1754-1779
Cumberland County is carved from backcountry of Bladen County
Cumberland County began as a 2,400-square-mile swath of backcountry territory, carved by the Colonial Assembly from Bladen Precinct in 1754. From that beginning, and for the first 25 years of its history as a county, the seeds had been planted - seeds that would shape the young county for generations to come.
They were the seeds of:
Settlement: Farms, houses, businesses and the first government offices sprouted from the northern "Bluff" section along the Cape Fear River near the Lower Little River, farther south to places called Campbellton and Cross Creek that eventually would merge to become Fayetteville, and even farther south to a section called Rockfish.
Family: Some of the earliest family names show up time and again in the historical records, including those of many former Highland Scots. Some of the early Cumberland family names include McNeill, Evans, McAllister, Carver, Ellerbe, Gray, Dunn, Newberry, just to name a few.
Slavery: As in other parts of the country, particularly in the South, much of the backbreaking work of building the new county was accomplished by slave labor. The county also had free black people from its early days, with the first one mentioned in records in 1758.
Religion: Early congregations included the establishment of Bluff Church, the county's first Presbyterian congregation, in 1758, and Cape Fear Baptist at Gray's Creek around 1770.
Liberty: This was a seed of conflict. It pitted those who were loyal to the British crown versus those who protested royal government and eventually pushed for independence. These were revolutionary times in the young county.
Through conflict and revolution, social advancement and economic development, Cumberland's rich history was growing, one seed at a time.
|
