HISTORICAL SKETCHES

CANE CREEK BAPTIST CHURCH

Number 22: May 2007 www.canecreek.org/ 6901 Orange Grove Rd., Hillsborough, NC 27278

The First Settlers

Have you ever wondered what it was like to be among the first settlers in a new land? The only way to get about in the wilderness was along Indian footpaths since the rivers were too filled with rocks to support boat travel. Gradually, the paths and trails were widened to allow for horses and still later widened again to allow for wagons. This slow process began in the early 1700s and by the 1740s and 50s the first settlers were staking out claims. Orange County was established in 1752 And Hillsborough was first settled about 1754 as a lonely outpost along the great Indian Trading Past where it crossed the Eno River. I have found an account of the early days written by Francis Nash whose family settled north of Hillsborough. He published this sketch of early settler life in 1910 in The North Carolina Booklet, a copy of which may be found at Wilson Library at UNC. Below are excerpts.

"In 1750 huge forests spread in billows across the tops of the hills and down the sides and over the valleys. Along the creeks and larger brooks were to be found rich bottom lands needing but to be cleared and planted to yield abundant harvests... So safety, fertility, convenience, and a mild and healthy climate all invited adventurous Scotch-Irish of Pennsylvania to this section.

"It is probably that one or two families had already settled as early as 1745 but the migration became a flood-tide from 1750-1775. These immigrants were by no means pioneers... They had already accumulated some property, owned land and horses, cattle, and sheep...

"Let us take one family as a sample and follow them in their migration. The winter of 1750-51 had been severe in Banks County, Pennsylvania. A killing frost had come unexpectedly early and had seriously damaged the crops of Mr. T. His oldest child had sickened and died of pneumonia, and his wife had been desperately ill. He had heard of the success of some of his neighbors in the beautiful and fertile valley of Virginia but the bloody-minded Shawnees were on the war-path and were threatening the outlying settlements. Some of his acquaintances ... however, had passed on farther south to North Carolina, had settled on the Eno River, and had sent back glowing accounts of the climate and the country. He determined to go himself and spy out the land with the view of moving his family to a less hostile climate. In the late fall or winter, he sets out on horseback for this distant land of promise. Bearing to the west, so that he might strike the streams and rivers where they are fordable, he passed across Maryland and through the Scotch-Irish settlements in the Valley of Virginia and after a lapse of about 30 days, enters North Carolina into what is now Caswell County. He pauses for a while ... on Hyco Creek, but finally rides on to the Eno.

" He is pleased with the country, selects his future home, sends for William Churton, one of Earl Granville's surveyors, and has it surveyed. Then he pays his fees for the survey, and also three shillings sterling, consideration money for the deed which Churton is to provide for him from Francis Corbin, one of Granville's agents, and have ready for him on his return with his family from Pennsylvania. Then, with the aid of neighbors, he builds a log cabin on a suitable site, and with the same aid, clears and fences a small parcel of land near it. The spring advancing, he plants corn in this little clearing, and, leaving it to care for itself, he returns to Pennsylvania for his family. There he sells all his property which he cannot carry with him to North Carolina, purchases three or four sturdy horses... or perhaps two yokes of oxen and a heavy, unwieldy but commodious wagon. In this are to be carried the household goods and in it the wife and the younger children are to sleep. A milk cow or two are to be tethered to its axle, and perhaps a small flock of sheep are to be driven by the children...

"During the weekdays, they make on average ten miles a day so they would arrive at their new home about the first of August. As they would pass through the settlements of Maryland and Virginia, they would be met with words of cheer, and they would replenish their supply of food. When, wearied and footsore, they arrived at the end of their long journey, the neighbors flocked to welcome them and to aid them in establishing their new home.

"Hawfields or Haw Old Fields as it was originally called, had a certain unique characteristic, which makes it worthy of a more extended notice. Here had been the home of the Saxapahaw Indians. These Indians, like nearly all the Indians in central North Carolina, were less nomads and more agriculturalists than the northern and western tribes. These old fields had been cleared by them and cultivated by them. Thirty thousand acres of these lands were patented by Edward Mosely. From him they passed to Governor Burrington, and from him to Samuel Strudwick. As early as 1734, Colonel Byrd wrote to Governor Burrington of them: " but no place has a greater character for fertility and beauty of situation as the Haw Old Fields." ... The Mebane's and others settled there as early as 1745 and possibly earlier. "

The earliest Granville land grants I have been able to locate around here are these:

William Piggot: February 1755, 180 acres on Cain Creek;

Thomas Cate: September 1755, 456 acres on Toms Creek;

Alexander Mebane: November 1756, 356 acres on Cain Creek;

Thomas Lindley: May 1757, 356 acres on Cain Creek;

Sackfield Brewer: (month?) 1757, 550 acres on Cain Creek.

I don't know who Piggot was. He soon left. Thomas Cate may or may not have been our first preacher. His grant was later deemed illegal. Alexander Mebane was the first Orange County sheriff and had a town named after him. Thomas Lindley soon sold out and built a grist mill southwest of here. Sackfield Brewer's land is where Snipes' Dairy was located. Charles' ancestor married a Brewer daughter and the Brewer tract became the Snipes tract.

Ed Johnson