New Hanover County history

It was built of a material called “tapia,” and the original construction of it was so good that Lieutenant Swift, afterwards General and Chief of Engineers of the United State Army, writing of it in 1804, said:

In 1792 Joshua G. Wright, of New Hanover, a lawyer of ability and high character, began his public career as a member of the Legislature, and continued to represent the county until 1809, when he was elected judge.

Dudley’s political career began in 1811.

Brown, a Colonial and Revolutionary officer of distinction, and commander of a division of North Carolina troops at Norfolk in the War of 1812.

He had been from the first organization of the two parties an extremely radical Anti-Federal leader, and died in that faith at the age of 88, in 1813.

Colonel Ashe was universally beloved and revered as the last noble specimen of the ancient Cape Fear gentleman and soldier, having lived until 1836.

The capital was therefore separated from the mid-Atlantic region until 1845, when the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad was built.

Sam McRee, who graduated at West Point, reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Mexican War as General Taylor's Chief Quartermaster, and died in 1849; and Doctor James Fergus McRee, perhaps the most learned, scholarly and accomplished physician and scientist ever reared on the Cape Fear.

A Sons of Liberty chairman, Harnett advocated for the creation of separate North Carolina state, and his name is attributed to Harnett County (1855). William Hooper, another prominent leader in North Carolina’s independence from Great Britain, resided in Wilmington during his political tenure.

A second volume extending the work to the beginning of the war of 1861-65 may be published, if considered

None of the ancient official records of the town of Brunswick were preserved, and a considerable part of the County records were destroyed by Northern soldiers when the town of Smithville (now Southport) was captured by them in 1865.

A state constitutional amendment, Article VII, Section 10, adopted in 1875, empowered the legislature to “modify, change or abrogate” certain constitutional provisions, including those pertaining to the register of deeds. It became a constitutional office after the Civil War, when the Constitution of 1868, Article VII, Section 1, provided for the biennial election of a register of deeds by the voters of each county.

Finally, in 1875 the separation of northern New Hanover County to form Pender County reduced it to its present dimensions.

James G. Burr, in a lecture delivered in the opera house in Wilmington February 3, 1890, and, stated in condensed form, were as follows:

S. A. Ashe, author of the latest (and best) history of North Carolina, issued in 1908.* Clayton also owned the plantation on the Sound previously owned by Cornelius Harnett, containing 800 acres.

Acting pursuant to this power, in 1935 the General Assembly set the term of office at four years in all but twenty-nine counties.

In 1948, the first Azalea Festival was held at Wilmington’s Greenfield Lake and Park, and nearly 60,000 people turned out for the event.

The North Carolina Constitution of 1971, in effect today, does not mention the office of register of deeds.