*[Photo: Anne Boleyn, the 2nd wife of Henry VIII]*

Henry VIII referred to my 10th great-grandfather, Thomas Feriby, as “my Good Squire Ferriby”. When the sheriff of London produced a list of 48 names to serve on the Grand Jury to indict and convict Anne Bolelyn, Thomas was on the list of potential jurors. Anne Boleyn, the 2nd wife of Henry VIII, had entered marriage six months pregnant with Henry’s child with great reluctance. After three years of marriage, the birth of their daughter Elizabeth and two miscarriages, Anne was accused of trumped up adultery charges with five men, including incest with her brother and the king’s closest friend Sir Henry Norris. The proof of her sins – the court musician was tortured and confessed that he had had sexual relations with Anne. In reality Henry VIII had become besotted with Jane Seymour, Anne’s “lady-in-waiting,” and wanted to move on to another wife - one he hoped would produce a son.

In a depraved test of loyalty, the final jury selection included Anne’s father and uncle. Thomas Feriby was not selected to serve. The Grand Jury finding was unanimous. No one dared defy the king by voting against him. Anne was found guilty and was beheaded at 8AM on May 19, 1536. When the king got the news that the deed was done he went off to play tennis and twenty four hours later married Jane. During his evil reign of terror he went through six wives and executed an estimated 72,000 people.

Four months before Anne’s shocking death, Henry suffered a massive head trauma in a jousting accident. He was unseated by a lance blow and his horse fell on him. Some medical professionals today claim it changed his personality and drove him to tyranny and cruelty. He became extremely obese and later in life, had to be hoisted out of his bed using a pulley system. Henry died at the age of 55 in 1547 covered in boils with a severe case of gout.

The “good squire” Thomas Feriby outlived the king and when Thomas died in 1565, Elizabeth I (Anne Boleyn’s daughter) was on the throne. Our connection to Thomas is documented in my mother’s book. Thomas had a son named William (1550-1614) who in turn had a son named Joseph (1600-1660) who in turn had a son named John (1642-1715) who immigrated to America in about 1660. John Ferebee, who was referred to by the title “Gent” (a man of noble birth), settled in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia; married a widow, Elizabeth Joyce Ellis, and had four children George, Mary, James and Thomas, my 6th great-grandfather. John was a surveyor, a Deputy Clerk of the Court and a landowner who owned at least 3,862 acres of land during his lifetime. He did not leave a will but in 1704 he gifted land to his wife and four children. He died in 1715.

His son Thomas Ferebee (1682-1739) married Mary Ruth Fenford in 1713 and moved from Virginia to East Bridge North Carolina where they settled on an old plantation called the Poplars. It was here in 1722 that she gave birth to their son William (1722-1783), my 5th great grandfather. Thomas died in 1739 followed by his wife several years later and William took possession of the Poplars. In the same year he married seventeen year old Elizabeth Cooper (1728-1794). Between 1746 and 1757 Elizabeth gave birth to four daughters and two sons at the Poplars.

In 1761 William sold the Poplars and for the price of “42 pounds of pork and 10 Virginia currency and 10 proclamation money” he bought a 160 acre parcel of land that once was the domain of a Waepemeoc Chief named Culong. This Native American tribe was spelled “Yawpim” on a map by Edward Moseley in 1733. After the tribe moved on, the area became known as Indian Town.

Indian Town is located in close proximity to the Great Dismal Swamp. This swamp is stunningly beautiful, but also wildly dangerous. It is easy to get lost in its mazes of islands and waterways. Home to Native American tribes for over 13,000 years, from the 1600s through the civil war it became an ideal place for emancipated people and indigenous people to find refuge from enslavement and violence. Hundreds, possibly thousands of these so called “maroons” found shelter and freedom in the dense tangled hostility of the swamp. Harriet Beecher Stowe used the Dismal Swamp setting for her famous book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

*[Photo detail: Yawpim Village and Reservation shown by the red arrow near Great Dismal Swamp]*

Soon after William and Elizabeth settled in Indian Town, Elizabeth gave birth to three more daughters and two sons, including my 4th great grandfather Thomas Cooper Ferebee (1771-1834). William built the Indian Town Academy on his land so that his children and his neighbor’s children could receive an education. He served in the legislature in the NC Assembly and the State Senate and was a justice of the peace. He was appointed the road commissioner and oversaw the building of the Great Swamp Road which led to and traveled along parts of the swamp. Today the swamp is protected by the National Wildlife Reserve Program and is a popular tourist attraction.

*[Photo Details: Maroons fleeing into Dismal Swamp]*

*Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge*

William fought alongside his three oldest sons Joseph, William, and Samuel in the Revolutionary War. During the Battle of Great Bridge, he shot and killed the British Commander and the sword he took from him as a memento became a family treasure until it was stolen by the Yankees many years later during the civil war. (In 1862 the Yankees also burned the Indian Town Academy to the ground.) William was awarded over 3,000 acres of land for his service as part of the “War Bounty” program after America won its independence.

*[Photo Details: The Battle of Great Bridge 1775]*

When William died in 1783 his will specified that after the death of his wife, the Culong plantation and the land on which it sat, would go to his two youngest sons, Thomas C. and James, both of whom were still minors when he died. When the inheritance passed to Thomas C. at the age of 24 he bought out his brother’s share.

A year later in 1796 Thomas C. married Lydia Humphries (1774-1798) and through marriage acquired a large adjoining tract that became part of Culong. Lydia gave birth to a daughter Margaret Elizabeth (1797-1823) who later in life married Dr Gideon C Marchant. Margaret died before the couple had any children and Gideon married a 2nd time to Emily Dauge, my 3rd great grandmother.

Thomas C. married a second time to Margaret C. Williams in 1801 but this too was destined to be a short marriage. She died three years after she took her vows at age twenty. Before her death she gave birth to Samuel Williams Ferebee, my 3rd great grandfather. Samuel had a relationship with Delia Carter who produced two children out of wedlock. Their complicated relationship is discussed as part of the Bettie Ferebee Sanderlin story. By 1805 Thomas had buried two wives and outlived his parents and both sets of in-laws. He continued to live in Culong with his two small children and in 1812 built a new plantation a short distance from his father’s house on the land he had inherited. Today the grand old home still stands and is listed on the National Register of Historic Houses.

The Ferebee Family

The Baum and Eldridge Family

The Ricks Family