Colonel Maurice Moore, a gentleman and soldier of the King, founded the Town of Brunswick in 1725 in a wilderness and reserved for the glory of God the tract of land on which this parish church of Saint Philip was built. Brunswick was for a time the seat of Royal Government in the Province of North Carolina and the residence of the colonial governors Johnstone, Dobbs, and Tryon. It was also the scene of the first armed resistance to the Stamp Act in any American colony, when citizen soldiers led by Hugh Wadell and John Ashe defied the power of Great Britain and prevented the landing of the stamps from her ships of war on Nov. 28, 1765. The history of Brunswick was also illustrated by the brave deeds of the heroes and patriots of the Lower Cape Fear.