A possible explanation lies in buildings located in Supply by the late 1800s.
In 1902, Supply had six stores, two turpentine distilleries, two sawmills and a cotton gin, according to a 2010 study on the history of unincorporated communities and cemeteries in Brunswick County prepared jointly by the county Planning and Community Development Department and the Geographic Information Systems Department.
By the early 1800s, the historic Old Town of Brunswick was almost completely abandoned and “had become nothing more than a memory,” according to the study.
“If another town was to replace the old, the new site of the courthouse at Lockwood’s Folly was the logical location,” the study said.
Supply is located at the intersection of Ocean Highway (U.S. 17), Southport-Supply Road (N.C. 211) and Green Swamp Road (N.C. 211), near the geographic center of Brunswick County.
In the early 1800s, roads were constructed from Wilmington to Shallotte and into Georgetown, S.C., an important naval stores center.
“These roads were mostly sand and nearly impassable; therefore, river trade was the easiest way mode of transportation. A trading post was established in the 1820s well up the Lockwood Folly River, near the new road between Wilmington and Shallotte. This trading post was originally called the ‘Old Georgetown Way,’ even shortened to ‘Old G.W.,’ but locals finally named it Supply in the late 1860s. As late as 1898, Supply was listed on a post office update called Lockwood’s Folly,” the study said.
The courthouse was located in Lockwood’s Folly from 1805 to 1810. A post office was established there temporarily in 1837, and again in 1857 and 1858.
“A trading center developed to supply the needs of the neighboring inhabitants. For obvious reasons it was called ‘Supply,’” the study said.
Stone Chimney Road, which intersects with U.S. 17 and Southport-Supply Road, may have been named from a chimney attached to one of the aforementioned structures that were built at the settlement.
No further information on the origin of the road name was immediately available.
If any readers have information to share, let us know in the Comments below.
RELATED LINKS:
What is the strange place on Stone Chimney Road going toward Holden Beach?
What construction was just done at the intersection of N.C. 211 and Stone Chimney Road in Supply?
Date posted: February 26, 2013
User-contributed question by:
barbara Cedzidlo
The 1st paragraph mention’s only 5 stores or were thw=ere 6 stores & these plants?
Six stores plus the facilities like the turpentine distillery and the sawmills.
I was born in 1931 at home in the town of Supply, just a few hundred yards from the Lockwood Folly River. I remember the stores located near the river belonging to Richmond Galloway, Mr. Hawes and Mr. Kirby. I remember daddy going to one of the stores for meat and seeing the cows in the field back of the stores. I believe Richmond was the butcher and always killed beef on Friday. Mr. Kirby and his wife Miz Rowena had a drygoods store, with clothes, He later opened stores up on the main road and in Shallotte. There was a post office in Mr. Jims store and his wife was the postmaster. Whether she was the first, I don’t know. Across the street was a water powered saw mill where they milled lumber as well as squaring off logs for shipping overseas. Since most sailing ships could only come so far up the river, the timber was floated down the river to the ships. It was easier to load a square log than individual cuts and if loaded properly, the square logs wouldn’t shift during a storm. We lived in a two story house owned by Richmond Galloway in front of the second big sawmill where I would often see teams of mules or oxen pull huge logs that were suspended from what was known as a bow axle to the mill. He owned two mills. I remember a place out in a field where there were a lot of girls that momma called a girls boarding house. Some said it had another name. Most were employed in a sewing room where they made quilts, blankets, shirts and trowsers, sheets, even suits. There was a church up on the corner of the road going to Varnum Town, a blacksmith shop and grist mill run by Mr, Samual Phelps up on the Georgetown road. My grandpa lived across the river where he tried to farm in the sandy soil which would not grow anything but tobacco.