Wilmington is a port city in New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. With a population of 115,451 as of the 2020 census, it is the eighth-most populous city in the state. The county seat of New Hanover County, it is the principal city of the Wilmington metropolitan area, which includes New Hanover, Brunswick, and Pender counties. As of 2023, the region had an estimated population of 467,337.
Wilmington's residential area lies between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean, and the city developed as a commercial port in the colonial era. The city was founded in the 1730s, preceded in its foundation in the area by Brunswick Town and Charles Towne. These two towns were abandoned, leaving Wilmington as the main settlement on the Cape Fear River. After going through a series of different names (New Carthage, New London, Newton), its name became Wilmington. In 1739, Colonel William Bartram, the uncle of the naturalist, introduced a bill to establish Wilmington, named for one of his patrons, Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington. Toward the end of the 19th century, Wilmington was a majority-black, racially integrated, prosperous city – and the most populous in North Carolina. It suffered what became known as the Wilmington massacre in 1898, when white supremacists launched a coup that overthrew the legitimately elected local Fusionist government. It resulted in the expulsion of opposition black and white political leaders from the city, destruction of the property and businesses of black citizens, including the city's only black newspaper, and deaths ranging from an estimated 60 to more than 300 people. By 1910, Charlotte overtook Wilmington as North Carolina's most populous city.
Wilmington's downtown includes a riverwalk, developed as a tourist attraction in the late 20th century. In 2003, the city was designated by the U.S. Congress as a "Coast Guard City", one of 29 cities that currently bear that designation. It was formerly the home port for the , a United States Coast Guard medium-endurance cutter. Wilmington was declared the first World War II Heritage City in the country in 2020. The World War II battleship , now a war memorial, is moored across from the downtown port area, and is open to the public for tours. Other attractions include the Cape Fear Museum of History and Science and the Children's Museum of Wilmington.
The city is home to the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Wilmington is also the home of Cinespace Wilmington, the largest domestic television and movie production facility outside California. Dream Stage 10, the facility's newest sound stage, is the third-largest in the United States. It houses the largest special-effects water tank in North America. After the studio complex's opening in 1984, Wilmington became a major center of American film and television production. Numerous movies and television series—in a range of genres—have been filmed/produced in or near the city. Films include Blue Velvet (1986), Maximum Overdrive (1986), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Super Mario Bros. (1993), The Crow (1994), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), The Conjuring (2013), Iron Man 3 (2013), The Black Phone (2021), Halloween Kills (2021) and Scream (2022), and television series include Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, Eastbound & Down, Outer Banks and The Summer I Turned Pretty.
History
Colonial beginnings
The city was founded in the 1730s. After going through a series of different names (New Carthage, New London, Newton), its name became Wilmington. In 1739, Col. William Bartram, the uncle of the naturalist, introduced a bill to establish Wilmington, named for one of his patrons, Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington.
The area along the river had been inhabited by various successive cultures of indigenous peoples for thousands of years.
In the early 16th century, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, commissioned by the king of France with a French crew, was reportedly the first European to see this area, including the city's present site. The first permanent colonial settlement in the area was established in the 1720s by European settlers. In September 1732, a community was founded on land owned by John Watson on the Cape Fear River, at the confluence of its northwest and northeast branches. The settlement, founded by the first royal governor, George Burrington, was called New Carthage, and then New Liverpool; it gradually took on the name New Town or Newton. Governor Gabriel Johnston soon after established his government there for the North Carolina colony.
Some early settlers of Wilmington came from the Albemarle and Pamlico regions, as well as from the colonies of Virginia and South Carolina, but most new settlers migrated from the northern colonies, the West Indies, and Northern Europe.Donald R. Lennon and Ida B. Kellam, eds. The Wilmington Town Book, 1743–1778. Raleigh, NC: Division of Archives and History, 1973. Many of the early settlers were indentured servants from Northern Europe. As the indentured servants gained their freedom and fewer could be persuaded to travel to North America because of improving conditions back home, the settlers imported an increasing number of slaves to satisfy the labor demand. By 1767, African slaves accounted for more than 62% of the population of the Lower Cape Fear region.Marvin Michael Kay and Lorin Lee Cary. Slavery in North Carolina, 1748–1775, Chapel Hill: Univ of North Carolina Press, 1995. Many worked in the port as laborers, and some in ship-related trades.
Naval stores and lumber fueled the region's economy, both before and after the American Revolution. During the Revolutionary War, the British maintained a garrison at Fort Johnston near Wilmington.
Revolutionary era
Due to Wilmington's commercial importance as a major port, it had a critical role in opposition to the British in the years leading up to the revolution. The city had outspoken political leaders who influenced and led the resistance movement in North Carolina. The foremost of these was Wilmington resident Cornelius Harnett, who was serving in the General Assembly at the time, and where he rallied opposition to the Sugar Act in 1764. When the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act the following year, designed to raise revenue for the Crown with a kind of tax on shipping, Wilmington was the site of an elaborate demonstration against it.
On October 19, 1765, several hundred townspeople gathered in protest of the new law, burned an effigy of one town resident who favored the act, and toasted to "Liberty, Property, and No Stamp Duty." On October 31, another crowd gathered in a symbolic funeral of "Liberty". Before the effigy was buried, though, Liberty was found to have a pulse, and celebration ensued.William L. Saunders, ed. The Colonial Records of North Carolina, 10 vols. Raleigh, NC: P.M. Hale, 1886–1980. 7: pp. 124–25, 131, 143.E. Lawrence Lee. The Lower Cape Fear in Colonial Days. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ of North Carolina Press, 1965. p. 245.
William Houston of Duplin County was appointed stamp receiver for Cape Fear. When Houston visited Wilmington on business, still unaware of his appointment, he recounted,
"The Inhabitants immediately assembled about me & demanded a Categorical Answer whether I intended to put the Act relating [to] the Stamps in force. The Town Bell was rung[,] Drums [were] beating, Colours [were] flying and [a] great concourse of People [were] gathered together." For the sake of his own life, and "to quiet the Minds of the inraged and furious Mobb...," Houston resigned his position at the courthouse.Donna J. Spindel. "Law and Disorder: The North Carolina Stamp Act Crisis"North Carolina Historical Review, 56: 1981. p. 8.
Governor William Tryon made attempts to mitigate the opposition, to no avail. On November 18, 1765, he pleaded his case directly to prominent residents of the area. They said the law restricted their rights. When the stamps arrived on November 28 on HMS Diligence, Tryon ordered them to be kept on board. Shipping on the Cape Fear River was stopped, as were the functions of the courts.
Tryon, after having received his official commission as governor (a position he had assumed only after the death of Arthur Dobbs), was brought to Wilmington by Captain Constantine Phipps on a barge from the Diligence, and "was received cordially by the gentlemen of the borough." He was greeted with the firing of seventeen pieces of artillery, and the New Hanover County Regiment of the North Carolina militia, who had lined the streets. This "warm welcome" was spoiled, however, after a dispute arose between Captain Phipps and captains of ships in the harbor regarding the display of their colors. The townspeople became infuriated with Phipps and threats were made against both sides. After Tryon harangued them for their actions, the townspeople gathered around the barrels of punch and ox he had brought as refreshments. The barrels were broken open, letting the punch spill into the streets; they threw the head of the ox into the pillory, and gave its body to the enslaved population. Because of the unrest, Tryon moved his seat of government to New Bern instead of Wilmington.Paul David Nelson. William Tryon and the Course of Empire. Chapel Hill, NC: Univ of North Carolina Press, 1990. pp. 42–43.
On February 18, 1766, two merchant ships arrived without stamped papers at Brunswick Town. Each ship provided signed statements from the collectors at their respective ports of origin that no were stamps available, but Captain Jacob Lobb of the British cruiser Viper seized the vessels. In response, numerous residents from southern counties met in Wilmington. The group organized as the Sons of Liberty and pledged to block implementation of the Stamp Act. The following day, as many as a thousand men, including the mayor and aldermen of Wilmington, were led by Cornelius Harnett to Brunswick to confront Tryon. The governor was unyielding, but a mob retrieved the seized ships. They forced royal customs officers and public officials in the region to swear never to issue stamped paper. The Westminster Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in March 1766.
Antebellum period
In the 1830s, citizens of Wilmington became eager to take advantage of railroad transportation. At this time, the shipping tonnage registered at Wilmington was 9,035.The American annual register. (1827-35). New York : G. & C. Carvill, 8v., p. 593. Plans were developed to build a railroad line from the capital, Raleigh, to Wilmington. When Raleigh citizens declined to subscribe in sufficient number to stock to raise money for the project, organizers changed the terminus to Weldon. When the railroad line was completed in 1840, it was the longest single line of railroad track in the world. The railroad also controlled a fleet of steamboats that ran between Wilmington and Charleston; these were used both for passenger travel and freight. Regular boat lines served Fayetteville, and packet lines traveled to northern ports. The city was a main stopover point, contributing greatly to its commerce.
By mid-century, the churchyard of St. James Episcopal Church and other town cemeteries had become filled with graves. On November 16, 1853, a group of citizens, organized as "the Proprietors of the Wilmington Cemetery", was formed to develop a new cemetery. Sixty-five acres of land around Burnt Mill Creek were chosen as the site for what would be called Oakdale Cemetery. It was the first rural cemetery in North Carolina. The cemetery's first interment, on February 6, 1855, was six-year-old Annie deRosset.Janet L. Seapker "History of Oakdale Cemetery" , Oakdale Cemetery. Retrieved February 13, 2012. Many remains from St. James churchyard were relocated to the new cemetery.