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Early Wayne Buildings by John B. Flowers III

Wayne County History.  This article written by John B. Flowers III

The first court held in the new county sat on the second Monday in January, 1780, at the plantation of Josiah Sasser on Little River.  The following gentlemen justices were present:  Robert Simms, Etheldred Ruffin, Jesse Jernigan, John Handley, Thomas Williams, Stephen Cobb, Joseph Sanderson, and John Sheppard.

In January, 1781, Robert Simms was elected first sherrif by the court, and Thomas Gray, Stephen Cobb, Joseph Sandersona nd Needham Whitfield were appointed inspectors of paper money.  During the same court, Thomas Gray, Stephen Cobb, and John Handley were appointed commissionaer of confiscated property, and they were bonded at 200,000 pounds each.

. . . Jesse Cobb, clerk of the early court of Wayne, tried to save the court records when the army of Lord Cornwallis entered the county in April 1781.  He was overtaken and the papers were destroyed.  Wayne was referred to by the British as an illegal county, being created as it was by the revolutionary government of North Carolina. . .

On the second Monday of April, 1782, the court convened at the house of John Herring on Little River.  This was not far from the Sasser plantation.  No doubt Sasser’s illness and death prevented the court from meeting in its usual location.  During the April, 1782 session the will of Josiah Sasser was exhibited to the court, and proved, with Elizabeth Bryan Sasser, the widow, an executrix, Sasser’s estate inventory shows him to have been a prosperous planter.

. . . The session of January 13, 1783, was held at Samuel  Blythe’s the November, 1783, session was held at Stephen Cobb’s house . . . It was during hte July 12, 1784 session that Joseph Pipkin, Needham Whitfield, and Stephen Cobb reported that they had let out the building of the courthouse, prison, and stocks to Col. William McKinne . . .