Duplin Co., NC
History
Originally a part of New Hanover County, Duplin was annexed and established on April 7, 1750, by the North Carolina General Assembly. Named in honor of a 1740s member of the Board of Trade and Plantations Sir Thomas Hays, Lord Duplin, the county is located in the coastal region of North Carolina. The first Indian groups to live in and around Duplin were the Sioua and Tuscarora. Welsh immigrants were the first to inhabit Duplin in the early eighteenth century, and subsequent groups to migrate to the area were of Swiss, English, and German descent. Henry McCulloch accepted an allotment of over 70,000 acres in 1736, and McCulloch opened his tract to Scot-Irish planters and families who squatted on the Cape Fear and the surrounding tributaries in Duplin.Sarecta, a town established by McCulloch, became the first town in Duplin in 1787. The Scottish and Swiss formed some of the early communities, and they settled near the Goshen Swamp and Golden Grove; Kenansville grew out of the original settlement at Golden Grove. The state’s first Presbyterians formed the first congregation in 1736, and they were known as the Grove church. Interestingly, the church remains active in Duplin to this very day.
Source: North Carolina History Project