# Eastern North Carolina Encyclopedia/Sampson County

SAMPSON COUNTY
Large in Area as Well as in Name—Healthful Climate—Soil Rich and Productive. Unlimited Resources—Wonderful Opportunities for Both Labor and Capital—Clinton, the County Seat.
AREA AND LOCATION
Sampson County is midway between Raleigh and Wilmington and in the heart of the best farming and trucking sections of the State. The county is traversed for forty miles by the Atlantic and Yadkin Railroad and also for fourteen miles by the Clinton–Warsaw branch of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.
The county has an area of 925 square miles and a population of about 40,000, and is the second largest county in the State. Clinton is the capital of the county and has a population of 2,500. It has seven churches, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Universalist and Holiness.
Besides Clinton, the county has eight incorporated towns, Roseboro, Salemburg, Autryville, Parkersburg, Garland, Kerr, Ivanhoe and Turkey; and several unincorporated villages, Hayne, Mints, Tomahawk, Ingold, Moultonville, Newton Grove, and Harrells Store. All these villages, as well as the rural districts, have creditable schools and churches.
IMPROVED HIGHWAYS
The county has been constructing improved highways for sixteen years and now has over 400 miles of improved highways penetrating each of its seventeen townships, seventy-five per cent of which is under patrol maintenance, so that each community is in easy access to an improved highway. The county is traversed from north to south by State Highway Route No. 60 for a distance of 54 miles, and from east to west by State Highway Route No. 24 for a distance of 30 miles. The State and the county have together spent over a million dollars in improved roads and bridges in the county in the past few years.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND CHRISTIAN CHURCHES IN EVERY COMMUNITY
There is a Christian church and a good public school in every community in the county. The two first model communities in the South were established a few years ago at Salemburg and Ingold. The people are neighborly and friendly to newcomers in their midst.
ADAPTED TO NUMEROUS AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
Farming, trucking and stock raising is the principal occupation of its people. Early trucking in sweet corn, beans, peas, peppers, lettuce, cantaloupes, cucumbers, okra, turnips, ​Irish potatoes, cabbage and early berries, such as strawberries, dewberries and huckleberries, are a source of wonderful revenue. The principal crops are corn, cotton, tobacco, sweet potatoes, oats, wheat, rye, soja beans and pea vine hay. Some alfalfa and clover are also grown. The best hog exhibits in the State are to be found in this county, several specimens at our last County Fair weighing over 1,000 pounds. Pure bred cattle are rapidly increasing in the county.
There are numerous creeks and small rivers coursing through the county, affording an abundance of pasture lands and fresh water for stock and cattle farms. The forest abounds in timber and hard wood suitable for building material and all kinds of wood working enterprises.
A PROGRESSIVE COUNTY WITH A MODERATE TAX RATE
Our county boasts of economic but progressive county government. The tax rate is smaller than in many other less progressive counties. We have a whole-time Health Officer and trained nurses. Farm demonstrator and superintendent of the domestic science work in the county. A whole-time Welfare Officer, Public Clinics for operations and treatment of venereal diseases, a county farm and home for the poor, aged and infirm people, incapable to provide their own support. Our rural population is not dense, hence our farms are usually large and our lands are cheap. We need to increase our population, subdivide our large farms and intensify our farming.
MOST RAPID DEVELOPMENT IN RECENT YEARS
More improvements have been made in Sampson County in the past decade in building better homes, adding home comforts, in added facilities for better schools and churches, in improved farming lands, and in improved fertility of the soil, in improved stock, hogs and cattle, in better highways and improved health conditions, and in every way that tends to make farm life more pleasant and profitable, than in many other counties in this section of the State.
WHAT OTHERS THINK OF SAMPSON COUNTY AND THIS SECTION OF NORTH CAROLINA
The editor of the Wilmington Star, the largest daily newspaper east of Raleigh, has visited our county on several occasions recently and made a personal inspection of our lands and the products of our farms and inventoried our resources, and we copy below from a leading editorial of Nov. 5th, 1923, and a front page display write-up of Sampson County in the issue of Nov. 8th, 1923, and a second page display article on Nov. 10th, 1923.
READ WHAT EDITOR CLAWSON SAYS OF SAMPSON COUNTY
"A variety of products which no other region on earth could assemble at any time of the year.
"At the Sampson County Fair at Clinton every branch of agricultural and live stock industries will be seen as they have never before been assembled east of Raleigh. The exhibition of products is large and of great variety, including cotton, tobacco, peanuts, corn and every product of the temperate zone. ​Sampson has the greatest hog display ever seen in Eastern North Carolina and her cattle and dairy farm show is great.
"In the exhibitions of farm products the Sampson Fair is without a rival north of the Cape Fear.
"The agricultural exposition at Clinton last fall eclipsed anything ever seen in the State.
"If 200,000 people could see it they would know Eastern North Carolina well enough to call her by her right name. Go to the Sampson Fair and see how Sampson County will present overwhelming proof of the agricultural premiership of North Carolina."
In his write-up of Sampson County on Nov. 8th, 1923, speaking of her exhibits, he says:
"It is nothing short of marvelous as a demonstration of the magnificent agricultural resources of the Coastal Plain Section of North Carolina. Each department is a show within itself and each housed in accordance with a perfect system never before seen at a county fair in the South Atlantic country.
"The greatest exposition of diversified products ever put under one roof in the South.
"It is more than a county fair for it is really an exposition of the matchless productive adaptabilities of what is rapidly developing into absolutely the finest agricultural region in America.
"This section of the State has greater possibilities than any other like area between the Atlantic and the Pacific."
OUR FINANCIAL CONDITION
"The bank deposits in the seven banks in the county have doubled since 1921.
"The county's financial system is strong and rapidly increasing and no bankers anywhere in North Carolina are more progressive or liberal in their dealings with a progressive people who are performing wonders in developing their county's wonderful resources."
HYDRO ELECTRIC POWER FOR INDUSTRIAL USE
The county is supplied with numerous streams that will develop unlimited water power but the chief source for power and light is a high tension transmission electric line of the Carolina Power and Light Company traversing Sampson County to Clinton, the county seat. This line affords unlimited amount of power for lights and all manufacturing purposes.
A WELCOME TO NEWCOMERS
Our people will welcome newcomers in our midst. Fertile farms can be purchased cheap and on easy terms. Fine pastures and cattle farms. Domestic grasses flourish and green pastures can be had all the year round. Our winters are short and mild. Fall and winter gardens require little protection. Three or four crops are often grown during the year on the same lands.
We have the lands and the climate and the natural resources. We want others to come and share these advantages with us.
We need cotton factories, canning factories, oil mills, knitting mills, wood working factories, and outside capital to furnish labor to our people who are not engaged on the farms. A welcome awaits both labor and capital. If you are interested and want more information, address,
The Rotary Club, Clinton, N. C.