Chatham County, North Carolina
From ENC Phillips Group Wiki
| Chatham County | |
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| Founded 1771 | |
| Website http://www.chathamnc.org | |
Chatham County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of 2000, the population was 49,329. Its county seat is Pittsboro.
Contents
History
Some of the first European settlers of what would become the county were English Quakers, who settled along the Haw and Eno rivers.[1] The county was formed in 1771 from Orange County. It was named in 1758 for William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, who served as British Prime Minister from 1766 to 1768 and opposed harsh colonial policies. In 1907, parts of Chatham County and Moore County were combined to form Lee County.
The award-winning PBS documentary, Family Name, notes Chatham County as the place where men of the Alston family fathered children with African-American slaves, leading to Alston descendants who were African American, as well as European-American branches of the family.[2][3]
George Moses Horton, Historic Poet Laureate of Chatham County, (1797?-1883) lived most of his life in Chatham County and is among the few slaves to have published material while still a slave.[4][5][6]
Moncure once served as the westernmost inland port in the state, as steamships could travel between it and the coast.[7]
On March 25, 2010, the Chatham County Courthouse, built in 1881, caught fire while undergoing renovations. It has now been rebuilt. For more information, see Pittsboro, North Carolina.
Townships
The county is divided into 13 townships: Albright, Baldwin, Bear Creek, Cape Fear, Center, Gulf, Hadley, Haw River, Hickory Mountain, Matthews, New Hope, Oakland, and Williams.
Adjacent counties
- Orange County, North Carolina - north
- Durham County, North Carolina - northeast
- Wake County, North Carolina - east
- Harnett County, North Carolina - southeast
- Lee County, North Carolina - south
- Moore County, North Carolina - southwest
- Randolph County, North Carolina - west
- Alamance County, North Carolina - northwest
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Alamance County | Orange County | Durham County |
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| Randolph County | 
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Wake County | ||
 Chatham County, North Carolina 
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| Moore County | Lee County | Harnett County |
Cities and towns
Unincorporated communities:
- Bear Creek
- Bennett
- Bonlee
- Brickhaven
- Bynum
- Carbonton
- Corinth
- Crutchfield Crossroads
- Gulf
- Haywood
- Moncure
- Silk Hope
- Wilsonville
External links
- Chatham County Government
- Chatham County Travel and Tourism
- Chatham Journal Newspaper
- Chatham Conservative Voice
- Chatham Online Bulletin Board
- Chatham Chatlist Highlights
- 99 things we love about Chatham County
References
- ↑ Bishir, Catherine (2005). North Carolina Architecture. UNC Press. p. 38. https://books.google.com/books?id=NccTgQkmPIEC.
- ↑ "UNC-TV ONLINE: Black Issues Forum:Transcripts". Unctv.org. http://www.unctv.org/bif/transcripts/1997/bif1211.html. Retrieved 2012-06-28.
- ↑ Macky Alston (1998-09-15). "Family Name | POV". PBS. http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov1998/familyname/about/about2.html. Retrieved 2012-06-28.
- ↑ "George Moses Horton, 1798?-ca.1880". Docsouth.unc.edu. http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/hortonlife/bio.html. Retrieved 2012-06-28.
- ↑ Hudson, Marjorie (1999-02-22). "The George Moses Horton Project: Celebrating a triumph of literacy". Learnnc.org. http://www.learnnc.org/articles/horton0403-1. Retrieved 2012-06-28.
- ↑ "George Moses Horton Project". Chathamarts.org. 2000-11-18. http://www.chathamarts.org/horton/. Retrieved 2012-06-28.
- ↑ "Chatham County : Interesting Facts & Tidbits". Chathamnc.org. 2007-07-31. http://www.chathamnc.org/Index.aspx?page=29. Retrieved 2012-06-28.
  
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This page uses content from the English language Wikipedia adapted for use as a quick research reference on this wiki. The original content was here: Chatham County, North Carolina. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with the ENC Phillips Group Wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons License. |