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 |
|---|---|
| Bear Poplar |
community in W Rowan County. Known first as Rocky Mount; present name adopted in 1878, when a post office was est. Name came from the nearby location of a poplar tree in which Capt. Thomas Cowan, Revolutionary hero, treed a bear in the late eighteenth century. |
| Bear Ridge |
mountain in W Avery County. |
| Bear Ridge |
S Yancey County between Blue Sea Creek and Beech Nursery Creek. |
| Bear Ridge |
between Cashie Branch and Licklog Creek in N Jackson County. |
| Bear Rock Branch |
rises in S Yancey County and flows SE into South Toe River. |
| Bear Swamp |
rises in central Northampton County and flows SE into Urahaw Swamp. |
| Bear Swamp |
rises in W Robeson County and flows SE into Lumber River. |
| Bear Swamp |
is formed in S Hertford County by the junction of Horse Swamp and Flat Swamp and flows E into Ahoskie Creek. |
| Bear Swamp |
rises in W Halifax County and flows SW into Little Fishing Creek. |
| Bear Swamp |
rises in NW Duplin County and flows NE into Goshen Swamp. |
