Town History | Holly Springs, NC (original) (raw)

Early to Late 1800s

A Young Village

The area of Wake County now known as Holly Springs was home to the Tuscarora tribe prior to the arrival of Europeans. The first recorded non-native residents appeared in colonial times, with land grants in the area (often issued years after a settler claimed land) dating from the 1750s through the end of the century. Early settlers built mills (both grist mills and sawmills), ran taverns, and farmed. The tavern served travelers to Raleigh who needed to cross the Cape Fear River at Avent’s Ferry.

In January 1877, the NC General Assembly granted a charter to incorporate the Town of Holly Springs. There are two theories on how that name came to be.

The Holly Tree Theory

Hubert Collins, who grew up in Holly Springs in the late 1800s, remembers that “In 1896 there were two very large holly trees about 40 feet high and 30 feet apart, with the closest tree about 25-feet from the spring. ... As a child I was told that this spring was near the site where the first Holly Springs Baptist Church was built. A few years later Woodson Clements deeded to the Church several acres located near the intersection of the old Avent’s Ferry road and today’s N.C. Route 55.” The town that grew up around that new location is Holly Springs. (letter from Hubert Collins to Carl P. Holleman dated February 18, 1977)

The Misheard Name Theory

Another theory is that a name was misheard and entered incorrectly on official documents. When Christopher Osborn entered his land with Joel Lane (the county agent), the description read, in part, “on the ridge that lays between Uttley’s Creek & Braswells Creek, including the head of Sampson Holland’s Spring Branch” (see image). When land nearby was surveyed in 1779 for Richard Green, the surveyor John Humphries, who was from another part of the county and did not know the Holland family, recorded the name of the branch previously identified as “Holland’s Spring Branch” as “Holley Spring Branch.”