According to statements in the Cumberland County court minutes of 1804 that I myself read, the Bladen County courthouse burned in the 1760s. It burned again in 1800 and then in 1893. A prominent man I met in Wilmington recently who is originally from Bladen County said that records dated after 1900 are also missing and he was told there was yet another fire early in the 1900s that claimed some records. In the early days, court clerks would work by candlelight. As you can well imagine, it wouldn't take much of an accident to get a fire started. Interior stoves and fireplaces, forest fires, lightening, tobacco pipes, etc all had their opportunities to start a blaze. After such fires, people would bring their original deeds and wills etc back to the newly built courthouse to have them re-recorded. But later fires consumed the re-recorded deeds as well, and in the ensuing period between fires such original records in the hands of the people would be lost through house fires and civil war, etc, or the family would throw them away. I believe the court clerk Maturin Colville, for whatever strange reason, took some records in the 1770s and refused to give them up. I don't know the entire story of this event, though. All sorts of things were at play to tempt fate into eliminating the Bladen records. Terrell Johnson wrote: >Just read a post about three separate Bladen County Courthouse fires which I find odd that any people should let their Courthouse Records be destroyed by fire 3 times. Didn't they take care of the peoples property? > >Anyway, this could be why I'm having so much difficulty researching one of my ancestors born in Bladen in the very Late 1700 or early 1800's. > >How long did it take to rebuild them after each fire and what years are reasonably safe to check records for or must all records be physically searched at the NC Archives in Raleigh and why would anything be there if the records all burned. > >Lot's of questions I know. But 3 fires seems to indicate a lack of care by the Bladen County residents. I'm sorry. > >Terrell Johnson > >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NCROBESO-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > >