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 |
|---|---|
| Purcepolis |
community in N Scotland County served by post office, 1883-1905. |
| Purchace Islands |
the name given on the Smith map, 1624, to the nine islands in Roanoke and Cashie Rivers at the conjunction of Bertie, Martin, and Washington Counties. Apparently one of the islands is unnamed, but the other eight are known as Louse Island, Rice Island, Goodmans Island, Wood Island, Great Island, Huff Island, Conine Island, and Tabor Island. Smith is thought to have named the islands in honor of Samuel Purchas (1575?-1626), an English compiler of travel books. |
| Purchase Knob |
in central Haywood County between Sugar Cove and the head of Cove Creek. It overlooks a large section of the old North Carolina Land and Lumber Company tract, and prospective buyers were taken there to get a good view of the property. Alt. 5,086. |
| Purgatory |
See Flox. |
| Purgatory Mountain |
central Randolph County, site of North Carolina Zoological Park. |
| Purgatory Pocosin |
a sandy loam-filled pocosin in SW Jones and NW Onslow Counties at the head of Mill Swamp. |
| Purlear |
community in W central Wilkes County on Cole Creek. Named for Isaac Parlier, who settled on nearby Purlear Creek. |
| Purlear Creek |
rises in W Wilkes County on the W side of Rendezvous Mountain and flows S into North Prong Lewis Fork Creek. Once known as Isaac Parlier's Creek. |
| Purley |
community in N central Caswell County. Probably named for Purley Cobb, local resident. A post office operated there, 1855-1920. Alt. 524. Bright-leaf tobacco was discovered in 1839 on the Slade farm there. |
| Purnell |
community in N Wake County on the head of Mud Creek; formerly known as Purnell Crossroads. |
