HISTORY OF THE CAPE FEAR REGION
HOME

English explorers first sailed to the Cape Fear River region in 1585. The Cape and the navigational hazard posed by the shoal, now referred to as Frying Pan Shoal, were well documented in the logs of these early sea captains. The bays, sounds, and especially the Cape Fear River were seen as attractive areas for English settlers.

Eventually, the English government offered homesteading rights to people who would settle the Cape Fear region. Andrew Howell writes in THE BOOK OF WILMINGTON, "... an investigating party was sent out from Barbados to the Cape Fear region. The leading man was William Hilton, ..."They came over in 1663, and sailed up the river to where the city of Wilmington now is . Ten in small boats, Hilton and members of his party made their way a long distance further up the northeast branch of the river." Hiltons name has ever since clung to the high and beautiful woodlands now within the northern limits of the city. Hilton Street remains today as the northern most east/west running street of this area.

William Hilton was also the man that explored Hilton Head, SC and again his name has clung to that island.

The earliest settlement was at the mouth where the "Charles River", now Town creek, enters the Cape Fear River. That settlement, Charleston, was established in 1665 and then abandoned in 1671, being moved to Charleston, SC for reasons unknown. Settlers moving back north from Charleston re-established the town of Brunswick in 1725. Again that settlement was not to last and the settlement moved upriver to present day Wilmington in large measure to escape the ravages of hurricanes which periodically wreaked havoc on the community of Brunswick. Again, Andrew Howell notes that, "A final storm in September, 1769, all but sounded the funeral dirge of Brunswick."

Deep water, storm protection, and beautiful high ground were irresistibly appealing to us as we selected this wonderfully historic site as the location for the new Cape Fear Marina. The assets of this site attracted another man whose place in history is most impressive, Cornelius Harnett.