In the early 1700s, the land that is now Wake County was the west, far away from New Bern, Bath and other coastal towns. There were no roads, only game trails and Indian paths apart from the Neuse River, which is and was not always navigable due to low flows at times, flooding at others. There are no records of permanent settlers here between the Tuscarora War, 1711-1714, and the 1740s.
One early settler was John Hinton, whose family still has the warrant for him to survey land along the Neuse dated November 1739. His residence is referenced in a September 1745 grant for land adjacent to his home.
That first home, according to family history, was a log house on a high rocky point of land on the south side of the Neuse River, a house whose only door was above the first story with a ladder that could be pulled up – all to guard against the panthers, wolves and bears that were very numerous. The “Panther Rocks” still remain in eastern Wake County near the nine plantations the Hinton family settled in succeeding years – Midway Plantation was in what is now Knightdale with the surviving house nearby after a well-documented move to family land and Beaverdam, now restored by family and standing just north of Knightdale, are two houses that remain.
John Hinton was not a pioneer as we picture them but a more sophisticated man with a talent for leadership. He moved into what became Wake County with a miniature set of weights and a surveyor’s compass and he would become a colonel in the new Wake militia in 1771 when Wake became a county, ordered by Governor William Tryon to repel the Regulators from Orange County which were feared to be marching on New Bern and the governor’s palace. He was one of the of the seven men chosen to select the site of the new Wake County courthouse after Wake was created from parts of Johnston, Cumberland and Orange counties.
Hinton represented Wake at the Second Provincial Congress in Hillsborough in the summer of 1775 and fought with his militia at the battle of Moores Creek Bridge in February 1776 and furnished a cart, four horses and two servants (slaves?) during that campaign.
Hinton’s unmarked grave is at the site of his river plantation home, The Square Brick House, called that because it was built entirely from square bricks. The house was close to the “Panther Rocks” and burned two years after his death.
(The information for this came from Elizabeth Reid Murray’s “Wake: Capital County of North Carolina, Vol. 1,” “The Historical Architecture of Wake County” by Kelly Lally, and NCpedia.org.)
2 Responses
Very interesting!
Thanks very informative.