What's in a name? | Elizabeth City, N.C.

At the intersection of Main Street and Water Street sit a bank, a dry cleaner, a sandwich shop and small waterfront park.

It's one of the busiest blocks in Elizabeth City.

More than 200 years ago, that same area in North Carolina was a busy place with a tavern close to the docks where ships arrived regularly, transporting staves for barrels and shingles made of the abundant local juniper.

At the time, the settlement was unincorporated and known as the Narros because of its location at the narrow part of the Pasquotank River. Elizabeth "Betsy" Tooley and her husband, Adam, owned the tavern there. Betsy served as a barmaid in her own establishment, the story goes. Some histories say it was also a brothel.

In 1793, a group of business owners bought 55 acres and the tavern from the Tooleys to form a town. In 1793, the town was called Redding, after a prominent farming family. A year later, it was called Elizabethtown. After confusion arose over other nearby communities with the same name, the town was renamed in 1801 to Elizabeth City.

An oral history, passed down through the generations, says the town was named after Betsy Tooley, who, after selling the land, moved with her husband to Virginia, said Don Pendergraft, exhibit design chief for the Museum of the Albemarle, also set near the Elizabeth City waterfront just down the street from where the Tooley tavern was.

No records support the Betsy Tooley story, he said. The name likely came from English royalty or the Elizabeth River, Pendergraft said. But the Betsy Tooley legend is more fun to tell, he said.

The late Fred Fearing, a local historian and story teller, believed Betsy Tooley was the namesake. For more than 20 years, Fearing greeted recreational boaters who tied up at the waterfront about where shingle-hauling ships once docked. He told the Betsy Tooley tale innumerable times as part of the Rose Buddies, who served wine and cheese to boaters.

On the other side, the late Howard Stevens, also a local historian, believed the town was named for the Elizabeth River because it was crucial to the commerce in the region. The Dismal Swamp Canal, under construction in 1800, would connect with the Elizabeth River and become the highway for boat traffic here.

Betsy Tooley, who inherited the land from her father, sold it for 500 pounds or $2,500 near where the Pasquotank River narrows, Stevens wrote in a local history he compiled. The Tooleys were not mentioned among the prominent families and not likely to be namesakes for the town, he wrote.

Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com