Stantonsburg, NC

Stantonsburg was incorporated in 1817, making it the oldest incorporated town in what became Wilson County. It took its name from James Stanton V and grew around the roads and rail connections of eastern North Carolina’s farm country. The town’s historic record is still visible in the National Register listings for the Applewhite House, Edmondson-Woodward House, and Ward-Applewhite-Thompson House, all added in 1986. Those properties tie the present street pattern to the families, farms, and building traditions that shaped the area.

Stantonsburg’s current map stays centered on a small town core and the wider Wilson County network. The Stantonsburg Branch Library on Main Street supplies a local place for books, programs, and county library services, while nearby roads lead into the agricultural landscape and toward Wilson. County history records the railroad’s role in reviving the town’s commerce, a reminder that transportation has always mattered here. The result is a place where a library, historic houses, and working rural roads occupy the same compact setting, with the town’s 1817 charter still visible in the way Stantonsburg functions as a distinct community inside Wilson County.