Welcome to Hooper County Traditional Geocache
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Did you know that Scotland County was originally intended to be called Hooper County? You are looking for a film canister with a bit of swag and a log near that historic county line.
The following was excerpted from the book, "No Ordinary Lives; A History of Richmond County North Carolina 1750-1900", by John Hutchinson (1998, Walsworth Publishing Company)
When Richmond County broke off from Anson County in 1784, it included all of what is now known as Scotland County. On July 19, 1888, a fire destroyed much of downtown Rockingham, including the county courthouse. Shortly after construction of the new courthouse began, a controversy erupted pitting the citizens of the "upper Richmond" town of Rockingham against the citizens of the "lower Richmond" town of Laurinburg.
"Rockingham, booming, wealthy and enthusiastic, hoped to build an imposing $25,000 courthouse, large enough to last fifty years. Laurinburg howled in opposition. 'Ten thousand dollars or less would build a court house ample and sufficiently tasteful for a thousand years to come.' one Laurinburg man wrote."
This was not the first time that tensions had arisen between the two parts of the county. Since the revolution, Richmond County had been at war with itself, to a degree. There were Whigs and Tories reflecting the English-Scottish rivalries between Rockingham and Laurinburg. After the war, Lower Richmond was predominantly Democratic while upper Richmond usually voted Republican. In 1851, citizens of Eastern Richmond and western Robeson counties petitioned for a new county - "Hooper County", in honor of William Hooper, a North Carolina signer of the Declaration of Independence. When the questioned reached local votors on May 1, 1851, the move for the new county was defeated.
"Once defeated, the measure lay dead for eighteen years. Then, from 1869 until 1899, it became a true obsession with citizens living east of Marks Creek township. In thirty short years, petitions for a new county appeared in the state legislature eight times - 1869, 1874, 1879, 1885, 1889, 1893, 1895 and 1899. The name "Scotland County" first surfaced in 1879, after petitioners had also tried and failed with "Jura" and "Wetherspoon".
Additional Hints
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