HISTORICAL SKETCHES

CANE CREEK BAPTIST CHURCH

Number 27: March 2009 www.canecreek.org 6901 Orange Grove Rd., Hillsborough, NC 27278

1770: THE COLLET MAP

Sketch 26 Showed a portion of the Mosley map published in 1733. Very little was known about the interior of North Carolina in those days. There were no settlers anywhere west of the coastal plains. What little that was known about the interior came from the traders who drove mule trains along the old Indian trading paths. But by 1770, when the Collet map was created, the interior of North Carolina was filling up rapidly and a lot more was known.

The Collet map is entitled "A Compleat Map of North-Carolina from an Actual Survey by Captain Collet, Governor of Fort Johnston." It is inscribed "To his most excellent majesty, George the III, King of Great Britain, etc., etc. This map is most humbly dedicated by his majesty's most humble obedient and most dutiful subject, John Collet." A small portion of this map showing our part of Orange County is on the reverse side.

John Collet was Swiss and was well educated. He went to England where he attracted the interest of the secretary of state, on whose recommendation he was appointed, in 1767, to a post at Fort Johnston in the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Here he made the acquaintance of Governor Tryon. Collet was his aide de-camps on Tryon's expedition to Hillsborough to put down the Regulator insurrection. Tryon asked Collet to complete a map of the state begun by William Churton of Edenton (for whom Churton Street in Hillsborough is named).

By 1770 several families had settled into our community but the only local resident mentioned on the map is "T. Loyde" who would be Thomas Lloyd, the progenitor of all the Orange County Lloyds. He settled north of Calvander. Below Lloyd's name is Mark Morgan's name. He was the first settler in the Chapel Hill area. His land is now the UNC golf course.

On the map, Cane Creek is referred to as "Upper Cain Creek" to distinguish it from the Cane Creek on the other side of the Haw. The old Trading Path descending to the southwest from Hillsborough is, in 1770, a public road called "The Great Road" in old deeds. This road follows Orange Grove Road down to Sugar Ridge Road. Then it went behind Tommy Holmes' house and continued on Bradshaw Quarry Road. There were other roads in the community but they would have been private local roads that were poorly maintained.

In the northwest corner of the map is the notation "Oldfield, Mr. Strudwick's Land." This area was first called "Haw Old Fields" because it had been more-or-less open land from old Indian days and was considered to be especially valuable. Later this became known as Hawfields. The notation on the map refers to the land that William Strudwick bought from ex-Governor George Burrington and which became the subject of so much wrangling, controversy, and hardship. I will devote a future historical sketch to this mess. Ed Johnson

A portion of the 1770 Collet Map