Buncombe-Tryon-Clay County NcArchives Biographies.....Henry, Robert February 10, 1765 - January 6, 1863
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Fran Chancellor http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00016.html#0003841 February 25, 2018, 4:02 pm

Source: Western North Carolina; a history (1730-1913) (Kindle Locations 7347-7370).
Author: John Preston Arthur

Robert Henry.......in July, 1802, on motion of Joseph Spencer, and the 
production of his county court license, Robert Henry Esq., became an attorney 
of the court. This singular, versatile and able man has left his impress upon 
Buncombe county and Western North Carolina. Born in Tryon (afterward Lincoln) 
county, North Carolina, on February 10, 1765, in a rail pen, he was the son of 
Thomas Henry, an emigrant from the north of Ireland. When Robert was a 
schoolboy he fought on the American side of Kings Mountain, and was badly 
wounded in the hand by a bayonet thrust. Later he was in the heat of the fight 
at Cowan's Ford, and was very near Gen. William Davidson when the latter was 
killed. After the war he removed to Buncombe county and on the Swannanoa taught 
the first school ever held in that county. He then became a surveyor, and after 
a long and extensive experience, in which he surveyed many of the large grants 
in all the counties of western North Carolina and even in middle Tennessee, and 
participated in 1799, as such, in locating and marking the line between the 
State of North Carolina and the State of Tennessee, he turned his attention to 
the study of law. In January, 1806, he was made solicitor of Buncombe county. 
He it was who opened up and for years conducted as a public resort the Sulphur 
Springs near Asheville, later known as Deaver's Springs and still more recently 
as Carrier's Springs. On January 6, 1863, he died in Clay county, N. C, at the 
age of 98 years, and was 'undoubtedly the last of the heroes of Kings 
Mountain. ' To him we are indebted for the preservation and, in part, 
authorship of the most graphic and detailed accounts of the fights at Kings 
Mountain and Cowan's ford which now exist. He was the first resident lawyer of 
Buncombe county." 

Colonel Davidson's Recollections of Robert Henry. "I must not omit ... to 
mention Robert Henry, who lived, owned and settled the Sulphur Springs. He was 
an old man when I first knew him, say fifty years ago [that was in 1891]; he 
had then retired from the profession of the law which he had practiced many 
years. This was before I knew him well. He was tedious and slow in 
conversation, but always interesting to the student. He had been a fine lawyer, 
and remarkable in criminal cases.' 4 He could recite his experiences of cases 
in most minute detail. He insisted that, underlying all, there was invariably a 
principle which settled every rule of evidence and point of law. I chanced to 
get some of his old criminal law books, such as Foster's Crown Law, Hale's 
Pleas of the Crown, etc., and I found them well annotated with accurate 
marginal notes, showing great industry and thought in their perusal. He had a 
grand history in our struggle for independence; was at Charlotte when the 
Declaration of Independence was made; 15 but, being a boy at this time, he did 
notunderstand the character of the resolutions; but said he heard the crowd 
shout and declared themselves freed from the British government. He afterwards 
fought at the battle of Kings Mountain and was severely wounded in the hand and 
thigh, by a bayonet in the charge of Ferguson's men. "

Arthur, John Preston. Western North Carolina; a history (1730-1913) (Kindle 
Locations 7347-7370).  . Kindle Edition. 



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