NC Gazetteer

Royal Oak

A point of interest in Onslow County and Jones County
… appears on the Price map, 1808, and on the MacRae map, 1833, on the Jones-Onslow county line where a slight change in direction is made. Said to have been named after a British soldier was found hiding in the tree's top to spy on Americans; he was hanged from a limb of the tree. The decayed stump of the tree was removed about 1916 when the road from Richlands to Comfort was widened.