N.C. Gen. Stat. § 47-58: Before judges of Supreme Court or superior courts or clerks before 1889.

Wherever the judges of the Supreme Court or the superior court, or the clerks or deputy clerks of the superior court, or courts of pleas and quarter sessions, mistaking their powers, have essayed previously to the first day of January, 1889, to take the probate of any instrument required or allowed by law to be registered, and the privy examination of femes covert, whose names are signed to such deeds, and have ordered said deeds to registration, and the same have been registered, all such probates, privy examinations and registrations are validated. (1871-2, c. 200, s. 1; Code, s. 1260; 1889, c. 252; 1891, c. 484; Rev., s. 1009; C.S., s. 3339.)