Welcome to Cape Fear Clans —
Hit the refresh button upon every visit to primary pages. Collected histories of the region are listed in the 'Special Records' link at left. Some authors are not given credit in my transcriptions; those histories were printed originally without recognizing authorship.
Research into John McPherson of the Argyll Colony inspired this site, and provided insight into a colonist who left the Cape Fear settlement to live in Bladen County. His estate record proves that John owned land on Raft Swamp by 1767 and lived there with his son and his family until his death in 1791. Records provide a map of his lands south of today's Shannon community in Robeson County.
Bladen County—formed in 1734 and the mother county of Scottish settlement in North Carolina—lost records to three courthouse fires. According to one Cumberland County court minute entry of January Term 1805, one blaze was in the 1760's. Fortunately, many citizens had their deeds recopied into new record books after every fire, but the resulting order of Bladen's deeds is a challenge. Regardless, hundreds of early deeds survive, some of which survive in whole or in citation within Cumberland County deed books. Brent Holcomb's Bladen County, North Carolina, Abstracts of Early Deeds, 1738-1804 is an excellent, abstracted source for surviving Bladen deeds. My other sources are Robeson County deed books, wills, estates records, court minutes, depositions, land warrants, maps, newspaper articles, letters and publications about the clans in the Cape Fear region.
Bladen County tax records from 1768-1789 discovered in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC have been published by William L. Byrd III. These tax lists—particularly the unalphabetized lists—provide insight into late colonial, Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary era neighborhoods in what is today Robeson and Hoke counties, and southernmost Cumberland. In addition to these published lists, the NC Legislative papers at the NC Department of Archives and History contains another extensive, unalphabetized Bladen tax list from 1784 showing number of polls, amounts of land owned and the districts in which the land lay. We have to thank Dr. Morris Britt for his inclusion of this particular list into his "Robeson County Register". Mabel McNeill Smith Lovin's history of her McNeill ancestors, alone, is a monumental effort and a fine overview of many early Scots settlers of Robeson and Cumberland counties. Many are recorded in Peggy Townsend's three volumes of Vanishing Ancestors, and there exists no such thorough source of the cemeteries of Robeson County in toto. And for a revealing, non-fictional description of how the people of the colonial and post-Revolutionary periods populated the expanding south, find a copy of Everett Dick's 1948 book, The Dixie Frontier.
A few eighteenth-century families—many were neighbors in the early Bladen tax lists—that I'm researching:
- "Bluff Hector" McNeill, son of "Black Neill" McNeill who was one of the leaders of the Argyll Colony. The will of "Bluff Hector" and a deed both show that "Bluff Hector" had two brothers, Duncan McNeill and Archibald McNeill. I am sifting through deeds to confirm the identity of this Archibald McNeill who was alive in 1784 and has never been listed as a son of "Black Neill" McNeill. This Archibald does not in any way appear to be "Archibald Bahn"/"Scribbling Archie" McNeill. Additionally, deeds show that "Bluff Hector" had only one son living by 1796.
- Archibald "Bluff Archie" McNeill and wife Barbara Baker, who lived on the north side of Big Rockfish Creek, perhaps just south of Stewart's Creek. "Bluff Archie" signed his name with an "A" in grantor deeds and in his will of 1778. No lands are mentioned in his will, and researching deeds to pinpoint where exactly he resided has yielded nothing; however, the number of deeds concerning him hint that besides being a 'planter' he may have been a minor land speculator from the 1750's to at least 1775. Also, I have found intriquing similarities between "Bluff Archie" and Archibald, "Bluff Hector" McNeill's brother who hides in plain site, unacknowledged, in Bluff Hector's will.
- John McPherson of the Argyll Colony who about 1765 left Cumberland County with his son, Daniel McPherson, to the north edge of Raft Swamp near today's Red Springs in Robeson County. He and Daniel settled just northwest of Godfrey McNeill's homesite and north of the old Patterson cemetery along the Stage Road from Lumberton to Fayetteville, a road that today still follows the north edge of Raft Swamp.
- "Beaverdam Daniel" Patterson, John McPherson's nephew, who lived in the far western corner of Cumberland County on Beaverdam near Toney's Creek. He and his children have been referred to as the "Beaverdam Pattersons". Deeds and wills prove he was neither "Buffalo Daniel" Patterson, "Raft Swamp Daniel" Patterson, nor "Piper Daniel" Patterson.
- Turquill McNeill who, with his son Laughlin McNeill, lived near the Beaverdam Presbyterian Church area in 1768 near Buffalo and Toney's Creek near today's county lines of northern Hoke and western Cumberland. His wife's name may have been Mary Bethune. Turquill was likely a close relative of James McNeill of Rockfish Creek. His neighbors were "Buffalo Daniel" Patterson, "Beaverdam Daniel" Patterson, Gilbert and Duncan McNair, the Graham family and James Dyer. Turquill McNeill was with the Argyll Colony.
- "Hector, carver" McNeill of the Argyll Colony and who owned land on Carvers Creek in Cumberland County. Comparing deeds stating inheritance between the family of James McNeill of Rockfish Creek and Hector McNeill of Carvers Creek prove that James' wife, Elizabeth, was Hector's only surviving child and heir. Hector's 1740 grant, near the mouth of Lock's Creek, included a cemetery by 1803.
- James McNeill of Rockfish Creek and wife Elizabeth McNeill, (aka Jimmie McNeill of McCaskills), in today's Hoke and Cumberland County. Bible records show he was in North Carolina before 1752. My great-grandfather who died in 1941 aged 92, a descendant of James McNeill, told my mother that James arrived in 1740. James is likely buried in Philippi cemetery east of Raeford, NC. Elizabeth was the only child of "Hector, carver" McNeill, above.
- Godfrey McNeill and wife Catherine McDougald who lived at the intersection at Godfrey's Crossing, now known as McLeod's Crossing. They and some of their children are buried in unmarked graves in the Patterson cemetery on Raft Swamp in Robeson County. He and his wife immigrated from Scotland about 1760 and lived briefly with James and Elizabeth McNeill of Rockfish Creek.
- Neill McNeill, Sr. who in 1768 lived on Job's Branch in today's Hoke County very near the entrance to Greenbriar on Duffie Road just west of Red Springs. Generations of this McNeill family have claimed their immigrant ancestor Neill McNeill, Sr.—likely an Argyll colonist—came to America in 1740 with two little sons "Sailor Hector" McNeill and "Shoemaker John" McNeill. The oldest deed for him in Bladen County records identifies him as 'Neill McNeill of Cumberland County' and subsequent deeds identify him as 'of Bladen County'.
- Duncan Campbell and wife Christian Smith who in 1768 appear to have lived near Burnt Swamp just south of the Philadelphus community in today's Robeson County. Duncan gave his land on the Cape Fear River to his grandson, John Campbell of Campbells Bridge on Lumber River. I suspect this Duncan Campbell was a son of an Argyll Colonist; if not, he probably arrived in the early 1750's.
- Solomon Johnston, Sr. was the father of widowed Marrion Johnston Perkins who, after 1767, married John McPhaul, Sr. He also had a son Solomon Johnston Junior who lived, at least for a time, in Georgia and who died without children. Colonial Bladen County tax lists reveal Solomon's wife to have been non-white; according to oral tradition either Marrion herself or her daughter "Pretty Polly" Perkins was Native American. Solomon may have come down from Virginia.
- John Johnson, Sr. who in 1792 had land on Ten Mile Swamp, and perhaps Cole Camp Branch in Robeson County. Bladen County land warrants reveal John Johnson, Sr. lived on his land on the south side of Pugh's Marsh as early as1753, the same year their son John Johnson, Junior, entered land north of Pugh's Marsh. Pugh's Marsh was around today's Lumber Bridge in Robeson about 3 miles from Cole Camp Branch.
©2004 -2011 S.C. Edgerton