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Forgotten Municipalities

Jerseyman4

By Jerseyman4
in North Carolina

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Jerseyman4 Burg

Jerseyman4

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I found this interesting that when counties were created, townships were formed in all 100 counties! While i was never taught about this in my high school ELPSA classes, i happend to stumble across it one day surfing the internet (obviously for something unrelated to it). So when i checked out Moore County, it had 10 townships of which most i never heard of these names for any rhyme or reason. I did notice that when Lee County (to the Northeast) was formed in the early 1900s, Greenwood Twp is in Moore & Lee counties which reflected that Lee was once part of Moore County. So check out the county you all reside in or once resided in and name the township you are from!

Mineral Springs Township, Moore County here :)

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cinco Burg

cinco

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i hail from waxhaw, which is in the jackson township. also, noticed above jackson township, in present day weddington, was the township of sandy ridge. in waxhaw there was an old area neighborhood referred to as sandy ridge. it was a little north of waxhaw going towards weddington... but, there aren't any signs or markers calling it that... it was just known as that.

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Jerseyman4 Burg

Jerseyman4

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I'm not sure how the City/town/township thing works in NC?

I'm live in Aberdeen, but I'm used to Tennessee definintions it's incorporated so it would be considered a City/Town.

In NC, it has no importance at all so theres no need to even incorporate this in any conversation except for historical means. In the northeast like NJ, PA and MA, the townships mean much much more as they take up every inch of land in the state. Typically, they have their own city halls, police, fire, schools, garbage pick-up as this is one of the reasons taxes are higher in the northeast because you are paying for a lot of local services rather than most of them being at the county level. The future of townships will slowly die off as you will start hearing about consolidations of smaller municipalities and city services merging together to save property tax payers money (that if some legislators have sense). If it were up to me, id consolidate everything to the county level EXCEPT highway maintienece, that belongs to the state :)

Aberdeen is part of Sandhills Township, Moore County

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WanderingRaleighite Crossroads

WanderingRaleighite

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Jerseyman: Thanks for the link and the quest.

Originally Neuse (Neuse River) township in Wake, now we are in Raleigh.

Since I have been interested in Wake County history I have known of the existence of these townships. Like others I just used them as handy geographical divisions, but did not know what they actually were for. The question sent me on some digging and I pulled out my copy of Elizabeth Murray's: Wake: Capital County of North Carolina vol. I. This is distilled from that and has some of my own research added. The counties were divided into Captain's Districts which were named for the militia captain of that district. The captain would also collect taxes. Because of this, the names changed with every new captain. In 1805 a county judge renamed the twenty districts to permanent, geographical names. The townships superceded these in the state Constitution of 1868 when they were set up as a local governmental unit. Each had two justices and a clerk or township trustee. "The duties of these officials included levying and collecting taxes and the responsibility for roads and bridges." An amendment to the Constitution in 1875 ended this except for its control of local roads. They are used only for convenience in voting and tax listings.

Sorry for the length and I hope that this helps.

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Cybear Unincorporated Area

Cybear

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'Wished I'd found this topic when it was active. It's making me homesick. I've lived in Aberdeen, Weddington, Winston-Salem and still have professional ties to Laurinburg. Sorta feels like reading letters from family.

On the off chance that anyone is still checking in, I recall that based upon a land grant from the King, Anson County once stretched from the coast to the Mississippi, albeit in a narrow strip. I once saw an actual replica map depicting this. Very Interesting. Ansonians are VERY proud of this.

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