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1 his son, Lord Granville, refused to sell . In the 1740s the King ordered that those lands be surveyed so there would be no legal question as to the validity of colonists ' land holdings in the region. Various attempts at this survey occurred throughout the 1740s to 1770s. These lands became known as the Granville District , which measured about sixty miles wide (Figure 3 ) . Within these lands "two-thirds of the people of the province and an even larger percentage of the wealth" was centered (Powell 1989 : 93 ; see also Lautzenheiser 1990 : 15 ) . [This district continued to issue its own land grants until the American Revolution, when the property was confiscated (Powell 1989 : 94) ] The Granville "Estates offered 640 acres for three shillings and small quitrent" (Teague 1995 : 10) , and colonists recognized this bargain. In 1748 less than "20 taxable families lived on the enormous tract of land which now makes up Orange , Alamance , Caswell , Person, Chatham, and parts of Rockingham, Guilford, Randolph, Wake, and Durham counties" (Hargrove 1982 : 8) . By the 1740s and 1750s European and American immigrants brought their varied cultural heritage into the Piedmont . A few arrived by way of the Great Trading Path from Virginia and/or South Carolina; some came by way of connecting paths from the east or Tidewater; but most came down the "Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, through the Roanoke Gap in western Virginia, and on into the Yadkin River Valley" (Mattson 1996 : 3 see also Anderson 199U 84 9 ; Hargrove 1982 : 8 ) . Few of these early settlers were of African descent . It is estimated that from 54 % of the households in 1755 included slaves (usually less than ten per household) (Mattson 1996 : 40 see also Anderson 1990 : 55 ) . Early settlers were primarily of German, Scotch-Irish, and/or English descent . Early immigrants included many Quakers . The Quakers originally came from England, Scotland, and Ireland . Quaker communities in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and eastern North Carolina began "meetings" in the Carolina Piedmont in the 175 Os- I760s (Teague 1995 Vol 1 - 12) . Although some of the primary documentary records from the 1752- 1781 period were lost or destroyed records pertaining to the Granville Land Grants were retained (Weeks 1984) . These grants and occasional plats , combined with information provided by area Quaker meeting notes, helps create a picture of initial Euroamerican settlement in the St . Mary' s Road area. Mr . A. B . Markham of Durham spent many years piecing together land grant boundaries covering the 1743 - 1810 period (Markham 1973 ) . The earliest holding in the project area belongs to Abraham Nelson, recorded in 1751 . Of course the date of a grant does not necessarily reflect if or when a family chose to inhabit their holdings (Engstrom 1983 ) . Markham depicts about 14 land holdings dispersed across the Great Trading Path (close to the route of this pro 'ect ' s six plus miles of St . Mary ' s Road) . It is interesting that these holdings tend to be shaped as rectangles , with the long axis north/south. Many of the deeds are referenced to known landmarks such as the Great Trading Path, and/or to corner distances from the various loops of the Eno River . ( See the results section following for additional discussion of these grants . ) The area ' s increase in population is reflected in the mid- eighteenth-century creation of Orange County. The County was initially formed as an administrative unit in 1752 , from portions of Granville , Johnston, and Bladen counties (Anderson 1990021 ; Mattson 1996 : 2 ) . The county seat recognized in 1754 was called Corbinton, centered on about 400 acres located where the Great Trading Path crossed the Eno River (Mattson 1996 : 2 - 3 ) . By 1766 the county seat ' s name was officially changed to Hillsborough. A 12