayed to the manifest prejudice of the State
in General ------
Your Petitioners further shew that the Court House of the
said County is situate about Seventy miles or more from the Eastern extremety
of the said County & at least forty miles from the Western Boundary ------
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that in consideration
of the premises you will be pleased by Act of the General Assembly to cause the
said County of Tyrrell to be divided into two distinct & separate Countys
by a line run across the said County at Cypress Swamp about five miles above
the present Courthouse of the said County, or as such other Manner as you in
your wisdom shall think neet & convenient -----
Your Petitioners further pray that in case the said County
be divided that you will be graciously pleased to order the Court House &
Publick Buildings to be erected on the Eastern Part, that is to say that part
of the County from Cypress Swamp to Stumpy Point, at the place calld
& known by the name of the Fort Landing & that the Commissioners for
the same may be John William Liverman, Mathew Driver Greeves, Joseph Pledger
& Thomas Hopkins ------
And that the Western Part of said County so divided
beginning at Cypress Swamp & extending to the Western Boundary be called
& known by the name of Buncombe County & your Petitioners as in Duty
bound will pray
[endorsement]
Petition Tyrrell County
Oct 1779
[The following names appear on this petition. The original five signature pages were
divided into three columns per page. The transcriber began transcribing each signature
page at the top left and worked down the column, then started at the top of the middle
column, and finally moved to the top of the right column. The process was repeated for
each page. In this sense the transcriber hoped to keep groups of people together on the
transcribed document. The transcribed document is a single column. This was the only way to
allow the entered names to be sorted and thus arranged alphabetically for ease of
use. Some areas of the signature pages were very faint resulting in "estimated"
transcriptions. Those names are denoted by a (?) next to the entry.
The second table is an alphabetical listing of the petitioner's names.]