Brunswick Town Road

Brunswick Town Road is one of North Carolina's shortest scenic byways, but it leads to one of its densest concentrations of colonial history. The road runs to the ruins of Brunswick Town, a port settled in 1725 and named for King George I, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, which served as North Carolina's county seat from 1764 to 1779 and home to two royal governors before the capital moved to New Bern in 1770. Along the way, the byway passes Lilliput Plantation, granted to Eleazar Allen in 1725 and named after the fictional country in Gulliver's Travels, and Orton Plantation, built around the same year overlooking the Cape Fear River at Orton Point. At Brunswick Town itself, the ruins of St. Philips Anglican Church, completed in 1768, stand alongside the Civil War-era earthworks of Fort Anderson, layering nearly 250 years of history on one small stretch of riverbank. The settlement endured a Spanish raid in 1748, saw open resistance to the Stamp Act at the nearby Russellborough House in 1765, and was fought over again during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, making this short byway one of the most historically packed drives in the state.

• Brunswick Town ruins (settled 1725)
• NC's colonial county seat, 1764-1779
• Lilliput Plantation
• Orton Plantation
• St. Philips Anglican Church ruins (1768)
• Fort Anderson Civil War earthworks
• 1765 Stamp Act resistance