These factors opened the Northeast Creek basin to settlement: the creation of Orange County in 1754; the designation of the county seat at the location of the\u00a0 Occaneechi village on a bend in the Eno River; the opening of the Earl of Granville\u2019s office for granting lands in the new county and the dispatching of land agents to operate locally.<\/p>\n
WIlliam Churton, the surveyor for the Earl of Granville’s land\u00a0 office named the county seat Orange.\u00a0 Francis Corbin, the Earl of Granville’s principal land agent from 1744 to 1759, operating the land office from the Cupola House in Edenton.\u00a0 In 1754, he received an honor from the General Assembly in New Bern when it named the county seat Corbin Town. When Corbin lost his post with Granville in 1759, the General Assembly renamed the county seat Childsberg\u00a0 in honor of the Earl of Granville’s new land agent and the North Carolina attorney general at the time. The processing of land grants in Edenton was subject to delays from the politics involved and the possibility of corruption in the land office operations.<\/p>\n
Granville’s land office ceased operation in 1763 following the death of John Earl Granville.\u00a0 A long chancery court action on the will and finally the American Revolution ended the Granville grants completely.\u00a0 In 1777, the Provisional Assembly of the State of North Carolina (the Revolutionary government) declared sovereignty over all the land between Virginia and South Carolina, called for confiscation of all property of those property owners who supported the British, and effectively confiscated Granville’s remaining land holdings.\u00a0\u00a0 That is why the early grants are so difficult to interpret during the period from 1759 to 1777. After the confiscation, the State of North Carolina set up a land office operation.<\/p>\n
The Royal Governor of North Carolina granted land and the Earl of Granville, a former Proprietor of Carolina, also granted land.\u00a0 Near the dividing line of the Earl of Granville’s tract, there are often duplicate land grants or conflicting land grants.\u00a0 Access to granted land was by existing trails or by water where the traveling by boat was possible.\u00a0 After the American Revolution, owners of land often sought re-granting to recognize their previous land grant. The first time the Northeast Creek basin appears in history is in the land grants for settlers.\u00a0 The process for receiving a land grant required a warrant that described a tract; next came a survey to plat the claim and ensure that there were no competing claims; next was the entry in the land records; finally, a land grant document was issued and the courts became available to enforce the claim.<\/p>\n
Hillsborough was the closest outpost of what in the backcountry were urban amenities.\u00a0 Other similar settlements further away included Salisbury, Fayetteville, and Halifax, and a few other recently founded court house towns.\u00a0 There was no Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, or Pittsboro yet.\u00a0 And by “urban amenities”, look at William Few’s description of Hillsborough in 1764, a decade after Hillsborough’s founding as a court house town:<\/p>\n
“…the metropolis of the county, where the courts were held and all the public business was done.\u00a0 It was a small village, which contained thirty or forty inhabitants, with two or three small stores and two or three ordinary taverns, but it was an improving village.\u00a0 Several Scotch merchants were soon after induced to establish stores that contained a good assortment of European merchandise, which changed the state of things for the better.\u00a0 A church, court-house and jail were built, but there was no parson or physician.<\/p>\n
Two or three attorneys opened their offices and found employment. Superior and inferior courts of justice were established and a fair field was opened for the lawyers.”<\/p>\n
In 1749, William Barbee (died 1758) was listed\u00a0 as a chainbearer on a survey of 490 acres on New Hope Creek done for Mark Morgan and recorded in what was then Bladen County. Apprenticing as a surveyor’s chainbearer was a common way to become a surveyor and also to spot potential good land to claim.\u00a0 His son Christopher “Old Kit” Barbee was the largest\u00a0 landholder in Orange County in 1787 and is best known for having given 225 acres (the largest portion) to found the University of North Carolina.\u00a0 Note that the settlement of the Northeast Creek area is the result of children of settlers closer to Hillsborough seeking their own land.\u00a0 Settlers would scout out land (in this case from Hillsborough) before committing to\u00a0 a move from tidewater Virginia.<\/p>\n
Henry Beasley received a land grant some time between 1750 and 1755 for 640 acres of land in Orange County on “the northeast prong of New Hope.” The property description said that the tract began at the lower end of a beaver pond. Subsequent land transactions placed Beasley’s property near where O’Kelly Chapel Road crosses Northeast Creek.\u00a0 Division of Chatham County from Orange County later split this tract.<\/p>\n
The 1754 tax list for Orange County shows Henry Beasley with 1 taxable (himself).\u00a0 That next year in Orange County there were 724 households.\u00a0 A total of 660 households had no slaves, 60 households with 1-4 slaves, and 4 households with 5-10 slaves; no household in Orange County held more than 10 slaves.\u00a0 In all of Orange County in 1755, there was a black population of 64. [Harry Roy Merrens, Colonial North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in Historical Geography<\/em>, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1964, p 76.]<\/p>\n In 1756, the land office registered a survey for Christopher Rhoads for 593 acres both sides of Crooked Creek Waters of New Hope, with adjoining property owners Mark Morgan, Joseph Bary [Barbee?], Henry Beesley {Beasley], and Richard Hobson [Hopson].<\/p>\n A deed in 1765 shows a transfer from Benjamin Saxon to Nathaniel Almond.<\/p>\n Wake County issued a warrant in 1778 to Thomas Roberts\u00a0 for 320 acres on “the East side of the East side of No. [North] East of New Hope Creek and on the waters of Buck Branch & great Branch Including the plantation where he now lives.”\u00a0 This is roughly in the area of Lowes Grove in Durham County.<\/p>\n On 16 May 1756, George Herndon received a warrant for 640 acres of land to be surveyed for him on both sides of Northeast Fork of New Hope Creek.<\/p>\n William Barbee’s brother Christopher Barbee obtained his land by buying it from John Bohannon in 1759.\u00a0 The deed indexes survive but not the deed records themselves; subsequent transactions show that he was in the part of Orange County that in 1771 became part of Wake County [and later to Durham County]. The survey for Christopher Rhodes done in 1756 shows the tract to be on both sides of the waters of the Northeast prong of New Hope adjoining the Beasley line and Rhodes corner.\u00a0 Current estimates place this on Kitts Creek [for this Christopher (Kit or Kitt) Barbee].\u00a0 In 1763, he was granted 700 acres on Obed Creek [Wilson Creek, tributary of Morgan Creek in today’s Orange County].<\/p>\n Henry Beasley<\/strong><\/p>\n Henry Beasley first appears in North Carolina in a 1754 Granville land grant of 640 acres on the North East Prong of New Hope on both sides of the creek and including a small prong in low ground.\u00a0\u00a0 The price was three shillings and the annual rent of twenty-five shillings seven pence half-penny per year.\u00a0\u00a0 Joseph Barbee was the chain carrier for the survey.<\/p>\n Later evidence shows this to be where today’s O’Kelly Chapel Road crosses Northeast Creek.<\/p>\n In 1758, Henry Beasley received a tract of 226 acres of land south of the 1754 tract, adjoining Joseph Barbee, for 10 shillings and an annual rent of 9 shillings half-penny rent per year . John Bohannon and Francis Martin were the chain carriers.<\/p>\n In 1763, for 10 shillings and an annual rent of 28 shillings, Henry Beasley received 700 acres on Obed’s Creek [now Wilson Creek south of Chapel Hill].\u00a0 Joseph Barbee and Christopher Barbee were witnesses.<\/p>\n In 1780, for 50 shillings per hundred acres, [son?] Henry Beasley received from the State of North Carolina a grant of 125 acres on the North East prong of New Hope whose northern boundary ran along the county line.<\/p>\n From 1759 to 1784, Henry Beasley served on road juries.<\/p>\n In 1790, Henry Beasley was exempted from having to pay the poll tax for 1789 and into the future. [One researcher says this indicates that Henry Beasley was “up in years and not well”.]<\/p>\n George Herndon When George Herndon left Caroline County, Virginia, he had explored his move by going and seeking a warrant at the Hillsborough land office.\u00a0 When he moved he was confident of satisfactory land and the opportunity to be part of a growing community.\u00a0 He soon got public responsibility; in June 1757 he was appointed constable of the northern settlement of New Hope Creek. The constable was the local law enforcement agent in his district.\u00a0 In 1761, George Herndon was in charge of his first road survey.\u00a0 In August 1761 he was responsible for summoning the taxables in the district of John Patterson, Esq.<\/p>\n In less than 20 years, by 1785, he had accumulated 2,420 acres of land in the vicinity of what is today I-40 and NC 55.<\/p>\n In 1778 from Wake County, George Hearndon [Herndon] received a warrant for 640 acres of what was then in Wake County “lying on both sides of No. [North] East of New Hope Creek.”\u00a0 The adjoining property owner was Christian Pealer [Peeler], who was already settled there although there are no records of how he claimed his tract.\u00a0 Herndon also received warrant the same day for 392 acres “Joining Jesse George’s Lines & his own lines Including his Improvements” and 500 acres “on flat Branch Joining his own Lines & the Lines of Thomas Person & Joseph Booth Including his two improvements.”<\/p>\n During the American Revolution, the colonial assemblies of the colonies created a colonist military from its constable system and county patrols, which allowed a rapid call-up of those who were willing to protect communities from British and loyalists and to interfere in the Royal Governor’s attempts to re-establish his authority.\u00a0 George Herndon, as a large local landowner and constable, served as captain of infantry under Colonel Richard Caswell and served at the Battle of Moore’s Bridge in February 1776.<\/p>\n During this period he continued to buy and sell land; in the 1787 tax listings he retained 1,279 acres, making him the third largest landholder in St. Mark’s District of Orange County, behind Christopher “Old Kit” Barbee and Mark Patterson.<\/p>\n When he died in 1796, his will revealed the names of the people in his life–both family and slaves: Sarah Wingfield Herndon, his wife, received Chloe. Daughter Mary married a Roberts; she received Ben. Daughter Ruth also married a Roberts; she received “a boy named Brass.”\u00a0 Son James received a “girl named Pat.”\u00a0 Daughter Sally married a McCoy; she received\u00a0 a “man named Nat.”\u00a0 Son George received a “boy named Prince.”\u00a0 Son Zechariah received “a girl named Tamar.” Son Reuben received a “boy named Samson.”\u00a0 Daughter Betty married a Cole; she received “girl named Candace.” Daughter Esther married a Barbee; she received a “boy named Jerry.” Son Edmund received a “boy named Armstead.” Son Lewis received a “boy named Ned.”\u00a0\u00a0 Daughter Delilah married a Rhodes; she received a “girl named Milley;” in addition, she received a “man named Sam.”\u00a0 In addition, daughters Ruth Roberts, Mary Ann Trice, Betty Cole, and Esther Barbee received the right to one of four women: Doll, Liller, [another] Tamar, and Phyllis.<\/p>\n Son Reuben received one feather bed and furniture.<\/p>\n Wife Sarah is bequeathed the use of the still and apple mill during her natural life.\u00a0 The estate of 1,079 acres and improvements is to be divided between sons Edmund and Lewis on her death.\u00a0 On Sarah’s death the remaining “negroes” are to be divided\u00a0 among the named sons and daughters. Son Lewis is to receive\u00a0 a fourth part of the cattle and hogs and also a horse valued “at twenty pounds current money of the State.”<\/p>\n And “I give to Sarah, my wife, all my brandy to do what she please with.”<\/p>\n Grandson George Roberts receives “one tract of land supposed to be one hundred and ninety-five acres, joining the land that I sold John Scogin.” [That brings the total land to 1,274 acres.]<\/p>\n Sarah lived until 1802 and in her will added some of her own property.\u00a0 Daughter Delilah Rhodes receives a “woman named Chloe.”\u00a0 Grandaughter Sarah Jordan received her grandmother’s side saddle. Son Lewis, son James, son George, daughter Mary Roberts, daughter Sarah McCoy, and Reuben each received five pounds.\u00a0 Zechariah Herndon redeived one hundred and forty dollars out of “my present money”.\u00a0 [Note the distribution of both pounds and dollars.]<\/p>\n “My desire is that my corn, meat, millstones, and one feather bed and furniture and all the rest of my property be sold and the money split among her seven’ aforementioned” children.<\/p>\n The scope of the plantation economy in eighteenth century Orange and Wake counties is fairly clearly documented in these two wills.\u00a0 A still, an apple mill, and millstones are the industrial capital listed.\u00a0 One wonders how much brandy was produced on this plantation and what the exports from this plantation for the market might have been.<\/p>\n Christopher Barbee of Kit’s Creek<\/strong><\/p>\n The second son of John and Ann Barbee of Essex County, Virginia, Christopher (“Kit”) Barbee owned land in Essex County that he sold in 1757.\u00a0 In March 1759, he registered two tracts of land he had purchased from John Bohannon<\/p>\n After Wake County was created, the Wake County Court began to create roads so that people could travel to Raleigh for court.\u00a0 In 1773, Christopher Barbee, Thomas Hopson,\u00a0 Edward Sorrell, Sr., Micajah Barbee, and others were ordered to lay out a road from the Orange-Wake line “near Archibald Cain and near Herndons,” down the ridge between Indian Branch and Middle Branch, across Crabtree Creek, to Hillsborough Road. Twice in 1774, the same group was ordered to work on the road.<\/p>\n Eighteen years after settling by Kit’s Creek, Christopher Barbee died and his will was proved in June 1777.\u00a0 Daughter Martha married Lewis Wimberley; she received a “boy named Dick” and instructions that a her decease he be sold and the proceeds distributed among her children.\u00a0 She received no other part of the estate.\u00a0 Daughter Anney [married Goin Barbee, son of John Barbee?]; she received “a boy named Clarkson” and the same instructions.\u00a0 Son Thomas received a “boy named Prince, to him and his heirs forever;” he received no other part of the estate. Son Joseph married Eleanor [maiden name unknown]; she received a “boy named Samson, to him and his heirs forever;” he received no other part of the estate. Daugher Saryan [Sarah Ann] married Ephraim Beasley; she received a “fellor named Jack and the first child that Rachel brings” and instructions that these slaves are to be sold after her decease and the money; if “she dies without an heir, for the negro to fall to her sisters Rose Barbee and Suckey Barbee” [Sukey, a nickname for Susan]; she received no other part of the estate.<\/p>\n Wife Margit [Margaret] receives all the rest of the estate, “both parsinal [personal] and perashabl [perishable],” land to be divided equally between Christopher Barbee and Belego [Abimileck] Barbee, with “Belego to have the upper end on the land and Christopher to have the lower end of the land.”<\/p>\n “And the rest of my negroes, stock, household goods to be equally divided between Christopher Barbee, Benelge Barbee, Joseph Barbee, and Suckey [Susan, Sukey] Barbee,” Suckey’s share to fall to to Rosey Barbee if Suckey dies without heirs.\u00a0 Christopher’s and Beneleg’s shares pass to the other if they die without heir.<\/p>\n The witnesses were William Maner, Thomas Barbee, and Samuel Saxon. All three of the witnesses were neighbors of Christopher Barbee and Ephraim Beasley at the corners of what is now Chatham, Durham, and Wake counties.<\/p>\n Joseph Barbee<\/strong><\/p>\n Joseph Barbee, another son of John and Ann Barbee of Essex County, Virginia, applied for a land grant in Bladen County; the land was surveyed in 1751.<\/p>\n In the 1755 tax list of Orange County, Joseph Barbee and Christopher Rhodes are listed jointly along with 5 unnamed slaves.<\/p>\n In 1760, Joseph Barbee was appointed one of the justices of the peace for Orange County.<\/p>\n In 1771, part of Joseph Barbee’s property became part of newly formed Chatham County. It included both sides of Northeast Creek roughly north of Panther Creek.<\/p>\n Joseph Barbee died in 1773; his will was unwritten but in August 1774, Henry Beasley and his wife Mary testified under oath to the contents, allowing the court to appoint Gray Barbee and his wife Mary Barbee as executor and executrix of the will.<\/p>\n Based on A. B. Markham’s land grant map of Old Orange County and his map of Wake County, his oldest son Gray Barbee continued to obtain land grants adjacent to the tract during the interim.\u00a0 His widow Mary Barbee was ordered to provide hands for road construction in 1782.<\/p>\n Christopher Barbee of Kit’s Creek<\/strong><\/p>\n By the 1775 will of his father Christopher Barbee, this Christopher Barbee received the lower [downstream?] end of the tract that his father purchased from John Bohannon and Thomas Barbee became the minor ward of his older brother Thomas Barbee.\u00a0 In 1782, Christopher was still a minor.\u00a0 By 1784 he had married Dicey Hopson, the daughter of Thomas Hopson; in 1792, Christopher Barbee’s will leaves all of his estate to his “wife Dicy Barbee, and if she have a son [Christopher Barbee, III, was born in 1792], I give him the land and plantation on which I live for him to take possession of at twenty one years age, and if not, and she should marry, I give my estate betwixt my wiff and all my girls, my wife a share and a half, and each girl a share, but if she should marry and and should have a son, the son\u00a0 to have the land before mentioned and an equal share with the girls.”<\/p>\n Neighbors Goin Barbee, Ephraim Beasley, and Ransom Davis are witnesses.<\/p>\n As for the children, Eady Barbee married Willie Markhamin 1812; Milley Barbee married Briton Harward in 1809; Patsey Barbee married William Lynn in 1808;\u00a0 Christopher Barbee, III, married Jeaney Shepherd.\u00a0 This shows how the land relationships in the Northeast Creek basin among the families most visible in the records tended to become interlinked over time.\u00a0\u00a0 The community was organized through family relationships.\u00a0 And relative newcomers could be incorporated into these relationships; Christopher Barbee III and Jeaney Shepherd had two of their children marry O’Kellys; Elizabeth Barbee married Franklin O’Kelly and Bartlett Barbee married Martha O’Kelly.<\/p>\n The following list of land grants in the Northeast Creek basin are taken from the A. B. Markham maps of land grants in Old Orange County and Wake County.<\/p>\n Henry Beasley 1778 Henry Beasley 1754 Ephraim Beasley nd (Multiple years indicate multiple land grants in the Northeast Creek basin. The abbreviation “nd” indicates that evidence of a land grant exists but without a date. Names are spelled as recorded on the land grant.)<\/p>\n The families of these people can be considered the European settlers of the Northeast Creek basin.<\/p>\n St. Mark’s District of Orange County is much larger than the Northeast Creek basin.\u00a0 The major part of the Northeast Creek basin lies in St. Mark’s District of Orange County.\u00a0 The patterns of slavery and landholding are likely representative of the entire creek basin.\u00a0 The data is from the 1790 Orange County tax listing, which taxed “White Polls”, “Black Polls” , “Acres”, “Stud Horses”, and “Carriage Wheels”:<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\nLand Grants<\/h2>\n
Orange County, now Chatham County<\/h3>\n
\nEphraim Beasley 1779
\nFendal Beasley 1778
\nJoseph Barbee 1761
\nGray Barbee 1779
\nThomas Barbee 1780, nd
\nJohn Gregory 1779
\nJacob Wimberley 1779
\nLewis Wimberley 1780<\/p>\nOrange County, now Durham County<\/h3>\n
\nBenjamin Saxon 1761
\nThomas Hopson 1780, nd
\nWilliam Roberts 1782
\nMoses Roberts 1782
\nJohn Saxon 1761
\nKennedy Almond 1784
\nThomas Person 1762
\nBenjamin Saxon 1761
\nJames Waldrop nd
\nWilliam Weatherspoon nd
\nThomas Roberts 1782, nd
\nGeorge Herndon 1779, 1782, nd
\nAllen George 1782
\nPaul Castleberry 1780
\nJohn Humphries nd
\nJohn Booth 1762
\nJohn Trice 1780
\nThomas Hall 1788
\nAndrew Borland 1789
\nJohn Barby, Sr. 1762
\nJohn Holder nd
\nChristian Peeler 1779
\nBenjamin Rogers nd<\/p>\nWake County<\/h3>\n
\nWilliam Beasley 1780
\nWilliam Rogers nd
\nIsaac Hunter 1780
\nAaron Johnson 1782
\nWilliam Mainard 1780
\nJohn Rhodes 1755
\nJoseph Barbee 1763, 1798
\nRichard Heron nd
\nMoses Heron 1782
\nGeorge Taylor 1782
\nHenry Searls 1803<\/p>\nSlavery<\/h2>\n