New! North Carolina 1775 Regions (Counties)

Sailing ships adorn the coastline of the 1775 “Mouzon” map of North Carolina. Here we see the Outer Banks and Roanoke Inlet leading to the island of the same name and to Albemarle Sound.
The large wall map from which this is taken is actually a map of North and South Carolina by Henry Mouzon. The full map can be seen here.

I have “chopped up” the large map into smaller views such as the next image.

Here is Albemarle sound and the North Carolina coastline from the 1775 Mouzon map.
I offer this print in several convenient sizes.

My index shows the nine “chop-ups”.

Mapmaker Mouzon warns of the “Alligater Dismal Swamp” adjoining Albemarle Sound. This close-up is to the south of the sound.

Here are Edenton and Hartford in 1775. Mouzon gives is the names of major landowners and of mills, ferries and etc. This is a very nice feature of the Mouzon map. It is unusual to have this sort of detail on a colonial map.

In 1775 and for some years afterwards the Ocracoke Inlet was the busiest shipping access to the NC mainland . Portsmouth was a significant village with a long road leading down the shore.

The Outer Banks have lost a lot of land since 1775. Now Portsmouth and Ocracoke are islands, much smaller than shown here. This portion on the map is featured on the “Cape Lookout to Cape Hatteras” excerpt.

Portsmouth village was one of the largest on the Outer Banks in 1775. Here we see a church (?) and 8 significant buildings. Large ships docked here and transferred freight to smaller vessels to navigate the shallower inner waters.

The Cape Fear to Cape Lookout excerpt map shows the coastline from Georgia to Cape Lookout. Most inlets are named.

The prominent town of Brunswick was the busiest port in the Cape Fear region until a year after this map was made, when the setttlement was destroyed by the British Navy in the Revolutionary War.

Further up the coast is the New River area. There is nothing but “Ferry” and “Wimble” written where the City of Jacksonville is now.

In between the barrier islands we see 8 inlets. Note “Topsail Inlet” and the tall ship nearby. It is said that the name comes from the fact that only the tops of sailing ships could be seen over the islands as they approached the shore.

The Charlotte Area print shows a largely undeveloped area to the east of Charlottesburg. Settlements were along larger rivers

Charlotte was “Charlottesburg” in 1775. The “Catwaba Nation” shown here is an Indian tribal area on the NC-SC border.

Also on the Charlotte Area map is Salisbury, the oldest town sizeable town in western North Carolina. It was larger than Charlotte at the time. Note the five roads.

The Fayetteville Area map is pretty sparse Fayetteville is in the left center… see below

This is Fayettville, NC in 1755. It was then “Crosscreek”.

The Court House tells us there were quite a few settlers there. The names Lyon and Rutherford would indicate prominent houses or businesses.

Exeter, a once booming town on the Cape Fear River is a ghost town now. The settlement flouished up until the late 1700s.
Fayetteville Area map.

The Raleigh-Durham area excerpt map shows activity along the Roanoke River to the east (right).

Note the “Indian Town” of “Tuscaroraw”. There was a large native American population here in the 1700s.

Up river from Tuscaroraw was the large town of Halifax which during the Revolutionary War was the capital of North Carolina.

Halifax in 2025 is a very small community.

Unlike Halifax, Raleigh & Durham did not exist in 1775. It would take a bit of research to pinpoint the modern towns on this old map.

Winston-Salem is more developed in 1775. Salem is labelled. In the center of this excerpt is the settlement of Bethabara, an early Moravian settlement, now part of Winston-Salem.