Whitsett Town

Guilford County, North Carolina

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Whitsett Town Hall is located at 811 Highway 61, Whitsett, NC 27377.
Phone: 336‑449‑3380.

Neighborhoods

Beginnings [1]

The Whitsett area's first European residents descended from William Penn's Pennsylvania Quakers who arrived from Germany with Lutheran immigrants, and came from other parts as pioneer farmers. By the late nineteenth century, local residents were tracing family roots to the Revolutionary War "Regulators" of adjacent Alamance County, who, at nearby Clapp's Mill skirmished with the General Charles Cornwallis on his way to the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. Eventually, the town of Whitsett came to be situated on agricultural land that was once part of the late 1700's Foust plantation in eastern Guilford County.

As population increased in Guilford County and the economy began to recover from the tribulation that followed the Civil War, a number of rural communities emerged, particularly those served by the expansion of the railroad. The North Carolina Railroad was the foundation for the future growth of the county and for the improving conditions that significantly affected the rural development pattern in postbellum years. This development pattern foreshadowed the increasing pace of urbanization in the county. Rural communities such as Gibsonville, Stokesdale, Browns Summit, Summerfield, Julian and McLeansville flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the expansion of the railroad. Although the Danville to Salisbury railroad did not pass through Whitsett, the town benefited from its proximity as travelers arrived at the nearby Gibsonville depot (located just two miles north) and were shuttled by a two-horse wagon to Whitsett.

  1. Kaye Graybeal, DSAtlantic, Whitsett Historic District, Guilford County, NC, nomination document, 1999, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.

Nearby Towns: Climax • Colfax • Elon Town • Gibsonville Town • Sedalia Town •


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