One of the most detailed land owner maps of the present day Caton community area was drawn in 1920. Raymond R. Eagle, a civil engineer living in New Bern, supervised the map for the Little Swift Creek Drainage District, but W.F. Ohara is credited with completing the surveys and plan.
The map, titled “Final Map of Little Swift Creek Drainage District” is about 20×23 inches. Land included on the map lies along the Beaufort-Craven County Line from Pine Tree Swamp to just north of the Little Egypt Road and from the Walker Road to the Great Pocosin. Each land owner and property lines are shown with the amount of property owned. Particularly interesting is the location of the original boundaries of Little Swift Creek before the canal was dug with an indication of how much land was drained and added to the property of the adjoining land owner.
In the early 1900s, individuals organized to drain the swampy lands to recover land for agricultural purposes. The Little Swift Creek Drainage District was one such project. The purpose of the map was to identify land owners, who were taxed based on the amount of land they owned in the District. This special tax was used to dig the canals and keep them clean. As the Great Depression came along, many of the land owners were unable to pay their tax and the Drainage District began to sell the property for tax money.
More will be written about the Little Swift Creek Drainage District at a later time.