- Title
- Our State
-
-
- Date
- January 2007
-
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Our State
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I AR HEEL TOWNS
Whiteville
Known for its agricultural
роя,
this Columbus County soot
Inis created
о
future for itself
in education and medicine
by David U Viri
First thing's first: You've got to
leant how to pronounce the tunic
like a native. It's dcfiratcly not
-\\ httc-villc." Rather; the ruroe of this
southeastern North Carolina town ts
pronounced more hke a slurring
of the word “waffle." It's something hke
“Wah-vul." Practice that while strolling
along the town's Madison Street, and
you'll be sitting pretty at Penn’s. Wards,
Jerry's, Fd's, or any of the other
crowded little uptown eateries.
Whites ilk- is the county seat of
Columbus County, located along
U.S. Highway
74/76.
about midway
between Wilmington and l.umScrt on.
live area was. and still 14 home
to the Wacc amaw-Stouan Indians.
Nearby is Like Waccamaw. the largest
natural freshwater lake on the East
Coast. Some say it was formed more
than 250,000 years ago by a meteor
strike. Others say that water filled
a hasm left after a peat fire bla/ed
through live area thousands of
years ago.
The first time the area around
Whiteville appears in written rccotJv
is in a 173} land grant. A several
thousand-acre plantation. Marsh
Castle, was built nearby and was
Liter inherited by John and Margaret
Burgwin of W ilmington. John served
as secretary to English Royal Governor
Arthur Dobbs in 1754. In 1766. he
served as the colony's treasurer. But
John Burgwin was loy al to King
18 Our Mate
Аиш/уДО
George, and when the American
Revolution broke out. he moved to
England. He managed, however, to
reclaim his property after the war. A
painting of Burgwin by John Singleton
Copcly can be seen at the North
Carolina Museum of An in Raleigh.
Although Burgw in faded into history,
after the Revolution, southeastern North
Carolina expeneixed a population
boom. In ISOS, the state cut Columbus
County from parts of Brunswick and
Bladen counties. John B. White donated
the courthouse land to the county and.
111 turn, the new county seat. White's
Crossing, established in 1810, was
named after him. White's Crossing Liter
became Whiteville. In the years that
followcJ, Whiteville became
а сол\
little
town heavily involved in agriculture.
An agricultural boom
The town was certainly a major pan
of “tobacco road.- For dorados, bright
leaf tobacco farms dotted the area, and
Whiteville was filled with tobacco