Compared to the rugged mountain region or the swampy Coastal Plain, the Piedmont's gentle hills were more conducive to roads and therefore development. Major Native American trading paths and early European wagon roads cut through the Piedmont, including the Great Trading Path of Native American tribes in Virginia and the Carolinas. As early settlers arrived, they used this path to trade with tribes settled along it. In more modern times, the North Carolina railroad was constructed along portions of this corridor, as was Interstate 85, which links the Triangle area with Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, to the northeast and Charlotte, Columbia, South Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia, to the southwest. The lack of deepwater ports and good roads in eastern North Carolina also meant that many early Piedmont farmers and manufacturers had to send goods through ports in Virginia and South Carolina—one of several factors that slowed economic growth in the state and region.
The Piedmont's steeper topography creates faster running streams and rivers than in the flat Coastal Plain. Thus, mills and manufacturing operations gravitated there to take advantage of this fast-flowing water to turn waterwheels for grinding grain and to power manufacturing processes. Looking closely, one can still see remnants of these mills and factories along many of the area's rivers and creeks.
THE FIRST INHABITANTS
Native Americans are thought to have inhabited the region as early as 12,000 B.C.E. Upon arrival, “paleo” and “archaic” tribes found thick forests teaming with turkey, deer, bear, bison, elk, and other animals. These early inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, but around 1000 B.C.E. they began to practice small-scale agriculture. They planted crops including corn, pumpkins, squash, beans, and sunflowers.7 This shift to agriculture led them to concentrate in small villages near the area's streams and rivers, where the soils were rich and fertile. Major tribes in the area included the Eno, Occaneechi, and Haw.8 By the time the first European settlers arrived, Native Americans had transformed the landscape and had developed widespread trading relationships with other tribes. John Lederer, an early explorer, provides the following description of Eno Town, a major settlement located in what is now Durham County: “The Country here, by the industry of these Indians, is very open, and clear of wood. Their Town is built round a field, where in their Sports they exercise with so much labor and violence, and in so great numbers, that I have seen the ground wet with the sweat that dropped from their bodies: their chief Recreation is Slinging of Stones…. They plant abundance of Grain, reap three Crops in a summer and out of their Granary supply all the adjacent parts.”9
Figure 3. Occaneechi Village re-creation along the Eno River in Hillsborough based on descriptions provided by early European explorers. The village fell into disrepair and was dismantled and reconstructed on another site in the early 2000s (courtesy of the Chapel Hill Visitors Bureau).
THE EUROPEAN INVASION
The English first explored the North Carolina “backcountry” during the late seventeenth century.10 Shortly after these initial explorations, Virginia fur traders began doing business with local tribes, as well as with tribes farther south. Pack trains brought manufactured goods to the Native Americans in exchange for deerskins and furs. Much of this trade relied on the Great Trading Path or the Occaneechi Path, named after the important tribe located along the way. Unfortunately, this trade also brought new diseases that would decimate these tribes.
Then came the settlers. Both the Great Trading Path and the Great Wagon Road, which came down from Pennsylvania through the Shenandoah Valley entering North Carolina to the west of the Piedmont, provided relatively easy access from the north, while access from the east was hampered by the lack of passable roads. Thus, the early European settlers of the area were more likely to hail from Virginia, Maryland, or Pennsylvania than from eastern North Carolina. These second-and third-generation farmers and merchants came to the area “seeking land, tax relief, and, in some cases, greater religious freedom.”11 They were largely of German, Scots-Irish, or Welsh descent, while those who settled eastern North Carolina were predominantly English. The ethnic and religious differences between the central and eastern regions of the state set the stage for future conflicts.
Most settlers were of modest means, so they purchased relatively small homesteads from the Earl of Granville, the last of the lord proprietors who were granted the territory between Virginia and Florida by King Charles II in 1663. Granville's agents were also responsible for collecting taxes, some of which were paid to the colonial government and some used to meet county needs, but “they often remained in the pockets of the tax collectors.”12 Many of the settlers were subsistence farmers, but some established operations that produced enough for trade. As population of the area increased, small market towns began to develop. The colonial government in the eastern city of New Bern became interested in bringing law and order to the frontier and, of course, taxing the new arrivals.13
THE CREATION OF ORANGE COUNTY AND HILLSBOROUGH
In response to the area's growing population, the colony's General Assembly, in 1752, created Orange County,14 originally 398 square miles, ten times its present size. It stretched from the Virginia border down through what is now Lee County, and from what is currently Wake County west to Guilford County.
Every new county needs a county seat and Lord Granville gave the job of locating one to William Churton, “an accomplished cartographer and skilled surveyor.”15 Churton selected a four-hundred-acre site near the center of the county, along the Great Trading Path just north of the Eno River. Although this new town went by several earlier names, its name was changed to Hillsborough in 1766, and it stuck.16
Churton, who was also asked to lay out the town, “envisioned a dignified and orderly town as a symbol of civilization in the midst of the great forests of Orange County.”17 His plan showed a grid system of streets interrupted by public squares at major intersections. Unfortunately, the public squares were not set aside. Churton's plan also called for a public market house in the middle of the main intersection (now the intersection of Churton and King Streets), which was built and which stood until 1820, a courthouse and jail at the southeast corner of that same intersection, and a church and Anglican cemetery several blocks north of the center of town. The remainder of the approximately 120 lots shown on the plan was designated for residential and commercial uses.
As the county seat, Hillsborough grew fast. It attracted the “people who needed court services and the lawyers to serve them; the inns and taverns to supply food, drink and lodging; blacksmiths and saddlers (the service stations of the day); carpenters and brick masons; merchants and Mantua makers; doctors and ministers—all interdependent for goods and services.”18 It was also to become the center of a conflict brewing between the colonial government, controlled by eastern interests, and a significant faction of Orange County residents.
THE REGULATOR REBELLION
The colonial administration of Orange and other central North Carolina counties proved to be oppressive and corrupt. The justices of the peace, nominated by General Assembly representatives and appointed for life by the governor, were all-powerful. Moreover, since the Assembly representatives were often justices themselves, they were a self-perpetuating group. These justices—often men of means who wanted to stay that way—appointed or nominated candidates for sheriff, constable, and other public positions, and also presided over the court system. The system of representation in the General Assembly was also grossly inequitable: “By 1770 the older, eastern counties had a ratio of one representative for every 1,700 people, while the western counties had a ratio of one for every 7,300.”19
Figure 4. Map of Hillsborough drawn in 1768 by C. J. Sauthier (courtesy of the N.C. State Archives). No copies of the original William Churton plan survive. Written accounts indicate that early versions of the plan included four public squares, but these were dropped from the final plan.
A group of Orange County residents calling themselves “Regulators” compiled a long