Where Carolina Split in Two

You are crossing one of the oldest political boundaries in English-speaking America. The line between North Carolina and South Carolina was carved out when one sprawling colony proved too large to govern. Carolina was chartered in sixteen sixty-three, but the northern and southern settlements grew so separately in character that a formal division became inevitable.

South Carolina was officially split off in seventeen twelve. North Carolina had its own distinct identity even earlier: English settlers began arriving in sixteen fifty and by April twelve, seventeen seventy-six, the colony's Provincial Congress became the first in America to authorize its delegates to vote for independence from Britain. Two colonies, one colonial charter, and three centuries of diverging history all converge at this roadside line.