History Cont.
A grandson of Roger Moore, Benjamin Smith served as aide de camp to General Washington in the retreat from Long Island in August of 1779 when he was 21 years old. He was elected Governor of North Carolina in 1810 and was instrumental in obtaining a charter for the town of Smithville, later renamed Southport, at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. But, Smith’s life ended in a tragic anticlimax. Having lost a considerable part of his fortune by endorsing the note of a friend and unsuccessfully undertaking a government contract, he died a pauper in 1826, so heavily in debt that his body was about to be seized by creditors under a gruesome law then in force. The advertisement that Orton, containing 4,975 acres of land more or less, would be sold at public auction in 1824 was evidence of his financial debacle.
In 1826 a grandson of Nathaniel Moore, Dr. Frederick Jones Hill, became owner of Orton. Hill was held in the highest esteem for his benevolence and service, especially in the cause of the common school system, of which he was the most influential advocate. He added the second floor, attic, and four fluted Doric columns to Orton House in the Greek revival or Neo-Classic style instituted by Thomas Jefferson.
In 1854 Hill sold Orton to Thomas Calezance Miller who held Orton until his death just after the Civil War (1861-1865) ended. A daughter later wrote to a relative in Wilmington that, after the war “of course everything went to pieces and we lost it (Orton).” The rice plantation period flourished up to the end of the war, but due to loss of slaves and capital, the greater part had to be abandoned. Orton was saved from certain destruction because the Northern troops used it as a hospital when they overran the Lower Cape Fear after the fall of Fort Fisher across the river in January of 1865 and Fort Anderson at Brunswick Town in February of 1865.
In August of 1872 Orton was again advertised for sale at public auction, but it did not sell. Orton finally sold in 1876 to Currer Richardson Roundel, who committed suicide soon after. In the late 1870’s, Roundel’s heirs sold Orton to Major C. M. Stedman and his brother-in-law Captain David Reid Murchison. In 1884, they sold Orton to Murchison’s older brother, Colonel Kenneth McKenzie Murchison.
