This content is from the North Carolina Gazetteer, edited by William S. Powell and Michael Hill. Copyright © 2010 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

Some place names included in The North Carolina Gazetteer contain terms that are considered offensive.

"The North Carolina Gazetteer is a geographical dictionary in which an attempt has been made to list all of the geographic features of the state in one alphabet. It is current, and it is historical as well. Many features and places that no longer exist are included; many towns and counties for which plans were made but which never materialized are also included. Some names appearing on old maps may have been imaginary, but many of them also appear in this gazetteer.

Each entry is located according to the county in which it is found. I have not felt obliged to keep entries uniform. The altitude of a place, the date of incorporation of a city or town, may appear in the beginning of one entry and at the end of another. Some entries may appear more complete than others. I have included whatever information I could find. If there is no comment on the origin or meaning of a name, it is because the information was not available. In some cases, however, resort to an unabridged dictionary may suggest the meaning of many names."

--From The North Carolina Gazetteer, 1st edition, preface by William S. Powell

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Place Description
Cape Amidas

See Cape Hatteras.

Cape Carteret

town in SW Carteret County on Bogue Sound. Inc. 1959.

Cape Creek

a tidal creek on Smith Island in SE Brunswick County rising about 1 mi. N of Cape Fear just inside the outer beach and extending NW to the main outlet on the W shore of Smith Island.

Cape Fair

See Cape Fear.

Cape Fear

community in central Harnett County near the N bank of Cape Fear River.

Cape Fear River

is formed by the junction of Deep and Haw Rivers on the Chatham-Lee county line. It flows SE along the Chatham-Lee county line and through Harnett County, S through Cumberland County, SE through Bladen County, and along the Columbus-Pender, Brunswick-Pender, and Brunswick-New Hanover county lines into the Atlantic Ocean. It had a succession of names after it was first discovered by Europeans. Spanish explorers in 1526 named it Rio Jordan; a Barbadian colony in 1664 named it Charles River; and between 1664 and 1667, when Clarendon County existed in the area, it was known as Clarendon River. It appears as Clarendon River on the Ogilby map, 1671; as "C. Fear R. or Clarendon R." on the Gascoyne map, 1682; as Cape Fear River on the Barnwell map, 1722; as Clarendon River on the Moll map, 1729; and as Cape Fear River on the Moseley map, 1733, and thereafter on others.

Cape Fear Section

a term applied to SE North Carolina along the Cape Fear River. Appears as Pine Plains on the Ogilby map, 1671.

Cape Fear Township

N New Hanover County.

Cape Feare

See Cape Lookout.

Cape Hatteras

the easternmost point in North Carolina, is at the S tip of Hatteras Island, SE Dare County. Diamond Shoals, extending into the Atlantic Ocean SE from the Cape, reach to the Gulf Stream at the notorious "Graveyard of the Atlantic." Called Cape St. John on the Velasco map, 1611; Cape Amidas on the Smith map, 1624; and its present name on the Ogilby map, 1671. The word "Hatteras" apparently is an English rendition of the Algonquian Indian expression of "there is less vegetation." Archaeological evidence indicates that the sixteenth-century Indian village of Croatoan may have been located there. See also various entries under Hatteras; Diamond Shoals.