Nathaniel Batts: North Carolina's First Deed

On September twenty-fourth, sixteen sixty, King Kiscutanewh of the local Algonquian people sold Nathaniel Batts a tract of land running southwest from the mouth of the Pasquotank River to the head of New Begin Creek. That transaction is among the earliest recorded deeds for land in what is now North Carolina. Batts was a fur trader who had arrived in the region around sixteen fifty-four, sent by Virginia planter Francis Yeardley to establish a fur trading post.

A carpenter built him a house in sixteen fifty-five, making it one of the earliest European structures within the present boundaries of the state. Batts operated his post, cultivated ties with local tribes, and eventually purchased the land he had been occupying. The deed survives in the records of Lower Norfolk County, Virginia, a fragile paper thread connecting this stretch of the Pasquotank to the very first chapter of North Carolina's written history.