Raleigh, North Carolina: Named for a Man Who Never Came

Sir Walter Raleigh never set foot in North Carolina, and the City of Raleigh he planned in America was never built. In 1792 the state gave his name to its new capital, and the name finally got a city to go with it.

A city that existed only on paper

Kemp P. Battle, a history professor at the University of North Carolina, gave the address at Raleigh’s 100th birthday party in 1892, and he didn’t dodge the awkward part. “It is true that he did not set foot on our soil,” he said of Raleigh. His plans “seem to have come to naught,” and “the corner-stone of the projected city of Raleigh on the distant Roanoke Island was never laid.” Battle thought the man deserved the honor anyway, for “the greatness of his aims.” (Battle’s geography was a little off, though. The National Park Service says the 1587 colonists were headed for Chesapeake Bay to build the “Cittie of Ralegh,” not for Roanoke Island.)

So the name had been waiting about two centuries. Henry Gannett’s 1905 place-name book for the U.S. Geological Survey lists the North Carolina capital among several places “named for Sir Walter Raleigh,” and the federal place-name database says the same thing in five words.

A capital with no fixed address

Here’s the thing: before 1792, North Carolina didn’t really have a capital city. Battle explains that in colonial times the governor called the legislature to whatever town he found convenient, and after the Revolution it still met in different towns, Fayetteville and New Bern among them. The 1791 session met in New Bern after a fight with Fayetteville over who’d host it. That session finally passed a law to build a permanent seat of government, and it was close. The Senate vote in January 1792 was 27 to 24.

Commissioners went looking for land, and in April 1792 they bought 1,000 acres from Joel Lane at Wake County Court House. They laid out a grid of 276 one-acre lots around a central square they called Union Square, where the State House would go.

“By the name of the City of Raleigh”

The name is in the law itself. Battle’s earlier 1877 history quotes the act of the 1792 General Assembly: the commissioners’ plan “shall be and the same is hereby received, confirmed and ratified by the name of the City of Raleigh.” Battle also explains the word “city.” It was used, he says, “because it was to be the home of the sovereignty of the State, derived from Civitas.” If you’ve wondered why a brand-new town of a few hundred acres got called a city from day one, that’s the reason: the state government was moving in.

Bloomsbury, and a story Battle couldn’t prove

Before it was Raleigh, the spot had other names. The Wake County seat at Lane’s place was called Bloomsbury, and later just Wake Court House. Battle liked to imagine that Bloomsbury was picked by Esther Wake, said to be the sister of Governor Tryon’s wife, after a hamlet near London. He called that a conjecture, though, and in a footnote admitted that an earlier writer had argued “Esther Wake is a myth.” You can enjoy the story, but nobody has the paperwork for it. Gannett, for his part, says only that Wake County was “named for the wife of Governor Tryon.”

Battle had a soft spot for the old name. In the same centennial speech he proposed that “the title of Bloomsbury Square shall be in this centennial year restored to the hill on which the old court-house was located.” So a hundred years after the Raleigh name went on the map, the city’s own historian was trying to sneak the older one back in.

Sources & further reading

• Kemp P. Battle, The Early History of Raleigh (1893). The centennial address of October 18, 1892. Raleigh “did not set foot on our soil” and the “projected city of Raleigh on the distant Roanoke Island” (pp. 29–30); the moving legislature (pp. 12–13); the 1791 session at New Bern and the 27 to 24 Senate vote of January 1792 (p. 17); Bloomsbury, Wake Court House, the Esther Wake footnote and the proposal to restore Bloomsbury Square (pp. 10–12); the 1792 purchase from Joel Lane and the 276 lots (pp. 140–141).
• Kemp P. Battle, Sketches of the Early History of the City of Raleigh (1877). The 1792 act ratifying the plan “by the name of the City of Raleigh” and the reason for the word “city” (pp. 18–19).
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905). Raleigh, “named for Sir Walter Raleigh,” and Wake County, named for Governor Tryon’s wife (p. 257 and the Wake entry).
• National Park Service, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. Teaching materials on the 1587 colony, which was meant to build the “Cittie of Ralegh” on Chesapeake Bay.
• GNIS feature 1024242 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record: “Named for Sir Walter Raleigh.”