This content is from the North Carolina Gazetteer, edited by William S. Powell and Michael Hill. Copyright © 2010 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

Some place names included in The North Carolina Gazetteer contain terms that are considered offensive.

"The North Carolina Gazetteer is a geographical dictionary in which an attempt has been made to list all of the geographic features of the state in one alphabet. It is current, and it is historical as well. Many features and places that no longer exist are included; many towns and counties for which plans were made but which never materialized are also included. Some names appearing on old maps may have been imaginary, but many of them also appear in this gazetteer.

Each entry is located according to the county in which it is found. I have not felt obliged to keep entries uniform. The altitude of a place, the date of incorporation of a city or town, may appear in the beginning of one entry and at the end of another. Some entries may appear more complete than others. I have included whatever information I could find. If there is no comment on the origin or meaning of a name, it is because the information was not available. In some cases, however, resort to an unabridged dictionary may suggest the meaning of many names."

--From The North Carolina Gazetteer, 1st edition, preface by William S. Powell

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Place Description
Old Town Creek

See Town Creek.

Old Town Township

W central Forsyth County.

Old Trap

community in S Camden County, was probably settled as early as the 1650s. In the eighteenth century, it was the center of much maritime activity, and a grog shop there supplied the local trade with West India rum. Tradition says that men carrying grain to a local windmill tarried long at the grog shop—it "trapped" them. By the end of the Revolution, the name The Trap was being used, and after 1800 Old Trap came into use.

Old Tree Swamp

rises in W Hertford County and flows SE into Potecasi Creek.

Old Weeksville

See Weeksville.

Old Woman's Swamp

See Gilletts Creek.

Oldfield Creek

See Redbank Creek.

Oldfield Gap

N Graham County between Yellow Creek Mountains and Fork Ridge.

Oldfield Swamp

rises in S Robeson County and flows SE into Hog Swamp.

Oldfields Township

SW Ashe County. Named for muster ground and drill field used by Benjamin Cleveland during the Revolution.