Cumberland County was formed from the upper portion of Bladen County in February 1754 by an act of the General Assembly.[i] The original boundary lines for Cumberland County included all of what are now Moore and Harnett Counties, most of what are now Hoke and Lee Counties, a small portion of what is now Wake County, yet only the upper 40% of what is now Cumberland County.[ii] The southern boundary of the county started “at the Mouth of Cross Creek” and ran south-west to a point on the Lumbee River near the current town of Wagram.[iii] This meant that when Campbellton and Cross Creek were formed (the communities that would become the town of Fayetteville in less than 30 years), Campbellton was in Bladen County and Cross Creek was in Cumberland County![iv]
In 1756, Cumberland County actually ceased to exist for almost a month. The September-October 1756 session of the North Carolina General Assembly, reacting to instructions from the British Crown via the Lords Justices dated July 1755, repealed five acts the General Assembly had previously passed for “containing certain Clauses forbid by his Majesty’s said Orders.”[v] By the end of this session, however, the General Assembly passed an act entitled “An Act to re-establish the Counties of Rowan, Cumberland, and Orange,” and Cumberland County existed once again with the same boundaries as before.[vi]
In 1762, Campbellton was formally established by another act of the General Assembly.[vii] This act authorized one hundred acres of land to be laid off “on the west side of the North-West branch of the Cape Fear River, below the mouth of Cross Creek.”[viii] The intent behind establishing a town at this spot on the Cape Fear River was to draw the trade of Anson and Rowan Counties away from Charleston, South Carolina.[ix] This act also served the purpose of acceding to the requests of the inhabitants of Cumberland County for a new courthouse and jail.[x] Cumberland’s courthouse and jail at the time were located in the village of Choeffington, a now extinct settlement which was near present-day Linden.[xi] The settlement of Cross Creek had been growing since John Newberry built a mill on the banks of the creek in 1754, so it made sense for the courthouse to be closer to the centers of population.[xii] However, because the majority of the one hundred acres provided for Campbellton were in Bladen County, this act stated that however much of the land in Bladen “as shall be judged necessary for establishing the said town” was “hereby annexed to and declared to be part of Cumberland county [sic].”[xiii] Despite that, the true boundary between Cumberland and Bladen was not actually changed until March 1764.[xiv]
The 1764 boundary change still did not include all of present-day Cumberland because it set the mouth of Rockfish Creek as reference point, with a line running from there due east to the South River (known as the Black River at the time), then following Rockfish to “Gravely Hill” (present-day Raeford), then due west to the Lumbee River.[xv] This southern boundary remained in place until December 1789, and then it didn’t change again until 1874, creating the present-day boundary between Cumberland and Bladen Counties.[xvi]
By 1775 the communities of Cross Creek and Campbellton had grown significantly and the area was a thriving hub for commerce.[xvii] With the colonies on the brink of Revolution, however, Cumberland County stood out from the rest of North Carolina because of its large Loyalist population (due in part to a heavy concentration of Highland Scots in the area).[xviii] In February 1776 Brig. Gen. Donald MacDonald erected the Royal standard at Cross Creek and issued a manifesto inviting “His Majesty’s faithful subjects” and “every well wisher to that form of Government under which they have so happily lived” to join him there.[xix] His offer was for them to be able to help “restore peace and tranquillity [sic] to this distracted land” by “joining the King’s Army” rather than “submitting to the mandates of Congress and Committees––those lawless, usurped, and arbitrary tribunals.”[xx]
General MacDonald planned to march his army down to Wilmington and meet up with British regulars there. An estimated 4,300 Highlanders and 200 Regulators gathered at Cross Creek to support the King’s cause, but once they learned there were no British soldiers already there to escort them to Wilmington approximately 1,500 of the Highlanders returned home.[xxi] MacDonald then set out for Wilmington with 1,600 men and he left 1,400 men behind to protect Cross Creek.[xxii]
Patriot forces had also been gathering in the area and by the time General MacDonald started moving towards Wilmington a force of 1,100 Patriots under the command of Col. James Moore had set up on the Wilmington Road just before it crossed Rockfish Creek, near present-day Tracy Hall Road, just south of the I-95/NC-87 interchange.[xxiii] MacDonald and his force ended up slipping away but ultimately faced a combined Patriot force of almost 1,000 men under the commands of Cols. Richard Caswell and Alexander Lillington.[xxiv] This engagement, the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge, was over almost as soon as it began but it had a significant impact on Loyalist support in North Carolina and it has the distinction of being the first decisive American victory in the Revolutionary War.[xxv]
Because of Moores Creek, the British were never able to arm and equip a large Loyalist army in North Carolina, but it did not wipe out all the Loyalist sentiments in Cumberland County.[xxvi] In 1777 and 1778 the Cumberland court minutes are full of the names of men who took a required oath of allegiance in open court, and also the names of men who were brought into court (and subsequently jailed) for “speaking seditious and Contemptuous words against this State.”[xxvii] Also in 1778 Cross Creek and Campbellton combined and became known as Upper Campbellton and Lower Campbellton, respectively.[xxviii] Throughout the war Cross Creek and Campbellton would go back and forth, being occupied by bands of Patriots for a time, then being occupied by bands of Loyalists for a time, and so on.[xxix]
The notorious Loyalist commander, Col. David Fanning, also operated in Cumberland County for a time. In July 1781 Fanning defeated Col. Philip Alston, the commander of the Cumberland County militia, at the Battle of the House in the Horseshoe in western Cumberland County (present-day Moore County). Following that victory Fanning’s forces conducted a raid on the Cumberland County courthouse in Upper Campbellton where the present-day Cumberland County Public Library Headquarters branch is located.[xxx] This raid resulted in the capture several key Patriots, including Col. James Emmett and Col. Robert Rowan.[xxxi]
Finally, in May 1783, only months before the official end of the Revolutionary War, Upper and Lower Campbellton were renamed to Fayetteville in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette.[xxxii]
[i] NC General Assembly, The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina (CSR), vol. 25, 1789-1790, and Supplement, Omitted Laws 1669-1783, ed. Walter Clark (Goldsboro, NC, 1906), 267-68.
[v] CSR, vol. 23, Laws, 1715-1776, ed. Clark (Goldsboro, NC, 1904), 446-47.
[xi] John Hairr and Joseph Powell Jr., Where Choeffington Once Stood (Averasboro Press, 1992).
[xvii] CSR, vol. 9, 1771-1775, ed. Saunders (Raleigh, NC, 1890), 79-80.
[xviii] Robert O. DeMond, The Loyalists in North Carolina During the Revolution (Archon Books, 1964), 57
[xix] CSR, vol. 10, 1775-1776, ed. William L. Saunders (Raleigh, NC, 1890), 29-30.
[xxvii] Cumberland County, NC, Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, D:54v, 51v-84r.
[xxix] CSR, vol. 11, 1776 and Supplement: 1730-1766, ed. Clark, (Winston, NC, 1895), 283; vol. 14, 1779-1780, ed. Clark (Winston, NC, 1896), 858; vol. 15, 1780-1781, ed. Clark (Goldsboro, 1898), 265; vol. 22, Miscellaneous, ed. Clark (Nash Bros, 1907), 553, 563, 567; etc.
[xxx] CSR, 22:566-67; John Hairr, Colonel David Fanning: The Adventures of a Carolina Loyalist (Averasboro Press, 2000), 107.
[xxxi] CSR, 22:570, 566-67; Hugh McDonald Papers, record ID PC.1178, State Archives of NC, https://digital.ncdcr.gov/Documents/Detail/hugh-mcdonald-paper-n.d./411569, 12; Eli W. Caruthers, The Old North State in 1776: Volumes I and II with Index (Guilford County Genealogical Society, 1985), 265-66, originally published as Revolutionary Incidents: and Sketches of Character, Chiefly in the “Old North State,” 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1854-56); Hairr, Colonel David Fanning, 107.
[xxxii] May 22: House bill to establish the principal streets of Fayetteville, record ID 66.8.34.38, GASR, State Archives of NC.