No less renown’d than war.”
Yet many, so many, there were of the brave defenders of America who did not return, and their mortal remains still rest on and about the old battlefields made memorable by their valor. To this class belonged the good and gallant officer of whom I shall speak today.
Colonel Edward Buncombe, of Buncombe Hall, in the Colony of North Carolina, was born in the year 1742, on the Island of St. Christopher, sometimes called St. Kitt’s, which is one of the Leeward group in the West Indies. The register of St. Ann’s Parish, in the above island, shows that: “Edward, son of Thomas and Esther Buncombe,” was baptized on the 23d of September in the above year.
Thomas Buncombe, the father of Edward, was a gentleman of English birth and ancestry, and died in the Fall of 1747. He had four children: John, Edward (of whom this sketch treats), Sarah, who married first a Mr. Beach and then a Mr. Humbergen, and Ann, who married a Mr. Caines.
Joseph Buncombe, a brother of Thomas, and hence an uncle of Edward, lived for a time in North Carolina and married Ann, a daughter of George Durant; but he is said to have died while absent from the colony on a visit to relatives. When in North Carolina, his home was in what is now the county of Washington (then a part of Tyrrell), where he owned a valuable estate. He probably died childless, for his property was bequeathed by him to his nephew. The latter, upon viewing the lands in Tyrrell, was so well pleased with them that he disposed of his West Indian possessions and settled permanently in North Carolina about the year 1768. Shortly after this, the mansion known as Buncombe Hall was erected on the site of his uncle’s former residence.
Buncombe Hall lay about twelve miles south of Edenton, across Albemarle Sound. At present a small hamlet called Chesson, in Washington County, marks the place where it stood. It was famed throughout the colony as a seat of boundless hospitality. Over an arched gateway, through which the grounds were entered, was inscribed the couplet—
“Welcome all,
To Buncombe Hall.”
Not only North Carolinians, but travellers in general, frequently sought shelter there (for it was on a road largely used), and a warm reception awaited each visitor. In 1773, when Josiah Quincey, of Massachusetts, was returning from a southern tour, he made this entry in his Diary,[A] while at New Bern, on the 2d of April: “Judge Howard waited upon me in the evening with recommendatory letters to Colonel Palmer of Bath, and Colonel Buncombe of Tyrrell County.” Referring to April 5, he says: “Breakfasted with Colonel Buncombe who waited upon me to Edenton Sound, and gave me letters to his friends there. Spent this and the next day in crossing Albemarle Sound and in dining and conversing in company with the most celebrated lawyers of Edenton.”
Not long after his arrival in North Carolina, Colonel Buncombe was made a magistrate, and served as one of the Justices of the Inferior Court of Tyrrell County. He seems to have been very punctual in the discharge of his official duties; for, in a letter written on November 29, 1771, by Thomas Jones to Sir Nathaniel Dukinfield, a member of the Governor’s Council, the former says that at a recent court Colonel Buncombe and John McKildoe were the only members present.[B] Mr. Jones adds: “The people attended with becoming decency and patience but at length grew clamorous, damn’d the absent Justices (I think with propriety), and then prevailed upon McKildoe to adjourn court.”