Legislator Nathan Boddie proposed to the North Carolina Provincial Congress that the county be divided.

[5][6][7] It was named for American Revolutionary War Brigadier General Francis Nash, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Germantown.

Court was then held in a temporary building at Peach Tree until a permanent courthouse was erected in Nashville in 1784.

[9] In 1786, the state of North Carolina conducted a census which recorded a total population of 5,277 in Nash County.

[7] Several early communities in Nash County developed as stops along stagecoach routes, including Dortches, Red Oak, Stanhope, Hilliardston, and Castalia.

[6] As a result of the boundary shift, Nash County's black population grew[15] and a greater portion of the town of Rocky Mount also lay within Nash County's border, including Rocky Mount Mills, the second textile mill to exist within in the state.

[6] In 1899, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad established repair shops in Rocky Mount, precipitating the city's rapid growth.

[9] Nash County rests in the northeastern part of North Carolina[4] along the dividing line between the Peidmont and Coastal Plain regions.

From the turn of the 20th century North Carolina established barriers that effectively disfranchised the large black population, which had been supporting Republican candidates.

Many whites supported George Wallace's American Independent candidacy in 1968, after passage of the Voting Rights Act.

[34] The largest private employer is Hospira, which operates a vaccine manufacturing facility in Rocky Mount.