Andersons of Colonial N. Carolina

So I am carefully creating my puzzle pieces for my new and improved Swift Creek map. And up on my radar pops this character: Oroondates Davis! Trademark! Ha! Thinks I… how have these Halifax County hayseeds mangled a perfectly good name again! Hmmm… what is this?

“Oroondates Davis, lawyer, legislator, and member of the Board of War of North Carolina during the American Revolution, was born in what is now Halifax County, the sixth and youngest son of Thomas and Hastwel Davis. He was named after a fictitious Persian soldier of the fifth century B.C. who figures in the popular French romance by La Calprenède, Cassandra (Cotterell’s translation of which ran through ten English editions between 1652 and 1737). Late in 1743 Thomas Davis moved from Virginia to North Carolina with other members of his family and began acquiring land on Looking Glass Swamp in Halifax County. By the time of his death in 1764 he owned a town lot in Halifax and approximately 9,000 acres in Halifax, Bute, and Edgecombe counties.”

The whole sordid tale is here:

https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/davis-oroondates

And while it is fresh on my mind… this area of Halifax County is a spaghetti plate of random willy-nilly named Creeks, Swamps, Branches and Pocosons. I still have not found exactly where the “low grounds of Rayford’s Creek” is but I am working on it! This is a good source to zoom in on an area and actually find some of said obscure and irritating water sources. Try it…

Jacket Swamp