Old Bladen County was home to many of the ancestral families of the Lumbee Indian Tribe of North Carolina. They were found on the tax lists and census records variously listed as whites, mulattoes, and mixed bloods. Bound together by a common ancestry, they have survived to this day as a unified group. Their mark has been indelibly stamped on North Carolina's history. A 1773 petition records the surnames of several members of this community: Ivey, Sweat, Chavers, Dees, Groom, Grant, Vann, Lockelear, and Cairsey.
Lawrence Lee described the progress of settlement in The Lower Cape Fear in Colonial Days:
"As late as the winter of 1724-25, according to General Burrington who was there, the Cape Fear region was uninhabited. Sometime between then and the spring of 1726, the settlement had begun. The earliest known resident was Maurice Moore, who was there on 30 April, 1726. It is unlikely that Moore was there alone, but the number and identity of his neighbors are not known. By the end of June, 1726, Moore had laid out Brunswick Town in the new settlement and had sold the first Lot."
