History Question

Who’s credited with starting the strawberry industry
that put Chadbourn on the map?

Answer

Joseph Addison (J.A.) Brown, a son of one of the early public educators of Columbus County – Reuben Brown – is credited with starting the strawberry business in Columbus County.
Brown, a very energetic man with big ideas who seemed to always find the means to get things done, experimented with strawberries in the early 1890s. This was the same time men were establishing strawberry acreage north of Wilmington along the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad.
Brown’s first plants were put into the ground in August of 1895, but they promptly died. He learned they were a cool weather crop, and in 1896 he had 6.5 acres and records show his profit that year was $5,000.
Other farmers began planting strawberries, and the national market at Chadbourn became a whirlwind of activity each spring.