My ancestor, William Lewis, Jr., came to North Carolina in 1736 from Northern Ireland, and he settled in what is now Pender County along the Black River. Family history asserts that he was encouraged to move to the New World by Mr. Henry McCulloch and that McCulloch actually made all the travel arrangements to get his family transported and firmly settled in the Cape Fear region.

So, who was Henry McCulloch? Was he really that influential and did he really bring families from the British Isles to North Carolina? The following is everything I can find about the man. He certainly had money, and he certainly had influence, even with the upper echelons of the British government.

Found as McCulloh as often as McCulloch, the man truly helped make North Carolina what it is today. Despised by some, adored by many, Henry McCulloch's legacy is absolutely fascinating. I hope you enjoy finding it all pulled together in one location.

The idea of stamp duties as a means of revenue in the American colonies did not originate with George Grenville. It had, in fact, been recommended a number of times before the framing of the Stamp Act of 1765. The measure was suggested by Archibald Cummings, a customs official of Boston, in 1716 and 1717, and he recurred to it again in 1722. Stamp duties were also recommended in 1728 and 1742 by Sir William Keith, sometime Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania, and that the policy was seriously considered in the latter year is evident from the fact that Governor George Clinton of New York advised against it. At the time of the Seven Years War, the levy of stamp duties was seriously contemplated by the Newcastle ministry; William Pitt favored such a policy, as did also Governor Horatio Sharpe of Maryland. However, the individual to whom George Grenville was especially indebted for the policy made famous by the Stamp Act was Henry McCulloch, a holder of vast tracts of land in North Carolina and once a special agent of His Majesty’s Government in the Carolinas. Click Here to read what Henry McCulloch wrote to the Earl of Bute regarding taxing the British colonies in 1761.

McCulloch was a typical adventurer in the realm of colonial politics and economics. He is said to have been a merchant of London, and his home was at Turnham Green, Middlesex County. He probably became interested in North Carolina through his relations with Governor Gabriel Johnston, to whom he advanced considerable sums of money between 1726 and 1733; indeed, when Johnston, in the latter year, was appointed Governor of North Carolina, McCulloch loaned him the funds to pay for his commission and to purchase the equipment necessary for his new station in life. In the meantime, McCulloch developed an interest in general questions of public administration and in 1733 his name appears in the Treasury Records. Some five years later, in 1738, he presented to the Treasury two memorials concerning the evils in the quit-rent and land system of North Carolina, and asked to be employed to correct abuses and make improvements. These memorials came at an opportune time, for His Majesty’s Government had not been able to secure satisfactory legislation on quit-rents from the Carolina Assemblies nor to break up land speculations by the official classes. It was therefore decided to send McCulloch as a special representative of the Crown with power to reform the administration of the land offices and to bring about better methods in the collection of the rents in North Carolina and South Carolina. He arrived in the latter colony in March of 1741, and in September proceeded to North Carolina. It is not necessary here to give an account of his mission, save to note that it was a failure; he antagonized the official classes in both provinces and he did not secure the cooperation of either Assembly. In 1747, he returned to England after an extended tour of other colonies. His experience in the Carolinas stimulated his interest in questions of colonial administration. Back in England, he defended the protest of the Albemarle counties of North Carolina against the act of 1746, which had reduced their representation. He seems also to have been appointed naval officer at Cape Breton, an office which was vacated after the return of Cape Breton to the French in 1748. A few years later, specifically in 1763, he applied to Lord Halifax and the Duke of Newcastle for an appointment either as Secretary of North Carolina or Naval Officer for the Lower James River District. The former appointment he received in 1754, and in the same year, his friend Arthur Dobbs becoming Governor of the province, he was also appointed a member of the Executive Council and appeared in that body in March of 1755 at New Bern. However, he did not long remain in North Carolina; he probably returned to England in the same year to attend to business relating to his land grants. Certainly he was there in 1761, for in that year he sent his son, Henry Eustace McCulloch, to North Carolina to represent his business interests in the colony.

McCulloch’s deepest interest in the New World was that of a land speculator. In 1737, the Crown delivered to Murray Crymble and James Huey, trustees for McCulloch, warrants for 1,200,000 acres in North Carolina, on condition that 6,000 foreign Protestants should be colonized. In 1745, the lands were surveyed in tracts of 100,000 acres, which lay on the upper Pee Dee, Cape Fear, and Neuse rivers. Two of the tracts were assigned to John Selwyn and two to Arthur Dobbs, later to be Governor of the province. All grantees were exempt from quit-rents until 1756, by which time it was expected that settlements would be completed. Quite naturally there were difficulties in administration. It was found that 475,000 acres were included in the Granville District, and in 1755, a compromise was reached by which McCulloch was to become the tenant of Lord Granville, paying him an annual lump sum until 1760, and thereafter four shillings per hundred acres for land actually settled, and releasing all claims to land not settled. This was the business that probably caused McCulloch to return to England in 1755. With the Crown, also, there were difficulties. By 1754, the number of settlers was only 854, instead of the thousands contemplated in 1737, but on account of the Cherokee War the period at which quit-rents were to begin was extended to 1760. There were difficulties in carrying out this agreement, but in 1762, it was decided that McCulloch and his associates should retain the lands actually colonized at the rate of 200 acres for each settler, and that they should surrender all claim for the remainder. But when commissioners began to make a census of the settlers, they met bitter opposition, for many who lived near the South Carolina line claimed land under grants from that province, and others produced grants from the North Carolina land office. In Anson County, NC, the authority of the sheriff was invoked by the commissioners, but such was the temper of the people that all effort to apportion lands between the Crown and McCulloch failed. During the American Revolution, all property rights of McCulloch to lands in North Carolina were confiscated by the new North Carolina state government.

Such are the broad outlines of McCulloch’s relations with the Carolinas. His experiences and observations caused him to think seriously concerning two problems of imperial administration. The first was the need of a stable colonial currency; so in 1755, he submitted to the Earl of Halifax a bill for creating and issuing bills of credit under the denomination of exchequer bills of Union, to be in general use in His Majesty’s colonies. If this measure had been adopted, it would not only have solved the practical currency problems of the Seven Years War in America, but might have driven from circulation the various types of colonial currency. The other problem which concerned him was that of the terms of the peace that followed the Seven Years War. This was the subject of a memorial submitted in 1761 to the Earl of Bute, entitled Miscellaneous Representations Relative to Our Concerns in America. Its theme is that England should not be satisfied with taking from the French merely Canada or Guadaloupe, for Canada would be a liability if Louisiana remained a French possession and Guadaloupe a hindrance to mercantilist ideas of trade unless the neighboring neutral islands were also acquired. As this meant that England, under terms of the peace, should take everything in sight, McCulloch was indeed and in truth a territorial imperialist. But given the increase of territory, there remained the problem of imperial relations. It was his opinion that the whole system of administration should be reorganized. The Indian trade should be regulated, and to finance an Indian establishment in the colonies a “stamp duty on vellum and paper” should be imposed. The colonial currency must be regulated and made uniform. Improved channels of official communication between the colonies and England were necessary, and procedure in financial and judicial matters needed reform. A better illustration of the ideals of the new British imperialism that was soon to dominate colonial policy can hardly be found.

And this memorial was not the end of McCulloch’s activity. In July of 1763, he addressed a letter to Henry Jenkinson, Secretary of the Treasury in the Grenville Cabinet, in which he gave an account of the taxes collected in the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, noted that a stamp duty at the rates of six, twelve, and eighteen pence per sheet would raise £60,000, and enclosed two bills—one for stamp duties, and one for exchequer bills of credit. This communication was fruitful, for in the following October a comparative statement of stamp duties, including those recommended by McCulloch, those in force in England, and those proposed by the Treasury, was submitted to Grenville, and two days later (October 12) there was a conference between McCulloch and Grenville. Of all this the outcome was the adoption of the Stamp Act as a part of Grenville’s program for colonial administration. Thereafter McCulloch is lost sight of; the date of his death is unknown, but he is referred to as living by his son, Henry Eustace McCulloh, as late as 1768.

Their first settlements were at Sarecta on the Northeast Cape Fear River, and at the lower end of Goshen, (then called Woodwards Chase) and on the grove, where Duplin Court House now stands. About the same time, and soon after, a number of families emigrated from Roanoke, Meherrin, and elsewhere, and settled on Cohera, Six Runs, Goshen, and Northeast. The country being then new, the range fresh and luxuriant, and the country abounding with wild game, their principal object then was raising stock and hunting.

At the first forming of this county, which then included both Duplin and Sampson, it contained but about 360 white poll taxables, and very few negroes. At the commencement of the Revolutionary War it contained about 900 or 1,000 white poll taxables very few of them were then emigrants from Europe.

Henry McCulloch, a merchant of London, in association with Arthur Dobbs and others, received grants in 1735 for 60,000 acres on the Black River and subsequently grants for more than a million acres in the backcountry of North Carolina, subject to certain conditions as to settlement, which were never carried out completely. The first settlement on the McCulloch lands was made in 1736 in Duplin County. The earliest settlers of Duplin were Scots-Irish and Swiss. In 1762, McCulloch claimed that he was entitled to 71,160 acres in Duplin County. The McCulloch grants were the source of much dispute before the American Revolution. Of these lands, 56,969 acres were confiscated during the Revolution and sold by the State for £10,275 [11-10. C. R., V, xxxii-xxxv, VI, 773; R. D. W. Connor, Colonial-Revolutionary Periods, 167; S. A. Ashe, History of North Carolina, I, 252-254; W. H. Foote, Sketches of North Carolina, 159; I. S. Harrell, “North Carolina Loyalists,” The North Carolina Historical Review, III, 589.]

Sarecta is encountered in the records as early as 1744. Henry McCulloch gave it as his North Carolina address. [C. R., IV, 686, 762, V, 772, 779.]

Extracted from "Duplin County" By William Dickson

"In June 1736, Henry McCulloch, from the province of Ulster, Ireland, secured a grant from George II of 64,000 acres in the present county of Duplin, and introduced into it between three and four thousand emigrants from his native county. These were the Scots-Irish descendants of the Scots settlers who James I had induced to move to Ireland and occupy the immense domains that escheated to the Crown after the conspiracy of the Earls of Tyrconnel and Tyrone in 1604. About the same time (1730-1740) the Scots began to occupy the lower Cape Fear River region, and after the fatal battle of Culloden Moor, in 1746, great numbers of Highlanders implicated in the rebellion of Prince Charlie emigrated to America, and occupied the counties of Bladen, Cumberland, Robeson, Moore, Richmond, Harnett, and parts of Chatham and Anson. Thus it happened that the Scots obtained the ascendency in the region of the upper Cape Fear, and have retained it till this day."

The earliest immigrants to the area were the Welsh from New Castle on Delaware arriving in the early 1700s. They were soon followed by German Palatines and Swiss in the 1730s and 1740s who were from settlements in New Bern. The Scots-Irish arrived in 1736 from Ulster, Northern Ireland with Henry McCulloch; a wealthy London merchant, to settle on a rich and fertile 71,160-acre land granted to him from the British Crown.

The early settlements were primarily along the river and larger creeks as these were the best means of transportation in the early beginnings of the county. McCulloch established the first town in 1744, Sarecta, which was incorporated in 1787. The first industry in the county was the naval stores industry followed by the main industry throughout the years, agriculture. The completion of the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad in 1840, gave rise to such towns as Wallace, Teachey, Rose Hill, Magnolia, Warsaw, Faison, and Calypso. Duplin County has maintained its agricultural heritage and rural environment through the years while still allowing for a blending with industrial development, economic growth and a enviable lifestyle.

"Sketches of North Carolina, Historical and Biographical, Illustrative of the Principles of a Portion of Her Early Settlers," by William Henry Foote, 1794-1869.

In all actions or suits, wherein it may be necessary for either party to prove title, by virtue of a grant or grants made by the king of Great Britain or Earl Granville to Henry McCulloch, or his son, Henry Eustace McCulloch, it shall be sufficient for such party, in the usual manner, to give evidence of the grant or conveyance from the king of Great Britain or Earl Granville to the said Henry McCulloch, or Henry Eustace McCulloch, and the mesne conveyances thereafter, without giving any evidence of the deed or deeds of release, relinquishment or confirmation of Earl Granville to the said Henry McCulloch, or Henry Eustace McCulloch, or the power or powers of attorney by which the conveyances from the said Henry McCulloch, or Henry Eustace McCulloch, purport to have been made. (1819, c. 1021, P.R.; R.C., c. 44, s. 1; Code, s. 1336; Rev., s. 1600; C.S., s. 1761.)

Because many citizens failed to take the oath, the law was revised in 1778. The Commissioners of Confiscated Property in each county were allowed to summon the Loyalists and make a list of their property. The property could be rented in tracts of 640 or less. The Commissioners or the county court could sell the remaining property (including slaves); however, a dower share was reserved for the widow and children if they remained in the state. The Commissioners could also settle any outstanding debts owed to the Loyalists. The Commissioners were allowed a percentage of the sale.

But protests to the Legislature were made against this Act including one in October of 1779 by Mecklenburg County residents. The complainants felt the land should be sold, rather than rented, and that the heirs should only have claims to the estate for a fixed period.

In November of 1779, the confiscation law was made stringent by naming prominent Loyalists and allowing confiscation of the property of people who had left the state. This law mentioned the following people:
William Tryon, esq
Josiah Martin, esq
Sir Nathaniel Duckinfield
Henry Eustace McCulloch
Henry McCulloch

McCulloch discovered that his grant was laid out on land claimed by Lord Granville, then lord president of the Privy Council, although it was not part of the original Granville district as surveyed in 1744. He contended that Granville's agents in North Carolina had persuaded Governor Gabriel Johnston to extend the area across the Pamlico River to include the acreage granted to McCulloch.

In 1745, Arthur Dobbs and Colonel John Selwyn purchased a tract of 400,000 acres located in present Mecklenburg and Cabarrus Counties from Henry McCulloch of London. We are indebted to his report to the Board of Trade for the first glimpse of our county where he found 75 families living. He found an "industrious people," with five to ten children in most families, raising horses, cows, a few sheep, and hogs. In addition, they raised crops of Indian corn, wheat, barley, rye, and indigo. Their trade was primarily with Charles Town, as there was already a two hundred-mile road to the South Carolina seaport and trade with eastern North Carolina was hampered by the rivers which cut across the land.

Be it remembered that by virtue of a letter of attorney under the hand of seal of the said Henry McColloh. Henry Eustace McColloch Esq Did in the name of the said Henry McColloch sign & subscribe this grant and their seal of deliver the sums of his the said Henry McColloch act of Deed in the presence of us who have hereunto subscribed our Names as Witness.

Signed
John Frohock
Henry McColloch, by
H E McColloch

The within written Indenture of Bargain of sale from Henry McColloh Esq to Charles Barrier was duly registered in the Quit Rent Office of the Rt Honble John Carl Granville on the 7th Day of April 1763 Pursuant to an agreement made between his Lordship and the said Henry McColloh bearing Date April 7th 1761

Robert Jones Jr

North Carolina
Rowan County to wit July Court 1763
This is to certify that the within Deed was duly procesd in open court
and Recorded in the Clerks office as the Law Director
Let it be registered__________ John Frohock

Iredell’s chief occupation during that period was in acting as the attorney for large North Carolina landholders, especially those whose estates had been confiscated. He was, for instance, the representative of the McCullochs, as well as their kinsman. Henry McCulloch had, under British rule, held various offices, including that of Commissioner of Crown Lands. He obtained a patent for 1,200,000 acres for himself and associates, but because of his failure to induce immigration to his huge domain, his affairs became somewhat embarrassed. However, he held onto a vast area of land; and in 1761, he caused his son, Henry Eustace McCulloch, an English lawyer, to come to North Carolina and act as his agent. There the younger McCulloch became a member of the Provincial Executive Council, Collector of the Port of Roanoke, and later Representative in England of the Colony of North Carolina. As a member of the North Carolina Executive Council, Henry Eustace McCulloch “ sold his vote,” says Sabine, “ in favor of the Tuscarora grant of lands to Williams, Pugh, and Jones for a thousand acres of land. The fact that he was thus bribed seems to have been notorious. . . .” Sabine goes on to tell that such was McCulloch’s “tact and address,” that when he adjusted his father’s accounts with the Crown, he got “ 64,000 acres, without the payment of a single dollar.” How he managed to do this, Sabine, unfortunately, does not tell.

The elder McCulloch’s estate was apparently confiscated, but he had previously conveyed it to his son. In 1779, when Henry Eustace McCulloch’s estate was confiscated, he went to England as agent for the North Carolina Loyalists in prosecuting their claims for indemnity from the British Government. “He himself,” Sabine relates, “was a claimant; and though he received a considerable sum, he was dissatisfied.” Sabine further relates that when McCulloch was in England, Judge Iredell “rendered him much valuable service” in North Carolina for which, in return, Iredell considered himself badly treated; the particular nature of the service Sabine does not disclose. Iredell served on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States until 1799.

Henry McCulloch had been promoting his North Carolina lands as a place for Protestants to settle. Eventually more than ninety percent of the Piedmont German settlers did settle on McCulloch land. They came as families to America, and after serving an indenture of five, seven, or nine years to pay for their Atlantic passage, usually in Pennsylvania, they came to Carolina. Many of the Germans who settled in Guilford County were born in Germany, and came as children. By the time they came to Guilford, they were adults. They had worked years in Pennsylvania to pay their debts and accumulate some cash.

They came to Guilford, bought land from McCulloch, and established their farms. They came as two religious groups – 85% Lutheran, and 15% German Reformed. (Friedens Lutheran Church), which Adam attended, was located only about three and one-half miles from his property {see Guilford County Map, Historical Documentation No. IX, Revised August 1988}). Supposedly, two families were Jewish, but the documentation is very weak. The two groups cooperated in practice, sharing the same churches, in some cases, even sharing a minister.

He surrendered any participation in government in order to retain ownership in his one-eighth share of the colony's land. Due to political reversals in England, Carteret was unable to attend to his colonial interests until 1742, when he appointed the first of several agents to operate on his authority for the district that he never visited in person. In 1742, the King's Privy Council agreed to Carteret's request to plan his allotment. The task was given to Samuel Warner, a London surveyor, who determined that Carteret was entitled to fifty-six and a quarter minutes of north latitude.

So the northern boundary was to be the Virginia-North Carolina border (36° 30') and the southern line at 35° 34'. In 1743, the initial portion of the boundary line was surveyed by a commission appointed jointly by Carteret and the North Carolina Governor Gabriel Johnston. The line was extended westward in 1746 and again in 1753. In 1744, Carteret inherited the title Earl of Granville, and from that time, the district became known as Granville's district or the Granville Tract.

After the 1746 extension, others, including Governor Arthur Dobbs, began to complain that the line had been run up to 13 and a half miles too far south. There was some resentment of Granville's tract, which amounted to nearly half of the land in North Carolina, because the royal government of North Carolina was responsible for the area but did not receive any revenue from it. In about 1750, Lord Granville began to become concerned about irregularities in the accounts from his agents in the issuance of land grants and he issued explicit instructions about keeping records and executing grants.

Henry McCulloch who had received a large royal grant of land, some of which lay within Granville's Tract. Granville gave McCulloch permission to settle the land. But in 1752, he learned that his agents had issued grants in McCullochs land. McCulloch and Granville disputed the area, and negotiated a series of agreements, sometimes threatening legal action, until McCulloch's land was confiscated by the state of North Carolina in 1779.

Despite Granville's explicit instructions to his agents, complaints from land holders and prospective purchasers increased throughout the 1750s, particularly allegations of exorbitant fees. After Granville's death in 1763, the situation only became more muddled, leading to outbreaks of violence in 1770 in the western regions when settlers were unable to obtain land.

Although Granville's son, Robert Carteret, 3rd Earl Granville, had considered selling the land back to the Crown to disencumber himself, this never happened and the situation continued to get worse as records were no longer being kept accurately. When the younger Granville died in February of 1776, revolutionary fervor was already strong and the proprietorship of the Granville Tract was identified with British interests.

In 1777, the North Carolina legislature declared the new state as sovereign over all the lands between Virginia and South Carolina, though recognizing claims to land granted by the Crown and Lords Proprietors prior to July 4, 1776. It also confiscated all lands and property of persons who supported the British during the war.