It all started in 1892 with the construction of the railroad. But the origins of the line can be traced back almost another 100 years before that, to the arrival of the Blue family, immigrants from Scotland. Settling near the present-day location of the town of Aberdeen, they acquired Moore County NC farmlands and tracts of longleaf pine trees that grew as tall as 120 feet. Such timber stands were well suited to turpentine collecting operations and logging. Following the Civil War, the future of the turpentine business in south-central North Carolina was assured with the construction in the 1870s of the Raleigh & Augusta Air Line railroad (a predecessor of the Seaboard Air Line), which would bring better transportation to the region.
One of the first sidings on the A&R in the area was called “Blue’s” and it soon became a loading area for naval stores, an important product for a state with dense pine forests. The name of the siding was later changed to “Blue’s Crossing”, after Malcolm Blue, the largest landowner in the area.
In the late 1880’s, Malcolm Blue’s nephew, Civil War Veteran John Blue, moved from nearby Cumberland County to Blue’s Crossing, which was renamed Aberdeen (after the Scottish seaport) in 1887. This was about ten years after the Raleigh & Augusta had completed its line from Raleigh to Hamlet, where a connection was made with the Carolina Central, an east-west line between the coastal port at Wilmington and the inland trading city of Charlotte.
In 1902, John Blue organized the Aberdeen & Rockfish Railroad Company. Chartered on June 22, it was authorized to run eastward from Aberdeen into the pine forests of the Sandhills region, a sandy area with hi
gh ridges covering about 1100 square miles in five North Carolina counties. The line’s route was projected to pass through the rolling hills into Blue’s native Cumberland County. The terminus given on the charter was to be along “the Rockfish Creek.” hence the name
Still, it wasn’t enough for John Blue, who pushed the A&R further east through rural North Carolina communities: Raeford in 1898 (later the county seat of Hoke County after it divided from Cumberland County), Dundarrach in 1901, the community called Rockfish in 1902, Fenix in 1904 and Hope Mills in 1905. It is interesting to note that until 1891, when lumber mills were constructed at Hope Mills, this community was also known as Rockfish.
Could it have been that this and not Rockfish Creek was the namesake terminus John Blue had in mind when he named the railroad? We may never know, for there are no records that speak to the matter, but it is possible. What we do know is that construction of the A&R to Hope Mills provided an eastern gateway with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad’s north-south main line and the potential to carry traffic from the mill at Hope Mills back to the Seaboard Air Line.
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