Parthenia Gatling
(Perquimans County)
Featured Character – Divided Allegiances
Cedar
Vale
Courtesy of the U.S. Library of
Congress, Historic Buildings Survey
The daughter of Mary Elizabeth
Commander and John Laurence Gatling, Parthenia Gatling grew up at “Cedar Vale,”
her family’s farm in Perquimans
County. During the war, she studied at Hertford Academy
in Murfreesboro. During a weekend trip home to Cedar Vale,
Confederate prisoners onboard the Union transport Maple Leaf escaped. The
Gatlings learned that several of the fugitives found refuge at a nearby
church. The women of the house decided
to take food to the men. Fourteen-year
old Parthenia Gatling and a friend from school also gathered flowers. Writing years later, she felt “rejoiced to
learn that the party had crossed the Chowan River without meeting any
of the
enemy’s gunboats.” In 1870, Parthenia Gatling married Christopher
Wilson Hollowell, owner of Bayside Plantation in Pasquotank County. She died in 1937.