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Warrenton Walking Tour
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Walking Tour of Warren County in a larger map
A Few Notes on Warren County
Just south of Warrenton, on what is believed to have been
the first oval racetrack built in the state, the legendary
racehorse Sir Archie was trained. The property of Colonel
William Ransom Johnson, Sir Archie outran every four-miler
in the country in 1809, and the South Carolina legislature
even passed a law forbidding him to race in that state.
Health resorts, with their sulphur springs and fine hotels,
beckoned visitors from throughout the land. Shocco Springs
and Jones Springs were among the better known. It was at the
latter that Annie Carter Lee, daughter of General Robert E.
Lee, stayed with her family during the Civil War. A victim
of typhoid fever in 1862, she died and was buried at the Jones
family cemetery not far from the resort.
A few miles from Warrenton, Jethro Sumner, general in the
Continental Army and first president of the North Carolina
Society of the Cincinnati, had his famous tavern at or near
the Bute County Courthouse.
On the outskirts of Warrenton stood Bridle Creek, home of
two major generals in the Confederate Army, Robert Ransom
and Matt W. Ransom.
Gone now are Esmeralda and Montmorenci, although a circular
staircase from the latter now graces the DuPont Museum in
Wilmington, Delaware.
Male and female academies thrived in Warrenton, and among
the teachers was Bronson Alcott, father of the author of Little
Women. Warren County native Orren Randolph Smith designed
the original Stars and Bars at the onset of the Civil War.
Warren County has provided the state with four governors,
six attorneys general, three supreme court justices, four
superior court judges, and five magnates in the tobacco industry.
Benjamin Hawkins, agent in charge of all Indian affairs south
of the Ohio River, lived here.
Twelve miles northeast of Warrenton is Buck Spring Plantation,
once the home of Nathaniel Macon, U. S. senator and the only
North Carolinian to serve as Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives. The corncrib and smokehouse have been restored.
A replica of the dwelling has been built and installed at
the site of the original house.
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