Some place names included in The North Carolina Gazetteer contain terms that are considered offensive.
Copyright Notice: 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.
"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
| Place | Description |
|---|---|
| Maw Point |
peninsula in E Pamlico County extending into Pamlico Sound and forming the SE side of Fisherman Bay. |
| Max Patch Mountain |
W Madison County at the SW end of Buckeye Ridge. Alt. 4,629. |
| Maxton |
town in W Robeson County on Big Shoeheel Creek. Alt. 197. Inc. 1874 as Shoe Heel; changed to Tilden in 1877 to honor Samuel J. Tilden (1814-86), Democratic nominee for president, 1876; to Quhele in 1879, probably from a form of the Gaelic word Caoile (the narrow part of a stream); to Shoe Heel in 1881, for the imagined meaning of Quhele; and to Maxton in 1886. Local tradition says that the area was long known as Mackstown because of the many people of Scottish descent living there whose names begin with Mc or Mac; it was changed to Maxton by postal authorities when the first post office was est. in 1866. An earlier post office serving the community was Cowper's Hill, est. 1811 a mi. or so E of the present town. Carolina College operated there, 1908-26, and Presbyterian Junior College, 1929-60; Carolina Military Academy is there now. |
| Maxton Township |
W Robeson County. |
| Maxwell |
community in NE Columbus County. |
| Maxwell Branch |
rises in N Transylvania County and flows SW into Avery Creek. |
| Maxwell Creek |
rises in W Duplin County and flows SE into Northeast Cape Fear River. |
| Maxwell's Store |
community in S Mecklenburg County served by post office, 1821-49. Later known as Cluster, which see. |
| Maxwells Mill Pond |
on Burnt Coat Creek in NE Duplin County. |
| May |
community in N Harnett County served by post office, 1883-1904. |
