IIA. Prose Description of Site. 



The Gates County Sand Banks is a portion of a series of 

 fluvial and estuarine sand deposits of Sangamon age, which border 

 the western and southern boundaries of the county along the Chowan 

 River. The "Sand Banks" is a local name, of some antiquity, 

 applied to a section of these sand ridges running from US 13 

 near Storys, paralleling the Chowan River to the Virginia state 

 line. It is proposed that the entire geomorphic feature, from 

 Edenton to the Virginia line, be called the Chowan Sand Ridge, 

 and that the natural area be named for the local feature, the 

 Sand Banks, in which it occurs. 



The natural area comprises about 840 acres of forested sand 

 ridges on SR 1200 just west of US 13 and 158. Elevation within the 

 study area ranges from near sea level to 47 ft. This is the last 

 remnant in the county, and the northern half of the state, of a 

 once extensive longleaf pine - turkey oak forest, which, before 

 settlement, reached uninterrupted from Edenton, nearly to the James 

 River in Virginia. 



The area was probably first seen by upriver explorations 

 from Sir Walter Raleigh's early settlement on Roanoke Island in 

 the 1580's, but the first description dates from 1609. In that 

 year Capt. John Smith sent a search party from Jamestown overland 

 through this area to the Indian town of Chowanoc in what is now 

 Chowan County to search for survivors of Raleigh's ill-fated 

 colony: 



"Master Sicklemore well returned from Chawwonoke , but 



found little hope and less certaintie of them were left 



hy Sir Walter Raleigh. The river, he saw was not great, 



the people few, the countrey most over growne with pynes,..." 



William Byrd, in his journal of the VA/NC boundary line 

 survey of 1728 - 1729, also described the area as a pine barrens. 

 The xerophytic longleaf pine forests were later described with 

 more certainty by Hale (1883), Ashe (1884) and Fernald (1939). 



Drainage is rapid from the elevated sand ridges into several 

 small swamp runs, which flow slowly into Chowan Swamp to the 

 south. Soils in the area have been described by Risk (1981), who 

 observed the following catena: 



Lakeland Series, Thermic, coated, Typic Quartzipsamment , 

 on xeric upland sand ridges formerly dominated by longleaf 

 pine. 



Sandy mixed, thermic, Typic Haplaquept, beneath loblolly 

 pine and tulip poplar on mesic lower slopes adjacent to 

 wet bottomlands. 



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