Bute County, North Carolina Genealogy

United States   North Carolina    Bute County

Bute County was created from Granville County, North Carolina in 1764. A courthouse was erected in Buffalo Rice Path, 6 miles (10 km) southeast of modern Warrenton. Bute County ceased to exist in 1779 when it was divided into Franklin County and Warren County.

History
Bute County, named in honor of John Stuart, third Earl of Bute, former Prime Minister and Lord of the Treasury of Great Britain during the reign of King George III, was formed from the eastern part of Granville County, known as St. John's Parish, by an act of the North Carolina General Assembly passed on June 10, 1764. It was incorporated to provide better access to the county government by the residents from that part of Granville County and later, in 1766, a part of northwestern Northampton County was annexed to expand Bute County. As the years went by, many North Carolinians became more disatisfied with the royal government, and the Earl of Bute was particularly detested for the Stamp Act of 1765, which forced the American colonists to use specially stamped paper produced in London for most printed materials, and which could only be purchased  with British currency. The Act had been passed without any input from the Colonies in the British Parliament and this was one more nail in the coffin against the increasingly hated British government. With the growing unpopularity of the British rule, the citizens of Bute County petitioned for a division of the county into two parts, thus to abolish and rename it. On January 20, 1779, the Counties of Warren and Franklin were incorporated, having been formed from Bute by dividing the former county in half, along Shocco Creek. Thus, the former county of Bute, ceased to exist.

Resources
Most records for Bute County can be found in the Warren County records.


 * Bute County NCGenWeb - contains many transcribed records; includes the Abstracts of Bute Co., NC Deed Books, by Mary Hinton Kerr, provided by permission of the late author's estate, not in the public domain but can be used for personal research only and not reproduced elsewhere.
 * USGenWeb Archives-Bute County
 * Colonial and State Records of North Carolina - searchable database that contains many records pertaining to Bute &amp; other NC counties from the colonial era
 * Bute County Bastardy Bonds -from Betty Camin's website
 * Bute County Estate Records, 1764-1779 - from the North Carolina State Archives
 * North Carolina Digital Repository - records collections from the NC State Library
 * North Carolina Museum of History - there's always something going on about early North Carolina history

Maps

 * Historical Map of Old Granville-Bute-Warren-Franklin-Vance - from the UNC Library Digital Collections, shows the area &amp; landowners from 1741-1931