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H
I S T O R I C S I T E S
Learn
about North Carolina's past by visiting the places where history happened.
From battlefields to a gold mine, colonial homes to an antebellum
plantation, history comes alive at these unique historic sites . . .
• North
Carolina Historic Sites
Preserving the past for all people. Your gateway to 23 state-run sites
throughout North Carolina. (Statewide)
• Highway
Historical Marker Program
Highlighting North Carolina's historic areas since 1935. (Statewide)
• Alamance
Battleground
On this site in 1771, an armed rebellion of backcountry farmers—called
Regulators—battled against royal governor William Tryon's militia.
(Burlington,
Alamance County)
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• Aycock
Birthplace
Charles B. Aycock was born into a simple, rural home in 1859. In 1900 he was
elected governor and dedicated his life to improving public education in
North Carolina. (Fremont,
Wayne County)
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• Historic
Bath
European settlement near the Pamlico River in the 1690s led to the creation
of Bath, North Carolina's first town, in 1705. (Bath,
Beaufort County)
• Bennett
Place
This simple farmhouse was situated between Confederate General Johnston's
headquarters in Greensboro and Union General Sherman's headquarters in
Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1865 the two soldiers met at the Bennett Place,
where they signed surrender papers for Southern armies in the Carolinas,
Georgia, and Florida. (Durham,
Durham County)
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• Bentonville
Battleground
The Battle of Bentonville, fought March 19-21, 1865, was the last full-scale
action of the Civil War in which a Confederate army was able to mount a
tactical offensive. This major battle, the largest ever fought in North
Carolina, was the only significant attempt to defeat the large Union army of
Gen. William T. Sherman during its march through the Carolinas in the spring
of 1865. (Four Oaks,
Johnston County)
• Brunswick
Town / Fort Anderson
A major pre-Revolutionary port on North Carolina's Cape Fear River,
Brunswick was razed by British troops in 1776 and never rebuilt. During the
Civil War, Fort Anderson was constructed atop the old village site. (Winnabow,
Brunswick County)
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• Charlotte
Hawkins Brown Museum
Founded in 1902 by Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Palmer Memorial Institute
transformed the lives of more than 1,000 African American students. Today,
restored campus buildings provide the setting for a unique educational
experience. (Sedalia,
Guilford County)
• Duke
Homestead
See the early home, factories, and farm where Washington Duke first grew and
processed tobacco. Duke's sons later founded The American Tobacco Company,
the largest tobacco company in the world. (Durham,
Durham County)
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• Historic
Edenton
The home of James Iredell is located in Edenton, a town rich in architecture
and history since pre-Revolutionary times. George Washington appointed
Iredell to the first U.S. Supreme Court. His earliest career included
service as a British tax collector and as a state attorney general.
(Edenton,
Chowan County)
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• Elizabeth
II
A representative sixteenth-century sailing vessel, where garbed interpreters
spin tales of treacherous sea voyages. Professional interpreters portray in
dress, speech, manner, and attitude soldiers and mariners of a bygone era,
regaling visitors with tales of the challenges of a new life in a strange
land. Roanoke Island Festival Park. (Manteo,
Dare County)
• Fort
Dobbs
Named for royal governor Arthur Dobbs, the fort was built during the French
and Indian War to protect settlers. Archaeologists and historians conjecture
that the fort was dismantled after pioneers pushed further westward.
(Statesville,
Iredell County)
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• Fort
Fisher
Until the last few months of the Civil War, Fort Fisher kept North
Carolina's port of Wilmington open to blockade-runners supplying necessary
goods to Confederate armies inland. By 1865, the supply line through
Wilmington was the last remaining supply route open to Robert E. Lee's Army
of Northern Virginia. When Fort Fisher fell after a massive Federal
amphibious assault on January 15, 1865, its defeat helped seal the fate of
the Confederacy. (Kure Beach,
New Hanover County)
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• Historic
Halifax
Located on the Roanoke River, the town of Halifax developed into a
commercial and political center at the time of the American Revolution.
North Carolina's Fourth Provincial Congress met in Halifax in the spring of
1776. On April 12 that body unanimously adopted a document later called the
"Halifax Resolves," which was the first official action by an entire colony
recommending independence from England. (Halifax,
Halifax County)
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• Horne
Creek Living Historical Farm
This site is under development as a place to experience everyday farm life
in North Carolina's northwestern Piedmont ca. 1900. Visitors can take part
in daily activities and special events of bygone farm life, as well as see,
smell, touch, and hear things once common in North Carolina. (Pinnacle,
Surry County)
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• House
in the Horseshoe
In the summer and spring, bright flowers surround this white plantation
house whose name comes from its location on a horseshoe bend in the Deep
River. The house (ca. 1770) was owned by Philip Alston, whose band of whigs
was attacked in 1781 by tories led by David Fanning. Later, four-term
governor Benjamin Williams lived in the house, which now contains antiques
of the colonial and Revolutionary War eras. (Sanford, Lee
Moore County)
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• CSS
Neuse
Glimpses into two of our nation's most pivotal wars can be found in one
historic site. Explore the celebrated life of Richard Caswell, the first
governor of the independent state of North Carolina. And view the remnants
of the ironclad gunboat CSS Neuse, a product of the Confederate
navy's ill-fated attempt to regain control of the lower Neuse River and
retake the city of New Bern during the Civil War. (Kinston,
Lenoir County)
• Battleship
North Carolina Battleship Memorial (BB-55)
Come aboard the most decorated US Battleship of WWII. Located on the Cape
Fear River across from historic downtown Wilmington she stands as a memorial
to the 10,000 North Carolinians of all the armed services that gave their
lives in WWII. Open every day. 910-251-5797. (Wilmington,
New Hanover County)
• North
Carolina Transportation Museum
Located on the site of Southern Railway's steam locomotive repair facility
in Spencer. Discover the people and machines that have moved North Carolina.
(Spencer,
Rowan County)
• Polk
Memorial
Located on land once owned by the parents of James K. Polk, the 11th U.S.
president. The memorial commemorates significant events in the Polk
administration: the Mexican War, settlement of the Oregon boundary dispute,
and the annexation of California. (Pineville,
Mecklenburg County)
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• Reed
Gold Mine
Site of the first documented gold find in the United States. From this
discovery, gold mining spread gradually to nearby counties and eventually
into other southern states. During its peak years gold mining was second
only to farming in the number of North Carolinians it employed. (Stanfield,
Stanly
Cabarrus County)
• Roanoke
Island Festival Park
Blending history, education, and the arts in a lively celebration of Roanoke
Island as the Birthplace of English America. Explore the island's unique
role in history, from the time before England's first attempt to colonize
North America in the late sixteenth century to the early twentieth century.
(Manteo,
Dare County)
• Somerset
Place
A representative antebellum plantation. With its spacious lawn and formal
garden, its expansive porches and expensive furnishings, Somerset Place
reflects the elegance it possessed when first built by wealthy planter
Josiah Collins III, around 1830. (Creswell,
Washington County)
• Historic
Stagville
An immense plantation where enslaved workers and freedmen tilled the land
and two influential families joined to become powerful forces in North
Carolina history. (Durham,
Durham County)
• State
Capitol / Visitor Services
The North Carolina State Capitol, completed in 1840, is one of the finest
and best-preserved examples of a major civic building in the Greek Revival
style of architecture. A National Historic Landmark. The Capital Area
Visitor Center is a permanent information and rest center for more than
100,000 annual visitors to Raleigh's state-owned and cultural attractions.
(Raleigh,
Wake County)
• Town
Creek Indian Mound
Archaeology, protohistory, and ceremony in the Pee Dee River Valley. For
more than one thousand years, Indians lived an agricultural life on the
lands that became known as North Carolina. (Mt. Gilead,
Montgomery County)
Town Creek Indian Mound
For more than one thousand years, Indians lived an agricultural life on the
lands that became known as North Carolina. Around A.D. 1200, a new cultural
tradition arrived in the Pee Dee River Valley. That new culture, called "Pee
Dee" by archaeologists, was part of a widespread tradition known as "South
Appalachian Mississippian." Throughout Georgia, South Carolina, eastern
Tennessee, western North Carolina, and the southern North Carolina Piedmont,
the new culture gave rise to complex societies. These inhabitants built
earthen mounds for their spiritual and political leaders, engaged in
widespread trade, supported craft specialists, and celebrated a new kind of
religion.
A visit to Town Creek
Indian Mound offers a glimpse of pre-Columbian life in Piedmont North
Carolina. The visitor center contains interpretive exhibits, as well as
audiovisual programs that bring alive a rich cultural heritage from the
buried past. Self-guided tours of the rebuilt structures and mound and other
group activities are available.
Town Creek is a National
Historic Landmark and is also one of the most popular State Historic Sites
in North Carolina.
• Tryon
Palace Historic Sites & Gardens
Where governors ruled, legislators debated, patriots gathered, and George
Washington danced. Celebrating North Carolina's colonial history. (New Bern,
Craven County)
• Vance
Birthplace
This pioneer farmstead, tucked in the Reems Creek Valley, features the
birthplace of Zebulon Baird Vance. The five-room log house— reconstructed
around original chimneys—and its outbuildings are furnished to interpret the
period from 1795 to 1840. Vance's political career as Civil War officer,
governor of North Carolina, and U.S. senator is traced at the homestead.
(Weaverville,
Buncombe County)
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• Thomas
Wolfe Memorial
Writer Thomas Wolfe left an indelible mark on American letters. His mother's
boardinghouse in Asheville—now the Thomas Wolfe Memorial—has become one of
literature's most famous landmarks. Named "Old Kentucky Home" by a previous
owner, Wolfe immortalized the rambling Victorian structure as "Dixieland" in
his epic autobiographical novel, Look Homeward, Angel (1929).
(Asheville,
Buncombe County)
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