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.
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
| Place | Description |
|---|---|
| Open Land |
or a shrub bog area of approx. 50,000 acres in Carteret County about 12 mi. NE of Beaufort. An attempt to reclaim the area in 1926 was abandoned, but much of it is now included in a large experimental farm. |
| Open Ridge |
S Yancey County between Rock Creek and South Toe River. |
| Opening, The |
a clay and swamp area in E Pitt County between the head of Clayroot Swamp and Chicod Creek. |
| Ophir |
community in N Montgomery County served by post office, 1883-1933. Settled shortly after the middle of the nineteenth century in the midst of a gold-producing area and named for the land furnishing gold for King Solomon's Temple in biblical days. Now an agricultural and timber-producing community. |
| Ophir Township |
NW Montgomery County. |
| Oporauck |
an otherwise unidentified designation appearing on the Comberford map, 1657, shown parallel with what is now Scuppernong River in Washington and Tyrrell Counties. |
| Opossum Swamp |
rises in W Sampson County and flows S into Little Coharie Creek. |
| Ora |
community in central Sampson County served by post office, 1886-1902. |
| Orange |
community in W Sampson County between Caesar Swamp and Little Coharie Creek. |
| Orange County |
was formed in 1752 from Johnston, Bladen, and Granville Counties. Located in the central section of the state, it is bounded by Durham, Chatham, Alamance, Caswell, and Person Counties. It has long been said that the county was named for William III (1650-1702) of the House of Orange, who ruled England from 1689 to 1702. However, in 1752, when the county was formed, the infant William V (1748-1806) of Orange was Stadtholder, and his mother, Anne, daughter of George II of England, controlled affairs of state. It seems reasonable to assume that Orange County was named in honor of William V of Orange (and perhaps also to flatter his grandfather, George II of England) instead of for William III, who had been dead for 50 years. Area: 398 sq. mi. County seat: Hillsborough, with an elevation of 543 ft. Townships are Bingham, Cedar Grove, Chapel Hill, Cheeks, Eno, Hillsborough, and Little River. Produces corn, tobacco, wheat, oats, dairy products, barley, poultry, livestock, hogs, textiles, furniture, pyrophyllite, and crushed stone. |
