Beginning in the 1700s, many people flocked from Virginia to North Carolina with the hopes of finding fertile land. Among that land, Duplin County emerged as a popular settlement. In 1750, Duplin County was incorporated from a subsection of New Hanover County. Surprisingly though, what was thought to be a great agricultural producer originally boomed as a naval store industry.
Throughout the 1800s, the tar industry from North Carolina Pine Trees provided the people of Duplin County a vibrant economy, with tar often shipped down the Cape Fear River to help with the construction of boats along the coast of North Carolina and Virginia. Beginning later in the 1800s and continuing to this day, cotton, tobacco, and poultry have dominated the county’s economy.
Our rockstar intern (who authored this county highlight) says it’s Duplin County’s history of notable people and characters that make it unique. One person in particular, James Kenan, an American Revolutionary War hero and UNC-Chapel Hill trustee, was raised in Duplin County. His name lives on today through Kenan Stadium at UNC-Chapel Hill, which was named in his grandson’s memory.
It is believed that ex-governor Charles Eden may have given the land that is now the town of Teachey, North Carolina to Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, and that relatives of Blackbeard’s still call Duplin County home.
Like many rural, Eastern North Carolina communities, Duplin’s politics have long been culturally conservative. While Democrats carried the county into the mid-2000s (Mike Easley and George W. Bush each won about 57% of the vote here in 2004), the county has become reliably Republican.