Currituck County Courthouse

Currituck County Courthouse. Center of the Community. , The town of Currituck has been the seat of county government since 1723, and the core of the courthouse to your right and jail in front of you were here before the Civil War. By 1860, the county had 7,415 residents, of whom 4,669 were white, 2,523 were enslaved blacks, and 223 were free blacks. The whites voted overwhelmingly for secession and this square became a Confederate recruiting center. The "Currituck Atlantic Rifles" was organized here, as was the "Currituck Light Cavalry" under Capt. Demosthenes Bell. The latter became Co. G, 4th North Carolina Cavalry., Because of the importance of Currituck Sound for military transportation, and the county's proximity to Norfolk, Va., Federal troops under Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside occupied the county after the Union victory at Roanoke Island in February 1862. In December 1863, three columns of U.S. Colored Troops led by Gen. Edward Wild converged here on a raid from Elizabeth City. They liberated slaves, destroyed Confederate camps, and occupied these courthouse grounds. Federal soldiers carried off many early county records. Some were returned in 1976., On July 23, 1903, Henry M. Shaw Camp No. 1304, North Carolina Confederate Veterans, met at the courthouse and had dinner on the grounds. Local resident J.B. Lee wrote that "the yard of the court house and those of the hotels were filled with a solid mass of humanity. Old Veterans … children; young men with their best girls; and old maids and batchelors [sic] made the crowd one of the largest ever assembled in Currituck county.", [Sidebar:] , The Confederate monument to your left has an unusual history. The original design featured a Confederate soldier atop an obelisk similar to many such monuments. Confederate veterans erected the base in 1912, but the project languished until 1922, when Northern philanthropist Joseph P. Knapp offered to complete the memorial. The idea of a Northerner funding the monument prompted opposition that subsided when the framed plans were exhibited on the courthouse.