John Pory's Expedition: The English Find the Chowan

In sixteen twenty-two, John Pory led a small expedition south from Jamestown into what is now northeastern North Carolina, becoming one of the earliest English explorers to travel the Chowan River. Pory was no ordinary frontier scout. He had served as secretary of the Virginia colony and as speaker of the first representative assembly in American history.

On the Chowan, he spent two weeks trading with local Native Americans, who gave him a piece of copper they said had been mined nearby. He sent back glowing reports of pine forests ripe for naval stores and fertile ground for farming. His accounts helped draw later settlers south into the Albemarle region, setting in motion the chain of events that produced colonial North Carolina.