Andy Hatzos, Sun, 31 Jul 2022
I have some LiDAR for a few NC counties you asked about. Perhaps not as definitive as I'd like, but hopefully it helps.

For all three of these counties, there's a new LiDAR dataset from 2020 that is in progress but has not yet been published. No idea when it will be released. For now, I'm using 2014 data from the state. Ten image attachments, if they don't come across, let me know and I can get them to you in another way.

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WASHINGTON COUNTY

The border issue was a bit of a hassle, but using the county's GIS website, it wasn't that hard to figure out. The southernmost original contour (the spillover from Beaufort County) is completely in Beaufort County, so I can throw that one out.

The narrow area further northeast is out as well, because it only peaks out at about 49 feet.

So, we're left with the larger of the original contours, and it's in an extremely flat area that has been modified by logging operations. These are tough areas to analyze, because the magnitude of the terrain modification is often greater than the magnitude of the natural elevation changes. Any little man-made built-up ridge could exceed the original natural highest elevation in the county.

Nonetheless, we have to make a determination somehow, so I tried to identify two areas where there was a larger expanse of land that exceeded 50 feet. Neither of these areas match up directly with the original contour on the topo, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

The wide view images are sort of an overview of the whole thing, and the zoomed versions show the two areas of interest.

North area:
* 52.7 ft at N35.716650 W76.844610

The highest point along the road surface is probably artificial, but the batch of trees at the listed coordinates is in the middle of what I'd suspect is the original high ground, and probably the highest natural point in the county.

South area:
* 51.5 ft at N35.707780 W76.838713

The road surface here (Morris Tram Road) is actually the low point, with an extremely artificial-looking ridge just north of the road. However, I suspect there's some natural high ground on both the north/south sides of the road. The coordinates listed are about 200 feet north of the road, which looked a little higher, but about 200 feet south of the road is similar in elevation too. This whole "south area" looks like second place to me, but probably worth checking out due to the uncertainty.

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