1754-1779
Duke of Cumberland (1721-1765)
Who was the man for whom Cumberland County is named? He was William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland.
To Scottish Highlanders, he also was known as "Butcher Billy," a nickname given because of his army's defeat of the rebel Highlanders at the fateful battle of Culloden in 1746 and his subsequent harsh treatment of them.
Did the Highland Scots who settled here see the county's naming as an ironic slap at them by the British government? Perhaps. But at the same time, the Duke of Cumberland was honored throughout the colonies because, as the commander-in-chief of the royal army, he sent British troops to North America to protect the frontier colonists, from Cumberland County to Cumberland Gap.
A stone dedicated by the Lafayette Garden Club commemorates John Newberry's mill.
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John Newberry
This Quaker millwright erected the first business on Cross Creek, a gristmill, after buying 100 acres along the creek in 1754. He also opened a tavern.
His business near today's Green Street gave birth to the settlement that was to become Fayetteville.
In the early 1760s, he sold lots for houses, stores, mills, taverns, shops and a tan yard. Newberry later moved to present-day Gray's Creek.
Flora Macdonald (1722-1790)
The Scottish Highland heroine, who gained fame for aiding "Bonnie Prince Charlie" after his Highlander army's defeat at Culloden in 1746, lived in North Carolina for about five years.
Legend has it that she exhorted the Loyalist force at Cross Creek that included her husband, Allan, as it headed off to its eventual defeat at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge in 1776.
Robert Rowan (circa 1738-1798)
One of the county's leading public figures of the 1700s, this merchant and entrepreneur arrived in Cross Creek in the 1760s. He served as an officer in the French and Indian War, as sheriff, justice and legislator, and as a leader of the Patriot cause in the Revolutionary War.
Col. Rowan circulated the statement known as the "Liberty Point Resolves" in 1775. Rowan County is named for him, as are Rowan Street and Rowan Park in Fayetteville and a local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
The Rev. James Campbell (circa 1705-1780)
A marker commemorates Old Bluff Presbyterian Church pastors.
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A native Scotsman who settled in Pennsylvania about 1730, he came to North Carolina about 1757 at the request of the Rev. Hugh McAden. Campbell established three "preaching points" that became pillars of the Presbyterian church for Highland settlers in the Cape Fear region: Bluff (first called "Roger's meeting house"), Barbecue ("Clark's meeting house") and Longstreet ("McKay's").
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