The first settlers came to the area now known as Sampson County around 1740. The scots and English came to the area by the Cape Fear River while other families moved here from the northern part of the United States. Since Clinton is practically the geographic center of the county, it developed as the major agricultural marketing center.

If there had been no finacial panic in 1819, Clinton surely would have had another name. There was an earlier incorporated town of Clinton in old Rowan County (Now Davie), but it folded in 1822, and our city moved to immediately drop the name "Clinton Courthouse" and incorporated under the name of Clinton.