Along the banks of the Chowan River and Salmon Creek, the foundations of the colony and state of North Carolina took shape. From these roots in the 1600s emerged the plantation life of the colonial gentry in the 1700s, enabled by the displacement of Indians and by slave labor. Early settlers, largely from the British Isles, brought their folkways, building techniques, agricultural methods, and adventurous spirit. Explorers coming south from Virginia included John Pory, who visited the Chowan River area in 1622 and reported friendly natives and good prospects for settlement. Among the first permanent European settlers was Nathaniel Batts, a trader in animal pelts, for whom a carpenter built a house near the mouth of Salmon Creek in 1655. By 1663, when Charles II of England granted a charter to the Lords Proprietors, a small but growing community was established along the river, and in 1676 the area became one of three official ports of entry. Although the proprietors legally headed the government, authority rested with the governor and council, and six colonial governors lived nearby during the proprietary and royal periods. Samuel Stephens, who settled on Salmon Creek, faced dissension and despair among colonists during his term from 1667 to 1670. Seth Sothel acquired four thousand acres there in 1684 after becoming governor in 1682, but charges of oppression, tyranny, extortion, and bribery led to his conviction and banishment in 1689. Edward Hyde, resident on Salmon Creek from 1710, served in 1711 and 1712, saw the outbreak of the Tuscarora War, and became the first governor of the separate colony of North Carolina when Carolina was divided in 1712. Thomas Pollock, once jailed by Sothel, served as acting governor from 1712 to 1714 and again in 1722; at his plantation house, Balgra, he and Hyde resisted a small naval attack in 1711 during Cary’s Rebellion. Charles Eden, governor from 1714 to 1722, bought property nearby in 1719 and built Eden House, which became a center of social life for the Albemarle aristocracy; after his death in 1722, the Town on Queen Anne’s Creek was renamed Edenton and soon replaced this area as the social and political center. Gabriel Johnston, royal governor from 1734 to 1752, married Eden’s stepdaughter Penelope Golland around 1740 and lived at Eden House during a period of major growth as settlement spread to the Appalachian foothills. Over time, the colonial estates along the Chowan River and Salmon Creek disappeared through shoreline erosion, fire, or decay. Land south of Salmon Creek, held through much of the 1700s by three generations of the Duckenfield family, passed to the Capeheart family in 1829 and became known as Avoca. Pollock’s grave at Balgra and the graves at Eden House were moved to Edenton around 1890. In 1996, before construction of the improved U.S. 17 bridge, archaeologists excavated nearby and uncovered remnants of two houses built in the late 1600s and later owned by the Eden family.