Sampson County Wills, Estates, Genealogies

Sampson County was organized in 1784 and taken from neighboring county of Duplin. Land from neighboring Wayne County and New Hanover counties would be annexed later. The settlers were Scotch-Irish immigrants from North Ireland, many of who came to the colony of North Carolina under the protection and inducements of Henry McCulloch, a wealthy London merchant. The community of Taylors Bridge, located about halfway between Clinton and Harrells in lower Sampson County (at the time Duplin County), was one of the earliest European settled areas of the county, with pioneer families living there as early as the 1730s or 1740s. The Swiss from New Bern came into this area during the mid-eighteenth century. The county was named after Lieutenant General John Sampson, the first mayor of Wilmington, North Carolina.