The County Was Once Completely Emptied by an Indian Uprising

In 1772, long before Cleveland County officially existed, the area that later became part of it was almost completely abandoned because of an Indian uprising. Mamie Jones quotes a letter from George Lamth, the sheriff of Tryon County, who reported that the Indians had driven nearly all the settlers out of the region as far as Buffalo Creek, about fifty miles in. Some families fled into forts, some went to Virginia, others to South Carolina, and many simply scattered deeper into the colony. Lamth said more than 267 taxable persons had left the area, and that after the Indians, even the remaining settlers were driven off by Tory unrest. For a time, the entire region was practically emptied of white settlement.
Source: Mamie Jones