It became one of the wealthiest towns in the state from 1840 to 1860, being a trading center of an area of rich tobacco and cotton plantations.

Named for Dr. Joseph Warren, a patriot and soldier who fell at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolutionary War, it was incorporated in 1779.

He established one hundred lots of one-half acre each, convenient streets and squares, and a common area for the use of the town.

A girls' school was founded by Jacob Mordecai, a Sephardic Jew, whose son Moses became a prominent lawyer in Raleigh.

They employed the prominent architects Jacob W. Holt and Albert Gamaliel Jones, who designed and built houses in the Federal, Greek Revival, and Italianate styles.