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 |
|---|---|
| Melville |
community in E Alamance County. Settled about 1845 and known at first as Burnt Shop. |
| Melville Township |
former township in E central Alamance County, now townships nos. 10 and 13. |
| Melvin Hill |
community in SE Polk County. Settled in late nineteenth century. Named for Thomas Melvin, first postmaster. |
| Melvin's Mill Pond |
NE Bladen County on Little Turnbull Creek. |
| Memminger Creek |
rises in central Henderson County and flows NE into King Creek. Named for C. G. Memminger (1803-88), Confederate secretary of the treasury, who had a summer home at Flat Rock. |
| Memory |
community in E Cleveland County. |
| Menola |
community in W Hertford County served by post office, 1886-1907. |
| Mentso |
marked as the central part of Pamlico Sound, present-day Hyde County, on the White map, 1590, but apparently a place on the shore, as the name comes from an Indian word meaning "he cooks for the first time." The word could be the name given a stopping place for eating on travels, perhaps the end of a day's journey in the direction from Roanoke Island. |
| Mequopen |
See Second Creek. |
| Mercer |
community in S Edgecombe County. Probably the location of Mercersville post office in 1828. |
