ECU Symposium to look at explorer’s trek through the carolinas

GREENVILLE, NC   (Oct. 9, 2001)   —   An Oct. 19 – 20 symposium at East Carolina University will look at the early explorations made in North and South Carolina by English explorer John Lawson and will include accounts of his contacts with Native Americans and the social, cultural and environmental changes that he and other Europeans inspired.

The John Lawson Symposium will include tours of Bath and New Bern –towns founded by the explorer — and a guided waterway trip on Contentnea Creek where Lawson was captured by Tuscarora Indians and executed in 1711. The creek flows through parts of Wilson, Greene, Lenoir and Pitt counties.

The opening session on Friday starts at 8 a.m. at the Willis Building. Talks by naturalists, historians and archaeologists are planned.

An exhibit in the Special Collections area of ECU’s J. Y. Joyner Library will include most of the early editions of Lawson’s books. They include “A New Voyage to Carolina,” published in 1709 and loaned by Duke University, and a 1714 second edition of “The History of Carolina” on loan from the State Library.

Indian artifacts from the period will also be displayed.

A Native American food cookout on the Greenville Town Common will be held on Friday evening. Chief Kenny Patterson of the Tuscarora Nation will address the symposium 7:30 p.m. following the cookout.

Tours of Bath, New Bern and a canoe/kayak trip on Contentnea Creek will take place on Saturday.

Registration is $10. Information about the symposium is available at the Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection in Joyner Library and by calling 252-328-6601. A website for the symposium is at http://www.lawsontrek.com.

Contact: ECU News Bureau | 252-328-6481