Meadowville Plantation
Antebellum Pamlico River plantations not surprisingly often had commercial fisheries. Several decades before the Civil War General Wm. Augustus Blount and his son, Major William Augustus Blount, operated fisheries on Blounts Bay, catching and packing herring and shad in seines (using nets) and weirs (using stakes).
In 1840, Beaufort County ranked fifth in the state in number of barrels of pickled fish produced (4,300),with sixty-six men employed in this industry. An 1850 manufacturing schedule shows that seven fisheries were in operation. Owners included Beaufort County's perennial sheriff Allen Grist, his son John Grist, General and Major Blount, C. W. Crawford, Thomas R. Crawford, and Jacob Swindell. These fisheries would have dotted the south shore of the Pamlico River and its tributaries from Chocowinity west to Core Point. (King 2011 Architecture of Beaufort Co.)
Gen. General William Augustus Blount (1792-1867), oldest son of merchant John Gray Blount, owned a 9000 ac. plantation in the Blount Creek/Chocowinity area called "Meadowville." Blount's modest looking 2 story Meadowville home c. 1834 survives and was restored in the 1990s acc. to a 1993 BCCC article from "Life on the Pamlico." The portrait of W.A. Blount is from NC Museum of History. The photo of Ocracoke men fishing with seine nets in the Pamlico Sound was taken in the 1940s.
Source: Narrative and photo image- Historic Port of Washington Project, Inc
-----
"John Gray Blount, a slave trader, brought in enslaved people from the Caribbean islands who were brought there for the slave trade, many from Guinea West Africa. Blount by 1790 was the largest slave owner in Beaufort County. He owned 74 enslaved people, 45 of which lived in Washington, and one enslaved man (whom local African American oral history says his name was Mautobo) lived in Washington was Guinea born. " - Washington Waterfront Underground Railroad
-----
Federal-Era Power Broker John Gray Blount, of Washington, NC
On September 21, 1752, John Gray Blount was born in Bertie County. He was destined to become one of the wealthiest men in North Carolina, albeit less well-known than his half-brother William, governor of Tennessee, and Thomas, member of Congress.
Blount had business dealings up and down the Atlantic seaboard and extending into the Caribbean, but his base of operation was in Washington in Beaufort County after his 1778 marriage. Blount made the town his home when it was still known as Forks of the Tar River.
Blount and his partners had substantial shipping interests, owning wharves, flatboats and seagoing vessels. They owned sawmills, gristmills, tanneries and cotton gins, and engaged in agricultural pursuits and the slave trade.
Blount was also heavily involved in land speculation, employing agents to buy and sell large tracts in western North Carolina and Tennessee. He represented Beaufort in the state House and state Senate, and served in the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
Blount died in 1833 and is buried at St. Peters Episcopal Church in Washington.
Source: https://www.ncdcr.gov/.../federal-era-power-broker-john...