CityView Magazine

FAYETTEVILLE THROUGH THE CENTURIES 1754-1779 Cumberland County branched off from Bladen Precinct's Colonial Assembly in 1754. The 2,400-square-mile of backcountry territory where some the earliest family names of former Highland Scots planted their roots. A few of the earliest recorded family names include: McAllister, Newberry, McNeill, Evans, Ellerbe, Gray and Dunn. 1755 The first tax list of Cumberland County lists 302 whites, 63 Negroes and 11 mulattoes. 1757 John Newberry, a Quaker millwright, operates Cumberland County's first gristmill, known as the first business erected on Cross Creek. 1758 Pennallopy, a Negroe slave girl of the James Muse Sr. estate is the first black person's name known to our county's history. Muse, the owner of three slaves, is the first listed of Cumberland taxables. 1758 Founded by Rev. James Campbell, Bluff Church was the county's first Presbyterian congregation. 1762 Campbellton was established on the northwest branch of the Cape Fear River. 1765 Cross Creek is chartered 1770 Cape Fear Baptist Church was established at Gray's Creek. 1775 The Liberty Point Resolves was signed by 55 men at a tavern site where a monument stands at Bow and Person Streets. 1778 The Colonial village and trading center merged with Campbellton and was renamed Fayetteville in 1783. 1789 Cool Spring Tavern, located at 119 Cool Spring St., belonged to the MacKethan family and is believed to be the oldest building in Fayetteville. 1793 The Fayetteville Independent Light Infantry (FILI) is formed under the leadership of Robert Adam, having 22 men. The first company fifer, serving nearly 30 years, was a free black man named Isaac Hammond. After serving during the Revolutionary War in the 10th Regiment of the N.C. Continental Line, he later was a barber in Fayetteville. 1796 The African Meeting House was built and named after a black preacher and shoemaker, Henry Evans, later known as the Evans Metropolitan AME Zion Church. 1804 A charter issued to Bank of the Cape Fear. 1810 The State Bank of North Carolina is chartered with William B. Grove as the president. 52 | October • 2012 1815 The Oval Ballroom, now at Heritage Square on Dick Street, was built as an addition to the Halliday- Williams house on Gillespie Street. 1817 St. John's Episcopal Church was founded by John Winslow, a banker, businessman, state senator and the equivalent of mayor at the time of his death in 1820. 1819 The Clarendon Bridge was the first span across the Cape Fear River in Cumberland County. A sanitary district was established in Fayetteville.

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