Native American Presence The earliest Native Americans thought to have lived in the area were the
Joara (whose settlements date back to AD 1000), based out of present-day
Burke County. The Joara were the chiefdom of the
Mississippian culture. Immediately prior to European colonization in the early 18th century, the coastal plain of North Carolina was home to many distinct Native American tribes: the
Coree,
Coharie, several small
Neusiok communities, and the
Tuscarora. This latter tribe gradually became the most dominant in the region as smaller tribes were either exterminated by Europeans or peacefully assimilated into the Tuscarora for collective security. By the time of permanent European settlement, the Tuscarora were utilizing the heavily forested areas of eastern Duplin County as a hunting ground. Native American burial mounds are numerous in Duplin County, in the rural areas surrounding Beulaville especially. There are four sizable mounds within a ten-mile radius of the town, the two largest being in the vicinity of
Hallsville and
Sarecta. Combined, these mounds contain roughly one hundred bodies.
European Settlement The arrival of the
Palatines at
New Bern and the ensuing wave of
English and
Welsh settlers sparked a conflict known as the
Tuscarora War (1710–1715). With the elimination of the last
Tuscarora stronghold at
Fort Neoheroka and subsequent exodus of the remainder of the tribe to
New York (they became the sixth nation of the
Iroquois Confederacy), the interior of the coastal plain was made available for European settlement. Many of the original European settlers of what is now Beulaville arrived from
Beaufort,
Craven,
Jones, and
Onslow counties. In 1736, Duplin County (then upper
New Hanover County) was the destination of several hundred
Ulster Scots (Scotch-Irish) and a handful of
Swiss Protestants. They settled on a plot of land, between the
Northeast Cape Fear River and
Black River, obtained from the Crown by Henry McCulloh of London. Their first settlements were
Soracta (Sarecta) on the Northeast Cape Fear, an area at the lower end of Goshen Swamp (then called Woodward's Chase), and the grove where the Duplin County Courthouse now stands. According to census records, several families of Sarecta and the settlement at the south end of Goshen Swamp had gravitated to the crossroads of what would become Beulaville by the middle of the nineteenth century. Beulaville proper was founded as "Snatchet" in 1873 out of necessity for a trading center for nearby farmers and those in the business of logging and
turpentine production. Also colloquially referred to as "Tearshirt" by locals, the town was once notorious for
alcoholism and frequent street brawls. Indeed, the manufacture and distribution of
corn liquor remained a steady source of income for many families well into the 20th century. Upon demolition of a prominent downtown building (which had formerly served as a soda shop in the 1950s) to make way for a McDonald's, a
moonshine still and several barrels of the drink were uncovered in the basement. The
Kinston Carolina Railroad and Lumber Company constructed a railway from
Kinston to
Pink Hill around 1900. In response, residents of Limestone Creek Township spent $15,000 to lobby for the creation of the "Duplin County Railroad" in 1916, extending the Kinston line through Beulaville and
Chinquapin. The rail, which ran alongside present-day Railroad Street, has since been destroyed. The post office of Snatchet was officially re-designated "Beulaville" in 1910, and the town was incorporated five years later. The town's name is derived from the Beulah Baptist Church (now the Beulaville Baptist Church). Beulaville is the most recent town to be incorporated in Duplin County. ==Education==