Wadesboro, N. C. 

When Sown in Dark Soil begins in 1854, Leah and Ivy Morgan are living on a plantation near Wadesboro in Anson County, North Carolina. Ivy takes Leah to an inn in Wadesboro to meet Luke Moretz, her secret fiance. At that time, Wadesboro was a thriving town.

The town of Wadesboro was founded by two Revolutionary War patriots, Captain Patrick Boggan and Colonel Thomas Wade, in 1783. Before that the settlement was known as Newtown. The house Boggan built for his daughter and her husband, William Hammond still stands today and belongs to the Anson County Historical 
Society.

By the 1850's Anson County held several large plantations. Sown in Dark Soil talks of three fictitious ones. On April 2, 1868, the courthouse along with other parts of Wadesboro burned, and about all records were destroyed. This makes historical research rather sketchy. More recently, Steven Spielberg filmed much of the movie, The Color Purple, on location at a plantation and large farmhouse in nearby Lilesville, also in Anson County. Most of the town scenes where done in Marshville, just over the line in Union County. 

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