Turkey Quarters – Pender County, NC

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This excerpt of Ogilby’s 1671 map, “A new discription of Carolina by the order of the Lords Proprietors,” shows an area named Turkey Quarters, located in what is now Pender County, but at the time, Clarendon County.  According to Powell’s North Carolina Gazeteer, the area was named “by Barbadian explorers in 1663 becuase of the many turkeys killed here.”

3 thoughts on “Turkey Quarters – Pender County, NC”

  1. I can’t believe we are going to let a Thanksgiving season go by without making mention of Judge Samuel Spencer who was killed by a turkey. Spencer was elected colonel of the North Carolina Provincial Council of Safety during the Revolution, and after the war was an anti-federalist. Apparently, in 1794 Judge Spencer was snoozing under a tree near his home. A passing turkey mistook the bobbing of his head for the challenge of another turkey and attacked, leaving the jurist to die from his wounds.

  2. I wonder if Turkey Quarters turned in to plain, ol’ Turkey, NC–located in present-day Sampson, County, just east of Clinton?

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