Chatham County, North Carolina
Chatham County, North Carolina
Map
Location in the state of North Carolina
North Carolina’s location in the U.S.
Statistics
Founded
1771
Seat
Pittsboro
Area
- Total
- Land
- Water
709 sq mi (1,836 km²)
26 sq mi (67 km²), 3.69%
Population
- (2000)
- Density
49,329
73/sq mi (28/km²)
Website: www.chathamnc.org
Chatham County is a county located in the
U.S. state of North Carolina. As of 2000, the
population was 49,329. Its county seat is Pitt-
sboro.[1]
History
Some of the first settlers of what would be-
come the county were English Quakers, who
settled along the Haw and Eno Rivers.[2] The
county was formed in 1771 from Orange
County.
It was named,
like Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania in 1758, for William Pitt, 1st
Earl of Chatham, who served as British Prime
Minister from 1766 to 1768 and opposed
harsh colonial policies.
In 1907, parts of Chatham County and
Moore County were combined to form Lee
County. The award-winning[3] PBS document-
ary Family Name[4] notes Chatham County as
the place the relationship between the
African-American and European-American
branches of the Alston family originated.[5]
George Moses Horton, Historic Poet Laur-
eate of Chatham County, (1797?-1883) lived
most of his life in Chatham County and is
among the few slaves to have published ma-
terial while still a slave.[6][7]
Coal mining
The county is 1 of 3 counties that have known
minable bituminous coal deposits
in the
state. The area along the Deep River, which
forms the border of Chatham and Lee County
and Randolph county was a major coal produ-
cing area between the Revolutionary War
and the Great Depression. It was deemed the
Deep River Coal Field. The communities of
Carbonton and Cumnock(formerly called
Egypt in Lee County) began as a result of the
coal mining industry. It is said that much of
the coal mined in the field during the Civil
War was used to fuel Confederate operations.
A fatal mining disaster at the Coal Glen mine
in the 1920s, along with frequent flooding of
Deep River sealed the fate of the min