The Revolutionary War is over, and Cornelius Harnett’s widow sells off tracts of the family estate known as Poplar Grove…
In 1795, James Foy, Jr., son of Captain James Foy, Sr. of Onslow County, who also served with Colonel Henry Rhodes at Moore’s Creek Battlefield, has just purchased 628 acres of land from Francis Clayton, who had purchased the land in 1784 from the recently widowed, Mary Harnett, wife of Cornelius Harnett. The acreage is located on Topsail Sound in New Hanover County, including the northern banks of Figure Eight Island.
James Foy, Jr., newly married to Henrietta Rhodes of Onslow County, and daughter of Colonel Henry Rhodes, occupied this second home of Cornelius Harnett, whom he referred in letters and diaries, as Poplar Grove. The home’s location, close to the sound, allowed the couple’s enslaved to more easily transport goods via boats and water barges to the port of Wilmington, since the arduous trip by road took about twelve hours round trip. Between the 1800’s and the 1900’s, five generations of the Foy family lived in the Poplar Grove Plantation home. And from stories and experiences of staff and guests, it seems as though some of those family members never left!
More here: https://poplargrove.org/discover/
