Author: Andrew Duppstadt, DNCR
This article is scheduled to appear in Recall, the magazine of the North Carolina Military Historical Society, and is published here with permission.
North Carolina formed Person County from Caswell in 1792, honoring General Thomas Person, a Patriot general in the American Revolution and trustee of the University of North Carolina. A year later, Roxboro was established as the county seat. Born in Virginia in 1733, Person worked as a surveyor in Granville County. He later became a Justice of the Peace and, by 1762, served as Sheriff. Though he sided with the Regulators in the War of the Regulation, he did not fight at the Battle of Alamance. He continued to serve in the General Assembly and later, the North Carolina Provincial Congress.
Commissioned Brigadier General of the Hillsborough District Brigade of the North Carolina militia in May 1776, Person served in that capacity for one year before turning command over and serving out the remainder of the American Revolution in the North Carolina Council of State. Following the war, Person was one of the leading Anti-Federalists in North Carolina and voted against ratifying the United States Constitution, fearing it would make the President and federal government too powerful. An early supporter of the University of North Carolina, Person gifted the university 1,000 silver dollars towards the completion of the building named in his honor, Person Hall. Person died in November 1800, at which time he owned 125 square miles of land and enslaved thirty-four people.
Located in the north-central part of the state, Person County covers 404 square miles and has a population of approximately 40,000. Originally home to Saponi, Occaneechi, and other native peoples, the first European settlers were Scots, Scots- Irish, German, English, and French Huguenot. The county remains largely farmland and forest, and contains parts of three major river basins, the Tar, Neuse, and Roanoke. Person County borders Caswell, Orange, Durham, and Granville counties, as well as Halifax County, Virginia. The county is home to Piedmont Community College and has a diverse economy, with two industrial parks. The largest employers in the county are Duke Energy, Georgia Pacific, and Eaton Corporation.
For more information and to learn more, visit: https://www.ncmilitaryhistoricalsociety.org