North Carolina Transportation: A Chronology of Invention and Technology
1584: The first English explorers sail from Plymouth, England, for North America. After a journey of a little over two months, their two ships will arrive along the coast of what will become North Carolina.
1740s: Scotch-Irish and German settlers are traveling down the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road to North Carolina’s Piedmont. Much of the road was originally a trading path used by American Indians.
1781: Benjamin Heron’s drawbridge over the Northeast Cape Fear River near Castle Hayne is burned by British troops. Built around 1768, it is one of only a few drawbridges in the colonies.
1790: Dismal Swamp Canal is chartered to connect Albemarle Sound with the Chesapeake Bay.
1793: Construction on the Dismal Swamp Canal begins. Pieces of today’s Intracoastal Waterway system follow part of the path of this early transportation route.
Technology time
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reprinted by permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian
35 (spring 1996), copyright North Carolina Museum of History, Division
of State History Museums, Office of Archives and History, North Carolina
Department of Cultural Resources.