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Roads Listed In Civil War SurveyWith our present network of paved (few of dirt now visible) roads in WilsonCounty, the average person can hardly imagine what traveling was like during the period of the Civil War, much less looking backward towards the earliest settlements that began in 1741.The few existing early maps reveal little beyond the two or three principal routes through our midst. “The Official Atlas of The Civil W'ar, 1861-1864, showed the following roads, as well as the route of the Wilmington Weldon Rail Road:l. The road from Smithfield passed the head of Black ('reek and joined the road west of the town of Black Creek, before the latter road crossed Content nea Creek, the old road from Wilson towards Raleigh, Toisnot Swamp (probably at the modern Silver Lake), and then left Wilson County to cross Tar River at Cockrell's Bridge on N.C. 58.2. The Old Raleigh Road left Bailey and proceeded eastward through Stott’s Crossroads, joined modern Wilson along Tarboro Street.3. The road from Wilson to Tarboroappears to leave Wilson by the present Herring Avenue and to continue along N.C. 42 past Hitt’s Grove (St. Lewis?) and then past Lower Town Creek Primitive Baptist Church.4. From Stantonsburg one road passed through Saratoga, thereby crossing the Plank Road from Wilson to Maysville (Farmville?) and Greenville, and then proceeded onward to Pitt’s Grove and Tarboro5. Just inside the Wilson Countv line.the lower fork of the above road proceeded to Old Sparta on Tar River, just below the point that said River is joinedby Town Creek.6. A second road from Stantonsburg ran northwestward to Wilson, strikingthe old Black Creek Road a little nortliof Hominy Swamp.7 A third road from Stantonsburg ran west of Saratoga and onward to cross the Wilmington Weldon Railroad al Joyner's Depot about one mile north of the present Flm City.8. A fork from road No. 6 abovedropped south of Contentnea Creek at Woodard's Bridge and proceeded westerly to Black Creek Depot.9. The mapmaker must have been in error when he took the old road from Goldsboro westward across therailroad at Black Creek Depot and then northeastward across the railroadagain before crossing Contentnea Creek and Hominy Swamp in the direction of Wilson.10. His third error is omitting the road from London's Church northerlywto the railroad, but he is correct from it to modern Dunn's Cross Roads and onward to modern N.C. 97 shortly aftercrossing the old road from Joyner’s Depot to Cockrell’s Bridge over Tar River on N.C. 58.
Newspaper Details
Wilson Daily Times
Wilson, North Carolina, US
Tue, Nov 29, 1983
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Wilson C.
NC, USA 21 Jun 2023
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