Qualla: Duplin County, North Carolina

Duplin County, North Carolina: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit US Census, Ruhrfisch, Public domain. Duplin County has 48,715 people and 2.2 million hogs. That is more hogs than the entire state of Iowa raised at the time of the 1998 count, more hogs than any other county in the United States, more hogs than most countries on earth. The county also produces the wine, the chickens, the turkeys, and the tobacco of eastern North Carolina, and it gave the world the man who invented Pepsi. A lot of stories begin and end on the Northeast Cape Fear River, which runs through Duplin's middle like a slow brown spine.

Image: US Census, Ruhrfisch | Public domain

Duplin County, North Carolina: Named for a Forgotten Lord

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The county was carved out of New Hanover County in 1750 and named for Thomas Hay, Viscount Dupplin, a Scottish nobleman who happened to be serving on the British Board of Trade and Plantations in the 1740s. He never set foot in Carolina. He later became the 9th Earl of Kinnoull, ...

Image: Public domain

Duplin County, North Carolina: Tuscarora Country

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit APK, CC BY 4.0. Before the Europeans the country belonged to the Tuscarora, who used the swamps and pine forests of eastern Duplin as hunting ground. The Tuscarora War of 1711 to 1715 broke their power. Fort Neoheroka burned, and most of the surviving tribe walked north over years to join the Ir...

Image: APK | CC BY 4.0

Duplin County, North Carolina: Two Million Hogs

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit APK, CC BY 4.0. The Northeast Cape Fear River made Duplin's first economy. Loggers and turpentine producers floated naval stores downstream to Wilmington and the Atlantic. When demand for tar and pitch faded, corn took over, then tobacco. When federal tobacco buyouts ended the small-grower era, ...

Image: APK | CC BY 4.0

Duplin County, North Carolina: Notable Locals

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit APK, CC BY 4.0. Caleb Bradham was born in Chinquapin in 1867. He grew up to be a pharmacist in New Bern, where he invented a drink he called Brad's Drink in 1893. He rebranded it Pepsi-Cola in 1898. Today every fountain machine in the world traces back to that drugstore on the Trent. Peter Weddi...

Image: APK | CC BY 4.0