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A N e w H a n o v e r C o u n t y
History through tt
b y J a s o n F r y e
Road Map t
Looking at New Hanover County today, it’s hard to envision the tree-covered towns and
undeveloped communities amid the tangled web of roads. No Wrightsville Beach, Castle Hayne
or Kure Beach. No Sunset Park, Forest Hills or Landfall. Only Wilmington, one-mile square,
a shadow of what it would become in a few short years.
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
In the early 1730s, Wilmington’s
streets were laid out much in
the fashion of nearby Brunswick
Town. A central street with a market
— Market Street — bisected
the town and development didn’t extend
much beyond the area bordered by Princess
and Dock streets on the north and south,
Water to Fourth Street on the west and
east. Surrounding the heart of Wilmington
were homes and businesses and, further
out, farms and plantations. By 1736,
Wilmington had expanded and included
Front, Mulberry (now Grace), Chestnut,
Red Cross, King, Queen and Nun streets,
but still sat in the shadow of Brunswick
Town’s larger port.
Although Wilmington’s design was
fashioned after Brunswick Town, the street
names and layout are also similar to two
other cities–Philadelphia and Liverpool,
England–so much so there is an ongoing
dispute among historians about the initial
designs. After much research into the matter
Beverly Tetterton, local history librarian
at the New Hanover County Library, has
settled on Liverpool as the inspiration for
Wilmington.
“One of Wilmington’s names early on
was New Liverpool,” Tetterton says. “Plus
the early spelling of Princess Street —
Prince’s Street — is a match to Liverpool.
We still have a Liverpool Street, actually.”
By 1769, Wilmington hadn’t grown
much, as a map by acclaimed French
cartographer and illustrator C.J. Sauthier
shows. On his map, Wilmington is a
tight cluster of buildings, a few streets
and a handful of roads out of town. The
“Road to New Bern” followed the track
of modern-day Market Street out of
town, “Road to the Sound” appears to
have followed Oleander Drive, “Road to
Brunswick Ferry” paralleled what is now
17th Street, and “Road to the North East”
roughly traced the path of the Martin
Luther King Jr., Parkway.
Outside of Wilmington, New Hanover
County consisted largely of farms and
a few plantations that were, like Orton
Plantation, dedicated to growing rice.
Roads, trails and cart paths connected to
the few main routes funneling into town
and were infrequently traveled except by
locals to purchase supplies, deliver goods or
pick up shipments at the dock.
Travel from outlying farms into
Wilmington was an arduous task. Many of
the roads were corduroy roads made by laying
a base of side-by-side logs, perpendicular
to the route, covered with soil, brush
and more soil. These roads were muddy,
rough and hard on wagon wheels and axles.
Combine that with a zigzag route around
creeks, marshes and swamps, and it was a
daylong trip from any area more than five
miles out of town.
From the Colonial era until early last
century, those crossing the Northern colonies
to Charleston, S.C. passed through
Wilmington and crossed the river on the
Cape Fear River Ferry. Located at the foot