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Nicholas N. Nixon 1800-1868
Porters Neck Road, Wilmington,
NC,
USA
Latitude & Longitude:
34° 17' 31.9128",
-77° 46' 19.326"
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North Carolina State
Historical Marker |
Marker Text: "Planter. Developed peanut into profitable crop by scientific methods at his Porters Neck Plantation 2 miles east." With a sizeable farming operation at Porters Neck Plantation in the Cape Fear region, Nicholas N. Nixon perfected techniques by the mid-1850s that made peanut production a specialized and profitable business. He began with land inherited from his father, and later bought surrounding tracts (including Porters Neck). The Coast Survey of 1857 shows many habitations between Onslow County and Hewlett’s Creek in New Hanover County, but Nixon’s is the only one listed by name. Nixon—a slave-holder with a wife and six daughters—cultivated more than half of his total acreage, and devoted 200 acres to growing peanuts. He utilized scientific research, crop rotation, effective cultivation, and applied one of the earliest known versions of mechanized harvesting.
Nixon soon gained a far-reaching reputation, and farmers from other states frequently sought his advice. He described his methods in detail in publications like The Carolina Farmer of Wilmington. Nixon’s efforts made the Cape Fear region the center of antebellum peanut production in the United States. For more than thirty years, Nixon’s operation was made tedious by the process of handpicking peanuts from the vines. The planter received a boost in 1856, however, when a young man on his plantation invented a steam-powered thresher. There is no other record of the use of a mechanical thresher until after the Civil War.
Nixon’s pioneering methods helped expand the appeal of peanut culture. As a result, farmers in Southeastern Virginia were able to get into successful peanut production faster after the Civil War, when higher prices made such an operation more profitable. Nixon’s reputation outlived him. He died in 1868, but his writings on the planting, cultivating, and harvesting of peanuts were republished for years afterward. The property remained intact for more than a century. Today, Porters Neck Plantation is a private gated residential community on the Intracoastal Waterway, with a full complement of recreational and country club amenities. Developers have embraced the site’s historic value. The stone entrance to the original land tract has been preserved, with a scenic mile-long drive to the community gates.
References:
F. Roy Johnson, The Peanut Story (1964)
Porters Neck Plantation: http://www.porters-neck.com/
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Related Themes: C.S.A., Confederate States of America, Confederacy
Explore other
North Carolina Civil War Historical Markers.
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Nicholas N. Nixon 1800-1868 Historical Marker Location Map, Wilmington, North Carolina
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