1830-1854

Fayetteville was nearly destroyed by fire. Not once, but twice, during this 25-year period. The trial of a woman accused in the poisoning death of her husband drew widespread notoriety, with some of the leading lawyers of the day on opposing sides in the case.

And Cumberland County would soon lose a big chunk of its territory, in 1855, with the creation of Harnett County.

Other than that - not to mention Cumberland's struggles to gain railroad connections while nailing its future to plank roads for a time - not much was happening during this period before the Civil War.

There were a couple of other things, actually.

In 1836, Congress authorized the building of a federal arsenal for the manufacture and storage of muskets. A $30,000 appropriation secured the 75-acre site in Haymount, overlooking the village of Fayetteville. After more than a decade of construction, the arsenal included a handsome collection of brick-and-sandstone structures. For a generation, it was the pride of the town.

Opportunity calls

Meanwhile, the county's population experienced some growth, from 13,700 in 1830 to 20,600 in 1850, as people continued to move in and out in search of opportunities.

The economy, although rural and never rich, was spinning along with the advent of textile mills in different parts of the county. In the 1840s, mills were at Rockfish, Beaver Creek, Cross Creek, Blount's Creek and Manchester.

Fayetteville, from its devastating fires of 1831 and 1845, had rebuilt from the ashes. But a different kind of fire was building, both political and sectional, across the country.

The war that followed would take the measure of the arsenal, the cotton factories and many of the people who called Cumberland County home.