General Notes

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Email Regina 3-26-2002 <Rejp2@@cs.com>
William Owen Tutor entered the United States at a time when there we
re on ly 13 states and these states had elected George Washington in the p
revio us year as their first president.  The Federal government under Wash
ingto n, began meeting in New York but the temporary capitol was mov
ed to Philad elphia in 1790.
That year the first census showed that the infant nation already had a p
op ulation of 3,929,625 people.
William Owen Tutor was born in Wales in 1774.  He lived only 16 y
ea rs in the country of his birth, a country that had seen many chang
es in i ts history, with wars against invading Danes, Angles, Saxons, Roma
ns and E nglish.  Wales was a country with its own language, its own cultu
re, and i ts own history.  Owen Tutor agreed to work on an American privat
eer ship f or passage to America in the summer of 1790.  Privateers were p
rivately ow ned, armed vessels which had been granted letters of marque, a
nd sailed on ly to capture enemy shipping during times of war. A ship th
at involved its elf in capturing enemy shipping without a governments auth
orization was co nsidered to be committing piracy.  These letters of marq
ue were governme nt issued papers commissioning privately owned vesse
ls to capture or to se ize enemy shipping. Privateers had been utiliz
ed by the powerful natio ns of Europe from the eleventh century into the n
ineteenth century.  Th is practice enabled them to strengthen and mainta
in their forces for the i ncessant warfare they became entangled in duri
ng the years of colonizati on and exploration.  Due to the fact that the U
nited States did not have m ore than a meager navy, it issued fore than 10
00 letters of marquee to pri vateers during the Revolutionary War.  inste
ad of going to a regular po rt in the United States, the ship carrying W
en Tutor, came up the James Ri ver in Va. and the captain simply sold h
is passengers to large plantati on owners on the river.. These passenger
s, known as indentured servants, h ad no choice but to get off and hope f
or the best.
Owen first set his foot upon American soil somewhere between Harris
on La nding and Williamsburg, Va., where he was bought by a rich tobacco f
arm er for forty dollars.  For sixteen months he worked here and after the
se s ixteen months he decided that his term of human servitude w
as at an en d,  So, he made his escape from the plantation, on foot, in t
he latter pa rt of 1791.  He started in a southwesterly direction not know
ing where h is endeavor would lead him.  He hid, ran, and ate like a reneg
ade Indian w ould. Speaking very little English caused him great trouble w
ith residen ts of the sparsely settled areas into which he traveled. The
se areas inclu ded Piedmont Virginia and North Carolina.  In early spri
ng of 1792, he sto pped at a large water powered mill in southwestern Wa
ke County.  This adve nture of at least 250 miles, found him tired and hun
gry and wearing clothi ng that had been badly worn and tattered.  The hors
e, that some men had gi ven him for helping him get across the large riv
er in southern Virginia (p robably the Roanoke), was also greatly fatigue
d.   The owner of this mi ll was called Rollins and this mill was called t
he Rollins Mill.
Owen was taken in by the Rollins family and worked in their grist m
il l. He lived with the Rollins family for seven years and was taught Eng
li sh and was schooled by them.  He originally spoke welsh, his native lan
gua ge, and always spoke with an accent that revealed his adoption of t
he Engl ish language.  Directly across the street from the mill, in the no
rthweste rn corner of Cumberland county, North Carolina, lived elder Steph
en Sente r, a Methodist preacher, and his wife, Mary.. Stephen Senter own
ed a plant ation of one square mile which contained six hundred and for
ty acres and w as  bordered by Chatham county on the west and Wake coun