1834 Cumberland, Robeson and Richmond County lines

The northern corner of Robeson and the southwestern corner of Cumberland were taken from both counties to form Hoke County in 1911. I failed to find the source for this map, except the year the map was created. If anyone can identify this map, please contact me with that information. Thanks!

1808 Strothers Map of Robeson County

The caption, from an undated issue of The Robesonian, says the image was copied the second volume of Kinfolks, by Harllee.

The area south of Red Springs, including Philadelphus, Buie, the area just west of the Great Desert, and the Blackfork region of upper Robeson County, NC.
Source: 1922 Woodberry Lennon map, North Carolina Dept. of Archives and History.

Notice that Little Raft Swamp and McPhaul's Mill Swamp are the same watercourse. The Blackfork region, the wedge of land between Big and Little Raft Swamps, is in the top right quarter of the map. The broad delineations are township boundaries.

The McNeill section of McCaskill's cemetery at Philippi Church in Cumberland County, NC.

This cemetery is within two miles or so of Raeford, NC, at Philippi Presbyterian Church. It is possibly where Turquill McNeill of the Argyll Colony is buried, as well as James McNeill of Rockfish Creek (aka 'Jimmie McNeill of McCaskills Creek'.), and other notables of their time.

Click the image of the little grave with the sandstone marker to see the inscription. The inscription had flour rubbed into it to make it more readable. It says "J. McNeill APTH 1800" (APTH means 'ascended'). This is likely the grave of James McNeill of Rockfish Creek.

The grave of Duncan McNeill, Sr. is that of "Long Duncan" McNeill; Long Duncan's wife Margaret (daughter of James McNeill of Rockfish Creek) is buried beside him. Long Duncan McNeill was the son of Turquill McNeill of the Argyll Colony.

A section of the 1884 McDuffie map of Cumberland County, NC, showing the general location of two McPherson families' landholdings (written over in red) west of Fayetteville and the Cape Fear River.

One is just left of center, and the other is right above it near the top. The McPherson lands at the top combine the Malcolm McPherson and Alexander McPherson of Jura lands. The McPherson lands toward the bottom are the lands of Old John McPherson who entered tracts to be surveyed in 1753; the small cross beneath that area is the site of McPherson Presbyterian Church, the lands of which were donated in 1802 by Colin McPherson, the grandson of Old John McPherson of the Argyll Colony.

Location of Job's Branch, the seat of Neill McNeill's lands in Hoke County, NC.

It also could be the location of "Neill McNeill's burial ground" mentioned by Col. Neil Buie in his 1828 deposition which provided details about the time and burial place of Daniel and Marian McNeill McPherson's young son Archibald.

According to James M. Roberts in his history of the descendants of Sailor Hector McNeill, Sailor Hector's father Neill McNeill was buried "in front of 'Big Will' McNeill's house on Duffie Road, Robeson County, N.C." Is Roberts's statement incorrect about the house being in Robeson—could it have been in southern Hoke County? It was in the Job's Branch area, but where exactly was "Big Will" McNeill's house located?

The surveyor's plat below was found in a folder called "John McPherson, 1840" under "Civil Actions Concerning Land" in the Robeson County records at the NC Dept. of Archives and History. I recommend such records to any researcher for their value in determining land location, vanished landmark names, time of purchase and purchasee, and possibly distribution by heirs of the original owner(s).

This map shows in detail the disjointed grants and tracts bought by Old John McPherson and his son Daniel dating from the 1760s up to around the time of Old John's death in 1791. The land between the various plats was by 1820 entirely owned by the McPherson family, and the whole as shown below is half of the McPherson family estate disputed from about 1823 until 1845 by Catherine McPherson Brown and Gilbert Gilchrist. The other half—some 1100 acres owned by Hugh and Colin McPherson from 1796 until 1823 when they were both deceased—adjoins the lands shown below on their left edge and likewise lay between the Lumberton Road and Raft Swamp, and continued beyond the location of the bridge at Juniper Branch and the Raft Swamp further on. Juniper Branch would have been to the west of this plat.

The "old plantation", centrally located in the middle of the map, is probably the first tract purchased by Old John McPherson upon settling in Bladen County in the mid-1760s, and which he probably acquired at the same time he bought the Moses Bass tract (Moses Bass owned a mill in this region and lived on this tract in 1758). McPherson's log home was located in this irregular-shaped tract on its far right side, marked by a tiny box. The Big Pond and the Bear Pond are now gone, certainly drained and cleared by subsequent owners, but which can be seen on the topozone map (see next map below) if it is compared with the hand drawn map shown here.

With regard to the two maps below, it should be noted that Juniper Branch, now located as a branch draining into the Raft Swamp from its south side, was originally the small branch draining into the Raft Swamp from its north side (see topozone map below). I have come to suspect that at the time the McPhersons owned this land, Juniper Branch drained into the Raft Swamp from the north and south side of the swamp because there the topo map below shows that a branch did at one time drain into the swamp on the north side of the swamp directly across from today's Juniper Branch on the south side.

This entire estate was located just above the current intersection called McLeod's Crossing in northern Robeson County, just east of Red Springs. McLeod's Crossing was called "Godfrey's Crossing" as it was the crossing of the Old Lowery Road and Lumberton-Carthage Road where Godfrey McNeill's house stood. It has been said the house standing there today on a rise near the intersection's northeast corner was indeed Godfrey McNeill's house, but this is yet to be proven. In the late 1700s, other neighbors in this area included the families: Council, Dallas, Henderson, Johnson, McArthur, McBryde, McNeill and Munroe.

Topozone.com is a very good site with which you can match current topography with surveyor's plats. Compare the map below with the plat of Old John's land just above. The town of Shannon is almost due north of the red cross, which is the site of Old John McPherson's cabin.