Known throughout the state for its turpentine and tar industry, helping the state to earn its nickname, "the Tar Heel State, " Sampson County is the
quintessential North Carolina county, a combination of beautiful rural landscapes, charming small towns, and hard-working people of all walks of life. This coastal plains county, still dominated by its agricultural economic base of cotton and tobacco, has evolved from an early, rowdy pioneer character into one shaped by the early Baptist and Presbyterian preachers and Methodist circuit riders who infused religion into the county 's identity....