Bucklesberry, Back in the Day: Boundaries and Landmarks
Boundaries and Landmarks
Dr. Joe Sutton
Largely unsettled swamp land in the beginning, Bucklesberry of Lenoir County is known today for its nutrient-rich soil that yields some of the finest crops in the Southeast. In fact, early land patents identified the area as "Bucklesberry Pocosin" (i.e., swamp or wetlands). As colonization continued throughout the eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries, it was simply referenced as "Bucklesberry" in later documents.
Bucklesberry's geographic location has remained the same over time. County affiliation, however, varied during the 1700s when North Carolina counties were being formed and renamed. Initially, it was a settlement in old Craven County, from which Johnston County was created in 1746. It then became part of old Dobbs County that was carved out of eastern Johnston County in 1758. Bucklesberry eventually rested in Lenoir County, which was created from the southern part of old Dobbs County in 1791.
Compared with its recognized perimeter today, Bucklesberry was a considerably larger area in the late 1800s. In an 1886 news article, "Bucklesberry: Some Interesting Notes from Lenoir County," famed attorney and journalist Council Simmons Wooten, Esq. (1840-1930) described Bucklesberry with broad boundaries that spanned approximately ten miles, from the west side of Bear Creek at Seven Springs (formerly, Whitehall) to the east side of Bear Creek at Falling Creek. Over the years, land obtained by Bucklesberrians extended from the south side of the Neuse River near the Strabane community, northerly to U.S. Highway 70 and beyond to the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad.
There is general consensus that the geographic heart of Bucklesberry is Bear Creek, which empties into the north side of the Neuse River. Although omitting Bucklesberry by name, many of the oldest available land patents and surveys, nonetheless, identified Bear Creek and various other associated geographic landmarks such as creeks, branches, pocosins, landings, and the like that were within close proximity to Bear Creek and greater Bucklesberry, including, but not limited to, the following:
Bogue Swamp (near Seven Springs) / Cabbin Branch / Deep Gully / Frogpoint / Groundnut Creek (near La Grange) / Herring Branch / High Hills (near Seven Springs) / Horsepoint / Indian Old Field (near Seven Springs) / Panther Creek (near Seven Springs) / Plow Branch / Saponney Landing / Skrubby Island / Sloop Landing / Stirrup Creek (near Falling Creek) / Stoney Creek (north of Seven Springs) / Walnut Creek (northwest of La Grange) / Thoroughfare Swamp (formerly known as Falling Creek) / Uzzell Mill Branch (near Walnut Creek) / Wolf Trap Branch.
Next month's article will focus on Bucklesberry's purported colonization. Two previously published Bucklesberry articles that may be of interest to readers are "Animal Stories" (see https://t.ly/UW1JA) and "Polities and Plows" (see https://t.ly/oTzlD).
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