Gates County is younger than most of its neighbours and was made out of them. It was formed in 1779 from portions of Chowan, Hertford and Perquimans counties, and named for Horatio Gates, the American general who commanded at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777.1
1779: a county, and a general
The northern boundary was and is the Virginia line, and that has shaped almost everything since. The county spans roughly 340 square miles of the Coastal Plain, bounded on the west by the Chowan River, with the southern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp reaching into its northeastern corner.1
Saratoga is worth pausing on. Naming a county for Gates in 1779 was naming it for the man credited with the turning point of the war — a reputation that did not survive Camden the following year. The name stuck anyway, which is how most place names work.
1831: Gates Court House becomes Gatesville
The county seat was originally known simply as Gates Court House. The legislature changed the name to Gatesville in 1830–1831.1 The county reports that its 1836 Federal-style courthouse now houses the Gates County Public Library and the Gates County Historical Society.2
Gatesville remains the county's only incorporated municipality, and it is small: 267 residents at the 2020 Census. Sunbury is a census-designated place; Eure, Hobbsville, Corapeake, Roduco and Gates are unincorporated communities. The county is divided into seven townships — Gatesville, Hall, Reynoldson, Haslett, Holly Grove, Hunters Mill and Mintonsville.3
That structure is not a historical curiosity. It is why, today, essentially every land-use, permitting and utility question in this county routes through a county department rather than a town hall.
1811: Norfleets Millpond
In 1811 a millpond was impounded in the eastern part of the county and named Norfleets Millpond. Gristmills, a sawmill and a farm supply store grew up around it, and it became the county's centre of trade — which is where its later name, Merchants Millpond, comes from.4
The pond outlived the commerce. In 1973 A.B. Coleman donated 919 acres including the millpond to the state, and The Nature Conservancy added 925 acres of woodland, establishing Merchants Millpond State Park. Today the park centres on a 760-acre millpond with old-growth bald cypress hung with Spanish moss through Lassiter Swamp, and visitors have spotted American alligators there, at the northernmost point of their range.4
It is the single best-known thing in the county, and the reason a good many people find Gates County at all. Its mill owners, its post office and the land deals behind the park are on the Merchants Millpond page.
Hogs, tar and timber
Gates County's early commerce ran north. Hogs were sold into Nansemond County, Virginia; tar and pine pitch came out of the longleaf; and the virgin forest supplied timber. Rail service arrived in the late nineteenth century and made both agriculture and lumbering more profitable — and then ended, in 1979. Highways replaced it.21
The county's own summary is blunt and still accurate: Gates "still relies on the agriculture and timber industry more than any other commercial enterprise."2
What that looks like in numbers today surprises people. The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 122 farms on 71,866 acres, averaging 589 acres apiece — a 43% increase in average size since 2017, against a 13% decline in farm count. Total market value of products sold was $137,377,000, up 88%. And 72% of that is livestock and poultry, with poultry and eggs alone at $84.8 million. Cotton and cottonseed sales of $15.0 million rank the county 8th in North Carolina.5
Fewer farms, much larger farms, far more money, and a poultry economy rather than the row-crop economy the landscape suggests. That is a modern story sitting on top of a very old one.
What still stands
Ten Gates County properties are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, confirmed against the National Park Service's own records:6
| Property | Listed | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Elmwood Plantation | 1972 | East of Gatesville near the junction of SR 1400 and NC 37 |
| Gates County Courthouse | 1976 | Court Street, Gatesville |
| Freeman House | 1982 | North of Gates on US 13 |
| Roberts-Carter House | 1984 | Off NC 37, Gatesville |
| Buckland | 1986 | NC 37 at SR 1220, Buckland |
| Joseph Freeman Farm | 1999 | SR 1213 northeast of SR 1212, near Gates |
| Rountree Family Farm | 2000 | NC 37 North, near Gatesville |
| Eure–Roberts House | 2006 | 212 W. Main Street, Gatesville |
| Sunbury High School | 2009 | 101 NC 32 North, Sunbury |
| Reid's Grove School | 2011 | 931 Main Street, Gatesville |
Why an earlier version of this page listed seven
Buckland, the Joseph Freeman Farm and the Rountree Family Farm do not appear in the National Park Service's public spatial layer, which leaves out some resources. Each does have a listing record in the Park Service's NPGallery archive, and Buckland's nomination is now online from the State Historic Preservation Office, so all ten are confirmed.
A National Register listing is not a local historic district. Gates County has no local historic district, no historic district commission and no certificate-of-appropriateness process. Individual listed properties may qualify for rehabilitation tax credits; none of them carries a local design-review obligation, because there is no local commission to impose one.
The county today
Gates County recorded 10,478 residents at the 2020 Census, the sixth-smallest county population in North Carolina, across 340.6 square miles — roughly 31 people per square mile. The Census Bureau's July 2025 estimate is 10,234, so the trend is flat to slightly declining.7
And the defining modern fact, which no amount of history explains away: 51.4% of employed Gates County residents work outside North Carolina, and only 24.1% work inside their own county. In the most recent county-to-county commuting flows the Census Bureau publishes, Suffolk, Virginia employed more Gates County residents than Gates County did.7
A county formed in 1779 out of three others, that has spent two and a half centuries farming and cutting timber, now sends most of its working population across a state line every morning. That is the market this site is written about.
Primary Sources & Further Reading
The State Library of North Carolina's encyclopedia project. Source for the 1779 formation, the name's origin, the county seat's renaming, land area, and the farming-and-timber economy.
The county's own account. Source for the hog trade into Nansemond County, tar and pine pitch, the 1836 courthouse's current use, and the end of rail service in 1979.
USDA — 2022 Census of Agriculture, Gates County
Source for every agricultural figure on this page: farm count, acreage, average size, sales, and the livestock-versus-crops split.
This page was written from sources that describe Gates County specifically, and every date and figure carries a numbered footnote naming where it came from. Nothing here is estimated. Two things a reader might expect are deliberately absent. The first is a current total acreage for Merchants Millpond State Park — the park's own page posts none, and the figures in the state's documents have changed as the park grew, so this page gives the 760-acre millpond and the Merchants Millpond page traces the rest. The second is any account of the county's Reconstruction- and twentieth-century social history, which deserves better treatment than a real-estate site's history page can give it.
- Formation in 1779 from Chowan, Hertford and Perquimans counties; the name honouring "General Horatio Gates, an American brigadier general in the Revolutionary War who led his troops to victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777"; the county seat called Gates Court House until 1831; land area of 340.45 square miles; the arrival of railroads in the late nineteenth century and the persistence of agriculture and lumbering as the primary commercial enterprises. NCpedia, "Gates County," ncpedia.org/geography/gates. Note that the county's own history page says "General" where NCpedia says "brigadier general." ↩
- Hogs sold into Nansemond County, Virginia; tar and pine pitch; virgin-forest timber; rail service ending in 1979; and the 1836 Federal-style courthouse now housing the Gates County Public Library and the Gates County Historical Society. Gates County government, gatescountync.gov/history. Whether the county's current operating courthouse is that same building was not confirmed and is not asserted here. ↩
- Gatesville as the only incorporated municipality, population 267 at the 2020 Census; Sunbury as a census-designated place; the unincorporated communities and the seven townships. U.S. Census Bureau place and county subdivision designations, 2020. ↩
- The millpond built in 1811 as Norfleets Millpond, the gristmills, sawmill and farm supply store that made it a centre of trade, the park's 1973 establishment, and the Coleman and Nature Conservancy donations: NCpedia. The 760-acre millpond, the old-growth cypress and Spanish moss at Lassiter Swamp, and the alligators at the northernmost point of their range: NC State Parks, ncparks.gov. NC State Parks' own page describes the pond as "more than 190 years old," which is stale — from 1811 it is over 215. No total park acreage is published here; see the note above. ↩
- USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2022 Census of Agriculture, County Profile: Gates County, North Carolina, reference year 2022. nass.usda.gov. ↩
- National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places spatial dataset, queried for County = Gates, retrieved 2026-09-02; seven entries returned status "Listed." The other three: National Park Service, NPGallery, National Register Information System records 86000407 (Buckland, 3/5/1986), 99001333 (Joseph Freeman Farm, 11/12/1999) and 00000881 (Rountree Family Farm, 8/2/2000), read 2026-10-24; Buckland's nomination at files.nc.gov/ncdcr/nr/GA0005.pdf. ↩
- 2020 Decennial Census population 10,478 and land area 340.612 square miles; Population Estimates Program Vintage 2025 estimate of 10,234 as of July 1, 2025; place-of-work shares from the American Community Survey 5-year estimates 2020–2024, table S0801 (worked outside the state 51.4% ±5.4, worked in county of residence 24.1% ±4.2). The Suffolk comparison is from the Census Bureau's 2016–2020 5-Year ACS County-to-County Commuting Flows, a different and older vintage that should not be blended with the 2020–2024 figures. The ranking (sixth-smallest, after Tyrrell, Hyde, Graham, Jones and Camden) is from the 2020 Census Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) county totals for North Carolina, read 2026-10-24. ↩