ROCKINGHAM – The last monthly meeting of the Richmond County Historical Society took place on Monday, April 16th at the Rockingham City Hall/Administrative Building on Rockingham Road.
The focus of the night’s session was the historical development of the county boundaries in North Carolina and the potential value of related historical land records to researchers interested in such documentations.
The guest speaker addressing this session was Tom Morgan of Hoffman, formerly of the State of North Carolina Land Office. Mr. Morgan explained just how valuable such documents could be for genealogists and others in search of ancestral connections.
North Carolina presents unique challenges in relation to land records. Interesting facts that were derived from Morgan’s presentation included the relatively complicated historical development and evolutionary changes of the boundaries of the state. Morgan explained that a working knowledge of the historical “origin” date of a given county is essential for anyone hoping to search land records. A farming family that may appear during a cursory review of their records to have moved from one county to another may have never transported themselves anywhere; the “new” county may have simply encompassed their property, thus effectively moving any subsequently ensuing land records to the “new” county’s courthouse.
So how did our ancestors come to be here in this area to begin with?
As best we can tell, it was the late 1500’s before Caucasians demonstrated any interest in what is now North Carolina. Approximately thirty tribes of Native Americans have been documented as having inhabited some portion of our area prior to the initial attempts by the Spanish (yes, they were here prior to the English) in 1567 near what is now Morganton and then the English twenty years later (Roanoke Island in 1587) to establish colonial settlements here. Both failed.
It was actually the early 1600’s before English colonists from Virginia (Jamestown, etc.) began to migrate southward in sufficient number as to be able to sustain villages in what is now North Carolina.
A concerted effort in 1629 by King Charles I of England led to an enhancement of populations along the Cape Fear River, but his son King Charles II was not as enthralled with the potential for this “new land”; it was he who, in an attempt to reward his primary supporters in 1663, essentially gave Carolina away to eight men who had been instrumental in returning him to the throne.
This original decree that established “Carolina” denoted its boundaries as stretching as far south as to encompass the present-day Florida “pan handle” area and all the way to the Pacific Ocean (or sea, as it was referred to at the time). Subsequently, over the course of the next 400 years, the shape and definitive delineations of the Old North State were altered in some way or other numerous times.
By 1691 the descendants of the original Lords Proprietors had designated Charles Town (now Charleston, SC) as the seat of government for the entire colony of Carolina, with a “deputy governor” assigned to monitor the Albemarle Sound area of what is now northeastern North Carolina.
January 24th of 1712 is generally regarded as the official origin of what we now call “North Carolina,” but the meeting that actually precipitated this ultimate decision was held at Craven House in London on December 7th of 1710; it was then that the representatives of seven of the original eight Lords Proprietors agreed in principle to the resale of their lands back to the Crown, with the caveat that there would be two separate colonial governmental entities established between the north and south sections of Carolina.
Edward Hyde immediately (1711) became the first regional governor for “North Carolina” but remained under the de facto rule of the Lords Proprietors in preparation for this major transition in government.
A division of this vast area into dual colonies was deemed necessary for multiple reasons. Primarily, of course, as settlements began to appear all across the vast number of square miles, it became desirable to centralize governmental jurisdictions (including at the level of what became the two “colonial states” themselves). Also, the reputation of Carolina had developed into one of an unruly and unstable population; authorities sought to remedy that image and thus not further discourage the potential settlers from “up north” when considering a southward migration.
As might be surmised, the sheer distance between the seats of power and the far-reaching outliers of pockets of settlers presented a challenge on many levels. Compounding the practical concerns of the extensive travel that was required to do governmental business was the politico-religious conflicts among various factions across the area. Quakers, Anglicans, Baptists, Presbyterians, and the “unchurched” constituted the primary groups of religious orientations that, at best, simply misunderstood one another and, at worst, outwardly detested anyone who “believed” in a way that was significantly different from their own perceptions and practices.
The angst continued to fester and intensify as a function of the growing populations coming into contact with one another on a continually increasing scale. The culmination of this uneasy coexistence was exemplified by events that occurred during the transition of power between incumbent deputy governor Thomas Cary and incoming soon-to-be governor Edward Hyde. Specifically, on one occasion Cary and his political supporters literally sailed a ship in the Albemarle Sound to within cannon shot of a house in which Hyde was holding a political meeting, and fired two cannon balls onto the property.
Still, as addressed previously, it was not until 1729 before an agreed-upon boundary line was drawn between the north and south portions of Carolina. As noted, it was at this time that England had repurchased the Carolina lands from the families of seven of the original eight Lords Proprietors, but boundary disputes continued intermittently for almost a century until 1821 and the end of the Walton War in the vicinity of what is now western North Carolina, Georgia, and northwestern South Carolina.
Sixty-five years after the original grant, however, in 1728, all but one of the families who effectively “owned” the area (the family of John Carteret, Lord of Granville was the only group who refused) sold their holdings back to the king.
In 1735, in an attempt to properly discern who owned what and where the property lines might be, an official land survey was conducted to designate the accurate line of demarcation between Carolina and Virginia. This line was, for all intents and purposes and with only a few minor adjustments, to remain generally unchanged from that point on.
The same could not be said for the establishment of an exact boundary between what was to become North Carolina and South Carolina; this line has been altered on numerous occasions, the latest having just been determined as recently as January 2nd of last year (2017). Many of these disputes between the two Carolinas centered upon differences in colonial (and later state) regulations on taxes, particularly in regard to whiskey and related alcohol manufacturing and distributions. But that topic is far too detail-ridden to be properly addressed here.
The convoluted developments of boundaries that involved the two Carolina entities were not limited to the colony/state level; county lines were similarly debated and adjusted throughout the last 300 years. Without attempting to describe each and every alteration of such, suffice it to say that county lines have indeed experienced approximately 100 changes in North Carolina alone.
Focusing on the area of land now known as Richmond County, a concise and succinct rendering of the historical development would be as follows, in reverse order for ease of following the timeline from the present to the past:
1. (1889 Scotland from Richmond)
2. 1779 Richmond from Anson
3. 1750 Anson from Bladen
4. 1734 Bladen from New Hanover
5. 1729 New Hanover from Craven
6. 1712 Craven from Archdale
7. 1705 Archdale from Bath
8. 1696 Bath from Chowan
9. 1685 Chowan from Shaftesbury*
10. 1667 Shaftesbury from Albemarle
11. 1667 Albemarle from Clarendon*
*Original county disbanded
The Richmond County Historical Society meets on the third Monday of each month (e.g., TONIGHT, Monday, May 21st) at 7:00 p.m., usually in the Rockingham Administrative Building on Rockingham Road (tonight’s site). Interested persons are welcome to attend the presentations and/or join the organization.
