Williamston

Williamston is the county seat of Martin County, located in the northeastern Coastal Plain of North Carolina. The town's population is about 7,000, while the county's total population is about 25,000.
The exact date of the first settlement at what was to become Williamston cannot be determined, but it is known there was a village in the general locality as early as 1730. The first settlers are said to have moved from Bertie County to the south side of the Moratoc (now Roanoke) River and located near the ruins of what had been a Tuscaroran Indian village. The locality was known to the Indians as "Squhawky," but it was called "Tar Landing" by the English settlers, as it gradually became the principal shipping point for the tar, pitch, turpentine, and other forest products.

The settlement prospered and was designated the seat of government when Martin County was chartered in March 1774. A little over five years later, during the Revolutionary War, it became the first incorporated town in the county and was named "Williamston" in the charter granted at a session of the General Assembly held in Halifax during October and November 1779.

Robersonville

Incorporated February 1870, Robersonville - located directly on the railroad’s route between Tarboro and Williamston - is the first town in the county dependent on the railroad, rather than the Roanoke River, as its chief commercial and communication link with the world beyond Martin County.

Although the Seaboard and Raleigh Railway Company would not be incorporated until late 1873, town founders envisioned it as a prominent trading center and market for western Martin County. Growing slowly during its first decade, the town quickly fulfilled its destined fate after the railroad’s completion in October 1882 and boasted having eleven general stores, two physicians, and a number of industries by 1884. The
Town’s population had increased in 12 years to 400 residents with farm families and ambitious young men moving there because of its various entrepreneurial, educational, and social opportunities.

Though the railroad has been replaced by the new US 64 Bypass as the town’s main link to the outside world, Robersonville continues to thrive, providing needed services, industry and entertainment to local and out-of-town residents alike. It is the home of St. James Place Museum, a restored 1910 Primitive Baptist Church, and East Carolina Motor Speedway.

Jamesville

The second oldest town in Martin County, Jamesville, was incorporated in 1785 as James Town, with its name changing in 1797 to Jamestown and finally, on Feb. 10, 1855, to Jamesville.
Situated directly on the Roanoke River, Jamesville residents depended on the shipment of agricultural and forest products, supplying local farmers with merchandise, and taking advantage of the early springtime fishing season that was centered there.

Jamesville thrived prior to the Civil War with the formation of a large sawmill operation headed by Dennis Simmons. The construction of the Astoria Mill about a mile upriver gave the county its largest antebellum industry.
During the Civil War, Jamesville’s placement between Union headquarters at Plymouth, downriver to the east, and Williamston, Hamilton and Fort Branch, upriver to the west, put the town in constant peril. The town’s unenviable position placed it, as one local historian described, in “no man’s land” between opposing Union and Confederate interests. The once-prosperous town was virtually destroyed during the course of the war. As a result, the only surviving antebellum residence in town is the ca. 1810 Burras House on West Main Street.

Hamilton

Hamilton, incorporated in 1804 and located on the Roanoke River, long prospered as a bustling commercial port. Shallow-draft steamboats, the cotton gin and, a burgeoning textile trade here and abroad, brought river traffic to its peak during the years preceding the Civil War.

The small but thriving town might have been even more prosperous before the Civil War if any of several efforts to improve land travel had been successful. Proposals in 1832 to establish a railroad from Hamilton to Tarboro, and in the 1850s to build plank roads to Tarboro and Murfreesboro were each abandoned in the discussion stage.

Many of Hamilton’s fine old homes were built during this period (1830-1850) and are found today in the town’s National Register Historic District. The district includes some of the finest antebellum homes assembled in the county. It also includes the circa-1881 St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, a remarkably unaltered and sophisticated example of the Gothic Revival frame church from the early post Civil War period. It is one of the most outstanding examples of frame Victorian Gothic architecture in Eastern North Carolina.

Bear Grass

The name Bear Grass, a type of yucca prolific in the area, has been in use at least since 1761 when it was given to the area’s major swamp in a land grant. The early settlers were farmers, with many engaged in the production of turpentine, tar and shingles from the area’s abundant forests.

Though the congregation of the Bear Grass Primitive Baptist Church organized in 1828, the Bear Grass community did not emerge until after the Civil War. A public school started in the late 1860s, and Reuben H. Rogerson opened a general mercantile store in 1880. The community’s development was hindered by it not being located along a navigable stream or on either of the railroad lines traversing Martin County. A post office was established in 1885, although it was closed less than two years later.

Records are limited, complicated by the fact that Bear Grass businesses were listed in directories with Williamston addresses because that was the nearest post office. But by the turn of the century, the community consisted of several legal distilleries, cotton gins, sawmills, grist mills and blacksmith shops. Reuben H. Rogerson’s two story steam-powered sawmill and cotton gin was one of the area’s largest before being destroyed by fire in November 1908. The first decade of the 20th Century witnessed considerable growth in the community. The town was officially incorporated on Feb. 16, 1909.

Oak City

With the establishment of the “Goose Nest” post office in 1888, this community - which began in the early 1880s as a small, rural trading center around a collection of farmhouses - received its first official name. In 1905 the town’s name was changed to Oak City because a town citizen visiting Raleigh saw “Oak City Laundry” on a delivery wagon and liked the name enough to urge the General Assembly to effect the change.

With farmers and traders attracted by the new Wilmington and Weldon Railroad service, Oak City enjoyed dramatic and steady growth during the early 20th century. By 1910 the population had more than doubled to 251 residents, and the town’s educational and religious offerings expanded to meet the growing needs of this area. While commercial activity included a number of general stores and boarding houses, the industrial activity consisted of saw and planing mills, as well as a grist mill.

The proliferation of the automobile, after the 1910s, accompanied by improvements in the county’s roads, brought significant changes to Oak City. Residents were now able to visit larger towns, so merchants gradually reduced their offerings to cover the basic needs of locals. The end of passenger rail service in 1939 brought about an end to that chapter of town history. Today, the town remains a strong community in northwestern Martin County, with NC 125, NC 11 and NC 42 converging to bring visitors through town. St. Mark’s Missionary Baptist Church, organized in 1883 as the 1st church for African-Americans in Goose Nest Township, is also located in the Oak City area but underwent considerable remodeling in 1968.

Parmele

The two most important developmental forces in Martin County, the arrival of railroad transportation and the proliferation of profitable lumber mills combined to become major catalysts for the birth of Parmele.

The Wilmington and Weldon Railroad began construction around 1890 to extend its north-south line down through Martin County on a location near the Parmele-Eccleston Lumber mill. This chosen tract of land centering on the Albemarle and Raleigh Railroad developed so rapidly after the line was completed that on February 14, 1893 the General Assembly incorporated it into the town of Parmele. In 1895, a third railroad line was extended from Parmele southeasterly to Washington making this newly-formed town the junction of railroad lines leading in five directions. By 1896 it had two lumber mills, ten general stores, one confectionery, and a population of 200 residents. A devastating fire in 1904 destroyed much of the town’s business sections along the railroads and, along with the declining available timber, may have accounted for the closure of those two lumber companies.

During the 1910s, Parmele became noted as the location of a very successful industrial institute for African-American children. Directed by Dr. William C. Chance, the institute taught not only academic learning but also agricultural, mechanical, and home-making skills. After a merger with the town’s public school, the Parmele Industrial Institute was moved into the first brick school building erected for either race in Martin County. The institute achieved regional acclaim, eventually occupying a six-building campus. Unfortunately, the main structure was destroyed by fire in 1954 causing the school to be consolidated into Robersonville’s public school for blacks.

Hassell

Hassell is the second youngest and one of only two Martin County towns to have been established in the 20th century. It was incorporated in February 17, 1903. Named in honor of Elder Sylvester Hassell, noted Primitive Baptist churchman, historian, author, editor, and educator of the late 19th and 20th centuries, the town is located in the northwestern part of the county approximately half way between Oak City and Parmele on what is known as the Scotland Neck-Kinston branch of the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Company.

Surrounded on all sides by a rich agricultural section, Hassell was established as a farm trading and marketing center and shipping point for a number of years before it was incorporated. There were also some sizeable timber operations in the region during the past century, but most of the forests have been cut over now and production of such products is largely limited to pulpwood and logs being harvested and trucked to mills in other sections.

Everetts

The town of Everetts was incorporated in February 1891, and was a thriving trading center situated along the railroad between Robersonville and Williamston. It began more than 20 years earlier as a small rural cross roads named for its principal landowner, Simon Peter Everett. In 1869, he deeded some of his land to the Williamston and Tarboro Railroad Company for the construction of the railroad.

After October 1882, when the Seaboard and Raleigh Railroad, the successor to the Williamston and Tarboro, finally completed the rail line, the Everetts community began to develop as a market for agricultural products such as cotton, corn, grapes, potatoes and eventually peanuts. It grew into a trading center for much of Cross Roads and Poplar Point townships for farm and household supplies. The railroad, with its mail, passenger, and freight services and telegraph line, was the lifeline of the community.

Today, visitors can see the landmark J.T. Barnhill Building along US Business 64/13, which still serves as a general store and has a painted billboard on its outside wall. There is also the former Champion Automobile Building, which anchors Everetts’ block-long commercial section. The building was erected in 1919, and sold Champion, Star, Essex, Durrsant, Hudson and Pan-American automobiles before going out of business in 1930. The post office, first established in 1884, maintains operations today.