How Smithfield Got its Name By Benjamin Sanderford
It all started with John Smith. Not John Smith the leader of Jamestown, but John Smith the Virginia resident who moved his family in 1740 to North Carolina. They settled in the part of Craven County that, just six years later, would become Johnston County. Smith recognized the importance of the Neuse River, flanked by fertile soil and controlling access to the colony’s commercial centers on the coast. By 1759, the county court at Hinton’s Quarter, near modern-day Clayton, gave him permission to operate a ferry on his plantation along the route to New Bern, the colonial capital. It was this property, “Smith’s Ferry,” that Smith sold in 1762 to his 26-year-old son, John Smith, Jr. Smith’s Ferry became the site of the county courthouse in 1771, when western Johnston became Wake County. The new Johnston County Courthouse was inaugurated at a turbulent time. Grumbles against the British government were escalating into serious unrest. On August 12, 1774, protesters gathered at the new courthouse. They were led by Samuel Smith, Jr., John Smith, Jr.’s cousin. The protesters supported trial by jury in cases involving treason and appointed delegates to coordinate their activities with other dissidents in other counties. Samuel Smith and his allies did not favor independence, but they soon would. With the start of the Revolutionary War in the spring of 1775, Josiah Martin, the last royal governor, fled New 14 | Town of Smithfield
