Wayne County, NC - Heritage Series

Reprinted with permission of the Mount Olive Tribune and cannot be 
reproduced without permission. 
Transcribed by Barbara Kawamoto.

                    General Hill - Promoter of Railroad

"Our Heritage"
By Claude Moore

   When the railroad building fever struck North Carolina in the 1830’s, 
General William Lanier Hill of Warsaw became one of the leaders of the 
movement.  He met with group of interested citizens at old Waynesboro to 
discuss the possibilities of building a railroad from Waynesboro to 
Wilmington.  This proposal did not materialize.

   General Hill’s brother-in-law, the Honorable Edward B. Dudley of 
Wilmington, took the lead and got the Legislature to charter the Wilmington 
and Raleigh Railroad in 1833.  The directors decided to build the railroad 
from Wilmington to Weldon and it was begun in 1836, and was officially open
on March 7, 1840.  The principal address at the celebration of the opening 
at Warsaw was made by General Hill.  General Hill felt that the railroad 
would not only bring prosperity to eastern North Carolina, but it would 
prevent the migration of many North Carolina families to the South.

   General Hill was born in 1785, and was the son of Thomas Hill, a soldier 
of the American Revolution and Frances Smith Hill.  His grandfather, William
Hill, a native of Virginia, had settled in Carteret County, N.C., in 1765.

   In 1769, he settled on a land grant east of Faison in Duplin County.  
Young William Lanier Hill was married in 1809 to Ann Dudley, the daughter of
Colonel Christopher Dudley of Onslow County.  They settled on a plantation 
called "Cedar Point" in Onslow.  In 1814, he was commissioned as a major in 
the North Carolina Militia.  He continued to be promoted until he was
made a Brigadier-General in 1822.

   In 1823, General Hill sold his holdings in Onslow and returned to Duplin 
where he settled on a plantation three miles east of Warsaw.  He was one of 
the charter members of the Duplin Agricultural Society.  He became a most 
successful planter and producer of naval stores.  He attributed his success 
to the coming of the railroad with easy access to national as well as world
markets.

   The census of 1860 shows that General Hill owned 7,295 acres of land 
(3,000 of which was cleared), 183 slaves, 36 horses, 33 mules, 39 milk cows,
24 oxen, and 563 hogs.  General and Mrs. Hill had 10 children.  He died in 
1860 and his property passed to his grandson, William l. Hill, who lived in 
Warsaw, and was for a time mayor of the town.
  
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