Excerpt from Enter Into His Gates: History of the First Presbyterian Church, Maxton, North Carolina, 1858

When the large immigration of 1746 began, the Carolina back-country was largely uninhabited and undeveloped. The sea-coast towns of Wilmington and Charleston were growing rapidly. It was to these ports that the boats of the Highlanders came. Most of the newcomers desired to move inland because of their agricultural interests and the availability of land. Traditionally clannish, the settlers pushed up the Cape Fear to find their kinsmen who had preceded them. A settlement at the head of navigation on the Cape Fear grew into the town of Campbellton, today the city of Fayetteville. Expanding out from this central location, the Highlanders moved into all of southeastern North Carolina. The expansion was slow and difficult, for the rivers had to be forded, the swamps were deep and thick, and sickness and wild animals were foes to be reckoned with. How different from the beauty of Scotland was this unexplored, swampy land! To plow their fields and look forward to the next day took faith and courage.

Several hundred of the Highlanders made their way south of Campbell town, or Cross Creek as it became known, into the Rockfish Creek area, then gradually into the denser aiea on each side of the Raft Swamp, Drowning Creek, and the Lumbee River. As the Highlanders pushed into the territory of present-day Robeson County, they found some English settlers located in the southern section, and some isolated but friendly Indians located along the banks of the Lumbee. It was far from encouraging country. There were no roads worthy of the name until about 1800. There was not an official post office in the area until after 1800. The country was a wilderness.

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