Northeast Creek is a tributary of New Hope Creek, a tributary of the Haw River. The Haw River and the Deep River join to form the Cape Fear River, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean southeast of present-day Wilmington, NC.
Archaeology and Pre-History
Guilford (3500 BC - 3000 BC) point from Northeast Creek Basin
The Northeast Creek basin seems not to have been suitable for large settlements in its prehistory. Human occupation of this area began no earlier than 9000 BC, a time of rapid climate change as glaciers of the Ice Age receded from the Northeast and Great Lakes area. Areas south of the furthest extent of the glaciers changed from boreal forests of fir and spruce to hardwood forests of oak, hickory, beech, birch, and elm. Most likely small groups of nomadic people subsisting on seeds, nuts, small mammals, and an occasional large mammal, such as a white-tail deer or a bear moved across the landscape.
By 8000 BC, these groups had specialized in a local area and become familiar with the environment and had more regular cycles of gathering hickory nuts and acorns and hunting white-tail deer for meat. By 2000 BC, those groups might have grown into bands of 50 to 150 individuals either exploiting resources within a single drainage basin or working shifting territories always within range of the source of rocks for tools in the Uwharrie Mountains. By 300 BC, the people in Piedmont had started using pottery. By 1000 AD settlements in the Haw River valley were raising maize, beans, squash, and sunflower seeds to supplement a diet of deer, squirrel, and rabbits from hunting, and were to continuing to gather acorns and hickory nuts. By 1400 AD, some settlements on rivers became compact, defended, and having a population of as many as 100-150. By 1600 the Haw River valley was inhabited by the Sissipahaw, the Eno River valley by the Eno and Shakori, and the Occaneechi were situated on an island in the Roanoke River near present-day Clarksville, Virginia.
The Occaneechi controlled the Great Trading Path when English traders began using it to trade beads, tools, and other goods in the backcountry for pelts. After Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, the Colony of Virginia in 1680 placed Fort Christianna in present-day Brunswick County to control the trade along the Great Trading Path. The Occaneechi (and likely the Saponi as well) were pushed further into the backcountry, settling at the bend of the Eno River in present-day Hillsboro. By 1700 disease has so reduce the indigenous population that John Lawson in 1701 reported the combining of once distinct tribes into single villages.
The Northeast Creek basin during most of its prehistory had few inhabitants. Judging from the few artifacts from the Northeast Creek basin, there was occasional hunting in the upland forests and clearings around Northeast Creek over a long period of time. And in the Woodland period a hamlet occasionally cultivated a wider bottomlands at locations along Northeast Creek.
Settlement (1750-1800)
Settlement of the Northeast Creek basin began in the 1750s. Prior to 1732 and the closing of Fort Christianna in present-day Brunswick County, Virginia, English traders moved along the Great Trading Path, which ran close to the current alignment of I-85. During this period, settlement brought the possibility of conflict with the Eno, Sissipahaw, and Occaneechi residents of the surrounding area.
The creation of Orange County in 1752, the establishment of Corbin Town (Hillsborough) in 1754 as its county seat, and the opening of Granville’s office for land grants enabled the settlement of the Northeast Creek basin, the prime land going to the earliest to claim land grants. The Regulator Movement stirred up Orange County between 1764 and 1771. In 1771, Chatham County was formed out of Orange County. From 1729 to 1776, all of the Northeast Creek basin was within the Granville District, a 60-mile-wide strip of land granted to John Carteret, Second Earl Granville as settlement of his proprietary share of Carolina. The other seven Lords Proprietors sold the remaining part of Carolina back to the crown. Granville’s land agents handled the grants of land, and the earliest grants in the Northeast Creek basin were handled by these agents.
The settlers who moved into the Northeast Creek basin came primarily from Virginia and the more well-to-do among them brought the institution of slavery to the this area.
The counties were governed by justices of the peace appointed by the royal governor, and after the American Revolution the state legislature, who met as a Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. The judgments of this court were implemented by an appointed sheriff.
The American Revolution was a source of conflict in the general area from 1776 to 1781. Both the North Carolina revolutionary government and the Loyalists (Tories) established militias organized under captains, who had responsibility for certain parts of a county. The inhabitants of the Northeast Creek basin chose one side, chose the other, or remained neutral. After the American Revolution, the remaining land in the Northeast Creek basin was granted. The inhabitants formed churches as the centers of their community, and families became allied through marriage. Folks moved out in search opportunity to be replaced with folks who moved in for the same reason.
Early Development (1800-1830)
The Northeast Creek basin was an outlying area to Chatham, Orange, and Wake counties. Few county officials came from the area because of the distance from the county seats. Chapel Hill was the closest town. However, most business was transacted at local mills and stores.
Antebellum Society (1830-1860)
The Nat Turner slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1830 produced hysteria throughout the South. Attitudes about slavery became hardened by fear. Yet, this was a period of many improvements in ways that tied the Northeast Creek basin into the state and national economy.
In 1850, the North Carolina Railroad surveyed land for a route from Raleigh to Charlotte. The route followed the old Raleigh-to-Hillsborough road and had stations at Morrisville, Nelson, Brassfields, Prattsburg, and Durham Station.
