Hubbell Pioneers - North Carolina
A Yankee Takes a Tarheel Bride
Walter Hubbell
Everyone associates Sir Walter Raleigh with North Carolina. Perhaps that is because he was the second person to be given a grant to the territory by Queen Elizabeth I. The date was March 24, 1584. Sir Walter was lucky because his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had received the first grant, sailed west, was repulsed by the Spanish and never returned to England. The famous “Lost Colony” at Roanoke Island was Raleigh’s last attempt to settle in America.
About 1648 several Virginians purchased land along the Chowan River, which flows in Albemarle Sound, from the natives. However, the first suggestion of a North Carolina settlement is found in a grant made in 1653 to the Rev. Roger Green of Virginia. The oldest grant in existence is dated 1661.
Nearly a half century later we find a mention of a member of our family. Hathaway’s Historical & Genealogical Register states that John Hubble married Elizabeth Hawkins “before 1719.” Nothing is known about him or his ancestry.
Settlement went slowly because the colony was controlled by Lords Proprietors in England who did little to promote settlement and whose governors were ineffective. When the crown took control in 1729 the population of about 35,000 was confined to the coastal plain. Under Royal control the population had increased to nearly 300,000 by the time of the Revolution.
North Carolina was the first colony to declare for independence in 1776. North Carolina did not ratify the Constitution until November 1789.
Sometime during this period Walter Hubbell appeared in North Carolina. By 1790 he had been there long enough to have persuaded a local girl, Mary Ventures (Ventris), to marry him. They were married in Bertie County, which is across the Chowan River from Chowan County.
Walter was a fifth generation descendant from Richard, our immigrant ancestor. He was born in Greenfield Hill, Connecticut, in 1767, a son of Gershom Hubbell.
The area around Windsor was surrounded by rivers which emptied into Albemarle Sound. Many northeastern merchants sailed their ships there for trading the agricultural output of the south. Walter was one of these merchants.
The 1915 History of the Hubbell Family mentions a chancery report listing the firm of Bedient and Hubbell, merchants. Of Walter, it also said “he was held in great esteem by his friends and relatives.” An 1800 will names Walter and William Hubbell, Walter's younger brother born nine years after Walter. Another will appoints William an executor and calls him “a merchant from New York.”
Walter and Mary had a daughter, Adelia, in 1795. In 1796 he purchased land in Windsor which included a house and various outbuildings. Adelia died in 1797, the same year that Walter married Ann, daughter of Chief Justice Richard Law of New London, Connecticut. We do not know what had happened to Mary, his first wife.
Walter continued to have a residence in Windsor because records show that in 1798 he purchased a Negro girl named Dice (pronounced "dicey"). Two children were born to Ann and Walter: Horatio William Law Hubbell in 1799 and Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell in 1801. Both were born in New York City and both became prominent Philadelphia lawyers.
In 1803 Walter wrote his older brother Abijah saying that New York City was “again visited with the Yellow Fever.” Less than a month later he died from the fever at age 36. William continued to operate their firm in North Carolina but in 1805 he, too, met an early death at age 29. The court awarded his goods to his creditors and to his surviving partner, John Bedient, who co-owned the firm William Hubbell and Company, formerly called Walter Hubbell and Company. The schooner “John” represented a major segment of the estate.
Hubbell Pioneers mentions other early Hubbells: Anson Hubbell married Sarah Reeves in 1794. Henry and John A. Hubbell also live in Chowan County. In 1802, Gilead A. Hubbell married Sara P. Boatright in Stokes County. They had five sons. The family moved to Missouri in 1813.