Local writer Sam Irvin, Jr., wrote:
…In my unbiased, honest judgment, the Good Lord will be placing the Garden of Eden within North Carolina’s borders when He will restore it to Earth. He will definitely do so as in North Carolina He will need to make so few changes to achieve perfection…
North Carolina is the state what some call ‘the single most significant event in mankind’s history’, when the Wright Brothers were flying for the first time. The state is also the site where one of our nation’s greatest mysteries occurred, the strange disappearance of the settlement of Roanoke Island.
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North Carolina has Grandfather Mountain, a state park near Linville that offers unmatched scenery and stunning ecological diversity, and the state it is the ‘longest’ state along the eastern portions of America. In North Carolina, the Appalachians are reaching their highest peaks and the state’s seaboard is of a one-of-kind beauty.
Between the ocean and the mountains lies a very productive land which is not only important for agricultural produce, but also provides manufacturing output of historic proportions.
Quick Facts about North Carolina
– The world’s first flight.
– From the shores of Cape Hatteras, the first radio SOS was sent.
– First School of Forestry in America.
– Leading in the production of fine furniture.
– First U.S. state in tobacco cultivation.
– Leading U.S. cigarette producer.
North Carolina brief history
In 1540, Hernando de Soto, with his large expedition, reached the region’s western mountains but they found nothing of value, so they departed. In 1584, after he received rights to the area that we know as North Carolina, Sir Walter Raleigh decided to send Captains Arthur Barlowe and Philip Amadas to explore the region, and later, in 1585, he sent seven ships that came ashore at Roanoke Island to establish a settlement, but this failed.
The Roanoke settlement was restored in 1587 under Governor John White, who later went back to England to return with more help for the new colony. When he came back to America in 1590, what White found is still one of the greatest American mysteries. The colony was abandoned, there was no trace at all, except for a few cryptic carvings. Nothing was ever heard or learned about what had happened to the settlers.
Charles II granted the region of the Carolinas to a group of eight ‘”Lords Proprietors’ in 1663, and a year later, in 1664, Albemarle County was established. As they were very unhappy with their lot, a number of Albemarle County settlers set up a rebellion in 1677. The movement was initiated and led by a colonist named John Culpepper, but the ‘Culpepper’s Rebellion’ was short-lived.
The Carolina coast was the playground of pirates, and notorious pirate Blackbeard (whose real name was Edward Teach) got killed in a huge battle in the year 1718. Later, in 1729, the King of England bought the “Lords Proprietors” out. to restore law and order.
By the year 1765, more than 120,000 colonists had settled in the royal colony, but trouble was ahead. A group called the Regulators was opposing the British rule’s injustice, but they got defeated at the Battle of Alamance. In 1771, the movement eventually collapsed, but the Alamance battle is still by some called “the very first battle of the American Revolution.”
In 1780, Lord Cornwallis, a Britain, was marching southward to occupy Charlotte, and the year after (1781), he was fighting the battle of Guilford Court House. In 1789, on November 21st, North Carolina was allowed to the Union as the 12th state. Raleigh was the new Capital where the new state legislature convened first in 1794.
The federal government started to relocate the Cherokee Indians from their great ancestral lands to new locations out West. This ‘Trail of Tears’ caused many Cherokee (some 5,000) to die, but quite a few could escape and went into the mountains. Cherokee leader Tsafi, including practically his entire family, were brutally murdered, but eventually, the remaining Cherokee could acquire a reservation where their direct descendants are continuing to live.
The 1861 capture of Fort Hatteras and Fort Clark was actually the first great victory of the Union’s troops during the Civil War. In 1865, on May 6th, the last Confederate North Carolina troops surrendered and put down their arms. There is no state that suffered more losses than North Carolina.
Later in the 19th century, North Carolina’s economy started to revive. In 1884, the state had a leading role in the production of cigarettes, there came more and more cotton mills, and around 1900 North Carolina was leading the nation in fine furniture production. The state is also the site where the Wright Brothers lifted their plane for the first time at Kitty Hawk in 1903, on December 17th.