Yale University I
19002005531596
Ilillsboro: Colonial and Pevoluticnary
Francis Nash, 1903

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HILLSBORO

COLONIAL AND
REVOLUTIONARY

By FRANCIS NASH,
OF THE HILLSBORO BAR,
MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.

The state, its laws, its inslitutions, are ihe rights of the individuals belonging
to it ; are their eternal possession ; and its soil, its mountains, air and waters, are
.their land, their fatherland ; their deeds make thehistory of this State; that which
their forefathers have done belongs t"o them and lives in their memory.— Hegel.

RALEiaH :
Edwards & Broitghton, Pkintbbs.
1903.

PREFACE.

Much the larger part of this pamphlet was published
in a series of articles in the Charlotte, N. C, Observer,
tluring the years 1901 and 1902. The value of the ma
terial, laboriously collected from many scattered sources
and put in consecutive order, justifies its preservation
in this more permanent form.
The sources from which data was obtained were the
public records in the court house here, the Oolonial and
State Records, Wheeler's books, Oaruther's three books,
Jones' Defence, and McRee's Life of Iredell. The latter
work was found especially valuable. The Oolonial and
.State Records, and the county records, were, however,
in all instances the basis of what is here written, es
pecially in regard to datqs. By pursuing this course,
T have been enabled to correct many errors found in
some of these books.
As the pamphlet is published for popular reading, I
have purposely refrained from burdening it with notes
and citations of authority. Suf&ce it to say, that I have
made no statement herein that is not, in my opinion,
supported by adequate, if not controlling, authority.
Some citations may be found in the appendices.
The subject, though occasionally as broad as the State
itself, many times, of course, narrows the scope of the
history and confines the writer to topics that may appear
trivial. This comes from the nature of the town, itself
a, country village, yet having residents who were taking
an active, if not leading, part in the great affairs of
State and nation. The history, then, of Oolonial and
Revolutionary Hillsboro must form an appreciable part
of the history of Oolonial and Revolutionary North
Oarolina. Being carefully prepared and written, I trust
the completed work may prove of value to students, as
well as to readers, of North Oarolina history.
HILLSBORO, N. C, March 19. 1903.

HILLSBORO
COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY.

OHAPTER I.— 1754-1770.
Travelers through those portions of Orange Oounty
watered by the Haw River and its tributaries. New
Hope Oreek and its tributaries, and Eno River and its
tributaries, have, from Lawson's day to the present,
admired the fertility of the soil, the beauty of the
scenery, and the magnificence of the forests. Perhaps
there was no spot along or near any of these rivers so
pleasantly or so beautifully situated as that whereon
William Ohurton, one of Earl Granville's surveyors,
located and laid off a town in 1754. He laid off this
town on four hundred acres of land on the north bank
of the river Eno, some time between June 7 and Sep
tember 1 of that year. It was first called Orange, but
its name was changed to Oorbintpn in a very short time,
for Francis Oorbin, one of Earl Granville's agents. No
vember 20, 1759, it was incorporated under the name of
Childsburg for the then Attorney-General. By this act
only 200 acres, the eastern half of the town, could be sold
and built upon. The remainder was to be common.
The town itself lay in a valley, surrounded by high hills,
and its southern boundary extended along the Eno
River. This river had a tortuous course, and its pellu
cid waters, unchecked by dams, and uncohtaminated by
sewage of town and cotton mill, flowed rapidly beneath
the overhanging trees, then as beautiful a stream as
could be found in the State, and even now, with its
banks denuded of forest growth along much of its
course, it has stretches that are surpassingly beautiful,
overhung as they are by bluffs on the south side, densely
covered by rhododendron and ivy, whose pink or white
flowers and dark green leaves are, in season, mirrored

y^

6 Hillshoro-^Goloiiial and Revolutionary.
in the quieter pools of the river beneath, and on the
narth by thick foliaged boughs of birch or beech or oak.
Then, too, the Occoneechee mountains extended beyond
the western limits of the town, crowned with the glories
of an untouched forest, and not, as now, with a degen
erate and dwindling secondary growth; not, as now,
scarred and marred by modern commercial energy that
has invaded their sides and is tearing and rending them
to extract from their bowels that which shall make one
of its own agencies safe and secure. Then, too, the un
broken forest to whose magnificence the few relics of it
that remain testify, stretched away on every side, over
hill and dale, broken only here and there along the
southern and eastern trails, or along the few cross
country paths, by settlements which the adventurous
white man had made.
The most prominent of the original residents of the
town were James Watson, William Reed, William Nunn
and William Ohurton. James Watson was the second
Olerk of the Oounty Oourt, 1755-1763, Richard Caswell
being the first, 1752-1755, and he was, in 1772, appointed
Register of the county. William Reed came from Penn
sylvania, and was Sheriff 1759, ,1760, 1761 and 1762.
William Nunn was Sheriff 1765. William Ohurton, a
surveyor of Lord Granville, was Register of the county
1752-1762, and gave his own name to one of the principal
streets of the town. The first lawyer to locate in the
place was Daniel Weldon. He came about 1754, re
mained six years, and then disappeared from the public
records. The County Oourt was first located here in
1754, and the Oolonial Assemblv made this location
permanent in November, 1766. There were no Sixperior
Courts held in Hillsboro until March, 1768, that place
being first in the Halifax and later in the Salisbury Dis
trict. To this town, in 1762, came Edmund Fanning, law
yer, scholar, gentleman, and adventurer, but withal,
overbearing, unscrupulous and a libertine.
In March, 1763, he qualified as Register of the county,
and thereafter purchased several town lots, built himself
a fine mansion on the site of the Masonic Lodge, and
proceeded to make himself the unconscious provoker, if
not maker, of much North Oarolina history.

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 7
About the same time came Francis Nash, youngest
son of a substantial Virginia planter, Ool. John Nash,
and qualified as Oounty Court Olerk, March, 1763. He
w as another lawyer and gentleman adventurer, of hand
some presence and fine address, afterwards one of Wash
ington's most trusted brigadiers, killed too early in the
war for him to have made a national reputation, though
he has given his name to a county in this State, and the
capital of an adjoining one.
Abner Nash, too, an older brother, afterwards a lead
ing patriot, spent much of his time here at this period,
practised in the courts and engaged in mercantile ven
tures. Clement Reed, likewise a Yirginia lawyer, prac
tised in the courts for two or three years, until 1763 or
1764. "In 1764," says William Few, Autobiography
(Magazine of American History, November, 1881)
"Hillsboro was the metropolis of the county, where the
courts were held and all public business was done. It
was a small village, which contained thirty or forty in
habitants, with two or three small stores and two or
three taverns, but it was an improving village. Several
Scotch merchants 'were soon after induced to establish
stores that contained a good assortment of European
merchandise, and a church, court house and jail were
built." Wm. Few, Sr., father of the autobiographer and of
James Few, the Regulator, had moved his family to
what is now the Kirkland place, in 1763, and there, a
mile from town, was keeping a tavern, and lower down
the Eno River running a mill. John Dowell was one of
the smaller merchants alluded to by Wm. Few. He, too
kept a tavern, but in the town.
Of the Scotch merchants, William Johnston was
easily chief. He was the only son and heir of Robt.
Johnston, of Hartwood, Lochmaben Parish, Annandale
Shire, Scotland, and a near relative of Gov. Gabriel
Johnston, and the North Oarolina statesman, Samuel
Johnston, and was himself afterwards a prominent pa
triot. He came to Hillsboro with abundant means late
in 1767 or early 1768, and formed a co-partnership with
James Thackston. The latter first appeared here about
the time that Johnston came, and was afterwards a sue-

8 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
cessful soldier, attaining the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel
in the Continental line. A little later came Ralph Mac-
nairs, 1769-1770, another Scotch merchant, having large
possessions, afterwards a proscribed Tory. About 1772
came Nathaniel Rochester, who, in 1783, removed to
Maryland, and later to New York, where he gave his
name to the present city of Rochester. Another resident
of the town was Thomas Hart, a sturdy, honest, brave
man, Sheriff of the county 1763, and grandfather of
Thomas Hart Benton, who inherited much of his own
sturdy character from him. In 1767 came the Rev.
George Meiklejohn, as shepherd and pastor of this fiock.
He was one of the most picturesque parsons of this pic
turesque period. A Scotchman, though a Church of
England divine, he was tall, dark, large-boned and
gaunt, with harsh features and slow, deliberate manner
in the pulpit and out. He had much of the Scotch
shrewdness and cannyness, loved money and saved
money. This and his love for ardent spirits (rum, I
believe, was the tipple then), and his distrust of women
were the three grekt weaknesses of his life. He had
trusted and loved a woman once, and had made her his
wife. She had fancied some gay deceiver, had eloped
with him, carrying all her husband's accumulations.
Ever afterwards during a long and, according to his
lights, useful life, he had a most unaffected distrust of
all women. When he was very old he was in the habit,
when he left home of entrusting his money to the care
of Mr. N., one of his parishioners. On one occasion he
returned, went to Mr. N.'s house, and found him absent.
He had, however, left the money in the care of his wife,
with instructions to deliver it to the old gentleman
when he called. Mr. JMeiklejohn was horror stricken
when she told him this, and in much excitement begged
her to bring him the bag at once. This she did, and
with trembling hands he counted and recounted its con
tents until he was satisfied that he had not been robbed.
Then, springing from his chair, he grasped her hand and
shouted, "Gie us your hand, woman, gie us your hand;
you're an honest woman, you're an honest woman." It
is related, however, that this was the last time he left
his money with Mr. N. He sought out and found a de-

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 9
positary who had no such dangerous encumbrance as a
woman. This, however, is mere tradition.
The only church in the town at this period stood on
the site of the present Presbyterian church. It was
erected by persons of the "Episcopal persuasion," and
was, in 1784, then "far gone in decay," repaired and
made a school and free meeting house, with the prefer
ence given to Episcopal ministers. It was afterwards
made famous as the place at which the first State Con
vention to consider the proposed Federal Constitution
met, July 21, 1788.
Col. Wm. Try on, come over to supersede Gov. Arthur
Dobbs, landed at Brunswick, October 10, 1764, but Gov
ernor Dobbs refused to surrender the reins of govern
ment until the coming spring. Colonel Tryon then had
time on his hands which he determined to spend in
acquiring a more intimate knowledge of the province
and its inhabitants, so spent two months in a tour
through the province, accompanied by Lord Adam Gor
don. It is probable that he visited Childsburg on this
tour; for afterwards he seemed much interested in its
fortunes, and nearly all of its inhabitants were adhe
rents of his .throughout his administration. On Novem
ber 3, 1766, its name was changed to Hillsboro, in com
pliment to the Earl of Hillsboro, and no doubt at Tryon's
suggestion. He writes to the Colonial Secretary, Janu
ary 31, 1767, in regard to this change of name: "This
act will tend much towards the increase of the settle
ment of that part of the back country, as well as to civil
ize the inhabitants thereof. ' Its situation is upon a rich,
red clay soil on the north bank of the river Eno. Though
there is at present scarce twenty families inhabitant, I
am of the opinion it will be, in the course of a few years,
the most considerable of any inland town in this prov
ince." Governor. Martin, his successor, writes* from
Hillsboro to the Earl of Hillsboro, July 8. 1772 : "This
little, village, honored by your lordship's title, is situated
in a high and apparently healthful and fertile country,
but from the extreme badness of the roads, difficult of
access and discouraging to exercise, to which, indeed,
there is no invitation at present after fulfilling the calls
of duty and satisfying that common curiosity to see

10 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
new places. The settlements in its environs, though
numerous beyond belief, being yet in infantile rudeness,
afford but little delight to the observer." Tradition is
insistent that the old town clock which still keeps time,
and with a little encouragement very good time, in the
cupola of the court house, was presented to the town by
George III. about this period, 1766-1770. It was made
in Birmingham, England, and is said to be a fac simile
of the first clock in the tower of Independence Hall (or
the old Pennsylvania State house at Philadelphia), and
to have been brought over about the same time. This
old clock in Philadelphia, however, if it ever existed, was
long since replaced, in 1835, I believe, by one of Ameri
can make. However this may be, the tradition which
locates it here in colonial and revolutionary times, was
handed down from contemporaries of those times to
others who died in the last twenty years, so is entitled to
credit. No doubt it was obtained through Fanning,
Governor Tryon and the Earl of Hillsboro, with some
probability that the last was the donor, instead of
George III. In all our colonial history there was none
so interested as they in securing it for the town. Tryon^
too, purchased quite a large tract of land in the county,
and two lots in the town, August 31, 1769. On these
lots he erected a "mansion house." His private secre
tary, Isaac Edwards, also invested and built here, and
then Tryon made Hillsboro, July 9, 1770, a borough and
a market town. Tradition says that the clock was,
about 1770, placed in the tower of the -church. There it
remained until after the Revolutionary War, when it
was transferred to the market house that stood at the
intersection of King and- Ohurton streets. This mar
ket house becoming ruinous in 1820, the clock was taken
down and stored in a warehouse. In 1846 or 1847, it
vs^as, after repairs, with the addition of two new dial
plates, placed in the cupola of the recently erected
court house. When McNeill and Fanning raided the
town in 1781, the clock bell was taken out of the church
tower and thrown in the Eno River, from which it has
never been recovered, a new bell being purchased when
the clock was removed to the_market house.
Orange County, including then (1767) portions of

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 11
what are now Guilford, Rockingham, Randolph and
Wake, and all of Person, Caswell, Durham, Chatham
and Alamance, had about 13,000 white and 700 negro in
habitants. Among these inhabitants there was, in some
sections, not only lawlessness, but positive immorality.
There were some morganatic marriages (if I may use the
term for a mere consent union), some concubinage and
some adultery. Says Mr. Wooddason, a Church of Eng
land clergyman who traveled through the province in
1766: "Marriages, through want of the clergy, are per
formed by every ordinary magistrate. Polygamy is
very common, celibacy much more, bastardy is no disre
pute, concubinage general. When will this Augean
stable be cleansed?" Of course this jeremiad must be
taken with grains of allowance, but conditions were bad
enough in all conscience. Hillsboro, in colonial times,
took moral color from the country that surrounded it,
so it could not be called an immaculate town, not by
any manner of means. In truth, the most moral com
munities in the whole section were those over which a
few Presbyterian ministers held sway and exerted an
influence for good, and Hillsboro was not one of them.
And there were, too, in nearly every section men and
women and families, law-abiding. God-fearing, honest,
upright folk, and still not subject to the influence of
these Presbyterian preachers. In Hillsboro, however,
particularly at the quarterly County Courts, there were
drinking, gambling, horse racing, cock fighting, man
fighting and gouging. It was with such a populace as
this, ignorant, violent, headstrong, lawlesSj^ having the
Anglo-Saxon instinct to resist oppression, it makes no
difference whether it is real' or not, so they believe it
real, that Edmund Fanning, gentleman adventurer, edu
cated lawyer and haughty man, came in conflict. The
result, of course, was disaster to both parties.
I do not intend to discuss the causes that lead up to
V'hat is commonly called the War of the Regulation, ex
cept as they affect the history of colonial Hillsboro.
This war (if such it may be called), however, beauti
fully illustrates the effect of agitation against real
grievances, but grievances which can be best redressed
under forms of law, upon an ignorant, headstrong, law-

12 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
less populace. Conscientious leaders, astonished at the
storm they have raised, but having no power to abate it,
are carried forward with it to their own destruction j
V. hile selfish stirrers up of the turmoil, f omentors of the
strife, seek and find a secure haven before the storm is at
its worst. Of this last class, Herman Husbands, the
sentimental hero of much modern North Oarolina his
tory, was the completest type; by profession a man of
peace, yet a continual f omentor of strife, a constant agi
tator and leader of the people up to the very ragged edge
of riot and revolution, then progressively a skulker, an
absentee, a man of peace, a Quaker.
The quarrel of the Regulators was with obnoxious
officials, not at all with the government, its nature or its
personnel. They always professed themselves loyal sub
jects of King George. Many of them were afterwards
rampant Tories. The War of the Regulation, then, was
in reality a result of the attempt on the part of the Reg
ulators to redress grievances which they had, or thought
they had, against lawyers and public officials, by extra
legal means. The war itself, the battle of Alamance,
was never planned or thought of or intended by them.
Their leaders, the authors and instigators of the agita
tion, evoked spirits which they could not control, and
as a consequence was the Hillsboro riot — the beating of
the lawyers and the breaking up of the Court. The
only spirit that inspired this was a desire for personal
revenge, and it was in effect no more than an administira-
tion of that "wild justice" by lawless men. It was not
an attack upon the government, else why protect Judge
Henderson and the King's attorney? Afterwards, be
ing all criminals in a common riot, they made common
(tause in resisting Governor Tryon's second army come
to arrest them ; hence, the battle of Alamance, not at all
the first battle of the Revolution, not at all the forerun
ner of Lexington and Bunker Hill, but the afterclap of a
disgraceful riot. To say that the same spirit inspired
the Regulators that inspired the Sons of Liberty, or the
Lexington Minute Men, is, to my mind, sentimental
slush, not historical truth. We have too many real
heroes in North Carolina for it to be necessary for us to
set up any mock heroes. Nor is it true that Fanning

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 13
had no excuse for the so-called extortion which he prac
ticed upon the people. It must be remembered that only
in recent years has the Supreme Oourt definitely deter
mined that officers may not construe a doubtful statute
liberally in their own favor, so as to increase their fees.
On the contrary, they are entitled to no more fees than
the statute expressly or by necessary implication pro
vides, thus lessening materially the income of several
offices of the State, though the officers themselves and
their predecessors had long charged these illegal fees.
In Fanning's case, the Act of 1748, so far as it is material
here, was as follows : "For registering a conveyance or
other writing, 2 shillings, 8 pence."
The question upon this statute was whether the certifi
cate of examination of a married woman, and the certi
ficate to the fact that the persons making the examina
tion were Justices of the Peace, were each, though en
dorsed upon the conveyance, "other writings" within the
terms of the statute, so as to entitle the Register to a dis
tinct fee of 2 shillings 8 pence for recording them. The
Attorney-General of the province, the Attorney-General
of England, and Mr. John Morgan, of London, all held
that they were, so on such a paper Panning was entitled
to charge 8 shillings, whereas, he made a rule, out of
abundance of caution, to charge only 6 shillings. These
opinions, however unsatisfactory they may appear from
the standpoint of more sensible and less technical rules
of construction, show that Fanning was not entirely ar
bitrary in his own construction of the statute. This,
however, was only one particular case, and there can be
no doubt that public officers generally construed these
loosely drawn acts so as to make their offices as valuable
as possible, and that their charges were, in some instan
ces, oppressive. This was a real, valid grievance, ' but
it was not one which would justify revolution or war.
Yet on April 8, 1768, one hundred Regulators appeared
in Hillsboro, took out of the possession of the Sheriff a
horse upon which he had levied, tied him securely, ter
rorized the citizens of the town, fired two or three balls
through Fanning's house (he was absent at the time),
and then took their departure with the rescued horse.
For the next few months of that year both the county

14 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
and town were in turmoil. Lieut. -Ool. John Gray, Maj.
Thomas Lloyd and Adjt. Francis Nash tried to embody
the militia to aid the Sheriff in the execution of writs
against the rioters, but, according to Nash's account,
only 120 appeared with arms, and out of those nearly all
were open sympathizers with the mob or wished to re
main neutral. He said further, "I don't believe 150
men could be raised in the county who would with firm
ness and resolution follow their officers." During the
summer many negotiations were set on foot to bring
about a meeting between the leaders of the Regulators
and the officials, the Rev. Geo. Meiklejohn being the
mediator and go-between in several instances, but both
parties were' distrustful of each other, and very little
came of these negotiations. Governor Tryon, in Au
gust and September, embodied the militia from Meck
lenburg and Rowan counties, and with them entered
Hillsboro September 19. There he was joined by de
tachments of the Orange and Granville militia. Hills
boro Court, which Tryon's military array came to pro
tect, convened September 22, and that morning 800 Reg
ulators were encamped half mile from town. After
some further negotiations between Tryon and the Regu
lators, which proved futile, they quietly dispersed, leav
ing the Governor to fight the air. "And thus," says
Colonel Saund'ers, "the battle of Alamance was post
poned for near three years." But is it not true that the
presence of Tryon and the volunteer militia prevented
an outrage similar to the one which occurred just two
years later, the breaking up of the Court and the whip
ping of the lawyers? It was at this term of the Court
that Fanning was convicted of extortion and three of the
Regulators of riot and a rescue. (See Appendix "A.")
The latter were released by Tryon and the payment of
their fines suspended for six: months, and on October 3
he issued a proclamation pardoning all the Regulators
except twelve of their leaders named in the proclama
tion. He had d<isbamded his volunteer militia the 1st
and 2d of that month. During the remainder of 1768,
the whole of 1769, and part of 1770, except the whipping
of the Sheriff m 1769', the county and town were free
from extraordinary disturbances. The former was fill-

Hillsboro — Colonial and Reiohttioiiary. 15
ing up with settlers, and the latter had more than dou
bled in population in the four years of its existence as
Hillsboro. On September 9, 1769, Grovernor Tryon
issued a proclamation of general pardon for all offences
committed before October 3, 1768. The Hillsboro Dis
trict Superior Court convened at Hillsboro Saturday,
September 22, 1770, and after the transaction of some
preliminary business, adjourned until 10 o'clock, Mon
day morning, the 24th. Judge Henderson was the only
one of the Judges who appeared. The court house, a
plain, bam-like structure, stood in the square where the
present court house stands, and behind it were the prison
and stocks. Outside of the square was the market house
erected before 1768. The stores of the town were at the
intersection of King and Ohurton streets. As the court
square occupied the southeast comer of this intersection,
the stores occupied the other three corners, Messrs. John
ston & Thackston's at the southwest comer. Among
the lawyers attending this term of the Oourt, besides
Edmund Fanning, were Francis Nash, Alexander Mar
tin and John Williams. Alexander Martin, then a
young man, was afterwards a revolutionary patriot,
Governor of the State and United States Senator. John
Williams had been a carpenter and was afterwards a
member of Congress, and stUl later one of the first
Judges under the State Constitution. WilUamsboro, in
Granville County, was named for him. Early Monday
morning the town was filled by Regulators who occupied
tl^mselves until Court convened, by going up and
down the streets "shouting, hallooing and making a
great tumult." Court convened at 11 o'clock. Judge
Richard Henderson still alone on the bench, and Henry
Pendleton, Esq., prosecuting for the Crown. The Regu
lators immediately crowded into the room "as close as
one man could stand by another," some with clubs,
ethers with switches and whips, few or none without
some weapon. Jeremiah Fields then came forward and
told the Judge that he, as representative of the crowd,
had something to say before the business of the Court
should proceed. On the Judge's telling him to say on,
he said that they had come to see that the cases of the
Regulators were tried and that they had justice; that the

16 Hillsboro— Colonial and Revolutionary.
Court had been unjust at the term preceding; that the
jury drawn by the Oounty Court were not impartial
men, and they must have others to try these cases. After
a half hour's discussion Judge Henderson acceded to
their propositions. When he did most of the crowd re
tired and stood outside in groups about the door and
Court square. Then it was that Attorney John Wil
liams came up and advanced towards the door of the
Court room. Him, for no apparent cause, except that
he was a lawyer, they set upon with clubs and sticks and
beat so severely that to save his life he was compelled to
take refuge in a neighboring store. This was the first
taste of blood, and these patriots, these justly enraged
freemen, a connecting link between the Sons of Liberty
and the Minute Men, became wild. How excellent the
opportunity to give vent to their long pent up revenge !
The lawj^ers and Court officials all in a batch and all
helpless! It was more than Regulator nature could
stand, so they proceeded under circumstances of the ut
most indignity to beat all that they could catch. Fanning
they dragged by the heels from the Judge's bench, where
he had taken refuge, down the whole length of the Court
room, beating him as they dragged him, his life no doiibt
saved by the universal desire to get in a blow on their
prostrate foe. When they had dragged him. to the door,
by an exertion of strength, he broke loose from them and
took refuge in Johnston & Thackston's store. This they
immediately attacked with stones and brickbats, break
ing everything breakable in reach of their missiles.
Meanwhile others of the crowd had whipped Thomas
Hart, Alexander Martin, Michael Holt, Jbhn Littrell
(Clerk of the Court), and others. Lieutenant-Colonel
John Gray, Major Thomas Lloyd (the latter Chairman
of the County Court, and both active in raising the
county militia in 1768), Francis Nash, John Cooke
(Clerk of the Superior Oourt), Tyree Harris, ex-sheriff,
and others, escaped maltreatment by flight. While
these scenes were being enacted Judge Henderson's
thoughts "were much engaged upon his own protec
tion." James Hunter and another of their leaders went
upon the bench and assured him that no harm should be
done him provided he would continue to hold Court and
try cases with the aid only of Mr. Pendleton, the King's

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 17
attorney. This he promised, and he continues in his
letter to Governor Tryon, from which I derive most of
the above facts : "In about four or five hours their rage
seemed to subside a little and they permitted me to ad
journ Court and conducted me with great parade to my
lodgings. Colonel Fanning, whom they had made a
prisoner of, was in the evening permitted to return to
his own house on his word of honor to surrender himself
next day. At about 10 o'clock that evening I took an
opportunity of making my escape by a back way and left
poor Colonel Fanning and the little borough in a
wTetched situation." That night the Regulators regu
lated the town by stoning all the houses and smashing
the window lights. The next morning many of them
were in favor of putting Fanning to death. Better
counsels prevailed, however, and they spared his life on
condition that he run until out of their sight. Tradition
says that this was the most enjoyable part of the whole
orgy. They chased with many a view halloo and crack
cf the whip the brave Colonel Fanning, who, with only
thirty men, had gone out into their settlements two years
before and had arrested two of their leaders — the proud,
haughty, overbearing Mr. Fanning, who had nothing in
common with the common people — the rich, prosperous
Fanning, wljo had built a handsome house from money
which he had extorted from their hard earnings, from
Ohurton street to the river, through it, then half a leg
deep, and over and beyond Thompson's hill; and then
they went back, wrecked his house, destroyed his furni
ture, and spilled or drank his wines and liquors.
It is related that the mob, in destroying Fanning's
house, found a large pantry in the back yard, in which
was a bell purchased by him for the Episcopal church
"recently erected." This the most sapient among them
took to be a "spice mortar" used by Fanning on great
occasions to make flavoring for his and his guests'
drinks, and in a few mordents it was in fragments. I
think it possible that this bell was the bell of the clock
not yet put in place, for that bell weighs 300 pounds.
However this may be, the Regulators, after this destruc
tion, repaired to the court house, where, putting one of
their number on the bench as Judge and making another

18 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
sheriff, and still another (one York) Clerk, they pro
ceeded to dispose of the cases on the docket, with judg
ment invariably in favor of those of "regulating princi
ples," sometimes entered with profane emphasis. They
condemn one defunct party to sheol, and damn some of
the living parties, without stating where the sentence is
to be executed. (See Appendix B).
Tradition says that they made Fanning plead before
this mock Oourt; but it is not likely they would have
done so, without perpetuating his disgrace by entering
the fact upon the docket, and this they did not do. Wed
nesday night they took their departure, and in a few
days the frightened inhabitants came back one by one.
It was some months, however, before business was re-
i'Stablished and events resumed their even tenor.

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 19

OHAPTER 2.— 1771.
The Regulators seemed to have an especial antipathy
for Hillsboro, no doubt because it was the county seat
and the residence of Edmund Fanning. During the lat
ter part of 1770 and the early part of 1771, for fully six
months, its inhabitants lived in a state of constant ap
prehension, ready at any time, day or night, upon the
slightest alarm, to find safety from death or outrage in
instant flight. It is true that Francis Nash, Edmund
Fanning, Adlai Osbome, Alexander Martin, Tliomas
Henderson (a brother of Judge Richard), Jesse Benton
(father of Thomas H.), William Johnston (a nephew of
Governor Samuel and a merchant of Hillsboro), and
others, just after the riot of 1770, formed an association
for mutual aid and protection ; but the members of this
association, as a general rule, lived at points so distant
from each other, that the promise of mutual aid, in a
sudden emergency, must have proved illusive — for in
stance, Alexander Martin, in Guilford or Rowan ; Adlai
Osbome, in Rowan, and Thomas Henderson, in Gran
ville. Only once, however, and that in February, 1771,
was this state of alarm justified by the event. A mounted
troop of Regulators, arrested in their march to New
Bern by news of Herman Husband's release, swooped
down upon the town and drove its frightened inhabi
tants to cover. They did no great damage, however;
helped themselves to the liquors at the tavern, and as a
troop rode at full speed through the streets, flring their
pistols and uttering their war whoops. Then they dis
appeared as suddenly as they had come.
In the Assembly which met at New Bern December 5,
1770, Herman Husbands and John Prior 9.ppeared as
representatives of the county, and Edmund Fanning as
representative of the borough. Both the county's repre
sentatives were of "regulating principles," Husbands the
great agitator of the period. Prior a Regulator only in
sjTnpatiiy. It may be noted in passing, it being omitted
in its proper place, that Husbands was one of the first
residents of Hillsboro, then Corbinton. November 9,
1755, he purchased from William Ohurton two lots and

20 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
built a residence upon them. He lived in the town, how
ever, only a few months. Of course the proceedings of
this Assembly are not material to this history except as
they affect the characters who figure in it. The com
mittee appointed to reply to the Governor's speech was
composed entirely, except Edmund Fanning, of those
who were afterwards distinguished patriots — RobCirt
Howe, Major General; Samuel Johnston, Governor and
United States Senator; Maurice Moore (Atticus) dying
too early, 1777, for him to have contributed much to
the cause; Cornelius Harnett, member of the Cdntinen-
tal Congress; Abner Nash, Governor and member of
Congress ; and Joseph Hewes, one of the Signers. It is
remarkable that these men, seeing the circumstances in
a much clearer light than we can possibly see them,
should in their reply say: "The conduct of public offi
cers in some parts of this province, perhaps, has given
just cause of complaint. This, sir, we would willingly
believe hath not wholly arisen from a depravity of mor
als among the servants of the public. In some instances
we are inclined to think it the consequences of an incon
sistent and oppressive fee bill. That act has annexed
fees to unnecessary services, which in this country are
never performed, yet, ideal as they are, they are carefully
attended to and often received. In other cases, much to
the prejudice of the officer, it has left services necessary
and incumbent wholly unprovided for." They then,
these patriots above suspicion, go on and condemn with
out stint both the motives and acts of the Regulators.
Herman Husbands they expelled from the House on
December 20th because, first, he was a leader of the
Regulators; second, he had libeled Maurice Moore;
third, he had lied about this libel on his examination
before the committee; fourth, he had said that if he was
imprisoned by the House the Regulators, as one man,
would embody, march to New Bern, destroy the town
and release him.
That same day 0. J. Howard, at Tryon's solicitation,
issued a warrant against him for this libel on Maurice
Moore, and he was arrested and cast into the New Bern
jail. There he, the noble leader of a noble cause, a cause
that had enveloped in it the germ of all the self-sacrifice

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 21
and patriotism of 1776-1783, without bail, languished
until February 8, 1771! Then, the grand jury of a
special term of Oyer and Terminer, from a lack of evi
dence, failed to find a bill against him. and he was dis
charged. Meantime the Regulators had embodied from
Rowan and Orange and Granville and were marching
under James Hunter towards New Bern, but disbanded
&t.Haw River on hearing that Herman was discharged.
Rednap Howell, too, had gone to Halifax in an attempt
lo raise the country there. He desisted on hearing of
the release. His programme as announced there, though
direct, sturdy, forcible, if carried into effect, would have
been infinitely more tyrannous than any form of govern
ment the province could hava "I give out here,"
T^ rites he, "that the Regulators are determined to whip
every one who goes to law, or will not pay his just debts,
or will not agree to leave his cause to men where dis
puted ; that they will choose representatives, but are not
to be put in jail ; in short, to stand in defiance, and as to
thieves to drive them out of the country." In other
words, government by the self-constituted leaders of a
mob. A Jack Cade system in truth, a lawless pro
gramme, to be carried out by lawless men ! Yet we are
to believe that the Hillsboro riot of 1768, the whipping
of Sheriff John Lea in 1769, the breaking up of the Court
in 1770, the burning of Judge Henderson's stable and
bams, his dwelling and out houses, soon after, and the
march upon New Bern in 1771, were all but the overflow
of exuberant patriotism !
Tradition says that Herman Husbands had himself
collected all the taxes due by all his constituents, had
put the money in a bag and carried it with him to New
Bern. When, therefore, the House as a body repaired
to the council chamber in the newly erected palace to
hear the Governor's address in opening the Assembly,
Husbands carried the bag with him. "When his name
was announced as a member from Orange, the Governor,
in a haughty tone, demanded why the King's subjects in
his county had refused to pay their taxes. With the
plainness and firmness of a Quaker (and of a statesman
from Sandy Creek), he replied that the people owed
His Excellency so much butter; but as that was apt to

22 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
stick to one's fingers, they had turned it into money and
had sent it by the hands of their commoner. With that
ne walked up to the Speaker's table and laid down his
bag of specie, saying, "Here are the taxes which were
refused to your sheriff." But the Governor "eyed him
with contempt," etc. This story is one which it is impos
sible to verify or to disprove. I, myself, think it prob
able that it had its origin either in the glamour which
tradition aided by rumor throws about a popular hero,
or in a story which Herman himself told when he got
back home. Imagine the Clerk of the House calling the
roll of the House in the council chamber, or Tryon, who
was a stickler for forms, interrupting the ceremony for
a colloquy with a member of the lower house I
There was no term of the Superior Oourt for the Hills
boro district in March, 1771. Instead, an entry to this
effect, found still in the court house here :
"The persons who style themselves Regulators and
under the conduct of Herman Husbands, James Hunter,
Rednap Howell, William Butler, Samuel Deviney and
others, broke up the Court at September Term last, still
continuing their riotous meetings and severely threaten
ing the Judges, lawyers and other officers of the Court^
prevent any of the Judges or lawyers attending. There
fore the Oourt continues adjourned till September Term,
1771." It was perfectly apparent to every leading man
of the period that conditions were such that the ordinary
machinery of the government could not deal with them,
hence the Johnston Act (in some of its features a harsh
and tyrannous measure) , and the consent of the Assem
bly to Tryon's using the militia to enforce law and order.
It is not in the province of this article to set forth or
discuss the Johnston Act. It is sufficient to say that its
harsher and unconstitutional sections were invoked in
only one instance, and that as a justification for the
hanging of James Few. There is no doubt that all taken
in arms at the battle of Alamance, or present, advising
or consenting to it (an armed resistance to the govern
ment) were guilty of treason, and forfeited their lives
thereby. Governor Tryon then was doing what circum
stances compelled him to do, when with . the eastern
militia and the five guns from New York, he, the last

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 23
week in April, 1771, left New Bern for the West. The
army came into what is the present county of Orange,
along an old and disused road, by Patterson's, in Dur
ham County, and on to Hillsboro, entering it from the
south. It encamped on the south bank of the Eno and
opposite the town, on Thursday, May 9, 177ir The site
of the camp was probably on the Thompson property,
just north of the railroad and between it and the river.
The Orange detachment of Tryon's army consisted of
four companies under the command of Colonel Edmund
Fanning. Only two companies of these marched with
the army to Alamance, the other two were left as a guard
for Hillsboro xmder the command of Colonel Ashe, but
joined before the battie. Here also a hospital was es
tablished and a depot of supplies. On Saturday, May
11th, the army marched through town and took its way
west along what is now the Graham road. As we shall
not follow it further, I note here that the battle of Ala
mance was fought May 16th with the result that nine of
7'ryon's army were killed and 61 wounded, 20 Regula
tors killed and about 200 wounded. Williamson says that
the engagement commenced with the discharge of five
cannon (this accords with Tryon's order book), and that
Colonel Fanning, who commanded the left wing, unused
to action and deficient in courage, fell back with the
T\ hole of his regiment except Captain Nash and his com
pany. This company was composed almost wholly of
residents of Hillsboro and its immediate vicinity. A
special term of Oyer and Terminer had been convened at
Hillsboro, all the Judges — ^Howard, Henderson and
Moore — present, on May 30th, but its sittings were ad
journed until the return of the army with its prisoners.
It did return on June 14th and the next day marched
through town with drums beating and banners flying,
and each officer and soldier with his hat cocked and a
sprig of oak in it, and encamped a mile east of town.
Meantime the Court resumed its sittings and fourteen
prisoners were tried for treason and twelve were con
victed and sentenced to death. Six of these, James
Stewart, James Emmerson, William Brown, Forrester
Mercer, James Copeland and Harmon Cox, were re
spited at the request of Tryon's officers, until an appli-

24 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
cation for pardon could be made to the home govern
ment. All of these were, for some unknown cause, re
leased from confinement almost immediately and were
formally pardoned the next year. It is unfortunate that
the record of this Court and these trials is not to be
found here. I am, then, indebted wholly to the Colonial
Records and Oaruther's Life of Caldwell for the infor
mation in regard to the siS executed, here collected.
The Oolonial Records give the names of only two of
these, Merrill and Matear, Caruthers the names of only
four, Merrill, Matear, Messer and Pugh, so the names of
two are unknown. The day of the execution was June
19th, the place, a slight- elevation just out of and east of
the town, now in the Cameron grounds, and now marked
by a slab. There after clearing off the grounds for a
great space about it the gallows had been erected. Tryon
paraded his whole army that morning, and in general
orders directed the order of march ; the artillery formed
the front and rear of an oblong hollow square, the in-
iantry the longer sides, while the light horse acted as
escort, and the main guard marched in the square with
the prisoners. No doubt thousands of spectators had
assembled from far and near, and Governor Tryon in
tended this display to impress the crowd with the hope
lessness of any further resistance against the govern
ment. If there was anything ridiculous in it, it must
have come from the equipment and discipline of the sol
diers themselves.
Of the four men executed, of whom we know anything,
James Pugh was unquestionably the hero. He was a
gunsmith by trade, a leading Regulator, had advised,
or taken part in nearly all their illegal acts, had at the
battle of Alamance, after all his friends had fled, con
tinued until captured, with the aid of three others, to
shoot down the gunners serving Tryon's cannon, and
now, at the gallows a condemned traitor, had no apology
to make for his past course. Instead he defended it all
in the half hour that the Governor had allowed him and
boldly charged Tryon himself with dereliction in duty
in not siding with the people against dishonest and un
faithful officials, advised him to put away his corrupt
clerks and tax-gatherers and be a friend of the people

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 25
whom he had come to govern. The account goes on to
say that when he said that Fanning was unfit for the
office he held, the barrel on which he stood was kicked
over at the instance of that officer and he was launched
into eternity before his speech was concluded. This part
of the account is doubtful. It was the habit of those at
the period at which this account was written (long after
the event, and the writer depending upon tradition or
rumor for his facts), to bring Fanning in, as the sug
gesting fiend or active demon when any specially dark
scenes were depicted. In the first place. Fanning was
the colonel in charge of the Orange detachment, and with
such a commander as Tryon, a thorough soldier and a
stickler for forms, it would have been a serious breach of
military discipline for him to leave his place and com
municate with the sheriff of the county, who had the exe
cution in charge. This Tryon would never have allowed.
Again, the hanging of these men' was not a lynching.
They were executed in due form of law. They were
drawn to the place of execution in carts or wagons, of
V. hich there were many with the army, and if any im
provised platform was needed one of these was used.
The probabilities, then, are all against the use of as
crude a means as a barrel, particularly as Tryon, if not
present at the execution, took an active interest in all
the preliminaries.
Benjamin Merrill, who was a captain of militia in
Rowan Oounty and, according to all accounts, an hon
est, upright man and a member of the Baptist Church,
had a wife and eight young children. "He died," says
Tryon, "under a thorotigh conviction of his crime and
the justness of his sentence and addressed himself to
the spectators to take warning by his suffering." In
this Tryon is sustained by Morgan Edwards, 8 Colonial
Record, page 656. He was not at the battle of Ala
mance, but was "one of those who opposed General Wad-
dell." His dying request that the forfeiture of his prop
erty should be remitted, was afterwards respected in
behalf of his wife and children. Of Robert Matear little
is known. He was an unmarried man whose aged par
ents had conveyed him all their property. Caruthers
says that he went with Robert Thompson on the eve of

26 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
the }3attle of Alamance to confer with Tryon on some
plan for composing the troubles ; that he with Thompson
was held as a prisoner, though he had never taken any
part in any riot and was a Regulator only in sympathy.
Against this^ however, is the fact that he was convicted
at Hillsboro and executed though six other convicts were
respited and afterwards pardoned. In his case, too, and
in behalf of his aged parents, the forfeiture was re
mitted. Of Captain Messer nothing is known except
what is told by Caruthers, and much of that is probably
fictitious. He was an infiuential man, who had taken
an active part in the Regulator troubles. He was cap
tured at Alamance and on account of his prominence
was to have been hung the day after the battle, but at the
time set for the execution, his wife and oldest child, a son
ten years of age, appeared upon the scene. She threw
herself upon the ground in an agony of tears, while he
stepped up to Tryon and asked him to hang him and let
his father live. The Governor asked him who had in
structed him to do so. ^ "Nobody," answered the boy.
"What is your reason, then, for making this offer?"
"Because if you hang my father, my mother will die and
the children will perish." Tryon was very much
touched at the child's earnestness, simplicity and cour
age and promised that his father should not die that day.
On Fanning's suggestion (the only instance recorded in
which he was not standing at Tryon's ear as a tempting
fiend), Messer was offered a pardon on condition that he
go out and bring Herman Husbands in. Herman, at the
first gun at Alamance, had mounted his hor^ and fled
to parts unknown. Messer accepted the offer, and leav
ing his wife and son as hostages, pursued Husbands into
Virginia and overtook him there, but not having suffi
cient force failed to capture him. He returned then
alone and he was again put in chains until his execu
tion. His wife was sent home, but his son was kept as a
foot page by Tryon. It is entirely improbable that Gov
ernor Tryon, with the Court awaiting him for the trial
of all prisoners at Hillsboro, would have taken the life
of any prisoner after the battle without some color of ex
cuse if not justiflcation. He did hang James Few (a
cruel and unnecessary act), but he was one of the Hills-

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 27
boro rioters against whom a true bill had been found at
New Bern the March before, and while the sixty days
had not expired after the advertisement required by the
Johnston Act to make him an outlaw, the fact that he
was taken in arms against the government might very
plainly be taken as a waiver of his right to plead to the
indictment. (See Appendix O.) It is certain that
Tryon considered all of the 62, against whom true bills
had been found, as outiaws whose lives were to be taken
and whose property was to be wasted, but he himself re
spected and required his army to respect the lives and
property of all others, as his order book shows. Now
Messer was not one of these, and James Pugh, a more
active and a more dangerous Regulator, was not one of
these, and both were carried to Hillsboro, tried there,
convicted there and executed there.
If, too, this pathetic incident had really occurred at
Alamance, it is utterly inconceivable that the forfeiture
of Messer's property should not have been remitted for
the beneflt of his wife and children, though he might
have been executed.
Rev. George Mieklejohn was concerned in one of the
most interesting episodes of the exciting events then
occurring in Hillsboro. Thomas Person, for whom as
General Person, the county of Person was afterwards
named, had been arrested and put in the jail at Hillsboro
to await his trial at the coming special term of Court.
There was little or no evidence of his participation in
any illegal act of the Regulators, except that contained
in some papers left at his home, Goshen, in Granville
County, some thirty-five miles distant. Mr. Mieklejohn,
his friend, as well as his pastor, was allowed to visit htm
in jail. He frankly told the parson of his trouble, and
the old gentleman, though a warm supporter of the gov
ernment and an ardent advocate of the "right divine,"
volunteered to secure the papers and destroy them before
Person's house could be searched. To do this and avoid
suspicion required a night ride of sixty of seventy miles.
Now, Mr. Mieklejohn, besides having an appreciative
taste for ardent spirits, had a discriminating and dis
cerning eye for a fine horse, and owned at that time a
very swift mare. This at 'nightfall he mounted, rode to

28 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
Goshen, secured the papers, destroyed them and next
morning appeared as usual on the streets of Hillsboro,
mounted on his mare, after having well fed and well
rubbed her. Something, however, had happened the
night before to excite suspicion, and when asked if he
had not taken a night jaunt, he whipped the devil around
the stump, by saying that if he had, his mare would not
appear so "gaily" that morning. For this, the old par
son found Goshen a place of refuge during the Revolu
tionary War and a home in his old age, even after Gen
eral Person's death. He lived to be nearly if not quite
one hundred years old.
Tryon, when he returned from Alamance, sent a squad
of soldiers to Person's house to secure evidence against
him. Though they broke open his desk and ransacked
his papers, no evidence was found. From lack of this he
was not tried. He was, however, drawn with the other
prisoners, to the place of execution and then back to the
jail. He was confined three weeks in Hillsboro, was
then carried to Wilmington and released on bail there.
He appeared at New Bern November 22, 1771, as a dele
gate from Granville to the Assembly.
The War of the Regulation and its more serious con
sequences ceased upon the departure of Tryon's army
from Hillsboro, June 20th. He, himself, left imme
diately for his new government of New York.
It is not intended to assert that Tryon had none of the
harshness and haughtiness of the gentleman soldier of
the period. But to view him properly it must be remem
bered that the position forced upon him by the Regula
tors required him to use effective means to quiet disturb
ances which had assumed the form of open defiance and
armed resistance. No means under the circumstances
could be effective without operating harshly in indi
vidual cases. No forbearance, no mercy, no courage, no
-n isdom could prevent this. The Almighty Himself does
not prevent the harshness of general laws that govern
and control the affairs of this world. Governor Tryon,
then, was a fallible man dealing with an exceedingly try
ing and difficult situation (and he dealt with it effec
tually, though making mistakes, as he necessarily must) ,
and not a great wolf harrying and destroying a weak and

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 29
defenceless flock, as some historians would have us be
lieve. Edmund Fanning, already Surveyor General of the
province of New York, left also for that province late in
1771. At the September Term of the Hillsboro Court
he appeared as an attorney in North Oarolina for the
last time. Governor Martin, Tryon's successor, a gar
rulous and tactless man, but seemingly anxious to do jus
tice and love mercy in his dealings with the people of the
province, prevailed upon him to take a nonsuit in the
actions which he had brought against individuals for the
destruction of his properly, on the promise that the As
sembly should reimburse him the £1,500 that he claimed.
This sight draft upon its benevolence the Assembly next
year refused to honor, so Mr. Fanning had to pocket his
loss. Here Hillsboro takes leave of him, and so, after a
few words, must we.
He was no more the demon that tradition paints him
than he was an admirable character. He was outwardly
a gentleman, polite, even courtly, in his intercourse with
his equal, but supercilious and haughty to those whom
he regarded as inferiors. To describe him in a term, he
v.as a gentleman carpet-bagger, looking upon the people
about him as inferiors, if not aliens, to be used for his
own purposes. Rights of theirs which conflicted with
his interest he would not respect. He was then, in his
dealings with them, not only unscrupulous, but over
bearing, tyrannical.
He was by no means a coward, his subsequent career
shows this, but no man of high courage would have
accepted life upon the conditions that the Regulators im
posed upon him in September, 1770. He would rather
die, and dying, sell his life as dearly as possible. This
high courage is rarely found in such a character as his.
The weak and helpless, the ignorant and the lowly can
never be its victims. His is a character, however, that is
not essentially cruel. Once, though, heap indignities
upon him when he is helpless, once outrage him in every
fi_bre of his nature, and he is cruel, relentlessly cruel.
Never in the history of North Oarolina was a high-
spirited man so unmercifully, so hopelessly disgraced as
was Fanning. He found peculiar pleasure, then, in lay-

30 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
ing waste the farms of the so-called outlaws, in suggest
ing and witnessing the summary execution of James
Few, in taking part as an officer of the guard in the legal
executions at HiUsboro, and, perhaps, in hastening the
end of James Pugh at that time. This was his revenge,
and no doubt it' was sweet to him. James Few had aided
in destroying his house, had, probably, beat him and had
joined in the chase down Ohurton street. James Pugh
had been a leader in all these attacks upon him, and pos
sibly the others had participated in them. They had
had their revenge then ; now he had his. Notwithstand
ing all this, he was not a demon, not essentially a cruel
man, cruel though he may have been in pursuit of re
venge, but a fair average character among the gentlemen
of the period. But he was not sufficiently fearless to
meet any odds in a cause he believed to be right, not suffi
ciently self-sacrificing to be a patriot. Afterwards then,
in New York, he was a Tory. Such characters are always
Tories, and will be until the end of time. In his removal
a dangerous foe to the liberties of the people was trans
ferred from North Carolina to New York.

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 31

CHAPTER III.— 1772-1774.
For the first time in a year and a half there was a term
of the Superior Court for the Hillsboro district, com
mencing September 22, 1771, Judges Maurice Moore and
Richard Henderson presiding; 74 cases on the trial
docket, 54 on the reference and 171 on the appearance.
Among all these cases, however, there was none of his
torical interest except one entitled as follows :
James Few vs. Francis Nash — case, plea non assump
sit — abated by the hanging of plaintiff. Thomas Clark
qualified as Clerk and William Kennon, Adlai Osborne
and John Cooke as attorneys at this term. Thomas
McGuire, an Irishman" and an able lawyer, Attorney-
General of the province. John Williams, Edmund Fan
ning, William Hooper, John Kinchen, James Milner and
Francis Nash were the other attorneys present.
Herman Husbands having been expelled and John
Prior having died, Ralph MaqNair and Fjancis Nash
^ere elected Representatives for the county in their
stead, and took their seats in the Assembly December
10, 1771.
All the troubles and anxieties of the Regulator period
being past, the little town was to have a gala season dur
ing the summer of 1772. It had grown much, had quite
a number of substantial if not wealthy inhabitants,
whose residences, scattered along King, Queen, Tryon
and Wafce streets and Margaret lane, were, if not hand
some, commodious and comfortable. Of these William
Johnston (the senior partner of the mercantile firm of
Johnston & Thackston), James Thackston (the junior
partner), Ralph MacNair (another merchant), John
Dowell (still another merchant), Nathaniel Rochester,
James Watson (who had succeeded Fanning as Regis
ter) , Thomas Watts, John Kinchen (an attorney) , Thos.
Burke (a new arrival, of whom hereafter), and Francis
Nash, were easily chief. In the county, too, and north-
-Rest of the town, were the Bentons. Eighteen miles
east was Mr. Richard Bennehan, with his large posses
sions and hospitable home; in Granville, were the Hen
dersons and Williams; fourteen miles west, was the

32 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
country seat, Winindale, of Mr. Samuel Strudwick, mem
ber of the Council and friend of Governor Martin (see
Appendix D) ; and south were Thomas Lloyd and John
Hogan. When, therefore, it was announced that Gover
nor Martin was to transfer his Court from New Bern to
Hillsboro for the summer of 1772, all these good and
loyal servants of the King were alert to give his repre
sentative a suitable reception. The following letter to
Richard Bennehan, Esq., speaks for itself :
"Hillsboro,, June 29 (Monday), 1772.
"Dear Sir : — This serves to acquaint you that the Gov
ernor's baggage arrived at this place on Saturday even
ing last. The letters that came say that His Excellency,
with his family and retinue left New Bern the 21st cur
rent, and is not expected to be 'nearer than Nathaniel
Cary's this night, owing to his horses being in bad plight,
though Colonel Nash sent off five yesterday to meet them,
which will be some assistance. It is thought that they
will not get further to-morrow evening than Wake Court
House or Nathaniel Jones', so that they can not reach
Hillsboro before Wednesday night. They travel very
slow and are upwards of twenty in number. However,
it is agreed that we start to-morrow morning after break
fast in grand cavalcade and not return until we meet
them. Messrs. Hogan and Osborne join us at John
Booth's, and I hope you will at John Patterson's. If we
get there first will wait for you, and if you arrive first
you mav stay for us. I am, defir sir,
"Your most obedient servant, "Wm. Johnston.-'-'
Governor Martin followed the route taken by Tryon's
army the year before, so passed by Patterson's and New
iffope Creek (about half way between Chapel Hill and
Durham as localities are now), and entered Hillsboro
from the south. It is not recorded where the grand cal-
valcade met him, but we may be sure that the little bor
ough and the surrounding country greeted him on his
arrival at his destination, Thursday, July 2, right roy
ally. Says he, writing to Earl Hillsboro, six days after
wards : "I see with pleasure this borough recovering of

HiUsboro — Colonial and Rccohitionary. .33
the violence of the late insurrection, marks of which still
remain to keep alive a dreadful remembrance of that
unaccountable commotion in the minds of its inhabi
tants, who received me on my arrival here with every
demonstration of respect and loyalty."
There are no traditions, except a very vague one, in
regard to this stay of Governor Martin in Hillsboro. So
it is impossible to ascertain with definiteness the place <if
his abode. There were, at least, two taverns in the town
at that time. One that later wa^ known as Faddis',
which stood diagonally across King street from the
court house and was set back about twenty-five yards
north of that street. This was the tavern which in 1778
excited the admiration of Judge Iredell, on his way
through HiUsboro to Salisbury, and still later was used
as Cornwallis's headquarters. Another very much less
pretentious was on Ohurton street and just north of
what is now Parks & Hedgepeth's store. Some of the
Governor's retinue, no doubt, were accommodated at the
former of these taverns. It is possible, of course, that
some of them were entertained by the citizens of the
town. The only colonial house now standing in the
town is the old part of the residence of Judge Xash,
afterwards used by his daughters and niece (the Misses
Nash and Miss Kollock) as a school room and recitation
rooms. Tradition says that this was at one time occu
pied by a colonial Governor, and as Martin was the only
one of them who made a prolonged stay in Hillsboro, it,
if true, must refer to this period. However this may
be, it is certain that the citizens of the place and the sur
rounding country used all their resources to the best
-effect in entertaining their distinguished guest. His
residence in Hillsboro, too, no doubt attracted other
prominent men. It is certain that Chief Justice How
ard, Judges Moore and Henderson, Attorney-General
McGuire, Alex. McCulloch and Samuel Strudwick were
there and almost as certainly others, and many of them
with their ladies. The Governor commenced his. return
tiip via Halifax to New Bern, September 25th.
There was another event in the history of the town
during that year that was of even more importance to its
future, indeed to the welfare of the State at large, than
3

34 HiUsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
Tthe Governor's visit, and that was the location of Thomas
Burke in it. He was admitted as an attorney March 23,
1772. He was a native of Ireland, a gentleman by birth,
and a physician by profession, had settled in Accomac
Oounty, Virginia, had gone thence to Norfolk, had there
changed his profession to the law, and, as before said,
had come to Hillsboro to practice it. He was at this
time (if Wheeler is to be believed) in his twenty-sixth
year, "of middle stature, well formed, much marked by
smallpox, which had caused the loss of his left eye. His
remaining eye was an expressive mild blue." No doubt
"an expressive mild blue" to his daughter, who gave this
account of his personal appearance, and no doubt upon
occasion it would lose this mild blue and fiash indigna
tion and wrath, for with an Irishman's virtues, he had
an Irishman's faults. He had a big heart and a big
brain, and was always ready to fight and equally ready
to forgive. If it had not been for his big brain and
heart, his quickness to resent a real or imagined insult
would have made him a mere fire-eater, constantly
thrusting his sensitive honor in the faces of his asso
ciates. As it was, no man had warmer and more de
voted friends, fight though he would, if insulted. It was
a time when men's so-called honor had erected an objec
tive standard to test their conduct, to the disregard of
the subjective one which one's own conscience and judg
ment must provide. It was Burke's subordination of
tlie latter to the former that afterwards caused his death,
and prevented his ranking as a statesman with Samuel
Johnston, as a lawyer with Iredell, as a people's man
with Alexander Martin, for, barring this, he had the
mental characteristics that would have made him equal
if not surpass them all in these capacities, so many sided
was he. But this is a story that is to be told hereafter.
What a contrast there was between this fiery Irishman
and his friend and competitor at the bar, William
Hooper, both at one time residents of Hillsboro and both
buried here! Hooper was calm, serene and unruffled
under any and all circumstances, one of the rare charac
ters that meets the world and life as friends, welcomes
them as friends, and is dealt with kindly by them as a
consequence. His person was handsome, his manner

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 35
easy, graceful and impressive, but his style was too ornate
and diffuse for the best effect. He was at this time
(1772) only thirty years of age, had been a law student
of James Otis, of Massachusetts, and no doubt had im
bibed many of his views on politics, had, in 1767, mar
ried Ann Clark, a sister of Thomas Clark, of Wilming
ton, recently appointed Olerk of the Hillsboro Superior
Court, and afterwards a general in the Revolutionary
War, and had located at Wilmington for the practise of
his profession. He belongs, however, as much to Hills
boro as to Wilmington, and as much to the State at
large as to both of them. Unless his portraits flatter
him, he must have been a man of rare personal attrac
tiveness. His head and face and eyes emphatically
mark him as the handsomest of the signers of the Decla
ration. His eyes are particularly expressive, calm, se
rene, honest, truthful, far-seeing.
Another visiting attorney at the Hillsboro Courts at
this period was Abner Nash, of New Bern. He was an
older brother of Francis, had come into the province
from Prince Edward County, Va., in 1763, had settled at
New Bern ; after the death of Governor Dobbs, had mar
ried his young widow, nee Miss Justina Davis (upon
that marriage depends much of the subsequent history of
the period), and after her death had, in 1773, taken as a
second wife Miss Mary Jones, a Chowan heiress. He
was a man of decided ability, both as a lawyer and
speaker, but was hampered all his life by ill health and
expensive habits. Nevertheless, he made a very consid
erable flgure, to use a phrase of the times, before, dur
ing and after the Revolutionary period. He, too, was
interested in Hillsboro, owned some of the town lots,
and had dammed the Eno and erected the first mill in
the corporate limits of the town.
James Milner, of Halifax, was another attorney in full
practice here, sharing with John Williams, John Kin
chen and McGuire the cream of the practice. He died,
however, the following year (1773). I have now in
my possession a law book, formerly his property, and
containing his coat of arms. From the September Term,
1772, to the March Term, 1778, there is an impressive
blank in the records of the Hillsboro Superior Court.

36 HiUsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
The explanation is, in short (I do not pretend to give a
full history), as follows: Governor Dobbs, in his last
will, left a legacy of £2,000 to his young widow, and ap
pointed his sons, Conway and Richard, executors. His
lands in North Carolina were chargeable with this leg
acy, and Abner Nash, after his marriage with Mrs.
Dobbs, a.cting under the Tryon court law, attached these
lands and had judgment. The devisees and heirs at law
of Governor Dobbs procured an injunction which the
provincial Court of Chancery made perpetual. From
this decree, Mr. Nash appealed, and it Avas reversed by
the Privy Council (the Court of Appeals in colonial
causes) in May, 1774, the Court saying it could not get
over the Tryon law. While this cause was pending, how
ever. Lord Hillsboro was Secretary of State for Amer
ica, and Lord Hertford Lord Chamberlain, and both
were members of the Privy Council and North of Ireland
men, and friends and neighbors of the Dobbses. They
then, so it is stated, caused peremptory instructions to
be sent to Governor Martin to refuse his assent to the
continuance of the attachment provisions in the new
court law which was to take the place of the Tryon act
in March, 1773. Then began the controversy between
the Governor and Assembly, increasing in acrimony
year by year, and resulting in the immediate destruction
of the courts and the ultimate flight of Governor Martin.
The opposition to the Stamp Act in North Carolina
was conflned almost wholly to the seacoast towns. It
A^as vigorous and effective there, for Governor Tryon,
with great tact and political acumen, yielded to the op
position, and in yielding made lasting friends of its
leaders. So much so that in the heat of the controversy
about attachments, they appealed to him to use his in
fluence with the government to have the instructions to
Governor Martin recalled or greatly modified. He did
succeed in having them modified, but not to the extent
demanded, and did have North Carolina, as well as his
own government (New York) exempted from the re
straining Act of 1774.
The trouble in Boston, the massacre of the citizens
(1770), the acts against the commerce of that port, the
quartering of soldiers upon its inhabitants, caused a

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 37
wave of sympathetic wrath to stir the people of North
Carolina, as it did those of other provinces, and gave
point and illustration to the arguments of the Whig
leaders. The duty upon tea and the opposition thereto
(1773) intensified this feeling. But there was nothing
immediately tangible that affected the great mass of the
people, untU the struggle about the attachment law be
tween Governor Martin and the Assembly began. The
Whig leaders had at last something that could be
brought home to the minds and hearts of the people.
The other provinces had similar attachment laws. At
¦ home they existed in the cities of London and Bristol
and York. To deprive North Carolina of them, then,
was an exercise of purely arbitrary power, to be resisted
even to the destruction of the courts. Poor Governor
Martin all during this controversy was a pitiable object.
His devotion to his royal master was so intense that it
was pathetic, and all his sensibilities were being con
stantly outraged by the bold, firm, compact, unyielding
replies to his addresses. Now with tears in his eyes he
v.'ould plead with them, now with wrath and disgust in
bis heart he would scold them, but always to find himself
in the end a feeble, if not foolish, man contending with
strong men, conscious of their power and daring to use
it even against his royal master. This attachment trou
ble, then, was the immediate means by which the people
Avere aroused to a sense of impending trouble and a
knowledge of their own strength. And in this way it
facilitated a union of the various provinces in a common
cause. On December 8, 1773, the Assembly appointed a
committee of correspondence. On August 25, 1774, the
first convention met and appointed delegates to the first
Continental Congress. That same year the first Con
gress met. A second Provincial Congress convened at
New Bern, April 3, 1775, and appointed delegates to the
second Continental Congress. All portentous events
that bore unconscious or only semi-conscious men on to
their destiny.
Ralph MacNair and John Gray represented the county
and Francis Nash the town in the first Assembly in
1773. The representation remained the same in the
second Assembly, except that Thos. Hart was substi
tuted for John Gray.

38 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
Thos. Hart alone represented the county at the first
Provincial Convention, and the town was unrepre
sented. In the Assembly of 1775, the representation of both
county and town remained unchanged.
In the Provincial Convention of 1775 the county was
represented by Thos. Burke, John Kinchen and Francis
Nash. Late in 1774, Hillsboro acquired another distinguished
citizen through the coming of James Hogg, a Scotch
man of culture and comparative wealth. He was of
the same family as the Ettrick Shepherd, and his wife
was second cousin to Sir Walter Scott. He was a native
of East Lothian, Scotland, but was a resident of the
parish of Reay, near Thurso, when he emigrated from
that country. He owned all the land for a mile and
more opposite the town along the south bank of the Eno,
but resided until 1793 or 1794 on what is now the Cam
eron property. About that time he removed across the
river to Poplar Hill, where is now the residence on Gen.
J. S. Carr's Occoneechee Farm.

Hillsboro — Colonial a)id Revolutionary. 39

CHAPTER IV.— 1775.
The story of Hillsboro in the Revolution commences
in 1775. There were many Tories in the county of
Orange at the beginning of that year — Regulators in the
outlying districts and Scotch and English merchants
in and about Hillsboro. There were many neutrals, too,
men who from timidity or constitutional conservatism
had not made up their minds. There was no safety com
mittee in the county, until the summer of 1775. The
principal event in the life of the town that year was the
meeting of the first Provincial Congress (the third con
vention) there in August. Before writing of this, how
ever, it is necessary to give a general view of the pro
gress of revolutionary sentiment throughout the prov
ince. In accordance with the recommendation of the
Continental Congress, safety committees had been ap
pointed in all of the eastern counties, and in a few of
the western. Some of these committees were appointed
in November or December, 1774, the remainder in the
spring or summer of 1775. The last Colonial Assembly
had met in New Bern, April 4, 1775, only to be dissolved
by the irate Governor on April 8. The second Provin
cial Convention had met at the same place April 3, and
adjourned April 7, after empowering John Harvey, or,
in case of his death, Samuel Johnston, to order, at his
discretion as to time, an election for delegates to attend
a third convention at Hillsboro. The battle of Lexing
ton had been fought April 19, and the news of it, by
express, had entered the province at Chowan County,
Wednesday, May 3, and passing by Edenton, Beaufort
Oounty, Bath, New Bern, Onslow County, Wilmington
and Brunswick had left it at Boundary, Tuesday, May
P. Governor Martin, the last week in May, had fled
from New Bern and taken refuge at Fort Johnson, June
2, . and in -July, finding it insecure from attack, had
ordered it dismantled and boarded the Cruiser, a sloop
of war in the Cape Fear River. The battle of Bunker-
Hill had been fought June 17. Troops and munitions of
Avar were being hurried to America by the British gov
ernment. A large majority of the Regulators in Orange^

40 HiUsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
Guilford, EoAvan, Surry and Anson, and nearly all the
Highlanders in Cumberland and other counties, were
still loyal to King and Parliament. There was no
longer any civil government in the province, and no
courts, save those of Justices of the Peace. It is true
that in some of the counties and towns, committees of
safety had usurped the functions of governinent, and
A\ithin their spheres governed wisely, firmly and mod
erately. But these Avere purely local concerns. There
Avas no general government, though Governor Martin,
from Fort Johnson or the sloop Cruiser, in the Cape
Fear, while he intrigued with the Regulators and High
landers, pretended still to exercise the functions of gov
ernment. He was, however, a mere paper goveriior, en
forcing his authority by paper proclamations. There
was no military organizatiouj save a few independent
companies and the militia, which in some counties was
preparing itself for defense by more assiduous drilling
and more frequent musters. Men everywhere, however,
Avere looking about them for implements of destruction,
furbishing old arms and purchasing new, seeing that
their poAvder horns and bullet pouches AA^ere filled, and
anxiously searching everywhere for the source of a new
supply of poAvder and lead when the old should be ex
hausted. Not food and raiment, but poAvder and lead,
AN-ere the principal concern of men in these "parlous
times" — where they could be found, how obtained. That
Avas the duty of the present, and they set about it right
manfully, leaving other responsibilities to be met as occa
sion required. And there was no excitement in it all.
AAved they may have been by the progress of great events,
but they Avere prepared to meet them with steadfast
boldness and firmness. If I were called upon to select
the period which best shoAved the characteristics of our
North Carolina ancestors, I should select the year 1775,
the year of the preparation. There was no civil govern
ment, there were no Courts, yet among a populace in
some sections so free and independent that they were
almost in a state of nature, there was no anarchy and
little lawlessness. The local committees of safety, con
fessedly exercising a usurped, but very necessary, au
thority, did so with firmness that was bold, yet with a

Hillsboro — Coloiiiul and Rcvolutionai-ij. 41
moderation that Avas wise. They dealt strictly with
open foes, but conciliatingly with those who were neu
tral. The former must recant or leave, while the latter
Avere unmolested. A man, as a general rule, might be
opposed to all this, might be clear headed enough to see
that it was simple rebellion and treason, and prefer to
remain loyal both to Parliament and King, and he could
do so with impunity, so long as he was not blatant or
aggressiA'e. Opinions of that sort, hoAvever, had best
not be published, yet there was always room at the altar
of these safety committees for political sinners to come
forward, confess their sins and receive absolution. The
power they exercised was practically absolute. It could
not be efficient without being so, but it was rarely exer
cised oppressively. The public safety, with foes at home
and abroad, was of course the supreme l3,w, and all who
threatened it must be dealt with, firmly and expedi
tiously. There could be no half measures here. Safety
could be found only in overawing internal foes while
they prepared to meet external ones. If this application
of the law of self-defence resulted in hardship to individ
uals, it was because they were willing to put themselves
in opposition to it, and must take 'the consequences.
The Whig leaders were not only wise and moderate
in their council, and bold and resolute in their actions,
but they were also conservative, conservatiAC beyond
understanding, almost ridiculously so. They insisted,
even after the battle of Lexington, and when the British
government was hurrying troops to America to coerce
them, that they might take up arms against that govern
ment while they remained loyal to the person and dyn
asty of the King, a position that is totally indefensible
from the standpoint of the lawyer and statesman, and
most of these leaders were lawyers and statesmen. It
was not timidity that caused this, but a strong disincli
nation to break loose from old traditions. The sanctity
of their oath of allegiance, the many ties that bound
them to the old country, the home of their fathers, the
dangers of an untried democracy, all "gave them pause"
until the hope of acco-mmodation was utterly gone. The
Mecklenburg committee had, alone of all the patriots of
all the colonies, on May 20, in a moment of defiant exal-

42 HiUsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
tation, on receipt of the news of the battle of Lexington,
"absolved themselves from all allegiance to the British
crown" ; but this resolution was so untimely to the Whig
leaders elsewhere that they not only did not endorse it,
but they did what they could to suppress it. This was
not the only North Carolina scheme that the Continental
Congress treated with scant courtesy, as being too rasp
ing to British nerves to be wisely encouraged at that
time. Several prominent citizens of Hillsboro were
interested with Richard Henderson in his Transylvania
purchase — Thos. Hart, John Luttrell, Wm. Johnston,
James Hogg and David Hart. This purchase from the
Cherokee Indians, March 17, 1775, of 200,000 acres, ly
ing in what is now Tennessee and Kentucky, was made
contrary to the King's treaties with the Cherokees and
the express instructions to his governors. These lands
the company energetically proceeded to colonize. At a
meeting of the proprietors at Oxford, September 25,
1775, James Hogg was appointed a delegate to represent
the colony of Transylvania in the Continental Congress^
and the proprietors sent with him a memorial which
concluded as follows :
"Therefore, the memorialists hope and earnestly re
quest that Transylvania may be added to the number of
the United Colonies, and that James Hogg, Esq., be re
ceived as their delegate and admitted to a seat in the
honorable, the Continental Congress."
Mr. Hogg reached Philadelphia, October 22, was re
ceived cordially by the individual members of the Con
gress, but could secure no official recognition by the Con
gress itself. Samuel and John Adams, probably ex
pressing the concensus of opinion, told Mr. Hogg: "We
have petitioned and addressed the King, and have en
treated him to point out some mode of accommodation.
There seems to be an impropriety in embarrassing our
reconciliation with anything new, and the taking under
our protection of a body of people who have acted in de
fiance of the King's proclamations, will be looked upon
as a confirmation of that independent spirit with which
we are daily reproached."
Again, it is certain that the policy of the Continental
Congress in dealing with the relations of the United

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 43
Colonies to the British government, was the policy also
or the Hillsboro Convention. Mr. Hooper, the head of
the delegation to the Continental Congress, was chair
man of the committee to prepare a test for the members
of the Convention to sign, and probably influenced its
form, if he did not write it himself. This test began :
"We, the subscribers, professing our allegiapce to the
King, and acknowledging the constitutional executive
power of government, etc." ; and on Wednesday, August
23, every member of the Congress, 184 in number, in
cluding John Phifer, Thos. Polk, Waightstill Avery,
William Kennon and John McKnitt Alexander, who,
three months before, had signed the Mecklenburg Re
solves, signed this test. Further than this, on Friday,
September 8, William Hooper laid before the House an
address to the inhabitants of the British Empire, un
doubtedly his own composition, which contained this
sentiment : "These are the heartfelt effusions < >t men
ever ready to spend their blood and treasure when con-
¦etitutionally called upon, in support of the succession
of His Majesty, George IIL, his croAvn and dignity, and
who fervently wish to transmit his reign to future ages
as the ord" (old English, beginning) "of common happi
ness to his people." Every member of the Convention,
including the five mentioned above, voted for the adop
tion of this address. This, on its face, seems to be strong
evidence against the authenticity of the 20th of May Re
solves. Why should these five prominent men of Meck
lenburg and Rowan so solemnly repudiate in August
what they had done in May? This they did, if the May
resolutions were authentic and without any protest, so
far as the journal shows.
It must be remembered, however, that Hooper and
Hewes and Caswell were in Philadelphia when Captain
.Jack presented the resolutions to the President of the
Congress. It would be preposterous to suppose that they,
representing North Carolina, should have no knowl
edge of them. If they did, no doubt they concurred in
the opinion that they were premature. The three of
them were, too, at the Hillsboro Convention and went
there no doubt with the intention of repressing any
premature, untimely and unwise action. To do this the

44 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
policy of the Continental Congress must be the policy of
the Provincial Convention. It would not do for North
Carolina to follow the lead of a back country settleinent
in an unwise defiance of the Avhole British power, and
thus isolate that colony from her sister colonies in their
attempt to secure living terms through the King's media
tion. No doubt these arguments convinced Mecklen
burg's representatives, and they signed the test and
voted for Hooper's address without compunction of con
science. No doubt, also. Hooper's address Avas made the
stronger on this point, because he wished to obviate, as
far as he could, the effect the Mecklenburg resolutions
might have, if known to the British authorities, upon the
negotiations to avoid war. And, finally, no doubt, these
resolutions were not only suppressed by the Whig lead
ers in Congress but also, as far as possible, b,A' the \A"hig
leaders in North Carolina, as premature, untimely and
unwise. They thus tenaciously held on to the shadow of
a hope that an accommodation might be reached byAA-hich
they might remain loyal subjects of King George. Never
theless they regarded the approach of war, which to them
«ven, was almost inevitable, with most remarkable calm
ness and equanimity. They would not provoke it, but if
it came they would cheerfully sacrifice their lives and
their property that their posterity might be free. Jos
eph Hewes was but a type of the North Carolin.a patriot
Avhen he Avrote the following, February 11, 1776 : "All
accounts agree that we shall haA^e a dreadful storm
bursting on our heads through all America in the spring.
V^e must not shrink from it. We ought not to , show
any symptoms of fear. The nearer it approaches and
th(^ greater the sound the more fortitude and calm,
steady firmness Ave ought to possess. If we mean to de-
feud our liberties, our dearest rights and privileges,
against the poAver of Britain to the last extremity, Ave
ought to bring ourselves to such a temper of mind as to
stand unmoved at the bursting of an earthquake. Al
though the storm threatens I feel myself quite composed.
1 have furnished myself Avith a good musket and bayonet.
AVhen I can no longer be useful in council, I hope I shall
be Avilling to take the field." It AA^as under the conditions
detailed above that men like this man Avere to meet in

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 45
Hillsboro Sunday, August 20, 1775, to establish a civil
government for the province and to provide means to
conciliate or overawe internal foes and to defend their
homes from the threatened invasion of external foes.
And right well they did their work. Says Colonel Saun
ders : "The more the action of this great Hillsboro con
gress is studied, and the events immediately preceding,
the more wonderful seems the deliberate, well consid
ered, resolute boldness of our ancestors." The members
from a majority of the towns and counties not appearing
on the 20th, Mr. Johnston adjourned the meeting until
the next morning at 10 a. m. Then all the counties (35)
and all the towns (9) were represented by 184 delegates.
Probably never since in the history of North Carolina
has a public body included in its membership so nearly
all the prominent men of the State. Every man that
attained any decided prominence in military or civU life
Aiithin the next few years was present except Abner
Nash, of New Bern, who, though an elected delegate, was
probably detained at home by illness. The work of this
Congress, except as it affected the fortunes of the resi
dents of Hillsboro and its vicinity, is of course not
Avithin the scope of this history. It seems to have all
been well considered, if not prepared, before hand, for a
great amount was done in the twenty days of the Con
gress. They provided a temporary civil government for
the province; they organized the military, continental
line, minute men and militia and directed a large issue of
paper money. The civil government was more efficient
for the times than one based on a written (.-onstitution
would have been, and the military system was so organ
ized as to bring out the whole fighting strength of the
province. There seems to have been no serious opposi
tion to any proposed measure except that of the organiza
tion of the military. The "fierce democracy" which the
next year made its power disastrously felt, was here
quiescent, as though unconscious of its strength or un
willingness to exert it. The Congress, after, working
through September 10th (Sunday), adjourned that even
ing. Johnston, Hooper, Hewes, Caswell, Maclaine,
Thomas Jones and Thomas Burke, were apparently its
dominant spirits, and it may have been that all of these
except Caswell, carried matters with so high a hand that

40 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
the sharp political contest the next year among the
Whigs themselves was the result.
Of them all, Samuel Johnston was intellectually and
morally the greatest. He was a gentleman in fortune
and by descent, and, being born at Dundee, Scotland,
December 15, 1733, was, at this time, in the very prime of
life, with all of his faculties matured and enriched by
observation and study. His frame was large and power
ful, his face, though built on rugged Scotch lines, was
handsome and strong, and his mind singularly clear, vig
orous and self-poised. His carriage was dignified and
bis manner, though cold, courtly and impressive. His
private character was beyond all reproach. He had none
of the vices of the period, great or small. Among men,
many of whom were almost incredibly convivial, he was
abstemious. Among men, many of whom gamed or
spent their substance in other riotous living, he was a
prudent, accurate, honest business man. Even Gover
nor Martin, to whose mind to be a Whig was necessarily
to be a rascal, could refer to him only in terms of respect,
and his neighbors and friends, many of whom were the
leading men of the province, were always deferential to
him. The weakness of his character (if it could be
called a weakness, a virtue, the sternness of conscious
rectitude, carried to an extreme), was that he could not
understand how smaller men than he, less honest-minded
men than he could conscientiously disagree with him
upon a public question, Avhen to his clear and vigorous ¦
and honest and instructed understanding, there could be
no room for disagreement. He could not see how an intel
ligent man, in so plain a matter, could be wrong-headed
without being wrong-hearted. Again, he could not
appreciate the frequently (more often than not), uncon
scious character of the bias that self-interest or some
minor influence, gives the views of these men, so he
writes of this very Congress: "We have not among us a
sufficient quantity of virtue and public spirit. Too
many are actuated by little, mean, dirty and selfish mo
tives." Yet it is very probable that these men were as
patriotic as himself and more active and energetic in the
public service, and no doubt to them he appeared "lofty,
unbending and impracticable." This lack of adapta
bility to the weaknesses, and of charity to the foibles or

Hillsboro — Colonial end Revolutionary. 47
faults of others led not only to his exclusion from the
council of safety. May 11, 1776, and the substitution of
Wiley Jones in his place, but also to his defeat in his
own county, Chowan, for election as a delegate to the
Halifax Congress, which met November 12th of that year.
And after that defeat and other indignities, he became,
as all such men do, the king of a coterie instead of a
leader of the people. That such men are not properly
valued is one of the CAdls of a democracy ; but time brings
its revenges. From his retirement in a few years he sees
these smaller men who have retired htm, adopting his
views and using his arguments, and he soon assumes his
proper place as Governor of the State and Senator in the
Federal Congress, commanding finally the respect and
admiration of the people, if he does not secure their love.
Of the others, Thomas Jones was a resident of Chowan
County, a man of family, at this time having young chil
dren. He was a very able lawyer, according to all ac
counts, was with the aid of the Pennsylvania, Connecti
cut and South Carolina Constitutions, and the discus
sions in committee, by Cornelius Harnett, Wiley Jones,
Richard Caswell, Abner Nash and others, and Samuel
Johnston and Thomas Burke outside, the principal con
structor of the Constitution of 1776. Dr. McRee, in his
life of Iredell, says that he was a man of genius and
learning, and was bom in England. The curious fact of
his life is that after the adoption of the Constitution, so
far as the public records show, he appears no more in
public life.
•Joseph Hewes was also a resident of Chowan, a mer
chant of Edenton. He was born in New Jersey in 1730
and died at Philadelphia, a member of the Continental
Congress, November 10, 1779, and was buried in Christ
church, his funeral being a public one attended by Con
gress as a body. He was one of the three signors of the
Declaration from this State. Miss Tarbell, in the July
McClure, of the current year 1901, gives a curious anec
dote of Hewes on the authority of John Adams in a letter
to a friend in 1813, thirty-seven years after the event.
"For many days the majority" (i. e., for independence) ,
depended on Mr. Hewes, of North Oarolina. WhUe a
member one day was speaking and reading documents

48 HiUsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
from all the colonies to prove that the general sense of
all Avas in favor of the measure, when he came to North
Carolina and produced letters and public proceedings
which demonstrated that the majority of that colony
Avere in favor of it, Mr. Hewes, who had hitherto con
stantly voted against it, started suddenly upright and,
lifting up both his hands to heaven, as if he had been in
a trance, cried out: "It is done! I Avill abide by it."
The record shoAvs that scarcely by any possibility can
this anecdote be true. Hewes remained in Philadelphia
during the winter of 1775-1776 and the spring and sum
mer of 1776. Both Hooper and Penn came home and
attended the Halifax Congress, which convened April
4, 1776. The resolutions empowering the delegates in
the Continental Congress to vote for independence were
adopted unanimously April 12th. They were forwarded
almost immediately to Hewes by Samuel Johnston,
President of the Congress, and the receipt of them AA^as
acknowledged by Hewes May 16th. He writes to Iredell
on May 17th that he had news of the Congress up to
April 22d. There was no general discussion of independ
ence in the Continental Congress until the introduction
of Richard Henry Lee's resolution on June 7th, and the
discussion ended by the adoption of the resolution on
June 11th. At the second discussion, when the Decla
ration itself was up, John Penn as well as Hewes was
present, and both Hewes and Penn had on June 28th pre
dicted its adoption by a large majority. It is perfectly
manifest, then, that at no period of the discussion could
Hewes have been unaware of the state of public senti
ment in North Carolina, and that though at first he may
have hesitated upon the advisability of a plain declara
tion, he was by June 7th heartily in favor of it.
Mr. Hewes' person was prepossessing and his counte
nance pleasing. Judge Iredell, in a letter to his father,
July 20, 1772, says of him: "There is a gentleman in
this town who is a very particular favorite of mine, as
indeed he is of everybody, for he is one of the best and
most agreeable men in the Avorld. His name is Hewes.
He is a merchant here and our member for the town,
the patron and greatest honor of it. About six or seven
years ago he was within a very few days of being married

HiUsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 49
to one of Mr. .Johnston's (Samuel's) sisters, Avho died
rather suddenly, and this unhappy circumstance for a
long time embittered every satisfaction in life to htm.
He has continued since unmarried, which I believe he
Asill always do." As a matter of fact, he did continue
faithful to his dead love and himself died unmarried and
left a large fortune.
Of Hooper and Burke I have already written, and
shall have much to say of them hereafter. The history
of Caswell is too well known to require any special no-
ti'ce. He was one of the greatest of the great men of the
period. He was wise in counsel and bold and prompt in
action, a leader of the people, A\ithout the use of the little
arts of the demagogue, while he retained the confidence
in a great degree of the conservative element. Alexan
der Martin is the only man who seems to have tempo
rarily undermined him in the affections of the people.
Archibald Maclaine was a true son of the Highlands,
bold, passionate, self-Avilled. Any opposition stirred his
wrath and he answered with invective and sarcasm. Dr.
McRee says : "The slightest spark sufficed to Idndle into
flame his combustible nature. The explosions of his
wrath were sudden and terrific ; and his fiery denuncia
tions and heated satire seethed and scorched as burning
lava." But he was placable and warm-hearted. He was
continuously in Provincial Congress or State Assembly
from 1774 to 1786, both inclusive, and was a very active
and energetic member of the Wilmington committee of
safety. He commenced life as an apprentice, for three
years, to a merchant in Dublin. He then came to Wil
mington, and with his brother set up a store there. Fail
ing in this, he studied law, and afterwards became one of
the three or four best lawyers in the State. He is said
to have had a powerful and rather rugged frame, capable
of great labor and endurance, and though somewhat
awkward and ungainly in his gesticulation, as a debater,
was exceedingly formidable. Beyond all doubt he had
remarkable literary taste for the period and locality. It
amounted almost to genius and his letters to-day are
green oases in the otherwise dry and dull desert of the
State Records, yet they show the characteristic self will.
if not petulance, of the man.

50 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
It can be readily imagined, then, that Ayith such men
holding the reins the Hillsboro Oongiess of 1775, effi
cient though its work was, ran roughshod over the preju
dices and passions of many of its members, resulting in
the sharp political contest of next year, between the so-
called aristocracy and democracy of the province.
Hillsboro at the time of this Congress contained in its
limits about seventy or eighty houses and three or four
liundred inhabitants, while there were many farm houses
or settlements in its immediate vicinity. Thomas Burke,
himself resided two miles northeast of the town, James
Hogg just east of it, on Avhat is now the Cameron prop- ¦
erty, and Mr. Ralph MacNair still farther east, on prop
erty formerly belonging to the Fews. The Avealthier
citizens had negro slaves and attendants ; food supplies,
including game, was abundant, and hospitality was the
law of the period. Hillsboro, too, had then "a most ele
gant tavern," to use Judge Iredell's description of it in
J 778. Yet, notwithstanding all this, it must have taxed
the little town very heavily to have suitably entertained
nearly, if not quite, two hundred visitors. Mr. Johnston
writes on August 22d: "The delegates are all in good
health, and Ave are tolerably Avell provided with accom
modations from the hospitality and obliging disposition
of the inhabitants of this town."
The place of meeting was the church ("remarkably
handsome church," quoting Judge Iredell agajnj, which
stood on the corner of Tryon and Ohurton streets. After
the organization of the Congress on the 21st, a rather
sardonic resolution was immediately passed, "that Col
onel Francis Nash wait on Rev. George Mieklejohn and
request him to attend and perform divine services,"
which he did, and opened Congress by prayers in this
church. It is nowhere recorded how the high Church
Tory parson stood the ordeal, but it may be certain that
if he had the courage of his convictions and any humor
in his composition, he incorporated in his prayers the pe
tition, "From all sedition, privy conspiracy and rebel
lion, good Lord deliver us." At any rate, he was called
upon to pray no more. Instead Rev. Henry Patillo, a
Presbyterian and a delegate, was appointed to open each
day's session with prayer and Rev. Charles Edward Tay-
l(.r to close it in the evening.

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 51
Francis Nash, who had been a resident of the town
since late in 1762, or early in 1763, was appointed Lieu
tenant-Colonel of the First Regiment of the Continental
Line September 1, 1775. He resided then west of the
church, on the site of what is now the Graham property,
and was soon to leave his young wife, a daughter of
Maurice Moore, and infant, to commence his brief mili
tary career. Orange was, besides, to raise three com
panies of minute men, and of these James Thackston
was appointed Colonel for the Hillsboro district. John
Hogan, a son-in-law of Thomas Lloyd, was Colonel;
John Butler, a brother of William, the Regulator,
against whom he fought at Alamance and Guilford
Court House, so it is said, Lieutenant-Colonel ; William
Moore (from Caswell), first Major, and Nathaniel Ro
chester, resident of Hillsboro, second Major, of the
county militia. Thomas Person, of Granville, and John
Kinchen, a successful lawyer of Hillsboro, were the
members of the provincial council for the Hillsboro dis-
ti'ict. The committee of safety of the Hillsboro district
was composed of William Taylor, Joseph Taylor and
Samuel Smith, of Granville; John Atkinson, John But
ler, and William Johnston, of Orange; John Hinton,
Joel Lane and Michael Rogers, of Wake, and Ambrose
Ramsey, Mial Scurlock and John Thompson, of Chat-
hani, and John Lark, at large.

52 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutiona/ry.

OHAPTER v.— 1776-1777.
The friends of liberty in and about Hillsboro were
particularly active during the year 1776. This town,
always obnoxious to the Regulators, Af as the place in all
the county where patriotic feeling was strongest, accord
ing to General Person's own testimony, while even he,
with all his Regulator sympathies, could not seduce
those factionists from their Tory predilections. The
truth is, that personal feeling entered as largely into
their determination to remain neutral in a doubtful
fight, or, if they took sides, to array themselves with the
loyalists, as it had done in their lawless acts in 1770.
The leaders of the Whigs now had been, Avith only a few
exceptions, their old time enemies. Governor Martin
had befriended and sympathized with them from the be
ginning of his administration, and had visited their set
tlements in 1772, and had, in 1775, sent agents among
them, who had no doubt used the personal element in
the situation to the best effect. Some, too, with noble
conscientiousness, remembered the stringent oaths they
had taken, and in a doubtful matter preferred to give
those oaths the benefit of the doubt. All honor to these
old Regulators who swore to their own hurt and changed
not. On the whole, however, the situation during the year
1776 was a distinct improvement over what it had been
in 1775. Particularly was this true after the battle of
Moore's Oreek, February 27, 1776. That battle con
vinced many of the justness of the American cause, and
they hastened to swear allegiance to the new order of
things. At that battle, and on the Tory side, we find.
such familiar names as Fields, Pyles, Hunter, Deviney,
York, etc. All these were active at the Hillsboro riot of
1770, and Robinson York was probably clerk of the
mock court whose entries upon the docket are still pre
served in the court house here. It is supposed that Rev.
George Mieklejohn went as chaplain of the Regulator
contingent to Moore's Oreek, as his name appears on the
list of prisoners, and he was, on May 3d next, paroled by
the Halifax Congress to that part of Perquimans County

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 53
south of the river, and allowed two weeks for removal.
In July, however, of that year it was reported to the
State Council of Safety that he was still in Orange
County, and peremptory orders were sent to the officer
commanding at Hillsboro to remove him immediately to
the place of parole. He presented a petition to the sec
ond Halifax Congress" of 1776, November 13th, and it
was referred to a committee of which Wiley Jones was
chairman and General Thomas Person was a member.
On November 24th the committee reported and he ap
peared, repeated and subscribed the oath of allegiance to
the State and was discharged from his parole. No doubt
he, then or soon after, took up his residence at Goshen, in
Granville County. James Hunter seems not to have
been at Moore's Creek, but was among the prisoners and
was paroled by the first Halifax Congress to Bute ( War
ren) County. A few months afterwards, September
6th, he took the oath of allegiance before the Council of
Safety at Salisbury and was allowed to return home.
(See Appendix E.) Michael Holt, one of the victims of
the Regulators in 1770, accepted a commission from
Governor JIartin, but repented on his Avay to the Tory
army, returned home and induced others to return with
him. He was afterwards arrested and sent as a pris
oner to Philadelphia. There, upon the recommendation
of the State Council of Safety, he was allowed to take
the oath of allegiance and return home, in late 1776 or
early 1777. Efforts to induce the Regulators to take the
oath were constantly-being made during 1776 and 1777.
Indeed, as late as 1778, two Magistrates for each district
in the county were appointed by the County Court to
tender the oath to the disaffected. This they did and re
turned a list of the recalcitrants to the [May Term of that
Court, as well as a list of those AA'ho took the oath. These
fists were ordered preserved and recorded, but unfortu
nately they can not noAV be found. The records, too, of
the Orange County Committee of Safety for 1775 and
1776, have been lost. We know only that John Hogan
was chairman and .James Hogg secretary of that com
mittee in 1776.
In pursuance of a general plan by the British Govern-

54 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
ment to occupy as many of the colonists as possible in
the resistance of an Indian invasion on their frontiers,
the Cherokee Indians, after having been supplied Avith
arms and ammunition by British agents, in the summer
of 1776, descended upon the outlying Avhite settlements
of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, and
massacred many Avhites. General Griffith Rutherford
Avas placed in command of the North Carolina militia
sent against them. Of this militia the Hillsboro district
was at first required to send 500 under the command of
Colonel Joseph Taylor, of Granville. There Avas great
difficulty in raising this number. So it was finally re
duced to 300, all of AA^hoin marched against the Chero
kees. The campaign Avas brief, but effective, the tOAvns
and crops of the Indians being destroyed and many of
their number slain and scalped Avith few casualties
among the AA-hites. The following are the names of the
officers of a detachment from the southern battalion of
of Orange County :
Major Hugh Tinnin; Captains, William Williams,
William Murray; Lieutenants, Joseph Thompson, Peter
O'Neal ; Ensigns, Edward GAvin, Elias PoAvell ; Corpor
als, George Holt, John Williams; Drummer, Jacob Al
bright. John Kinchen, James Saunders, John Butler, Na
thaniel Eochester and Thos. Burke represented the
county in the Congress Avhicli met at Halifax April 4,
1776, and William Johnston the tOAA-n. This Congress
had before it the form of a permanen;t constitution, but
after discussion and AAiiat seemed hopeless disagreement,
its consideration Avas postponed until the next Congress.
This discussion, hoAvever, developed considerable feel
ing, especially upon the limitation of the suffrage and
the method of electing State officials. Wiley Jones and
General Thos. Person were the leaders of the radical ele
ment among the Whigs, Samuel Johnston, Thos. Jones
and Thos. Burke of the conservative element. Though
Wiley Jones AA-as not himself a member of this Congress,
having gone to Georgia as Superintendent of Indian Af
fairs, Congress elected him a member of the State Coun
cil of Safety and excluded Samuel Johnston therefrom.

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 55
It is scarcely possible that these tAvo elements of the
Whig party assumed the form of distinct political organ
ization at this early day. It is certain, however, that a
great effort was made during the summer and fall to de
feat the most prominent conservative leaders at the elec
tion on October loth and thus prevent their influencing
the form of the constitution which was to be adopted at
the next Congress. These efforts Avere successful in
some instances. Mr. Johnston AA-as not only defeated,
but his defeat Avas celebrated, says Dr. MtKee, -with
riot and debauchery and the orgies Avere concluded by
burning him in effigy." Burke was excluded in Orange.
Wm. -Johnston was returned for Hillsboro only after a
vigorous contest followed by a petition against his re
turn. Abner Nash in New Bern, and Thos. .Jones in
Chowan, were also vigorously opposed, but were suc
cessful, as were Archibald Maclaine in Brunswick, and
Wm. Hooper in Wilmington. In many of the central
and western counties, however, the Radical element pre
dominated and was successful at the polls. The election
in Orange County, then, composing what are now Ala
mance, Caswell, Person, Durham and Orange Counties,
was a complete farce. The court-house in Hillsboro was
the only polling place in this large e^rtv^nc of territory,
and the freeholders came in such great numbers to vote
and crowded so tumultuously up to the polls, that the
election was several times stayed and finally closed at
sunset with only one-fourth of the votes cast. The elec
tion officers returned James Saunders, William Moore,
•John McCabe, .John Atkinson and John Paine as duly
elected delegates, and their return was petitioned
against. The Congress met at Halifax November 12th,
and on the 13th this petition was presented and referred
to the Committee on PriAileges and Elections, whose
chairman was Wm. Haywood, of Edgecombe, and a ma
jority of whose members were Radicals in their SAnipa-
thies. This committee reported November 24th in favor
of the sitting members, and the report Avas immediately
adopted by the House. Four days after, howevpr, No
vember 28th, this action was reconsidered, and, after de
bate, a new election was ordered for Orange County, to

56 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
be held on December 10th by Richard Bennehan, James^
Martin, Archibald Murphy, John Hogan and John
Kelly, or any two of them, commissioners appointed for
that purpose, with power in said commissioners to ad
journ it from day to day, not exceeding three days, until
all the votes were cast. The influence of Dr. Burke him
self, no doubt, procured this reversal of its ow^n action
by the House. The new election Avas duly held and
Thos. Burke, Nathaniel Rochester, Alex. Mebane, John
Butler and John McCabe were returned. The first four
took their seats in Congress December 16th, and John
McCabe, chosen in both elections, on the 17th. The bill
of rights was finally adopted December 17th, and the
constitution itself on the 18th. It can readily be seen,
then, that Burke, a bold, ready, fiuent debater, had little
opportunity to discuss these great measures in open
Congress. The Bill of Rights was an adaptation of the funda
mental principles of British liberty, to a new form of
government in which the people were to be supreme. The
constitution minimized the executive power to the low
est point possible, consistent with any efficiency at all,
AA^hile it secured the absolute independence of the judi
ciary — radical in the first instance, conservative in the
last. It created two electorates, one based on property
for the Senate ; the other on free manhood, with tax pay
ment, for the House of Commons, it gaA^e the General
Assembly the sole power to elect all State officers and
Judges, and practically all Justices of the Peace, for
they could be commissioned by the Governor, only upon
the recommendation of the members of the Assembly. To
be eligible as Senator, one must possess in fee 300 acres
of land ; as member of the House 100 acres either in fee
or for the term of his own life, both in the county repre
sented. The only check provided on the enormous power
given the General Assembly, a body of the larger land
owners, was annual elections.
"After all," says Samuel Johnston, "it appears to me
there can be no check on the representatives in a Democ
racy, but the people themselves, and in order that the
check may be more efficient, I would have annual elec-

h ilhhoro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 57
tions." This constitution was, then, it is evident, the
work of the conservative few, rather than the radical
many, though Mr. Johnston does write of the Congress
that adopted it : "Every one who has the least preten
sions to be a gentleman is suspected and borne down per
ignobile vulgus — a set of men without reading, exper
ience or principle to govern them."
Of course, it is impossible to specify with particular
ity what part the many great men who considered the
subject, had in the formation of this constitution. What
follows is merely an inference from contemporary cor
respondence. The ideas of the Radicals were in almost
all instances vague and crude, not understood by them
selves, and not capable of explanation. That they Avanted
universal suffrage, that they wished to minimize the
power of the executive, to make the judiciary dependent
upon the people to a greater or less extent, and the Jus
tices of the Peace, who composed the Oounty Courts
elected by the people, may be taken as absolutely true!
But having nebulous ideas themselves upon these sub
jects, they could never agree among themselves upon a
plan or the skeleton of a plan to effectuate their pur
poses. The conservatives on the other hand, lead by
Thos. Jones, who was a conservative of conserAatives,
not only had clear and distinct ideas of the general prin
ciples which they wished to incorporate in the constitu
tion, but also of the machinery by which they could be
incorporated, and this gave them a great advantage over
their opponents. They may have disagreed among them
selves upon minor points. It is supposed that both
Johnston and Jones at first were in favor of placing the
appointment of all judicial officers in the hands of the
Governor by and Avith the consent of an executive coun
cil. Burke was opposed to this, but wished them elected
by the General Assembly, securing their independence
by making their tenure during good behavior. Jones,
unlike Johnston, who sulked or lost his temper at the
slightest opposition, was a shrewd manager of men and
saw an opportunity here to conciliate opposition not
only among his political friends, but also among his po
litical opponents, so yielded this point and induced Mr.

58 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
Johnston to yield also, and afterAvards used it for Avhat
it was worth in securing the adoption of provisions of
greater importance. He also did all the mechanical
labor in the preparation of the copy of the constitution,
which he submitted to Congress on December 6th, and,
no doubt, it was largely due to his management that it
passed the ordeal of debate and amendment with the
limitation of the suffrage and eligibility to office and the
independence of the judiciary, substantially unimpaired.
The completed work Avas more nearly a practical appli
cation of the theorem, "That Avhich constitutes the State
is found rather in its culture than in the people as a
mass," than a distinctly Democratic constitution, yet, no
doubt, with an untrained and an almost universally illit
erate population, it was better so. North Carolina may
well, then, be proud of its first constitution and of those
"who constructed it. It is true that there AA'as nothing
original in it (for Avhich let us be thankful, for if Gold
smith's apothegm, "Whatever is new, is always false," is
correct, it is necessarily so in the science of gOA-ern-
ment), but it was built wisely and well, from material
already existing and not newly created for the occasion
and it served its purpose, until a Democracy conscious of
its power demanded its amendment.
The year 1777, the first of Governor Caswell's admin
istration was a quiet one throughout the State and espe
cially so in Orange County. The following ^Magistrates
were commissioned that year: Thos. Hart, John But
ler, Alex. Mebane, Sr., James Freeland, Alex, ilebane,
Jr., John Hogan, Chas. Abercrombie, Robt. Abercrom-
bie, Richard Bennehan, Nathaniel Rochester, Thos. Tay
lor, Richard HoUeman, Eli McDaniel, Wm. McCauley,
Wm. Rainey, Hugh Tinnin, Wm. Courtney, .John Nich
ols, John Steel, John Eay, John HaAvkins and Wm.
Cain. The fact that AA-ith few exceptions, the . above
names can now be duplicated in the communities in
which these Magistrates then resided, shows the im
mobility of the rural population of this section for the
past 125 years. In ^Nlay the Oounty Court resumed its
sittings, but no general court laAA^s having then been en
acted, it was occupied solely with county matters and

HiUsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 39
the probate of deeds: Nathaniel Rochester, Clerk; Alex.
Mebane, Jr., Sheriff, and James Watson, Register. At
the August Term of this Oourt, the following persons
trading to Great Britain or the British Indies within the
past ten years were cited to appear and take the oath of
allegiance and abjuration under the Act of May 9, 1777 :
James Hogg, John Macnair, David Robinson, Nathaniel
Rochester, Peter Smith, James Monroe, Henry MaxAvell,
John Hogan, James Reed, George Meek, Gilbert Eccles,
Henry Cooper, Wm. Rose and John McClellan. Of
these only Nathaniel Rochester and John Hogan ap
peared. Mr. Hogg was afterwards, at May Term, 1778,
cited a second time with James Monroe, Wm. .Johnston
and Samuel Strudwick. It is probable that all of these,
except Monroe, who was a hopeless Tory, took the oath
then, for all were on the jury of the Superior Court at its
next term. Mr. -Johnston's taking the oath Avas, no
doubt, merely formal, as he was then and had been from
the first a prominent patriot, and it Avas perhaps so with
Mr. Hogg, AA'ho was, as has been stated, secretary of the
County Safety Committee in 1776. It was otherAvise
Arith Mr. Strudwick, who had been one of the most prom
inent members of Governor Martin's administration,
and, so far as known, for the first time at this (^ourt,
gave in his adherence to the State. Quite a number de
clined to take the oath, and Avere given sixty days to de
part the country.
The following advertisement in the North Carolina
Gazette of November 17, 1777, calls attention in very
persuasive terms to a new and very useful industry, re
cently established at Hillsboro :
"The proprietors of a paper mill, just erected near
Hillsboro, in Orange County, give notice to the public
that their mill is now ready to work, and if a sufficient
quantity of rags can be had, they will be able to supply
the State Avith all sorts of paper. They therefore re
quest the favor of the public, and more particularly the
mistresses of families, and the ladies in general, whose
more peculiar province it is to save all their rags and
scraps of linen of all sorts. Old thread stockings,
thrums from their linen looms, and every kind of linen

60 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
is useful. As this undertaking is novel, saving of rags
may be thought too trifling and below the notice of the
good matrons of the State, but when they consider that
they are aiding and assisting in a necessary manufac
ture, and when the young ladies are assured that by
sending to the paper mill an old handkerchief, no longer
fit to cover their snowy breasts, there is a possibility of
its returning to them again in the more pleasing form of
a billetdoux from their lovers, the proprietors fiatter
themselves with great success. Persons in the several
towns and counties of the State will be appointed to re-
ceiA^e rags, for which a good price will be given."
John Holgan was the proprietor of this mill, and it
was situated one and a half mile northeast of toAvn.
On October 7th of this year General Francis Nash
died of a wound received three days before at the battle
of Germantown. His was perhaps the most attractive
character of colonial and revolutionary Hillsboro. Born
in Prince Edward County, Virginia, about 1742, he came
to Hillsboro on attaining his majority and soon took an
active and leading part in the social, industrial and
political life of the place. He was an attorney. Clerk
of the County Court (and of the Superior Court for a
short while). Judge of a Court of Oyer and Terminer in
1774, partner in a mercantile establishment, and part
owner and afterwards sole owner of a mill on the Eno,
and several times representative in Colonial Assembly or
Provincial Congress. He was from the first active in
military affairs, made some reputation at the battle of
Alamance, and was Captain, Adjutant and Colonel in
the county militia. All this, when real war threatened,
gave him a prominent place in the eyes of the public, and
he AA^as appointed Lieutenant-Colonel September 1, 1775,
Colonel April 10, 1776, and Brigadier-General February
5, 1777. He was a high-spirited and brave man, and
warm-hearted and generous to all about him. These
traits of character, together with his thoughtfulness and
considerateness for his men, made him. as General, very
much loved by them as an old letter which tlie Avriter has
in his possession, written years after his death, shoAA^s.
He was a man of considerable culture for the period.

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutiona/ry, 61
handsome in person, easy and graceful and gentie in his
manners, active, energetic and thorough in all that he
undertook. He was, too, a great horseman and prided
himself upon his fine stud. There are still traditions of
the noble stallion Avhich he took with him North and
which was brought back by his colored body servant
after his death. His military career Avas too brief for
him to have gained the fame that might have been his
had his life been spared. Short as it was, however, he
attracted the attention and gained the respect of General
Washington and his subordinates. In his dispatches
Washington speaks of him as a valuable officer, sent his
own physician. Dr. Craik, to attend him after his wound,
and paraded the whole army at his funeral. Mr. Burke,
then a member of Congress, and himself no mean author
ity on such subjects, writes of him that he was one of the
best, most respected and regretted officers in the Conti
nental army.
At the battle of Germantown his brigade with Max
well's constituted the reserve, and it was while leading
it to the support of Sullivan on the right wing that a
cannon ball striking a sign-post in the street or road that
ran through the long straggling village glanced, killed
his horse and mortally wounded himself. "Retaining
his presence of mind, he called to his men, 'Never mind
me, I have had a devil of a tumble ; rush on, my boys,
rush on the enemy, I'll be after you presently.' " He
was borne fainting from the field, and after lingering in
great agony for three days died and was buried in the
Mennonite church-yard at Kulpsville.
The writer has seen a copy of a letter written to his
young wife (nee Moore) on the eve of this battle, Octo
ber 1st. In it he expressed perfect confidence in the
final success of the patriot army under the leadership of
General Washington, for whom he had great admiration
and respect. He, though, ardently wished that that con
summation might soon come and he be allowed to return
home and pass the remainder of his days undisturbed,
with his Avife and children, two (not one, as generally
stated) of whom, infants, survived him.
The following anecdotes of him, originally published

02 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
in the University Magazine, are now incorporated in the
eleventh State Records. They are given, as far as prac
ticable, in the AVords of the narrator, Hugh. McDonald, a
private soldier of General Nash's brigade, though at the
time only fourteen years of age. From the internal evi
dence any old soldier Avill vouch for their truthfulness.
"On our march (to the South from Halifax) we lay on
the south side of Contentnea Creek, where there were
living an old man and woman Avho had a number of
geese about the house. The next morning about twenty
of their geese were missing. They came to the camp in
quiring about them, but getting no information among
the tents, they went to the General, Avho said he could do
nothing unless they produced the guilty. On his giving
them ten dollars, however, they went away satisfied. I
am sure I got some of them to eat. Being a sleepy-headed
boy, I always went to sleep as soon as the fires were
made, and having done so now, about midnight a Mr.
John Turner, a messmate of mine, tried to awaken me,
which he found difficult to do, but being a strong man, he
lifted me up and began sticking pins in me, until I was
fully awake, when he said : 'Damn you, go to the kettle
and see what you'll find there.' I went and found fowl,
fresh and fat. I did not understand it that night, but
did when the old folks came next morning inquiring
about their geese. The General, after paying them, gave
the men strict orders to be honest or he would punish the
least offense of that kind with severity."
The following occurred on their march North to join
General Washington :
"We then marched on and crossed the James River at
Richmond, where there were fishers, and having gotten
leave there also, to draAv the seine, every man took as
many fish as he Avanted. While passing through the
town a shoemaker stood in his door and' cried, 'Hurrah
for King George,' of which no one took any notice; but
after halting in a wood a little distance beyond, where
we cooked and ate our fish, the shoemaker came to us and
began again to hurrah for King George. When the Gen
eral and his aids mounted and started, he still followed
them, hurrahing for King George, upon which the Gen-

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 63
eral ordered him to be taken back to the river and
ducked. We brought a long rope, tied it about his
middle and seesawed him backwards and forwards until
we had him nearly droAvned, but every time he got his
head above water he would cry for King George. The
General having then ordered him to be tarred and feath
ered, a feather bed was taken from his own house, where
were his Avife and four likely daughters crying and be
seeching their father to hold his tongue, but still he
would not. We tore the bed open and knocked the top
out of a tar barrel into which we plunged him headlong.
He was then draAvn out by the heels and rolled in the
feathers until he was a sight, but still he would hurrah
for King George. The General then ordered him
drummed out of the west end of the town and told him
expressly that if he plagued him any more in that way
he would have him shot. So we saw no more of the
shoemaker." One shoemaker who stuck to the last.

G4 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.

OHAPTER VI— 1778-1779.
The surges of actual war disturbed the repose of Hills
boro little during the years 1778 and 1779. There Avere
increased energy and profit in its business enterprises, a
coming and going and drilling of soldiery, militia and
continental, a constant and anxious looking for news
from Washington at the North or from Howe or Lincoln
at the South, the bustle and stir of continuous prepara
tion of munitions of war or food supplies for the army,
but neither hostile Tory nor foreign invader came near
its borders.
In one particular, Hillsboro has been unique. At
every period of its history, from 1766 to the present time,
one or more of its residents has taken not only an active
and influential, but leading part, i a some sphere of public
usefulness. From this class it lost Francis Nash in Octo
ber, 1777, but it had Thos. Burke six years longer. Burke,
gay and rollicking, in private life, fond of Avine, women
and song, with all of an Irishman's pugnacity, generos
ity and humor, in public life, was recognized, in and out
of the State, as a brilliant lawyer and great statesman.
North Carolina, perhaps never had a greater influence
in national affairs than it had while he Avas a delegate in
Congress, 1777-1781. He, Avith John Penn, of Granville,
who defeated Joseph Hewes, and Cornelius Harnett,
chosen in the place of William Hooper, Avho declined a
re-election, were elected delegates on April 28, 1777.
Such was his physical energy and intellectual and moral
force that he soon took a prominent and influential part
in the debates and business of Congrjess. He was per
haps too impatient at the inefficiency of Congress, its
dilatoriness, its long and tedious debates when prompt
action was needed, and at the factions and cabals, Avhich
would sometimes make their appearance in it, but, no
doubt, his candor and honesty and directness of pur
pose, coupled with his unusual power as a debater, did
much to correct these evils. Notwithstanding all this,
his mistake in recommending Hand, of Pennsylvania, as
an additional Brigadier for North Carolina in the sum-

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 65
mer of 1777, Avould have blasted his political prospects
in the latter State, had it not been for the incident I am
about to relate. As it Avas, it called forth an indignant
protest from the North Oarolina officers ot the Conti
nental Une and prevented his re-election in April, 1778.
In the early spring of 1778, General Washington
wrote a letter to Congress in relation to the exchange of
prisoners. A committee was appointed to prepare a re
ply, and when it reported there were parts of the report
that appeared to reflect upon General Washington.
There was a long and acrimonious debate upon a motion
to strike out these parts, in which Burke was one of the
boldest and most outspoken opponents to the whole re
ply. No doubt these reflections come from those Avho
later in the same year composed the Gates cabal and at
tempted to supersede Washington by their new idol, the
hero of Saratoga. The opposition to the reply Avas
strong enough to have the objectionable parts stricken
out. It was nearly 10 o'clock p. m. when the vote was
about to be taken upon the reply as amended. It re
quiring the assent of nine States to the adoption of any
measure, Burke absented himself before the vote was
taken and thus broke the quorum. He was sent for and
returned a rough and disrespectful, perhaps profane,
answer. He afterwards explained this by saying that
he thought the message came from a private member, Mr.
Duer, of New York, and not from the President. Con
gress could only adjourn in his absence, and was in a
quandary when it came on the next day, and for nearly
fourteen days longer to discuss what it could and would
do with its recalcitrant member, Mr. Burke. Could it
commit or expel him with a quorum? Could it commit
or expel him in the absence of a quorum, as the real con
dition was? Did it have any power at all over these am
bassadors from those independent entities, the States?
Questions like these were discussed long and acrimon
iously for nearly fifteen days. Burke was very firm and
bold in his reply. "An unreasonable exercise of any
power is tyranny and to keep a member at such unrea
sonable hours, and under such circumstances is, in m;-
opinion, tyrannical, and I will not submit to it but by
5

06 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
force upon my person. I consider every freeman as hav
ing a right to judge for himself when the exercise of any
poAver is unreasonable, and if I err in my judgment the
poAver of punishment lies Avith the State which I repre
sent." Then he declared that he Avould sit patiently un
til every gentleman in the House who chose to speak
should have exhausted the whole of his eloquence,
and concluded: "I would only request then, that,
if they choose to use abusive language, they would
reserve it for some other place." Congress, with
out Burke's vote, Avas absolutely impotent, so did
nothing except to enter the proceedings on the jour
nal and refer the whole matter to the North Car
olina Assembly. Burke himself says, very naively, that
his course gave great offense to Congress. He did, how
ever, gracefully apologize for any excessive heat iu his
words or manner. "If the language and manner in
which I delivered my sentiments was not sufficiently re
spectful in the opinion of the House, I beg they will at
tribute it to inadvertence or imperfection of temper, not
design. I beg they will believe that no man is more un-
Avilling to give offense, no man more sincerely laments it,
Avhen it happens through the warmth or earnestness of
natural disposition."
At the General Assembly AAliich met in Hillsboro in
August, 1778, the whole matter was referred to a joint
committee of Avhich Wm. .Hooper was chairman. The
committee, on August 14th, reported, exonerating him
from all blame and sustaining him in the position that
he was accountable only to the State. This report was
adopted. Before this, on the 12th, hoAvever, his course
was endorsed by his practically unanimous election,
Avith Whitmel Hill as an additional delegate to Con
gress. It was during this year, 1778, that he appeared as
counsel for the Transylvania Company, before the Vir
ginia Assembly. It was an attempt to induce that body
to ratify the grants made by Indians to the company of
^and, lying in what is now Kentucky. The Assembly,
after hearing an argument from Mr. Burke, declared the
.rjrants void. This argument, though unsuccessful, ex-

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 67
torted from his clients in the midst of defeat, the folloAv-
ing tribute of praise : "It is universally given up on all
hands, that Mr. Burke did justice to the cause and for
my oAvn part, I think that we could not have been better
served on or off the continent." He had made k reputa
tion in Virginia even before he came to North Carolina.
Mr. John Tazewell, of Virginia, writing to him of the
election of Thomas Jefferson as Governor of that State,
says: "I should not have troubled you with so minute
an account of those matters had not your former resi
dence among us made me almost consider you as a Vir
ginian. Indeed I am still unAvilling to give up our
claim to so valuable a citizen."
After August, 1778, there were first five and after
wards six delegates from this State to Congress. Three
were required to be in attendance, though two could cast
the vote of the State. Who the three should be was left
to the delegates themselves. It is amusing to notice
the anxiety of those in attendance at Philadelphia, to be
relieved by those at home, out of attendance. It was a
game of see-saw in which those up wanted to come down
and those down wanted to stay down. The State rec
ords are burdened Avith letters from Congressmen in
Philadelphia to Congressmen at home, begging and im
ploring relief. The salary was inadequate, expenses
were great and health and private business were suffer
ing. Wm. Sharpe calls Congress "a house of bondage,"
and Cornelius Harnett writes Burke: "For God's sake
come on to relieve me in November, but at the furthest,
the very beginning of December, and make that domes
tic creature, Whitmel Hill, come with you. In fact I
cannot live here. The price of everything has advanced
150 per cent since we parted. I shall return indebted to
my country at least £6,000, and you very well know
how we lived. Do not mention this complaint to any
person. I am content to sit down with this loss and
much more if my country requires it. I acknowledge it
is cruel in me to Avish you to return. You have already
suffered more in your private concerns than any one who
has been in the delegation for some time past. But
you have this consolation, should you fail of receiving

68 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
your rcAvard in this world you AVill, no doubt, be singing
hallelujahs in the next, to all eternity, though I acknowl
edge that your voice is not very well calculated for that
business. Send somebody or other to relieve me and let
me, for God's sake, take my leave of this laborious, disa
greeable and perhaps unthankful office, forever." The
pathos and patriotism, if not sardonic humor, of this
letter had their effect, for Burke and Whitmel Hill both
appeared in Congress about December 1st.
In April, 1776, Ambrose Ramsay, of Chatham, and
Nathaniel Rochester, Wm. Johnston and Thos. Burke,
of Hillsboro, were appointed commissioners to estab
lish a gun factory in the district of Hillsboro and were
granted £1,000 for that purpose. The sum proved wholly
inadequate, and they used it in employing different
smiths to make the various parts of guns at their own
shops. The principal difficulty they encountered was
the securing a machine to bore the barrels, and a com
petent man to operate it. They finally surmounted
this difficulty and erected a shop on a creek on Mr.
Burke's land, about two miles northeast of Hillsboro.
The year 1778, however, proved a very dry one and they
could not get waterpower sufficient to operate their
machine, so the whole scheme fell through. The State
supplied itself with muskets from another source, and
the machinery and material collected were disposed of.
John Holgan, the paper manufacturer, whose adver
tisement I gave in the preceding chapter, met with the
same difficulty during the same year and he was given
further time to earn the premium offered by the State
for paper making, at the General Assembly which met
at Hillsboro in August, 1778.
The General Assembly which met at New Bern in
April, 1778, authorized the erection of a new court
house for the Hillsboro district at Hillsboro, and
appointed Nathaniel Rochester and William Courtney
commissioners for that purpose. These gentlemen pro
posed at first to build it of brick, as appears by an
advertisement in The North Carolina Gazette of June
26, 1778. From the scarcity, or cost of the material, or
for some other reason, they afterwards determined
otherwise, and built it of the ordinary lumber of the

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 69
country. It Avas a very substantial, weatherboarded,
one-storied structure, set somewhat high from the
ground, and entered at the front from broad and high
steps. The front door was a Avdde one and opened imme
diately into the court room, the bar and judge's bench
being in the opposite end of the building. It was,
located in the same square, but was much nearer the
street than the court house noAv is, and was about 40
feet long by 25 wide.- It was late in 1789 or early 1790
destroyed by fire.
For the first time in five years a term of the Superior
Court was held in the old court house at HUlsboro, on
March 24, 1778, Samuel Ashe and James Iredell presid
ing, and WaightsiU Avery prosecuting as Attorney-Gen
eral, John Henderson, of Granville, foreman of the
grand jury, and Joseph Taylor clerk. The name of
Burke was marked as counsel in the principal cases,
but he, himself, was absent as delegate in Congress-
Richard Henderson, William Hooper and John Kin
chen were the attorneys present most employed.
I regret that I have been able to discover little that is
not known of John Kinchen. That he was an attorney
AA ith a large and lucrative practice is shown by the
records, as also that he was an active, energetic, influ
ential, patriot; but of his family history, and when and
where he lived and died, little is known. I think it
probable that he lived some miles east of the toAvn, and
not in it, as there is no deed that indicates ownership of
a town residence, though there are several that show
that he owned land in the Little River section. His
court practice was large, but his office practice was
greater. He was knoAva as a wise counsellor, good bus
iness man, and excellent lawyer, among men of affairs,
throughout the whole section. He was the adviser,
during his life of Wm. Johnston, one of the most cau
tious and successful business men in the State, and one
of the trustees of his wUl at his death. That will was
long and complicated and the trusts therein of long con-
tinuance and in many respects discretionary. He was
probably very modest and self-distrustful in public
affairs. Governor Caswell, in 1777, appointed hioi,
with John Penn, to hold a Court of Oyer and Terminer

70 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
for the Hillsboro district that year. At the time set
Penn did not attend, and Kinchen, though much Penn's
superior as a lawyer, declined to hold it alone, and wrote
the Governor in modest self-depreciation that he had
neither ability nor experience sufficient to justify him in
taking the responsibility upon himself in Penn's
absence. He did not have the great energy, the fiery
eloquence, the combatativeness, the "dynamic force" of
Burke, so as a Revolutionary leader he was completely
overshadowed by him. It is probable, too, he had none
or little of Burke's bon hommie of his capacity for mak
ing strong friends,while his combatativeness made bitter
enemies, of his gift for tickling the ears of groundlings,
of his fondness for the loud applause and aves vehement
of the people, so we find him when the fires of revolution
were burning fiercest, retiring into comparative obscur
ity, Senator from Orange for a short term in 1778, a
defeated candidate for Congress in 1779, and a trustee of
Science Hall in Hillsboro in 1779, one of those institu
tions of learning in posse with big names and little
purses, that about that time the General Assembly tried
to establish at various points in the State ; and that is
all. On the whole he seems to have done his work faith
fully, but unassumingly and quietly, so no doubt was
one of those characters to whom the world owes so, much
but never or rarely acknowledges its debt. A brother
of his, William Kinchen, was captured with Burke at
Hillsboro in 1781, was carried to Wilmington and then
fO Charleston and died, after his release on his way
home. His widow and daughter afterwards married
members of the celebrated Mebane family.
An occasional Presbyterian service had for years been
held in the court house at Hillsboro by. Rev. David Cald
well, John DeBow, and others, but in 1777, for the first
time, regular services were held there in conjunction
with Little River and New Hope by Rev. Alexander Mc
Millan. This reverend brother was, however, deposed
by Presbytery in September, 1778, for drunkenness and
other acts of immorality. It was many years before
there was a regularly organized Presbyterian church in
the place, but Eno and New Hope were near by, and
Little River and Haw Fields were distant, respectively,
nine and fourteen miles.

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 71
The first commissioners of the town after the State
government was organized were William Johnston, Jas.
Hogg, John Sheels (whose famUy name exists now at
Shields), WUUam Courtney and .James Watson. Most
of these names are familiar to the readers of this series
of articles. WiUiam Courtney was a Quaker, or of
Quaker extraction, and comparatively a recent comer to
the toAvn of HiUsboro. At this period, 1777, 1778 and
1779, he kept a tavern in the place, but was a man of
parts and decided usefulness, represented the town in the
House of Commons 1777 and 1778, and there took a
leading and active part in the work of that body. He
was, too, a magistrate and a member of the County
Court. I believe nearly all of his descendants emi
grated in the early years of the nineteenth century to
Tennessee and Kentucky. James Watson was one of
the original settlers of the place, and succeeded Fanning
as Register, and was reappointed Register after the
organization of the State government, but died the fol
lowing year.
In the General Assembly of 1777, Thomas Hart rep
resented the county in the Senate, Nathaniel Rochester
and John Butler in the House. In May, 1777, however,
Rochester accepted the position of County Court Olerk,
which vacated his seat in the House, and at a special
election, November 24th, Thomas Burke was returned
for his unexpired term. William Courtney represented
the town.
At the first New Bern session of the General Assem
bly of 1778, Orange had no representative in the Senate.
At the second Hillsboro session, John Kinchen appeared
and qualified August 13. Gen. John Butler and Wil
liam McCauley, of South Orange, represented the county
in the House, and William Courtney the toAvn. General
Butler, however, having been appointed entry taker, his
seat was vacated April 27. Thomas Burke was elected
in his steady and took his seat at the Hillsboro session,
August 10, 1778. For 1779, John Hogan was Senator,
Mark Patterson, East Orange, and William McCauley,
members for the county, and Thomas Tullock for the
town. The summer session of the General Assembly of 1778,

72 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
which was held at Hillsboro, was very short, lasting only
eleven days. The Senate sat in the court house and the
House of Commons in the church.
In the year 1779, the whole State was busy with prepa
rations for sending re-enforcements of militia and the
continental Une to tlie aid of South Oarolina. Hillsboro
itself Avas one of the points at which supplies for the
militia Avere collected, and was the rendezvous of a regi
ment of light horse which was to go to South Oarolina
under the command of General Allen Jones. The drafts
from the mUitia of the Hillsboro district were to concen
trate at Charlotte, before marching south, and Gen.
John Butler was to command them. They formed part
of General Lincoln's army at the attack upon the enemy's
works at Stono ferry, in South Carolina, on June 20th,
and are said to have behaved well for raw troops. This
is one of the few instances in the whole history of the
Revolutionary War in which they did do well. They, as
a general rule, turned out for duty at the command of
their officers. Says Whitmel Hill, in writing to Burke,
.April 28, 1779 : "You will find a greater proportion of
our militia in the field than of any other State on the
continent." They marched willingly and bravely to the
battlefield ; they fought coolly and efficiently for a round
or two, and then, when at all pressed, in an almost in
conceivable panic, rushed from the battlefield, each
man trusting to his own heels to bear him from danger
to a place of safety. And, generally, they did not stop
until they reached home. It is said that General Butler
himself approved these tactics, and thought that militia
man who could do most execution in one or two rounds
and then could carry his own carcass home safely and
expeditiously, the most valuable of the irregular sol
diery. He was not only perfectly willing to condone
this Aveakness of his folloAvers, but encouraged them in
it by taking a leading part in the race himself. There
is. a jingle which even now may be heard along the
banks of Haw River :
There was a man whose name was Gray
From Guilford battle ran away
And though by the way he made some loss
He beat Gen, Butler's old black horse.

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 73
I must not be understood to be affixing to them the
stigma of cowardice.' I do not believe they were cow
ards. Very fcAv of their race have ever deserved to be
called cowards. Their habits, the manner of their liv
ing, the kind of combats in which they had had any ex-'
perience, made each one of them, as an individual, an
exceedingly formidable opponent, brave, active, self-
reliant, quick witted and resourceful. Let him be at
tacked, though, by overpowering numbers, and he
thought it no dishonor to save himself for another day
by fiight. He could then take his enemies one by one
and fight them man to man. But he knew nothing of
fighting in mass, nothing of the courage and confidence,
that come from touch of the elbow, so when the British
regulars charged, each miliatiaman felt that the charge
Avas made upon him alone, and against such odds,
against such an imminent threat to his life, he could do
nothing except die or fly, and almost invariably he chose
the latter alternative. Neither he nor his officers had
the confidence that come from thorough training, and
his self-reliant independence was in itself a source of
weakness in a pitched battle with regulars. This, it
seems to ine, is the real reason why the raw recruits of
the Civil War were stauncher soldiers than the raw
militia in the Revolution. These recruits were all from
more or less thickly settied communities. They had
acquired the habit of relying upon their neighbors.
They were amenable to judgment and condemnation by
an existing public sentiment. They had acquired the
habit of acting in mass in all public matters, and not
upon their own individual initiative. So, as long as their
neighbors stood, they would stand — to the death, if nec
essary. Gen. -John Butler was a prominent man in Orange
County for twenty years, and had the confidence of the
] eople to a great degree. He seems, also, to have been
df^emed a valuable militia officer by the various State
administrations from CasAvell to Burke. He, however,
had no special aptitude for military affairs, and his fail-
ui-e to accomplish results in two or three instances has,
with some, occasioned a doubt of his personal courage,
and with all a lack of faith in his military activity and

74 HiUsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
enterprise. Th^ affair at Lindley's Mill, when Governor
Burke ought to have been rescued had General Butler's
staunchness been equal to his activity in raising the
militia for the pursuit of McNeill and Fanning, lessened
his reputation as an officer very materially. This, how-
evej-, wUl be set forth more fully in the next and con
cluding chapter. General Butler's residence was at
Mount Pleasant, an elevation near the east bank of
Haw River, about due west of Hillsboro, and sixteen
miles from it. He died childless in 1788 or 1789, de
vising all his property to his widow. In his civil em
ployments, and they were many, he was a very valuable
and useful citizen. He was a moderator of the fury of,
and an intermediary between, the contending factions
during the Regulator disturbances. He was one of the
first and most outspoken patriots, and he made and
kept his whole immediate section a Whig stronghold
from the beginning to the end of the war. He was con
stantly employed in the public service, and seemed to
respond to any demand upon his time or energies with
the utmost cheerfulness and alacrity. He was, too, pe
culiarly efficient in inducing the militia of the county
to embody for a special, emergency. Upon the whole,
then, though he was certainly not a military genius, he
Avas one of the most useful citizens of Orange Oounty
throughout the whole course of the war.

HUlsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 75

CHAPTER VIL— 1780-1783.
There is no period of the Revolutionary history of
North Carolina that is so weU known, thanks to Gov
ernor Graham, Judge Schenck, Mr. Caruthers, and
Cithers, as that which covers the years 1780 and 1781.
Ihe great military events that occurred in this State
during those years are outside of the scope of this history
and will be aUuded to only incidentally. It is to deal
with Hillsboro and the surrounding country and its
residents, Avith one or two excursions into general his
tory to throw light upon matters that are now in ob
scurity. The year 1780 was one of continuous excitement and
bustie and stir to the town of Hillsboro. In the early
part of the year bodies of militia were almost constantly
in and about the place. In June, Baron de Kalb, on
his way to Camden and his death, came with 2,000 Con
tinental troops, and stayed long enough to exhaust the
suppUes of the country, and then moved on to Deep
River. In July, General Gates came to take command
of the southern army, and found at HiUsboro the ill-clad
and iU-fed Virginia militia and the remains of Colonel
Buford's command recently cut to pieces in South Caro
lina, and there he paused for some weeks, whUe supplies
were being secured and his army was concentrating.
It may readily be imagined that these good people had
then during that year all the trials and annoyances,
petty and great, of an actual state of warfare, without
any of its pomp or glorious circumstance. There, many
soldiers were coining and going, or, barefoot and half
starved, ill fed and ill clothed, yrithout arms or powder
or lead, awaited supplies of all, and there tyrannous
commissaries, or heedless and ravenous soldiers, im
pressed from the country people what the government
itself had not suppUed, untU, to use the phrase of a con-
temi)orary, "war had gorged itself upon the vitals of the
whole people," and they in disgust and despair knew not
Axhere to tum for reUef . In the midst of all this, Burke
arrived at home from Philadelphia, where he had been so
long that he wrote : ''Another year's close confinement in

76 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
Congress would make me a perpetual citizen in Phila
delphia, and give me a right to the soil, from which noth
ing short of the final judgment could oust me." Witn
his characteristic activity, energy and boldness, he set
to Avork, immediately, . to correct the evils that he saw
{"vbout him, and to defend his neighbors from the illegal
and oppressive acts of a ruthless soldiery. He threat
ened the minor officials, and promised to see that they
AA ere held accountable for their illegal acts. He declared
that he would protect his own property from such devas
tation even if he had to resort to arms for that purpose,
end his outraged neighbors and friends repaired to him
for redress of their own wrongs. The soldiers had
turned their horses upon their growing corn, they had
torn down their oats and hay stacks, they had carried off
their cattle, they had impressed their horses and wagons,
ihey had killed their fowls and had robbed their smoke
houses. Burke wrote to the president of Congress and
to General Gates, describing these outrages, and alleging
that if the people are fairly dealt with, they will respond
to all reasonable demands made upon them. He thus,
in a large degree, put an end, at least in Orange Oounty,
to what was a- great evil, if not an intolerable oppression.
Abner Nash, of New Bern, was elected Governor of the
State, by a large majority, April 21 or 22, 1780, not in
December, 1779, as stated by Wheeler and by Dr. McRee,
probably following Wheeler. Richard Caswell was in
eligible under the Constitution to a re-election, he hav
ing served three successive terms. Governor Nash
seems to have entered actively and efficiently upon the
duties of his office. The militia was embodied and fur
nished with arms. Military and food supplies were
collected at various points in preparation for the com
ing of General Gates to assume command of the South
ern department. (The dearth in Hillsboro was occa
sioned by the inability of the commissaries to secure
wagons, though they had previously been supplied with
money.) When Gates did come and marched south,
he did so at the head of an army fairly well supplied
AS ith commissary stores and munitions of war, and these
almost wholly from North Oarolina. Then came Cam
den, August 16, where defeat became a rout, and the

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 11
lout a wild scamper, arms and baggage all thrown away,
each man caring only for his oavu safety and stopping
not, in the wild race, until he had reached his home.
This rush of fugitives across the State was calculated to
demoralize all classes of its citizens. Instead, it only
made them more determined to repair damages and to
meet the coming invasion with the whole power of the
State. In the presence of such difficulties, loss of guns,
loss of prestige, loss of confidence, loss of supplies, with
a second army in the same year to be organized and fed
and clothed and armed, in the very face of a victorious
and invading external foe, and among an exultant and
alert internal foe, the most dauntless courage and de-
tetrmined energy might well be appalled. It was under
such circumstances that the General Assembly met at
Hillsboro the latter part of August. The burden of his
office, in those trying times, pressed heavily upon the
shoulders of Governor Nash. His health was bad, his
location in the eastern part of the State inconvenient,
and his constitutional advisers, the Council, could not
be gotten together. He then asked the Assembly to
create a board of war, and to endow it with plenary
powers to co-operate with him in the conduct of the war.
His idea, evidently, was that this board should be his
advisers in the exercise of the functions of his own office,
and in addition, should have authority, when the Legis
lature was not in session, to exercise the powers ex
pressly conferred upon it by the Constitution.
This idea was afterwards, upon his threat to resign
his office unless the intolerable situation was relieved,
carried into effect in the Council Extraordinary, which
in conjunction with himself, conducted the affairs of the
State from Febmary 13, 1781, until Jtme 26 of the same
year. At this time," however, the Assembly went a bow
shot beyond his wishes. It did create a board of war,
consisting of Archibald MacLaine, Thomas Polk, John
Penn, Oroondates Davis and Alex. :Martin, and conferred
upon it powers which were plainly in derogation of the
constitutional prerogatives of the executive. MacLaine
and Polk both refused to serve. The Board, Penn,
Davis and Martin, held an informal meeting on Sep
tember 3, and commenced its formal session at Hillsboro

78 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
September 14, 1780, and assumed entire charge of the
conduct of military affairs in the State. Governor Nash,
a proud and sensitive man, and of greater abilities than
iiny member of the Board, did not tamely submit to this
encroachment upon his prerogatives as Commander-in-
Chief, though he interfered as little as possible with the
Board's conduct of the war. He refused to fill the va
cancies upon it, and at the very first session of the As
sembly after its creation, January 27, 1781, he sent a
message, from which the foU owing is extracted : "When
you elected me Governor of the State, you presented me
the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. At the same
time you presented me with the sword of State as an
emblem of the power I was invested with, for the protec
tion of the Constitution and the rights of the people, and
in a solemn manner you bound me by an oath to preserve
the Constitution inviolate, and yet, four months after
my election the very same Assembly deprived me of al
most every power, privilege and authority belonging to
my office. In short, gentlemen, I hold at present but an
empty title, neither serviceable to the people nor honor
able to myself. It will, therefore, become an act of
necessity, however disagreeable at a time like this, to re
sign my office, unless you restore it to a condition as
respectable as it was when you did me the honor to con
fer it upon me."
To which the Assembly, on February 1st, replied:
"The General Assembly beg leaA'e to. assure Your Ex
cellency that in case it be found necessary to continue a
Board of War in this State, the powers of that Board
Avill be so regulated as to prevent all just cause of um
brage or complaint from Your Excellency in the future."
On that day, too, in response to a peremptory message
of the Governor, a committee of the two houses was ap
pointed to wait upon him and confer with him. This
committee reported immediately "that a Council Ex
traordinary, to consist of three persons in whom the
Legislature can place the greatest confidence, to advise
His Excellency, the Governor, in the exigencies of the
State, be appointed, and that the Governor, with the
advice of any two of them, be invested with full power
to take such measures as shall be deemed necessary for

Hillsboro— ^Colonial and Revolutionary. 79
the defense and preservation of the State, in all cases
A\ hatsoever, until the end of the next session of the Gen
eral Assembly." There can be no doubt that this Council
Extraordinary was suggested by the Governoi" himself,
for it carries into effect the plan which he had proposed
to the HiUsboro Assembly, and Avhich they had misunder
stood, and, perhaps unintentionally, perverted into the
famous Board of War. On February 10, the bill estab
lishing this Council became a law, and on February 13,
Richard Caswell, AUen Jones and Alex. Martin were
elected councillors. On February 13, too, a bill was
passed continuing the executive powers of government
Avith the present Governor after April 15th next, upon
certain contingencies. Nor was Governor Nash defeat
ed by Thomas Burke (elected June 25, 1781), on ac
count of the "disordered state of the finances," as stated
in current histories. On account of the condition of
his Health and his own finances, which had suffered se
verely during his incumbency of the office, he was anx
ious to be relieved in order that he might recruit both.
Therefore, when he was nominated for re-election, he
requested that his name be withdrawn, and it was Avith-
draAvn. However just Governor Nash's complaints of this
Board of War may have been, it must be confessed that
it performed the duties imposed upon it by the Legisla
ture energetically and efficiently. It sat continuously
at HUlsboro, sometimes Avith one member, sometimes
with two, and at others Avith three, from September 14
until December 1, 1780, and then continuously at Hali
fax untU January 30, 1781. At the time it commenced
its sittings, Hillsboro was crowded with fugitives from
the battle of Camden. General Gates, Avith an escort of
six men, had spent only seventy-five hours on the way.
Governor Rutledge, of South Carolina, also had taken
refuge in Hillsboro, and among other officers there were
the Polish patriot, Koskiusko, and General Morgan.
When Attorney-General Iredell and Judge Williams
came the last of September to hold the October Term
of the Superior Court, no room could be made for them
in tOAvn, and they secured lodgings at Dr. Burke's, two
miles off, only by ousting Governor Rutledge, who came

80 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
to town and shared a bed with the Board of War, that
then consisted of John Penn alone. There were in and
about the town, too, over a thousand troops, Buford's
Horse, and Continental and Maryland Line. The Mary
land troops were those who Avere to fight so well a few
months after at Guilford Court House. Colonel Gunby,
of the First Maryland Regiment, was the commandant of
the town during the later months of the yeat and Jan
uary, 1781. In the early part of December, four free
negroes (soldiers, not camp followers) of his regiment,
Leonard Turner, Valentine Murrin, Thomas Thompson
and John Adams, robbed the house of Joseph Hastings,
south of town, and maltreated and abused himself and
Avife. They were arrested by the civil authority, but
were forcibly rescued by Major Mcintosh, of their regi
ment. The magistrates immediately and in person ap
pealed to Colonel Gunby. That officer directed the re
turn of the prisoners to the Sheriff, and the charges
against them were heard, and they were all held for trial
at the next ensuing term of the Superior Court. They
were never tried. Whether they were afterwards re
leased to rejoin their regiment, or made their escape in
the demoralization consequent upon the approach of
Lord Cornwallis, is not known. It is certain, however,
that Hastings, who theretofore had been a Whig, was
one of the few men of his neighborhood who repaired to
Hillsboro in accordance with the proclamation of Feb
ruary 20, 1781.
During the fall and winter of 1780, wagons were com
ing and gQing along all the roads that lead to Hillsboro,
hauling supplies from Virginia and from the eastern
and middle counties of the State. Provisions and arms
and clo^thing were needed everywhere, but especially by
the ragged and hungry soldiery at Hillsboro. The 400
or 500 Maryland line there Avere barefoot, and living
from day to day on limited rations. Shoes for them did
finally come from Maryland. The Virginia militia was
not only barefoot, but in rags and tatters and without
Aveapons. Virginia sent food, but had no arms. The
Light Horse and Continental Line, too, though not so
destitute, wanted horses and clothing and ammunition.
The Board of War made of the court house a depot of

Hillsboro^— Colonial and Revolutionary. 81
supplies. They collected hides and leather wherever to
be found, and made the tannery at Hillsboro work to
its full capacity for the government, pressed into service
everyone who could make a shoe, and put them all to
work shoe-making for soldiers. Tailors, also, and nee
dle women, under their command, made or repaired
much needed clothing for the army. They wrote to
everybody everywhere who had arms or ammunition, or
could get arms or ammunition, to hurry them forward-
The army needed salt, and must have salt. They then
made the Board a nuisance to all whose dUatoriness or
neglect had caused this condition. They wrote to their
captains of hundreds and their captains of thousands,
and instructed them how to fight if the enemy ap
proached, how to retreat if retreat was necessary, and
where to take position for a final stand, if any position
was to be taken. In short, this Board's management
was ubiquitous and minute. It was, too, energetic and
zeal inspiring, if not in all particulars wise. It had no
holidays or holy days. It worked Sunday as well as
Monday, and its individual members seemed, if only the
enemy could be defeated and driven out of the State,
to be perfectly willing to answer for their conduct after
wards before any tribunal — ^the true spirit in such a
crisis. Burke, during this year, was engaged in a correspond
ence with General Sullivan, which no doubt would have
resulted in a hostile meeting had not the exigencies of
the public service kept them at points distant from each
other. Burke had gone to the field of Brandywine in
1777, had witnessed the whole battle, and was convinced
that Washington was defeated on account of the igno
rance and inefficiency of some of his lieutenants, Sulli
van of the number. This opinion he expressed publicly,
and in the course of time it came to the ears of General
Sullivan. He wrote a very vigorous letter to Congress,
in which, without mentioning his name, he alluded so
pointedly to Burke that there could be no doubt against
whom his strictures were directed. Burke took excep
tions to these, and a correspondence ensued which re
sulted in the appointment of seconds to arrange satis
factory terms between them, or, if this was not possible,
6 '

82 Hillsboro — ColonAal and Revolutionary.
to select the time and place of meeting. Pending this,
Sullivan was sent to Rhode Island, and Burke returned
home. There was never any meeting, but I am not in
formed whether the matter was amicably settled.
After all the drafts made upon their patience and pa
triotism in 1780 by the continuous presence of soldiery,
the people of Hillsboro and Orange County were to
suffer still more from the coming of the enemy in Febru
ary of the following year. The line of Cornwallis' re
treat from the Dan, Avas first southeast through CasAvell,
then almost due east, not far from what is now the Per
son line, and then southwest to Hillsboro. He entered
that town Febmary 20, and made his headquarters there
for six days. By the irony of fate he erected the King's
standard in front of the court house on February 22,
and the friends of Britain, most of them only nominally
so, flocked into town to propitiate CoruAvallis and his
soldiers and see the sights. A certain fearful looking for
the judgment to come made nearly all of them content
themselves with this, and refuse to commit themselves
further. Cornwallis soon found his position untenable.
Greene had recrossed the Dan, Pickens had advanced
from the south, and his foragers were continually being
harassed and cut off by parties of the Light Horse;
Tarleton had failed in forming a junction with Colonel
Pyle and his loyalists; and the latter's command had
been cut to pieces at the famous Hacking Match. Be
sides, the country about Hillsboro had been exhausted
of supplies. Stedman, Cornwallis' commissary, found
some salt beef and pork and hogs in the town, upon
which the army subsisted for a while, but he could get
few cattle, and those only by his cattle drivers going
long distances. He was forced then to impress and k-i '
the work oxen of loyalists, and to make a house to house
visit in the town and take from the inhabitants stores
provided for their own sustenance, "many of whom,"
said he, "were greatly distressed by this measure." Lord
Cornwallis thus was forced to depart from Hillsboro
on the 25th. His route was the same as that taken by
Tryon in 1771, and his next position was on the banks
of Great Alamance Creek, and there we leave him.
Hillsboro, to the present day, feels a little kindly to-

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutiona/ry. 83
wards the memory of Lord Cornwallis. He did the only
permanently beneficial work that has ever been done on
its streets. The highways of the toAvn, when he entered
it, were fearfully cut up and muddy, and no part of them
more so than that in the business part of the town at the
intersection of King and Ohurton streets. Near this the
grtiUery was to be parked and the King's standard
raised, so he made his men collect stones from the
neighboring fields and lots and place them in these
streets for one hundred and fifty yards north and south
and east and west, and there they remain to this day,
niaking, it is true, not a model or up-to-date highway,
but one that is free from mud, or if not, one that is pass
able in wet weather.
Between three and four mUes west of town, and by
the road at Hart's ford, across the Eno, stands a great
rock. Behind this, Capt. Joseph Graham, with his
forty-five men, hid their approach to Hart's mill, and
thus, without the loss of a man, killed or captured every
one of the twenty-five British and an officer whom Corn
wallis and sent out from HiUsboro as a mill guard.
The General Assembly met in June, 1781, at Wake
Court House. On the 25th, Thomas Burke was elected
Governor, and on the 26th he quaUfied. He entered
I pon the performance of the duties of his office with aU
of his characteristic vigor and energy.
In 1755 or 1756, there was born in Johnston Oounty
(lue of those waifs of the time, whose parents, if they had
any legitimate parents, left them early in life to battle
unaided Avith the world. His name was David Fannen,
or Fanning. I adopt the first orthography to avoid any
confusion of the man with Edmund Fanning, who has
heretofore made a prominent figure in these articles.
David was bound in his childhood, probably because he
was illegitimate, to a Mr. Bryant, in Johnston. There a
loathsome disease developed on his head, and he became
unfit to eat Avith others, or to sleep in the beds of the
house. His master, too, was harsh and cruel, so he spent
both day and night away from his kind, sometimes in
the woods minding cattle and at others working on the
Bryant farm. Finding this life unendurable, he,, when
about sixteen years of age, ran away and came tO' the

84 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
house of Mr. O'Daniel, in southwest Orange, hungry and
in tatters, an outcast in feeling as well as in fact. The
O'Daniels proved to be good Samaritans. Mr. O'Daniel
gave him employment, while his wife cured his disease, tet
ter. He remained with these good people about three years
and then went to South Carolina with some of the O'Dan
iel boys, so Mr. Josiah Turner said the tradition Avas in
the O'Daniel family. In that State he became an Indian
trader, and was accumulating some property, when he
was met one day by a party of .Whigs, who charged him
Avith giving information to the enemy, made him a pris
oner, and confiscated all his goods. He escaped, and,
bent on vengeance, connected himself with McGirth, the
famous South Oarolina Tory, and became one of the
most active and cruel members of this predatory band.
He returned to North Carolina in 1781, and made his.
headquarters at the Tory settlements on Deep River.
There he collected a band of from three to five hundred
men, and soon, with a British commission as colonel of
loyalists, became the scourge and dread of all the Whig
settlements from the Cape Fear to the Yadkin. His
numerous adventures are detailed by Mr. Caruthers in
his "Old North State in 1776." To that book I am in
debted for much of the above. His is not a pleasant
character to contemplate, yet history and tradition have
made his exploits but little less famous than those of Ma
rion, whom he resembled in his powers of endurance, in his
capapity to see the weak points of an enemy, and to strike
suddenly, fearlessly and successfully, in the rapidity and
secrecy of his movements that made him appear almost
ubiquitous ; in the terror with which his name inspired
his foes, and in the attachment of his foUowers to his
own persor^. Unlike Marion, he was revengeful (who
\vith such a childhood and youth would not be, when
once he had the society that had made him an outcast at
his feet?) and relentless and cruel in pursuit of revenge.
He had no country to fight for, no home to protect, and
the cause that he espoused became a desperate one soon
after he had espoused it, yet he, an outlaw, with little
mercy and no fear, carried himself safe through it all
and died at last a peaceful death in a foreign land.
So far as known, Fannen appeared but once at Hills--

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 85
boro, and that was at the capture of Governor Burke,
though the terror of his name in 1782 roused the mem
bers of the General Assembly from their beds and made
them appear armed upon the streets. It was a false
alarm, however, given by a timid citizen or an unknown
practical joker.
Governor Burke, who had been at Halifax, cami' i^n
to Hillsboro about September 8, 1781, in order to be
near, if not to participate in, a grand movement which
he was organizing against the Tories. While there he
received information of the advance of McNeill and
Fannen with five hundred men against General Butler,
who lay on the south side of Haw River with a small
body of militia. He immediately despatched a messen
ger to Butler, warning him of his danger, and ordering
him to take a more secure position. When the Tory
band arrived, they found their prey gone, but heard from
sympathizers that Governor Burke was at Hillsboro
with an insufficient guard. The advantages of making
their active, energetic and able foe a prisoner were so
obvious they did not hesitate a minute, but set off for
Hillsboro and invested the town, capturing every picket
V\ithout giving any alarm, before daylight on the morn
ing of Wednesday, September 12. About 7 o'clock they
entered the town from every direction, and without
much resistance, so sudden was the attack, they made
prisoners of the town guard. Few, even, of the citizens
escaped, but among them was Colonel Alexander Me
bane, who hastened to General Butler's camp. Gov
ernor Burke's residence, at that time near the eastern
limits of the town, was on or near the site of the pres
ent residence of Mr. James W^bb. "My house," says he,
"soon became the principal object of attack. To escape
was impracticable and resistance was vain, yet the sav
age manners and appearance of the men made me expect
nothing but massacre, and I preferred dying sword in
hand to yielding to their barbarism. Thus resolved, and
attended by Captain Reid, my aid-de-camp, Mr. Huske,
my secretary, and an orderly sergeant of the continental
service, and armed only Avith our swords and pistols,
we sustained for some time a close and hot fire, until at
leno-th Captain Reid went through their fire and brought

86 Hillsboro— Colonial and Revolutionary.
a gentleman in the uniform of a British officer up to me,
to whom, after repeated assurances of proper treatment,
I gave up my sword." This officer, with the aid of
some Highland gentlemen of the party, did succeed in
protecting Burke from the fury of Fannen and his To
ries, and he was carried safely a prisoner to Wilming
ton. Indeed, Colonel McNeill seems to have acted the
gentleman throughout the whole foray. Two of the
Tories went to Mr. James Hogg's residence just east of
town, tore off his shoe buckles, made him give up his
watch and keys, and proceeded to help themselves to
AAhat they Avanted, but immediately upon Mr. Hogg's
application. Colonel McNeill stationed a Highland sen
tinel at the house, and Mr. Hogg was molested no more.
The town, however, was gutted by these marauders be
tween 7 a. m. and 2 o'clock p. m. that day. They turned
the prisoners out and put their guards in the jail. They
armed these prisoners and made them sharers in the
further rapine. They entered every house and carried
off everything of value that Avas portable. They broke
open the taverns and revelled for a while in unlimited
supplies of ardent spirits, an indulgence which cost
some of them, who were too drunk to go or be carried off
by their comrades, their lives. By 2 o'clock, their offi
cers had gotten them all, who were not helpless, under
Avay. Their course was southwest from Hillsboro, and
crossed Haw River above the mouth of Cane Creek. On
that creek. General Butler, having been warned by Col
onel Alexander Mebane, lay in wait for the Tories Avith
the militia already embodied and re-enforcements from
the surrounding country. He was advantageously post
ed and his force was superior to the enemy's. The To
ries were taken by surprise when they reached Cane
Creek, by the attack of the Whigs, and were at first
thrown into confusion, but were soon rallied by their
officers and one of the sharpest skirmishes of the Avar pro
ceeded. The odds were very greatly in favor of the Whigs,
until Fannen, making a detour and crossing the creek,
higher up, attacked them in the rear. This was too
much for General Butler's nerves, and he ordered a
retreat and himself lead the way. Colonel Robert Me
bane, however, refused to obey and rallied a sufficient

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 87
number of the men to make it a draAVTi battle, the Tories
getting off with their prisoners and much of their booty,
but leaving many of their number dead and wounded
upon the field of battle, including their leader, Colonel
McNeill. Fannen, too, carried off with him an arm
shattered by a rifle bullet.
Governor Burke was, after some stay in Wilmington
as a prisoner of State, removed to Charleston, where he
accepted a parole to James Island. On that island were
m.any jayhawkers, men who lived upon debatable lands,
and when it was safe, robbed or murdered those of either
party. Driven from their strongholds by the actiAdty
of the Whigs, they had taken refuge on this island under
the protection of the British. Burke seemed to be espe
cially obnoxious to them. They fired into his quarters
and killed a man on his right and wounded another on
his left. He lived in continual fear of assassination. As
a prisoner he was entitled to protection by his captors.
He wrote to General Leslie, the commandant at Charles
ton, and demanded this protection. His letter was
treated with contempt. After waiting sixteen days for
an answer, and none coming, he took his safety into his
own care and, on January 16, 1782, broke his parole and
made his escape. On the 18th he wrote General Leslie,
offering an equivalent in exchange for himself, or if this
could not be procured, to surrender himself, provided he
was' treated in all particulars as a prisoner of war and
not as a State prisoner. To this Gen. Leslie made no re
sponse, but wrote to General Greene, demanding Burke's
unconditional surrender. Meantime the latter had re
turned to North Carolina and resumed the reins of gov
ernment. Opinion in that State upon the validity of his
excuse for breaking his parole was divided. Burke had
many friends, and they all, from General Greene doAvn,
endorsed his course. He had, too, many enemies, some
made by his pugnacious self-assertion, some by his open
hatred of all cant and sham and insincerity, and still
others by his activity in exposing the peculation and
thievery of dishonest officials, jobbers and contractors.
These all assumed a mighty show of virtue and looked
askance upon him. He was, without exception, con
demned, too, by his open foes, the British officers, men

88 Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary.
whose respect he could but desire, and its withdrawal
was, to such a man, poignant agony. He seems, him
self, to have had no doubt that he had done right. But
all this criticism, all this doubt, all this ill-concealed
contempt on the part of some and as ill-concealed exul
tation on the part of others was an agonizing experience
to so high strung a man. He had been known as pecu
liarly sensitive in matters affecting his honor. He was
always ready to protect it even by a resort to the code.
And now he had placed himself in a position where men
might say, and men were saying, that he preferred his
safety to that sensitive honor which he had so frequently
thrust in their faces, and that, too, on a point upon
V hich the whole civilized world was agreed, the sacred
and binding character of a military parole. The situa
tion was intolerable. He refused to stand for re-elec
tion in April, 1782, retired to private life, found tem
porary relief in ardent spirits, a practice to which he
had been addicted, and then attacked by disease that he
had not stamina to resist, succumbed to it in December,
1783, and lies in an unmarked grave amid a clunip of
trees on a farm near Hillsboro. He was, according to
Wheeler, only 36 years of age at the time of his death.
Says Archibald MacLain, writing to George Hooper
from Wilmington, March 24, 1783, about the coming
gubernatorial election : "Caswell is, as I expected, a can
didate. He does not deserve it. I also suspect Nash,
who has returned from Congress. But I think he has
no chance of succeeding. The present Governor (Mar
tin) has, I am persuaded, expectations. Oh how I wish
for Burke with all his foibles. He would keep villains
within proper bounds and call scoundrels to a strict
account, but these are propably the very reasons they
make against his election."
In 1780 William Courtney Avas Senator from Orange,
William McCauley and Mark Patterson represented the
county and Thomas TuUoch the town, in the Commons.
In 1781, John Butler, having resigned as entry taker,
was Senator, Robert Campbell and Jesse Benton com
moners from the county, and Thomas Tullock from the
town. William Hooper took up his residence in Hills
boro in 1782, and stood for election from the town, but

Hillsboro — Colonial and Revolutionary. 89
Avas defeated by a tavern keeper. Disappointments like
this, connected Arith excessive conviviality, made him,
AV'ho was naturally sweet tempered and genial, a cross,
irritable, jaundiced grumbler. He died here October 14,
1790, in the 49th year of his age. At the end of the
Revolutionary War there were forty white polls in Hills
boro and sixty-seven slaves between twelve and fifty
years of age, indicating a population of three hundred.
Here I end this history. The events of the Revolu
tionary War after this period were, to Hillsboro, only
as a far-off echo. Of course it had its sad reminders for
^ ears, but, in the joy of new found independence, these
AAere forgotten or remembered only by the immediate
sufferers.

THE EXD.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX A.
The historians are wrong in saying that Fanning was
fined 1 d. and costs upon these convictions. The Court,
on the contrary, took an advisari on his motions in arrest
of judgment and for a new trial, and the matter was
still pending and undecided at the breaking up of the
Court in September, 1770. In the subsequent hurly
burly, nothing, of course, was done, and Fanning left
soon after for New York. (See 8 Ool. Rec, 33, and
223-225.)

APPENDIX B.
Trial Cal-ses to Hillsboro Superior Court_, Septem-
Regulator Entry.

BEE Term_, 1770.

10

John MoMund vs.
Wm. Courtney.
John Childs
vs.
Eich'd Thompson.
John Williams, Esq. ,
vs.
Robt. Mitchell.
AVm. Brown
vs.
. John Brown.
Daniel AVilliams
vs.
John AVilliams.
Peter Noey
vs.
Edmund Fanning.
Edmund Fanning
vs.
Abram Smith.

T. Q. F.

Case.

Case.

Detinue.

Case.

Appeal by
consent.

T. A. B.

Gen'l issue.

Referred.

Gen'l issue.

Gen'l issue.

Gen'l issue.

Judgment by
default and
inquiry.

Damned rogues.

You keep that to your
selves to rogue every
body.
Plaintiff pays costs,
and to be put in
stocks.
A shame for name's
sake.

The eldest pays costs.

Fanning must pay.

Fanning pays costs,
but loses nothing.

Appendix.
APPENDIX B— Continued.

91

Regulator Entry.

12

13

14

15

56

59

64

67

68

70

Isaiah Hogan
vs.
Herman Husbands.
Ezekiel Brumfield
vs.
James Ferrel.
Michael A^Uson
vs.
David Harris.
John Edwardsvs.
Philip Edwards.
Thos. Richardson vs.
Robinson York.
Mary Humphries vs.
Philip Jackson, Jr.
Abner Nash
vs.
John Rosker.
Valentine Braswell
vs.
D. McNeal, Admr. of
H. McNeal.
Sales Brown
vs.
AiVilliam Lewis.
John Kimbro'
vs.
WilUam Alston.
Solomon Turvil
vs.
James Turvil.

Case.

Slander.

T. A. B.

Case.

Case.

T. A. B.

Case.

Case.

Case.

Case.

Gen'l issue.

Gen'l issue
and justifi
cation.

Not guilty
with leave.

Non assump sit.

Plea in
abatement.

Not guilty
with leave.

Judgment
by default.

Plea to be
filed.

Judgment
by default.

Joseph Bry
ant, bail.

Executed on
two negroes.

Hogan pays, and be
damned.

Nonsense, let them
agree for Ferrel has
gone Hell ward.

All Harrises are rogues

Damned shame.

Plaintiff pays all and
gets his body scourg
ed for blasphemy.
Ct entry. Judgment
by default. Regulator
— comment. Money
must come to officers.
Nash gets nothing.

File it and be darned.

The man was sick. It
is damned roguery.
Executed by a damned
rogue. Bail not suflS-
cient.
Negroes not worth a
damn. Cost exceeds
the whole.

Several persons styling themselves Regulators assem
bled together in the court yard, under the conduct of
Herman Husbands, James Hunter, Rednap Howell, Wil
liam Butler, Samuel Deviney and many others, insulted
some of the gentlemen of the bar, and in a violent man
ner went into the court house and forcibly carried out
some of the attorneys and cruelly beat them. They then
insisted that the Judge should proceed to the Tryal of

92 Appendix.
their Leaders, who had been indicted at a former Court,
and that the jury should be taken out of their party.
Therefore, the Judge, finding it impossible to proceed
^^ith honor to himself and justice to his country, ad
journed Court until to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock,
and took advantage of the night and made his escape,
and the Court adjourned until Oourt in Course.
Minute Docket, September 22, 1770.

APPENDIX 0.

To the average North Carolinian the Regulators Avere
heroes and patriots, while Governor Tryon was a cruel
tyrant and Edmund Fanning a relentless fiend. We
have all come to regard James Few as a poor, demented
youth, a celibate because Planning had seduced his bride,
living with, if not dependent upon his aged parents, at
Alamance, not of choice, but impelled by an insane delu
sion, harmless, inoffensive, law-abiding, and a victim,
finally, to Governor Tryon's savage lust for blood and
Fanning's unreasonable desire to be rid of him because
his fiancee had been proven a fragile vessel.
All this comes from placing too much reliance upon
the romantic and sympathetic and patriotic side of
North Carolina history as it is writ. As a matter of
fact, James Few was a very different man from what we
conceive him to have been. William Few was born in
Pennsylvania about 1709. He was a farmer, and on
arriving at his majority removed to Maryland, where he
married and settled in Baltimore County. There most
of his children, including James, the second son and
child, Avere born. James was born in 1745 or 1746. In
the fall of 1758, the whole family came to North Carolina
and settled on 640 acres of land, purchased by William
Few from James Taylor. This land lay on both sides
of the river Eno and about seven miles east of Hillsboro.
With them came four negro slaves. William Few, be
sides clearing and cultivating this land, erected, with his
brother James, a saw and grist mill upon the river Eno.
In 1764 he purchased 200 acres of land near the toAvn of
Hillsboro (then Childsburg), and removed his family

Appendi.r. 93
to his new purchase, and there he continued to reside
until he emigrated to Georgia, in 1771. This is the
Kirkland place spoken of by Dr. Hawks and Mr. Caru
thers, and is situated a mile east of Hillsboro. In 1767
he purchased another tract of land on Little River. He
seems to have been a man of standing and infiuence in
Orange County, kept a tavern at his house, was foreman
of the County Court grand jury several times, and,
though a sympathizer with the Regulators, took no part
in any of their illegal acts. He, Avith John Butler, Wil
liam's brother, was on William Butler's bond at the Sep
tember Court, 1768. Both he and his wife had some
education. His library consisted of a folio Bible, Tillot-
son's Sermons, Barclay's Apology and other religious
books, Dyche's Dictionary and a set of The Spectators.
Nor were his children entirely deprived of school advan
tages. "In 1760," writes his son (third and next
Aounger to James) William, in the Magazine of Ameri
can History, 1881, "a school master appeared and of
fered his services to teach the children of the neighbor-
liood for 20 shillings each per year. He was employed
and about thirty scholars were placed puder his care.
The master was a man of mild and amiable disposition.
He governed his little school with judgment and pro
priety, wisely distinguishing the obedient, timid child
from the obstinate and contumacious, judiciously apply
ing the rod when necessary. He possessed the art of
making his pupils fear, love and esteem him. At this
school I spent one of the most tappy years of my life.
I had the highest respect for my preceptor and delighted
in his society and instruction, and learned Avith facility."
In 1769 and 1770, WUliam Few, the father, became
somcAvhat embarrassed financially. He was, among
other liabilities, surety on the guardian bond of a care
less or dishonest guardian, and was threatened with
a suit. Benjamin, his oldest son, went out to Georgia
in 1770, and, much impressed with the prospect there,
induced his father to consider a removal to that State.
On April 27, 1770, the father conveyed his home place
near Hillsboro (the Kirkland place) to his friend, John
Butler, AA'ho was sheriff of the county that year. Butler
conveyed this tract of land to Ralph MacNair, a well-to-

94 Appendix.
do Scotch merchant, on July 23, 1771. It is not sup
posed that William Few surrendered the possession of
this land to Butler until a short time before the last
conveyance, for Tryon's army turned their horses upon
his wheat, barley and oats in June preceding.
For the destruction of these crops the Colonial Assem
bly afterwards made ample reparation. It is a reason
able supposition that William Few, with his wife and
two daughters, Hannah and Elizabeth, did not go to
Georgia until after the hanging of James, on May 16,
1771, though they had been making preparations to go
for some time. It is certain that on February 9, 1772,
all the family except William, Jr., were in Georgia. On
that day, in Richmond Couhty, Ga., William Fcav exe
cuted, a conveyance of all his remaining property in
North Oarolina to his son, William, and that conveyance
is witnessed by Benjamin and Ignatius, his oldest and
his youngest son. William Few, Jr., remained in North
Carolina until the fall of 1775, when he too went to
Georgia. Now it is a remarkable fact that these brothers, Ben
jamin, William and Ignatius, became distinguished citi
zens of that State. William, indeed, after having run
the gamut of all the important offices there, from militia
colonel to United States Senator, remoA^ed to New York
in 1790, became very prominent in banking circles and
in politics, and died July 16, 1828. Why I lay special
emphasis upon the characters and acquirements of these
brothers, will appear as I proceed further.
James Few was one of the most active and energetic
of the Regulators. A mature man, twenty-five or
twenty-six years of age, he took a leading, and no doubt
malign part in the Hillsboro riot of September, 1770.
For this a true bill had been found against him at New
Bern, and only the lapse of a fcAv days Avould have made
him an outlaw in law, as he was already an outlaw in
fact. This captain and leader of the Regulators, this
active rioter and flagellator of lawyers, sheriffs, clerks
and all such cattle, is taken in battle against constituted
authority and forthwith he is hung — admittedly a cruel
and unnecessary act. Then comes the reaction, and
men, forgetting his violence, his persistent energy, his

Appendix. 95
defiance of constituted authority^ declare htm to be the
helpless and irresponsible victim of the cruel tyranny of
Governor Tryon and the unutterable baseness of Ed
mund Fanning. Contemporary rumor, fruitful mother
of all tradition, meantime is busy. There is an extrava
gant sentence in one of his letters, and men say he is
crazy, an imbecile, an idiot. Fanning is a libertine and
Few had been especially malignant against him at the
fateful riot, and they say that Fanning had seduced his
bride. And the exaggerated invective of Maurice INIoore,
the exuberent and imaginative patriotism of an un
known newspaper correspondent;, the drag net industry
of Mr. Caruthers and the enthusiastic and generous elo
quence of Dr. Hawks, have served to perpetuate all this.
The truth is, James Few was a married man, was mar
ried in 1769 or 1770, and his wife gave birth to twins,
William and Sally by name, on February 9, 1771. These
children were left with their mother on the removal of
the Fews to Georgia. She, however, about ten years
afterwards, married a British or Tory officer. Then
Benjamin Few came on and took these children home
with him, placed them in his own household and raised
them as his own children. Sally, from his house, mar
ried a Methodist minister, and died in 1855, leaving
descendants. These facts speak for themselves. If there
had been the slightest doubt about the paternity of
these children, the Fews would not have removed them
to Georgia and taken them into their own hearts and
homes. William Few, Sr., had been raised in the pure
and wholesome moral atmosphere of the Pennsylvania
Quakers, and Mary, his wife, among the Baltimore
Catholics. She lived until 1778, he until 1793. They
A^'ould not have taken spurious children into their own
family.

APPENDIX D.

On October 1, 1736, Governor Burrington borrowed of
Edmund Strudwick, a retired merchant of St. Ann's Par
ish, 'S'^^estminster, London, £1,140, giving as security be
sides his bond, an assignment of his claim against the

96 Appendix. '
British government. No part of this, was paid during
the life of Mr. Strudwick for after his death his execu
tors assigned this claim to Samuel Strudwick, son of
Edmund. On April 10, 1754, Burrington, reciting this
indebtedness, which then amounted to £2,000, conveys
by lease and release with a mortgage defeasance at
tached, to secure said sum to Samuel StrudAvick, 40,000
acres of land, 30,000 of the Haw Old Fields and 10,000
on the northeast Cape Fear. Soon thereafter Burring
ton was arrested for debt and confined in the King's
Bench prison, and there he remained until July 15, 1755,
Avhen, having gone through the Insolvent Debtor's Court,
he was discharged. John Lawton, Clerk of the Oounty
Court of Surrey County, England, conveyed Burring-
ton's equity of redemption in these Haw Field lands to
General John Guise, who subsequently, September 28,
1761, conveyed the same to Samuel Strudwick. Bur
rington died about four years after his release (in 1759,
droAvned in the Thames), nearly eighty years of age,
according to Colonel William L. Saunders, and there
is little doubt that he was right about it.
October 10, 1764, Governor William Tryon landed at
Brunswick, and with him came Mr. Samuel Strudwick
to look after and take possession of the lands purchased
from Governor Burrington. He found the Haw Fields
land occupied by those who held under Burrington, and
by many squatters who had no right at all except that
they hoped to acquire by occupation, or some defect in
his own title. < Near the close of the year 1766 he met
these occupants or a large number of them, and those at
the meeting consented to recognize his title. A few
years after, however, he became involved in litigation
Avith some of them, and this litigation lasted a dozen
A-ears or more, Avith varying success and with the net
result of a loss of one-third of the property. Indeed it
is said in a letter of Francis Nash (afterwards General
Nash ) to Edmund Fanning, Sunday, April 17, 1768 :
"And as an instance of the evU and destructive conse-
(luence that naturally follows from such rebellious and
disorderly violation of the laws, we are creditably in
formed that Mr. Strudwick's tenants have entered into
fiU association among themselves to keep forcible posses-

Appendix. 97
sion of his lands, and for that purpose yesterday held a
meeting in the Haw Fields." The easy and graceful
style of the few letters of Mr. Strudwick, preserved in
the Colonial and State Records, indicate that he was a
man of culture, and both Governors Tryon and Martin
testify to his ability and integrity. He was a member of
the Council, Secretary of the province and Clerk of the
Pleas. Of his appointment to the latter office Martin
complains, because the office, though a sinecure, gave
mm more influence even than the Governor, he having
the appointment of thirty-four clerks and receiving a
percentage of their fees, which amounted to £560 per
annum. Holding so prominent a position in the govern
ment of the province, and having so entirely the confi
dence of the two last royal governors, it is natural that
his situation at the commencement of the Revolutionary
War should be a very trying one. He had, however,
many infiuential friends of the patriot party — Hooper,
Iredell, Burke and others, and, he, not fieeing had no
property confiscated. It is probable that he took the
oath of allegiance to the United States about 1778 but
to the rampant patriots he was always an object of sus
picion, if not for open attack. There is something very
suggestive of Cooper's Home as Found in the following
extracts from his petition in 1780 to the General Assem
bly to release him from paying taxes on the whole body
of the Haw Fields land: "The survey of these lands,
though authorized by the Superior Court, has been frus
trated by the violent opposition of sundry persons who
iiave seated themselves thereon, and since the revolution
in government have entered and patented all that were
of any value not excepting my house and the plantation
whereon I live." Further on he states that they had not
of the 30,000 acres left 100 in his possession. Again, he
AV rites to Mr. Burke, September 1, 1780 : "I am reduced
to the most disagreeable situation. On Saturday one
Bowles, who has got a new patent for a small plantation,
lying in sight of my house, where there is an orchard
and some corn planted, came and told me that in a few
days he intended to fetch away the peaches to distill.
On my saying that I would not consent to it, he ans-
Avered that he could get a posse to assist him, which I
suppose he will, and it is very probable the other man.

98 Appendix.
Ayho has got a patent for my house, will raise another
(or the same) posse and drive us into the woods. You
may be assured that I will not permit either to execute
his designs while I am able to resist them, but they so
greatly outnumber all thfe strength that I can muster,
that resistance on my part must prove ineffectual." Then
he requests Burke's advice as to Avhat he shall do.
He writes again to Burke after he was elected Gover
nor, June 25, 1781 : "There is another thing Avith which I
flatter myself from your administration — that is the sup
pressing of the licentiousness both of the regular and
militia soldiery. The contribution which the law exacts,
and the necessity of the service requires, would be cheer
fully submitted to, if ravage and plunder were not super
added. The noble stand you made in behalf of freedom
and the rights of the people Avlien General Gates com
manded at Hillsboro, is to me a certain . presage that
you A^ill not abandon your countrymen to the rapacity
of unfeeling men, for though I am very sensible that
'Avar can not be kept to a set diet,' yet there is no occa
sion to gorge it with the vitals of a whole people." It is
probable that his personal sympathies were Avith the
British, while his interest made him nominally attach
himself to the American party, and this being suspected,
he became, more or less, the prey of both parties. The
year 1788 saw the termination of all his lawsuits with
the results stated above. He himself died in the winter
of 1795, and left surviving him one child, a son. Wil
liam F. He, September 6, 1793 had married Miss Mar
tha Shepperd, sister of the revolutionary partisan. Col
onel William Shepperd. This lady, Mrs. Kennedy, in
her bright romance, Jocelyn Cheshire, is guilty of the
anachronism of locating in Hillsboro in 1779 as a stout,
jolly, rather coarse matron. She was, in truth, a mere
child at that time, and as a grown woman afterwards,
she was a brunette, small and dainty in figure, and,
AAithal, bright and pretty. Mr. William F. Strudwick
represented Orange in the Legislature several terms and
the district in Congress one term and died November,
1 810, leaving 5,800 acres of the Haw Fields to be divided
among his heirs. By 1830 all these acres had been, from
various causes, sold by the Strudwick heirs, so the con
nection of that family with them ceased.

Appendix. 99

APPENDIX E.
James Hunter, the Regulator, was not a Whig, not
even a Whig sympathizer, until 1776. This is proven,
first, by the record; second, by reasonable deductions
from known facts. In 1772 Governor Martin had a per
sonal interview with James Hunter, 9 Colonial Records,
pages 313 and 329. When we come to the active move
ments of the Revolutionary War, we find James Hun
ter's name among those of other Tories, in Governor
ALartin's proclamation, raising the King's standard in
North Carolina, January 10, 1776, 10 Colonial Records,
page 441. The militia in the various counties embodied
and made raids upon the Regulator settlements captur
ing prisoners and arms before the battle of Moore's
Creek. Vol. 10, page 469. But James Hunter was not
arrested then ; ibid. He was, however, afterwards, pos
sibly at or on his way to Cross Creek. Vol. 10, page
560. "James Hunter, parole in Bute George Mylne, bail
£2,000" ; iMd. George Mylne A\'as a resident of Cum
berland, a Whig, one who had committed to his care
AVhig powder, which he afterwards turned over to Gen
eral McDonald. Vol. 10, page 602. This parole Avas
on May 3, 1776, and the record is silent about James
Hunter until August 23d, when the Guilford safety com
mittee Avrites to the Council of Safety then sitting at
Halifax : "The committee have ordered James Hunter in
custody and to be sent to your board. I am just in
formed that he ha.s set out Ayith a petition to the Council
signed by some members of the committee, etc." Vol.
10, page 761. With this letter they sent quite a num
ber of prisoners, James Hunter not one of them, who all
appear before the Council at Halifax August 28th. Vol.
10, page 761. The exigencies of the Indian campaign,
and the desire to be near Governor Rutherford, made the
Council adjourn to meet at Silisbury. It did meet there
September 6, and on that day James Hunter voluntariljr
appeared before them and took the oath of allegiance.
Second, reasonable deduction from facts : It was the
general impression in August, 1775, that James Hunter
AAas anti-Whig. Samuel Johnston, on his way to the,
Hillsboro Convention, Avrites from Halifax, August 14,

100 Appendix.
1775 : "They had chosen a committee in Orange and
everything is likely to go well, though a report prevails
here that Ilunter, the Regulator, threatens to bring a
thousand men from Guilford to interrupt the Conven
tion." Now this rumor proved to be false, though there
may have been some foundation for it. It is certain,
however, that no rumor can spread unless it has some
appearance of truth. James Hunter, a Whig, at the
head Of a thousand men to break up a Whig Convention,
as a rumor bears its own death wound, carries its oAvn
refutation. Substitute James Hunter, the Tory, and
see the difference. 1 McRee's Iredell, page 261.
Again, no one doubts that Hunter was a man of posi
tive convictions, with unlimited influence over the Regu
lators, "^hy, then, if he was a Whig, was he. at no time
used as an intermediary when the leading men of the
State were so anxious to conciliate the Regulators?
(See 10 Colonial Records, 169 and 693.)
Again, why, if he was a Whig, was not this influential
man, this man of position and character a born leader,
appointed to some position of grea,ter or less importance
in the county or district in which he lived? One searches
the records in vain for any mention of him in any offi
cial capacity until after he took the oath of allegiance in
1776. AfterAvards and until his death he was in the
public eye, and no doubt a valuable citizen.