Old Trap

 JAMES EDWARD BURGESS
1859-1909

THE NAME “TRAP” first appears in the Camden records after the Revolution and is said to have been given to the location by the women who became irked when their husbands, in their trips to and from the windmill on the river, formed a habit of stopping at a grogshop in the vicinity and tarrying overlong. After 1800 the Trap had become the “Old Trap” in contemporary references, and this was the name officially used when the post office was opened in 1881. The first postmaster, James Edward Burgess, received $9.76 for his services in that year.

Burgess was a farmer and merchant who was a native of the community. Besides being the first postmaster, as Camden's representative in the State Legislature in 1897, he initiated legislation which eventually resulted in establishing the present highway which leads through the Camden marshes to a point on the Pasquotank River near Elizabeth City—now a part of highways 170 and 158. This thoroughfare also eliminated Lamb's Ferry, which had been in operation near Camden Court House since colonial times. The act sponsored by Burgess reduced by one mile the distance at which a ferry might be operated from Lamb's Ferry. In 1901 and 1905, the county representative, Gideon C. Barco, introduced bills which further limited the Lamb franchise and authorized the newly formed Camden Ferry Company to erect a drawbridge over the Pasquotank River at Elizabeth City. Thus the road was established.

 

[Story taken from Three hundred years along the Pasquotank : a biographical history of Camden County by Jesse Forbes Pugh. Old Trap, N.C. :1957. ]

http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/17076]