Land of Eden (William Byrd Estate)

Greensboro, NC

Born in Guilford County in 1836, Joseph Gurney Cannon moved west and built a political career in Illinois that spanned nearly half a century in Congress. As Speaker of the House from 1903 to 1911, 'Uncle Joe' ruled with such an iron grip that a bipartisan revolt finally stripped the office of much of its power. His birthplace once stood about a mile and a half southwest of here.

Greensboro, NC

In 1808, the leaders of Guilford County went looking for a new, more central home for their courthouse, and commissioners settled on a spot near the county's geographic heart to lay out the town of Greensborough. The new county seat—later spelled Greensboro—was named in honor of Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene, whose forces had fought the nearby Battle of Guilford Courthouse in 1781. This monument marks that deliberately chosen center point, the surveyor's-eye 'genesis' from which the streets and squares of a future Piedmont city were measured out.

Randolph County, NC

Founded in 1755 by the fiery preacher Shubal Stearns, Sandy Creek Baptist Church became the 'mother' of the Separate Baptist movement, sending out preachers who planted congregations across the South. From this small frontier meetinghouse an evangelical revival spread that would reshape Southern religious life. Stearns lies buried two miles south.

Hillsborough, NC

James Hogg left his native Scotland in 1774 and made a new life as a merchant in the North Carolina backcountry, arriving on the eve of the Revolution. He became a partner in the Transylvania Company, one of the era's bold speculative ventures to claim and settle vast western lands, and later served as a trustee of the new state university. His story braids immigration, frontier ambition, and the founding of public institutions.