Sampson Hall Plantation
Among Earliest in County
By Tom Byrd
Early landowners in Duplin and Sampson have been of interest to me since the 1970s when I began mapping land grants in the two counties. Mapping means taking plats (maps) of land grants and fitting them on a current map like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. The objective is to show who the original settlers were and where they owned land. When my mapping efforts reached what is now the Clinton area, I found that John Sampson owned land there of an uncertain origin. This naturally piqued my curiosity since my objective was to trace each tract back to its first owner. I have since looked at all of John Sampson’s landholdings, and I would now like to share some of the things I found with readers of the Huckleberry Historian.
Most articles on John Sampson focus on his record of public service and that record is impressive. A native of Northern Ireland, he migrated to the Cape Fear area of North Carolina by November 1737. (New Hanover Deed Bk. H, p. 680) Over the next 47 years, he would serve as sheriff of New Hanover County, colonel in the militia, mayor of Wilmington, a justice of three county courts, and a member of the Executive Council of Governors Arthur Dobbs, William Tryon, and Josiah Martin. He declined a position in the cabinet of Governor Richard Caswell because of age.
In 1740, John Sampson bought a riverfront home on the Cape Fear River, about where the Wilmington Hilton stands today.
John Sampson’s first land was in Wilmington. He bought a riverfront lot and dwelling house there in 1740, two years before being named New Hanover County sheriff. The Wilmington Hilton now stands on part of that land. He and Mrs. (Ann Walker) Sampson later owned a house in the 100 block of South Second Street that they kept until 1770. (New Hanover Deed Bk. AB, p. 396; Bk. F, p. 243; Elizabeth F. McCoy’s Block Book of Wilmington) Incidentally, at the time Sampson served as sheriff, New Hanover included what is now Sampson, Duplin, Pender, Brunswick, and parts of Columbus Counties.
John Sampson was a leader in getting Duplin County established out of the “upper reaches” of New Hanover in 1750. As soon as that legislation was passed, Governor Gabriel Johnston appointed him to the new county’s governing body – the Duplin Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions. Some 34 years later, when most of present-day Sampson County was created out of western Duplin, Sampson was appointed to the Sampson Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions. He presided over the Court’s first session held in June 1784. He missed the September session, presumably because of illness. His last will and testament was probated at the December Court, suggesting he died in the fall of 1784.
In this photo taken in 1955, the late Preston Lewis points to where his father, H.B. Lewis, said General John Ashe was buried in the John Sampson Cemetery. Ashe, a prominent militia leader during the Revolution, was captured and imprisoned in Wilmington by the British in 1781. After developing smallpox, he was released and made his way as far as Sampson Hall before he died.
In the early 1980s, members of the nascent Sampson County Historical Society, using a huge oak as a guide, found John Sampson’s grave in northeastern Clinton. It is located about 100 yards north of Beaver Dam Branch and can be reached by a trail that begins across from 510 Pine View Road. After discovering remnants of a building foundation, Society members now believe that his home, Sampson Hall, was located nearby.
John Sampson's plantation home, Sampson Hall, was located in what is now east Clinton, in the vicinity of today's Walking Stick Trail and Beaver Dam Drive.
Sampson Hall stood on a 1,000-acre plantation that John Sampson carved out of a 12,000-acre land grant issued to James Huey in 1736. The Huey grant was arguably the most important one in Sampson County history because of what John Sampson did with it. Or put it this way: had Huey not received the grant, there may be a Sampson County someplace, but it would not be where the county is today. Yet, James Huey’s name is not mentioned in the several articles about John Sampson in The Heritage of Sampson County, North Carolina, published by the Sampson County Historical Society in 1983. This may be because his name was spelled Hewitt, Hewet, Hewit, Heweth, and Hewey instead of Huey in early Duplin records.
To understand the Huey grant, and appreciate what John Sampson did with it, one must go back to 1729. That was the year New Hanover was created as the first county in southeastern North Carolina and the year the British crown got the colony back from the eight Lords Proprietors. Settlement during the Proprietary Period, 1663-1729, had been confined largely to the Albemarle Region. A few large plantations, like Roger Moore’s Orton, had been established on the lower Cape Fear River, but for the most part the region was unsettled. The British were a seafaring people. They depended on trade and commerce, and they liked what they saw in Cape Fear Region: the colony’s most navigable river system and vast pine forests from which they could get tar and pitch needed to keep their wooden ships afloat.
If the Cape Fear Region had a downside it was that the richer, better drained, soils were inland, away from the bays and deep sands of the coastal areas. This fact was noted by an early explorer, Hugh Meredith, in an article written for the May 6, 1731, issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette, Benjamin Franklin’s newspaper:
There is another River which falls into the Northwest (Cape Fear), on the east side, about 12 miles above the Entrance of the Northeast; it is called Black River from the Duskyness of its Waters; Upon this Branch they say there are some considerable Tracts of very good Land, but it is not well discovered any great way up.
More information on the “very good land” is found in the Letters of James Murray, Loyalist. A native of Scotland, he arrived in North Carolina in January 1736 and lived for a few months at (old) Brunswick Town before moving up river to New Town as Wilmington was first called. There he became a merchant and an official in the government. In February 1736, Murray accompanied Governor Johnston and several others on a 180-mile trek into the upper reaches of New Hanover. Afterwards he wrote:
There is not such a Quantity of land in any part of this county yet discovered so good as that lyes on ye North East and black rivers, whose branches interlock one another, which is ye centre of ye province & in all probability will far exceed any part of it were there but industrious people enough to inhabit it. (p. 27)
Soil scientists would later classify the land to which Murray referred as “fine Norfolk sandy loan.” The prevalence of this soil type on the upper branches of the Black and Northeast Rivers is why Duplin and Sampson have been bigger agricultural counties historically than coastal counties like Pender and Brunswick.
The first documented attempt to settle this “very good land” is dated 1735. In November of that year, Governor Johnston informed his Executive Council of a “letter lately received from Mr. Dobbs and other gentlemen of distinction in Ireland and Henry McCulloh, merchant in London, representing their intentions to send over several poor Protestant families with designs of raising flax and hemp...” The Governor further stated that the gentlemen had employed Samuel Woodward, esquire, as their attorney, and that he had found for them 60,000 acres of suitable land on Black River for which he (the Governor) planned to issue grants. (Colonial Records, Second Series, Vol. VIII, p. 51) Mr. Dobbs was Arthur Dobbs, who was then surveyor-general of Ireland and who in 1754 became governor of North Carolina. The word “gentleman” was used to describe someone of the lesser nobility -- well born but without hereditary title. Poor Protestants were people living in the northern or non- Catholic part of Ireland.
On 14 Jan 1736 (new style calendar) Governor Johnston issued six land grants. William Alison (Ellison), James Huey, and George Arnold received 12,000 acres each on a branch of Black River later named Great Coharie Swamp. Arthur Dobbs, Alexander Stewart, and Alexander Hamilton each received 6,000 acres on a branch of Black River later named Six Runs Swamp. (New Hanover Land Grant Files Nos. 26-31) These were the first land grants in present-day Sampson County.
As it turned out, Henry McCulloh was the London agent for Dobbs and the other “gentlemen of distinction.” McCulloh got his own grant in 1738. It was a whopping 72,000 acres that stretched in a zigzag pattern up the east side of Six Runs from near Turkey to near Suttontown in present-day Sampson and then along the south side of Goshen Swamp to beyond Kenansville in present-day Duplin. (New Hanover County Land Grant File No. 141) The story of the McCulloh grant is too long to be told here, but parts of it are relevant to the land received by Dobbs and the others. To get the grant McCulloh promised King George II that he would send over poor Protestants to produce commodities “greatly advantageous to the Kingdom.” He named specifically potash, and hemp, pitch, tar, and other kinds of naval stores. Hemp was considered a naval store because it was used for making rope. Potash was made from wood ashes, and McCulloh even calculated the monetary value of that product to the Kingdom. (British Records, Privy Council Office Register, 1 Aug 1734- 23 Sept 1736, Copy in N.C. State Archives)
Thus, McCulloh, Dobbs, and the others were British entrepreneurs who thought they saw opportunities in the upper reaches of New Hanover County. They would settle people on the good lands there and produce commercial quantities of forestry and agricultural products for the benefit of themselves and the Kingdom. Their plans, like dreams of many entrepreneurs, did not work out as intended.
Accompanying James Murray to North Carolina were William Ellison Jr. and Andrew Ellison, two sons of William Sr. William Jr. came over to manage his father’s 12,000-acre grant on the Great Coharie, but Murray and Governor Johnston doubted him capable of such a formidable task. (Murray Letters, p. 29) Unfortunately, young Ellison died before he could prove if he could, and his brother Andrew sailed back home. The Ellison land was later granted to other people, indicating it had been abandoned.
The tracts granted to George Arnold and Alexander Stewart were also abandoned and granted to other people. Alexander Hamilton – no known relation to the first U. S. treasurer – sold his land to a Thomas Christy of Ireland. Christy gave power of attorney to James Sampson in 1769, who sold a few tracts for him. (Duplin Deed Bk. 5, p. 273) The remainder was seized by the State when Christy was declared a British sympathizer at the beginning of the Revolution.
Arthur Dobbs, who became Royal Governor of North Carolina in 1754, had a vested interest in the land in this county. Years earlier as the surveyor-general for Ireland, Dobbs received a land grant for 6,000 acres on a branch of Black River on what is now Six Runs Swamp.
Arthur Dobbs stopped by to see his land in the fall of 1754 soon after arriving as the colony’s new royal governor. He eventually gave most of his land to his son, Edward Brice Dobbs. The younger Dobbs sold several tracts, including 1,100 acres to James Sampson. (Duplin Deed Bk. 3, p. 531) After Governor Dobbs’s death in 1765, Edward Brice Dobbs returned to Great Britain. He was declared a British sympathizer at the beginning of the Revolution, after which the State seized the remainder of his grant and issued it to other people.
Henry McCulloh came over in the 1740s and lived for a few years at Sarecta, Duplin’s first town. But he eventually had to surrender much of his grant because he could not entice as many settlers to live on it as he had promised the King.
Two clues have been found as to why these early grants failed. In the same letter in which he extolled the richness of lands along the head branches of the Northeast and Black Rivers, Murray said, “I am afraid you will get none to live in such an out of ye way place.” (p. 27) Before surrendering part of his land, Henry McCulloh got into a dispute with Matthew Rowan, the colony’s surveyor-general. Rowan said that Dobbs and the other gentlemen paid McCulloh 1,000 pounds for his help in getting their grants and they were “miserably disappointed” in the land they got. According to Rowan, McCulloh assured the grantees that the lands “were exceedingly Rich and upon navigable Rivers…”but they were “…mostly broken and at a Considerable Distance from Navigation.” (Colonial Records, Vol. IV, p. 697)
Huey Grant
Attention will now be turned to the Huey grant, the only one to leave a lasting legacy, thanks largely to John Sampson. Based on the grant description, it ran along the Great Coharie for about four miles and extended eastward from that swamp by about the same distance. All of Clinton and much land beyond are now within its bounds. The letter from Dobbs, McCulloh and others to Governor Johnston cited earlier is the only place that Huey is described as being from Ireland. Identified elsewhere as a London merchant, he would become one of the biggest land speculators in colonial North Carolina. At the time that Governor Dobbs made his will in 1764, the Governor, Huey, and James Crymble, another London merchant, jointly owned 200,000 acres in Mecklenburg County. Incidentally, John Sampson witnessed Dobbs’s will.
The date when John Sampson first gains access to the Huey grant has not been determined. The first evidence connecting him to it is found in an order issued by Governor Johnston in March 1746. (Colonial Records, Second Series, Vol. VIII, p. 441) A dispute arose over Henry McCulloh’s zigzag boundaries. The Governor ordered a resurvey and told the surveyor how he wanted the new lines to run. One of the reference points given was “Sampson’s Path.” Sampson’s Path appears to have been part of the Old Warsaw Road.
The 1770 Collet map of North Carolina shows this road connecting the (old) Duplin Courthouse (near Baltic) to a place designated as “Colonel Sampson’s” east of the Great Coharie. The map also shows the (old) Duplin Road connecting the Courthouse to Wilmington. The distance from Wilmington to Sampson Hall via this route would have been about 70 miles. In November 1746, Sampson entered (asked for) a 360-acre land grant in New Hanover County that was said to be on the east side of the Great Coharie and “about four miles from said Sampson’s plantation.” When placed on a land grant map, the land was found to have been around what is now Basstown. This would have put it about four miles from Sampson Hall Plantation. In October 1747, William McDeed entered a 200-acre grant in New Hanover that was described as being on the east six of Six Runs and “about four miles below John Sampson’s.” When placed on a land grant map, this grant was found to be just below where Highway 24 now crosses Six Runs. Again, this would have been about four miles from Sampson Hall. (Dr. Albert Bruce Pruitt, (Colonial Land Entries, Vol. 1, pp. 130, 146)
Southeastern North Carolina, as seen on the 1770 Collett map.
The above references to Sampson’s Path, Sampson’s plantation, and John Sampson’s do not reveal how much earlier than 1746 John Sampson might have started a plantation at Sampson Hall. But even in 1746 he was a pioneer in the area. Only about a dozen men besides those already named are known to have received land grants in present-day Sampson prior to 1750.
In 1749, John Sampson began selling parcels of the Huey grant without saying how he got them. By 1754, he had sold eight such tracts, totaling 1,671 acres. These deeds were drawn up in Duplin County and several were co-signed by Mrs. Sampson. This suggests that the Sampsons had some type of abode on their plantation at an early date. In fact, Mrs. Sampson signed one deed all by herself, saying that her husband had given her power of attorney to do so. Several of the earliest deeds recorded in Duplin indicate that John Sampson served as the county’s first register of deeds. John Dickson actually copied the deeds into the deed book. But he said he was doing so in the office of John Sampson, and in one deed Dickson identifies himself as Sampson’s assistant. Thus, appears that Sampson served as Dickson’s mentor until he could learn the ropes.
Vaughan Letter
The so-called Vaughan letter is one the most interesting documents pertaining to John Sampson that this writer has seen. The was a letter written by George Vaughan from Lisborne in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on 10 Oct 1754 to Arthur Dobbs, the new royal governor of North Carolina. (Colonial Records, Vol. V, p. 251) In the letter Vaughan
identifies John Sampson as his nephew and states that Sampson is there with him (in Lisborne) “my having sent for him.” Dobbs once served as sheriff of County Antrim and Vaughan apparently knew him well. The main purpose of the letter was to update Dobbs on Vaughan’s plan “to propigate the Gospell to the Indian Nations” of North Carolina. In other words, Vaughan wanted to make Anglicans – members of the Church of England – out of the Indians. One way to do this, he felt, was to establish for them a “seminary of Religious Learning.” Vaughan had pledged 1,000 pounds annually of his own money to the seminary, and he tells Dobbs that John Sampson at his (Sampson’s) death will “enhance that donation.” This implies that Sampson had agreed to leave something in his will to the seminary. The main impediment to the plan appears to have been the North Carolina Assembly. This was the colony’s elected body, a forerunner of the House of Representatives, and it controlled the purse strings. Vaughan wanted the Assembly to provide money for the seminary by placing a head tax on slaves. John Sampson had presented the idea to the Assembly but had gotten no promise of tax support. Without such support, Vaughan told Dobbs, the King would not issue a charter for the seminary.
Sampson probably brought the Vaughan letter back with him when he returned from Ireland. On 24 Dec 1754, Governor Dobbs “laid it before the Assembly.” A week later, on 1 Jan 1755, John and Ann Sampson gave William Andrews a deed for 200 acres between Sampson Hall and the Great Coharie. (Duplin Deed Bk. 2, p. 273) It was said to be part of 12,000 acres granted to James Hewey (Huey) of London and conveyed by him to George Vaughan, Esquire, of the Kingdom of Ireland, and conveyed by him to John Sampson, Esquire, of Wilmington, by “deed of gift.” No deed has been found to show when Vaughan bought the land from Huey; however, some early New Hanover deeds have been lost.
On 12 Jan 1755, members of the Assembly authorized a reply to Vaughan. They told him they had “a due sense of his Goodness” but made no promise of tax support. No further reference to Vaughan’s plan has been found. No deed of gift from Vaughan to Sampson is on record, and Sampson sold no more parcels of the Huey grant in the 1750s. Thus, it appears that when the plan for the Indian seminary collapsed, so did any agreements that Vaughan and Sampson might have had.
Sampson made at least one more round trip across the ocean, but whether it was to see his Uncle George is not known. A February 1757 deed refers “to John Sampson, Esquire, late of Wilmington but now in Great Britain.” (New Hanover Deed Bk. D, p. 381)
On 24 April 1761, “His Majesty’s Superior Court” for the district of Wilmington heard the case of Sampson vs. Vaughan in which John Sampson sued his Uncle George over an alleged debt of 288 pounds. (Minutes, Wilmington District Superior Court, Oct. 1760-Nov. 1782, State Archives) The jury ruled in Sampson’s favor, and in June 1761 the court ordered Duplin Sheriff Felix Kenan to seize all of Vaughan’s 12,000 acres “that he could find” and deed them to Sampson. Court minutes do not reveal how Vaughan became indebted to Sampson, but the likely culprit was taxes. There may have been a question of who was to pay them after the Vaughan-Sampson agreement apparently fell apart. In fact, two subsequent deeds given by Sampson mention taxes. In one Sampson said the land was deeded to him “for arrears of quit rents,” and in the other Sampson said the “land was sold at public auction for failure to pay quit rents.” (Duplin Deed Bk. 2, p. 50; Bk. 3, p. 477). While taxes may have been involved, the land was not sold at public auction. The court issued a writ of fieri facias, which means that the defendant’s assets were to go directly to the plaintiff.
On 3 Nov 1761, Sheriff Kenan deeded Sampson 5,839 acres in five tracts. (Duplin Deed Bk. 3, p. 261) Sampson Hall was located on a tract of 1,012 acres that extended in an elongated pattern for about three miles along the eastern side of what is now Clinton. The other tracts, ranging from about 500 to 2,000 acres each, were between Sampson Hall Plantation and the Great Coharie.
After winning the suit against his Uncle George in 1761, Sampson began identifying himself as a resident of Duplin County instead of Wilmington. This may be why the monument placed at his grave in 1983 says he “erected a home nearby called Sampson Hall” after 1761. But, as this article indicates, he appears to have had some type of an abode at Sampson Hall for at least 15 years prior to 1761.
A study of Duplin deeds shows that John Sampson had sold nine tracts or 2,021 acres of the Huey grant prior to winning the lawsuit. After the suit, he sold 14 more tracts or 3,279 acres, bringing total sales to 5,300 acres. These sales helped to populate the heart of what is now Sampson County and make the establishment of a new county in the area more feasible. In addition to the sales, Sampson gave Richard Clinton, his foster son, about 700 acres, and James Sampson, his nephew, about 200. About 1,300 acres, mainly Sampson Hall Plantation, remained in Sampson’s estate at the time of his death. The other land in the Huey grant, about 5,400 acres, reverted to government ownership and was granted (after 1770) to other people.
One might ask why Sheriff Kenan did not deed all of Vaughan’s remaining acreage to Sampson as the court told him to do. Two possible answers come to mind. Maybe Sampson did not want some of it. All land was taxed at the same rate regarded of what it was worth, and, perhaps, Sampson thought some of the 12,000 acres were not worth the taxes. Or maybe Sheriff Kenan was not certain of the lines, for deeds suggest Sampson was not always certain of them himself. In 1760, Thomas Page received a 200-acre grant where Williams Old Mill Branch now flows into the Great Coharie. Twelve years later, Sampson said the land was his, having been a part of the Hewith (Huey) grant. Page signed a “deed of relinquishment,” and then Sampson sold the land back to Page for 40 pounds. (Duplin Land Grant File No. 231; Deed Bk. 3, pp. 338, 342) In 1765, Sampson sold his 360-acre grant at Basstown mentioned earlier to John Royal. The deed to Royal says the land was granted to Sampson “and then found to be within the bounds of James Hewitt’s (Huey’s) land.” (Duplin Land Grant File No. 54; Duplin Deed Bk. 1. p. 57)
Other Sampson Land
John Sampson’s land holdings not mentioned so far include a 400-acre land grant that he received in Bladen County in 1747 and a 640-acre grant he received there in 1767. (N. C. Land Grant Bk. 5, p. 270; Bk. 22, p. 43) A deed issued in 1766 for land that is now in Pender County lists Sampson as an adjoining property owner. (New Hanover Deed Bk. E, p. 263) Mrs. Sampson may have inherited that property from her Walker ancestors.
In addition to the Huey grant, John Sampson can be linked to four tracts of land in present-day Sampson County. They were all south of Sampson Hall on the Black River system, suggesting he used water transportation to get products to Wilmington. In 1753, he received a 100-acre grant about a mile north of where Six Runs flows into Black River. It was on the west side of that swamp and within hollering distance of Lisbon, Sampson County’s first town. He sold that property to Garret Williams in 1764. (Duplin Land Grant File No. 9; Duplin Deed Bk. 1, p. 451)
In 1754, he acquired the first of three land grants on the east side of Black River on which he built a millpond and sawmill. These grants, totaling 840 acres, were on both sides of Wild Cat Branch and about two miles north of Ivanhoe. Sampson sold most of this property to Thomas Rogers in 1772 and the remainder to him in 1774. (New Hanover Land Grant Files Nos. 440, 1719, 0387; New Hanover Deed Bk. F, p. 296; Bk. G, p. 100)
Meeting with his Executive Council in March 1756, Governor Arthur Dobbs reported on a petition received from a Daniel Webb. (Colonial Records, Vol. IX, p. 19) Webb who described himself as “a poor man having a Wife and six children and not having any Lands” told the Governor of his futile attempts to obtain land in the fork of Six Runs and the Great Coharie. If only half of what Webb told the Governor were true, the poor man had been woefully wronged. At one point he had “Called on Mr. John Sampson to (at?) home he was well known and Desiered (desired) him to advise your Petitioner how he should proceed.” While awkwardly worded, Webb’s petition implied that John Sampson had a home in the area and that he was the “go to” person when someone needed help. The net result was that in 1759 the Governor granted Webb 200 acres on the east side of the Great Coharie that was said to be at “Sampson’s Landing.”
When mapped, the grant was where Ebenezer Green Road now forms a “T” with Highway 701 south of Clinton. While Sampson never owned the landing site, he did get a 640-acre grant a short distance away that was said to be “near Mr. Sampson’s old warehouse.” (Duplin Land Grant Files Nos. 0107, 0108, 1316)
In March 1756, William Peacock entered a 100-acre grant on the east side of Black River “at Sampson’s Bluff.” When mapped, the land was about midway between the mouth of Six Runs and Clear Run. How Sampson’s name became attached to the site is unknown, but using public land as a landing site would not have been uncommon. Sampson’s Bluff was called Sampson’s Cliff when Peacock’s grant was sold to John Treadwell in 1774. (Colonial Land Entries, Vol. 2, Entry 3449; Duplin Deed Bk. 5, p. 173)
In summary, John Sampson lived in North Carolina for at least 47 years, 1737 to 1784. He was connected to the area that now bears his name for at least 38 of those years. If there is another county in the state named for a person so intimately involved in its formation, I have not been able to identify it. Most counties appear to be named for people who never set foot in them.
Finally, I would like to say thanks to two people whose work has been of value to me in writing this article and in mapping land grants over the years. One is Max R. Peterson whose abstracts of early Duplin-Sampson deeds have saved me many hours in trying to trace land back to its first owner.
The other is Dr. Albert Bruce Pruitt whose abstracts of colonial land entries have often helped me to place settlers in an area long before their land grants were issued. Of course, it is assumed that everyone writing about Sampson County is indebted to Oscar Bizzell (1921-2003) and his many helpers for compiling The Heritage of Sampson County a quarter-century ago. end
“If there is another county in the state named for a person so intimately involved in its formation, I have not been able to identify it. Most counties appear to be named for people who never set foot in them. “”