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year later approximately 4 , 000 "taxables" are listed as living in the area (Mattson 1996 : 2- 3 ) . In a few short years the Piedmont had more residents than the tidewater "down east . " Within the Granville District "two -thirds of the people of the province and an even larger percentage of the wealth" was centered (Powell 1989 * 93 ) . Graft and inequities in the Carolina colony concerning taxation and representation, largely between landowners in the Tidewater and farmers in the Piedmont , led to the Regulator movement . This movement was centered in the Hillsborough area. "Regulators" voiced their disapproval of government policies by refusing to pay taxes, but their grievances were not quickly or strongly redressed. In part to address the social and economic inequities between the two regions , and in part to disperse the Regulator ' s power, the British government had Carolina divide the larger administration units of Rowan and Orange counties into smaller counties . ( Orange County once contained an estimated 3 , 500 square miles, as opposed to its current 398 square miles . See Dunn 1977 : 1 ; Mattson 1996 : 2 . ) As a result new counties were formed, and new administrative regions were created (Hargrove 1982 : 8 - 11 ; Mattson 1996 : 9 ; Powell 1989 : 146 - 159) . Orange County was reduced in size as the northern third of the original bounds were taken by creation of Caswell ( later divided into Caswell and Person counties) and the southern third by formation of Chatham County. The narrow strip along the western border was incorporated into Guilford County in 1770 (Lefler and Wager 1953 : plate facing p . 1 ) . Hillsborough remained a focal point for the Regulator Movement . Government measures to placate Regulators and their supporters were to little avail and by 1771 North Carolina Governor Tryon sent armed troops to put down a brewing rebellion. In the Battle of Alamance ' on May 16 , 1771 , the Governor' s forces prevailed. Within a few short years the localized Regulator political movement would blend with a generalized Colonial dissatisfaction with taxation and representation. That wide- spread political movement culminated in the American Revolutionary War . Historic maps of the era such as the Collet Map of 1770 (Cumming 1966 :Plate . VII) and Mouzon' s 1775 map (Figure 3 ) illustrate the increasing density of settlement . The Great Trading Path is still depicted, but with major roads extending from its axis . These roads connected numerous small communities . For example, these maps depict the . early Quaker communities of Cane Creek (now the Snow Creek area of Randolph County) , established in 17510 and its "daughter" meetings of New Garden (near present- day Guilford College in Greensboro ) , established in 1754 ; and the Eno Meeting (Hillsborough vicinity) , first settled circa 1751 - 1761 (Engstrom 1983 ; Teague 1995) . Newcomers in the piedmont region tended to settle in clusters along major transportation routes. These settlements typically consisted of somewhat dispersed farmsteads joined together by a common religion and shared place of worship . The German Reformed settlers clustered in the eastern portions of the central piedmont (e . g . , modern day Great Alamance Creek area south of Burlington) ; the Quakers to the north (e . g . , Eno near Hillsborough) , south (e . g . , Cane Creek) , and west (e . g. , New Garden) and the Scotch Irish Presbyterians in between (Engstrom 1983 ; Keller et. al. 1900 * 44 Lautzenheiser 1990 : 15 ; Teague 1995 ) . These early transportation routes included waterways and roadways . Area waterways were not routinely navigable , and were even less so after construction of , numerous mill dams from the mid- eighteenth century onwards . Eighteenth- century land 14