Nash County NcArchives History .....The Green Path 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Mark Hedgepeth n/a April 19, 2021, 3:10 pm

THE GREEN PATH  
(NASH COUNTY’S ORIGINAL ROAD)  
By Joseph W. Watson  

 The Green Path was an Indian trading path that was widely known during the 
early 1700’s but the name is hardly to be found in Nash County records after 
its formation in  1777. The Indians may have used this path for trading 
among themselves for many  decades before the white men settled in the area.  

 About 1760 a colonial trading center known as Cross Creek sprang up on the 
Cape  Fear River. This was just 1 ¼ miles above a settlement that was begun 
about 1730 and  incorporated in 1762 known as Campbellton. The two were 
combined as Upper and  Lower Campbellton, respectively in 1778 and the name 
was changed to Fayetteville in  1783. This was the southern terminal of the 
Green Path at the junction of several  trading paths.  

 When the Path reached the present Harnett-Johnston County line, it divided 
and a  fork headed north through present Wake County. The main Path reached 
present Nash  County at its extreme southwestern corner and crossed Moccasin 
Creek near the place  where James Lee later built a mill, before its 
junction with Turkey Creek to form Contentnea Creek.  

 The Path appears to have followed almost exactly the present route of N.C. 
Highway  231, which crosses Moccasin Creek, runs through the town of 
Middlesex, Samaria, Gold Valley Crossroads, and ends at N.C. Highway 64, 
west of Spring Hope. The Path continued straight ahead and crossed Tar River 
at a shallow rocky ford near present  Webb’s Mill before the erection of the 
dam. This ford was first called Green’s Ford (the Green Ford) and later 
Samuel Bryant’s Ford. 
 
 After crossing Tar River, the Green Path continued northward in Nash County 
and  crossed Peachtree Creek and Sandy Creek, the latter an extension of 
Swift Creek, at  the present Nash-Franklin line. In the upper part of 
Halifax County, another path bisected this one and the Green Path continued 
to the Roanoke River, where it crossed in the vicinity of Eaton’s Ferry. On 
continuing across the Virginia state line, it quickly  joined with another 
Indian trading path used mainly by the Cherokee and Catawba Indians.  
 In Nash County court records, about 1780, is a petition for the building of 
a road from  Thomas Driver’s Ford on Moccasin Creek, along a ridge and 
cartway that divided the drains of Moccasin and Turkey Creeks, to the 
Tarboro Road (N.C. 97) near Stephen Young’s down the road to the Turkey 
Creek Bridge, and then a direct course to Samuel  Bryant’s road on Tar 
River. This was the route followed by the Green Path and later N.C. Highway 
231.  

There has been a lot of misconception concerning the Green Path. The Collet 
Map of North Carolina printed in 1770 called it Green’s Path, but the Mouzon 
map of 1775 called it the Green Path. Another early map drawn in the 1790s 
called it the Green Path.  Most of the early deeds in which a reference is 
made to the Path called it Green’s Path.  That man Green certainly got 
around.


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