N E W S   F R O M   T H E   D E P A R T M E N T

Famed Colonial Explorer, Adventurer And Naturalist John Lawson
Focus Of Upcoming Exhibit And Lecture At Historic Bath

Contact:
For more information contact Patricia Samford at (252) 923-3971

BATH, N.C. (Feb. 21, 2005) – A comprehensive exhibit on the travels through North Carolina of 18^{th -}century English explorer, naturalist and writer John Lawson will open at Historic Bath State Historic Site Tuesday, March 1 and run through May 25.  Also, Perry Mathewes of Norfolk Botanical Garden will lecture Friday, March 19 on Lawson, his exploration of North Carolina and his importance to Bath and the state at the site.  Presented in conjunction with the town of Bath’s gala 300^th birthday celebration, which kicks off March 8, these programs will highlight the Carolina colony’s early history.

Using contemporary illustrations, artifacts, and quotes from his book, A New Voyage to Carolina, the exhibit “John Lawson’s Voyage into Carolina” traces the explorer’s 1701 route through the Carolinas, then a vast and uncharted wilderness.

The educated son of an English gentleman, John Lawson came to the Carolina colony in 1700 because he had heard there was no better place for traveling and exploring.  That August, he landed in Charleston and soon met with the Lords Proprietors, wealthy Englishmen granted vast lands—including the present day Carolinas—by the British Crown.  By December the young adventurer faced a daunting task.  The Lords Proprietors had asked him to survey the province’s little known interior. 

Guided by Native Americans, Lawson spent almost two months the following winter exploring some 550 miles into the forbidding Carolina backcountry.  Throughout his journey, Lawson kept a detailed daily journal about the native people, local languages, animals, birds, insects, fish, and plants.  Now considered one of the Bath's founding fathers, Lawson conducted an extensive survey of the region’s native plants and animals.  He also collected many plant specimens, which today are in the British Museum’s collections. 

Published in 1709, A New Voyage to Carolina is one of the most valuable early volumes on North Carolina and one of the best travel accounts of the early 18^th century American colonial period.  This monumental "history" is also one of the few accounts documenting Native Americans in the Carolinas and natural history before the arrival of the English.  A massive work, it featured an introduction, Lawson's journal entries, a general description of North Carolina, notes on the present state of the colony, the natural history of Carolina, and detailed observations on North Carolina's Native American population. 

Ambitious as well as adventurous, Lawson reportedly made his famous trek and wrote the journal because he hoped these accomplishments would gain him admittance to the prestigious Royal Society of London, which included among its members mathematician and scientist Sir Isaac Newton and architect Christopher Wren.  Though he was not made a member of the society, after returning to the Carolina colony from England in 1710, the Lords Proprietors did appoint Lawson surveyor general of Carolina and asked him to lay out the town of New Bern.

Lawson died doing what he loved best—exploring. On an expedition up the Neuse River in 1711, he was captured by Tuscarora Indians and killed, becoming the first casualty of the Tuscarora War, which pitted the Tuscarora against the expanding English.

Perry Mathewes’ March 19 lecture, which is cosponsored by the Historic Bath Book Club, will focus on Lawson as “a man who came to the new world on a whim, simply looking for adventure. ”  He will examine John Lawson’s efforts to describe and collect the wide variety of eastern North Carolina’s native plants and animals as well as the role the English explorer played and his impact on the development of North Carolina. 

A Cullowhee native and a Davidson College graduate, Mathewes has worked at historic sites and gardens in both Virginia and North Carolina.  In 1996, he became the first curator of gardens at Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens in New Bern where he researched the garden’s history as well as developed the site’s collection of historic and native plants.  He also studied early botanical exploration of North Carolina, especially John Lawson’s activities.  Currently, Mathewes is Norfolk Botanical Garden’s education program manager.

Other programs of the Bath tricentennial featuring John Lawson will include the placement near the site of his former home in Bath of a commemorative highway historical marker (funded by the Society of Colonial Wars of the State of North Carolina) and a walking tour of the town focusing on his life.

A final postscript to the Lawson story is that almost 300 years after his remarkable trek through the Carolina colony, the adventurer may finally achieve his ambition of becoming a Royal Society fellow.  Historic Bath recently contacted the society and discovered that Lawson had never been named a fellow nor had he even been nominated.  Within the next few months, Historic Bath Commission member Gene Roberts, a former New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer editor, will make a case to the society on the basis of Lawson’s contributions to the natural history of North Carolina for why Lawson should made a member posthumously.  

Bath is North Carolina's first town, founded in 1705.  The location was ideal for a port, with the river providing a route inland and the Ocracoke Inlet leading to the Atlantic.  As the colony’s first port of entry, Bath grew quickly.  In the mid-1700s, the town was a seat of colonial government.  Legend says that in the early 1700s, the infamous pirate Edward Teach, also known as "Blackbeard,” lived near Bath.  Some even say Teach married a local girl.  Blackbeard eventually returned to pirating and was killed in a battle with British naval officers in 1718. 

        Today, Historic Bath retains its early American charm.  A guided tour of the town begins at the visitors’ center.  The 1751 Palmer-Marsh House is furnished in the style of a wealthy colonial official in the late 18^th century and is on the National Register of Historic Places.  Exhibits covering three centuries of the town's history fill the Van Der Veer House.  Learn about the Federal period at the 1830 Bonner House and stroll its grounds. 

        The John Lawson programs are part of the town’ of Bath’s year-long celebration of its incorporation as North Carolina’s oldest town.  Other activities and presentations will include a rare public viewing at Historic Bath of the Carolina Charter (the document that established the Carolina colony in 1663), a visit to the town by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, military reenactments, the revival of an outdoor drama on the pirate Blackbeard called “Knight of the Black Flag” and much, much more.  For more information on the Bath tricentennial, check out the website http://www.historicbathnc.com or call either 800-999-3857 or 252-923-3971.

        Historic Bath is part of the Division of State Historic Sites, which is part of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources. It is located 17 miles east of Washington on NC Hwy 92.  For more information on the facility, call 252-923-3971, email Bath@ncmail.net or check out our website at http://www.bath.nchistoricsites.org.

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