Lenoir County, NC - Richard Caswell Newspaper Articles ~~~~~~~~~~ Contributed by Sloan Mason and typed for posting by Christine Grimes Thacker. Charlotte Observer 5-20-1916 The Revolution in North Carolina in 1775 Transylvania, Craven, Anson and Mecklenburg Proof, from absolutely contemporaneous documentary evidence, that the of the Battle of Lexington actually did reach Charlotte on May 19th, 1775. The arrival of this news precipitated the Declaration of Independence on May Twentieth, Seventeen Hundred and Seventy Five. Prof. Archibald HENDERSON has established beyond the slightest question of a doubt, with the introduction of the proofs herewith shown, that the date and priority of Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence are now clearly substantiated. – Ed. Note. From early youth I have cherished an unflagging interest in the history of this county of Mecklenburg, where my great-great- grandfather, Moses ALEXANDER, settled in the early years of the eighteenth century, faithfully served the people as their first High Sheriff, and in later years gave himself freely to their service as Colonel of the County Militia to the day of his death in 1772. Had his life not been cut short, perhaps fate would have trust upon him the duty of issuing that clarion call in the first days of the month of May, 1775, which fell to the lot of his successor, Colonel Thomas Polk. The fact that I have no relationship, even in a remote degree, to any of the actors in the scene commemorated here tonight, clarifies my vision of all prejudice, I trust, and enables me, without suspicion of partisanship, to examine the classic problem with the effort to pluck out the heart of its mystery. I. During recent years it has been my privilege to make extended researches in historical archives in Wisconsin, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and South Carolina, as well as in my native State, with especial reference to events transpiring in North Carolina in the year 1775. And daring as the act may seem, I have taken my courage in my hands and come here tonight, emboldened by the discoveries which illuminate and transfigure the events of that annus mirabilis. My theme is the "The Revolution in North Carolina in 1775," and the four great events which express and embody that revolutionary spirit in my research are identified with Granville, Craven, Anson and Mecklenburg. These events, singularly enough, all transpired in May 1775: all are illuminated with new and hitherto unpublished material; and all, each and every, express and embody the very genius of the Revolution. Like a Crusader with flaming cross, stirring to irrepressible enthusiasm the ardent loyalty of a people, came a rider—a rider from bleeding Lexington in far- away New England. This courier, as in mad, hot haste he galloped southward upon his continental ride, bore in his hand no flaming cross, but only a simple letter, eloquent in its simplicity. And yet—this news was the electric spark which in its train set aglow the patriotic spirit of a people, and culminated in the fulgurant fire of Mecklenburg. At break of day, on the morning of Wednesday, April 19, 1975, Major PITCAIRN halted his six companies of royal infantry on the village green in front of the meeting-house at Lexington. Drawn up to bar his progress were Captain John PARKER and the immortal minute men, seventy in number, Spartan in their courage . In reply to PITCAIRN's haughty command "Disperse, you rebels, disperse!" came PARKER's classic command to his men: "Stand your ground, don't fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here" The first straggling shots were followed by a general discharge from the English line: the minute men broke their ranks- and the mad shots fired here and at Concord were soon to echo through a continent—"heard round the world." Without delay, the committee of Public Safety of Watertown, near ten of the clock, on this fateful day, dispatched in hot haste express riders to all points of his compass, bearing this significant message: "To all friends of American Liberty, be it known that this morning before break of day a Brigade consisting of about 1,000, or 1,200 men landed at Phips farm at Cambridge and marched to Lexington where they found a company of our Colony Militia in arms, upon whom they fired without any provocation, and killed 6 men and wounded four others. By an express from Boston we find another Brigade are now upon their march from Boston supposed to be about 1,000. The bearer, Isarel BISSEL, is charged to alarm the country quite to Connecticut and all persons are desired to furnish him with fresh horses as they may be needed.- Signed: Palmer, one of the Committee of Sy." This dispatch was certified by the committees of the towns through which it passed: Worcester, Brooklyn, Norwich, New London, Lyme, Saybrook, Killingworth, East Guilford, Guilford, Branford, New Haven, Fairfield, New York, Elizabethtown, Princeton and Trenton; and on Monday, April 24, about five o'clock in the afternoon, an express rider arrived at the city tavern in Philadelphia. The news quickly spread over the city, and the next morning, swayed by intense feeling, the people assembled in public meeting, as if by common consent, at the State House. The first tap had been sounded in the grand march of independence: the time for organizing, arming, and if need be for taking the field had come at last! "Sunday evening (April 30), " wrote Richard CASWELL to his son on May 11,"we arrived at Petersburg in Virginia, where we met the express with an account of a battle between the King's troops and the Bostonians" On May 6, the express reached New Bern, North Carolina. The moment is prophetic: it strikes the first clear note of that revolutionary uprising in this colony which was to find its patriotic culmipation in the historic action of Mecklenburg patriots on May 20, 1775. II. The Colony of North Carolina, upon which this trilling news of Lexington fell like a thunder clap, had already signalized its revolutionary spirit in the epochal meeting at Wilmington, on July 21, 1774—a meeting justly termed epochal, in that it was the first movement to provide for a revolutionary government, and that the delegates elected were the first elected by the people in any providence in the assertion of the right of _overaignty of the people. Even the doubting JEFFERSON could say no less of North Carolina than this: No State was more fixed or forward." The record will show that this was a grave understatement of the case: for North Carolina stands pre-eminent as" First to withdraw from British trust In Congress they the very first Their independence they declared." The first overt movement in North Carolina defy the British rule and to act in contravention of royal proclamation proceeded, appropriately enough, from the ancient county of Granville, For it was Granville that gave birth to George SIM's " Nutbush Paper," which I recently discovered and published in the American Historical Review—the famous "Nutbush Paper," which gave rise to the action and tyranny under royal rule, known as the Regulation-grim precursor of Revolution. And it was Granville that set the high mark for the rest of the colony, on August 15, 1774, in its thorough-paced Americanism—its instructions declaring "that those absolute rights which we are entitled to as men, by the immutable laws of nature, are antecedent to all social and relative duties whatsoever; that by civil contract subsisting between our king and his people, allegiance is the right of the first magistrate, and protection the right of the people; that a violation of this compact would rescind the civil institution binding both king and people together. Upon the advice of Daniel BOONE, who for a decade had been acting as confidential agent in the employ of the land company known as Richard HENDERSON and Company, Judge Richardson HENDERSON, of Granville County, at a meeting in Hillsborough, on January 6, 1775, reorganized this company under the name of the Transylvania Company, and set in motion plans for acquiring an immense region beyond the Alleghanies—twenty millions' of acres in extent—by purchase from the Cherokee, Whilst these men were acting under legal advice, solicited from Lord MANSFIELD in England, they were nevertheless proceeding in direct violation of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which explicitly forbade purchases by private individuals, from the Indians without a royal grant, Dismayed by the designs of the Transylvania Company, which were openly set forth in broadsides scattered through the province, Col Wm. PRESTON of Virginia, in a hitherto unpublished letter, of date January 31, 1775 which I recently discovered in archives of the United States government, written to Col. George WASHINGTON, who at this time, mind you, "abhorred independence," writes as follows: "I hear that HENDERSON talks with great freedom and – sets the Government at Defiance." At the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga, on March 14-17, 1775, there was concluded, with the entire tribe of the Cherokee, a treaty under which the Transylvania Company, composed of nine North Carolinians, acquired for the sum of ten thousand pounds sterling, the title to part of Tennessee and the greater part of Kentucky. On April 9, 1775, in an unpublished letter, which I have recently discovered, William PRESTON again writes to George WASHINGTON with growing alarm: "HENDERSON I hear has made the purchase and got a conveyance of the great and Valuable Country below the Kentucky from the Cherokees. He and about three hundred adventurers are gone out to take possession: who it is said intend to set up an independent Government and form a code of laws for themselves." So grave was the alarm felt by the Royal Governors of North Carolina and Virginia that they in turn issued proclamations, Martin on February 10, Dunmore on March 21, against the "infamous HENDERSON" and his disorderly associates," forbidding them "on pain of his Majesty's highest displeasure, and of suffering the most rigorous penalties of the law, to prosecute so unlawful an undertaking," and threatening them with fine and imprisonment if they persisted in their unwarrantable and illegal designs. Undismayed by the violent fu_m_nations of Crown Governors, the Transylvania Company went steadily forward upon its revolutionary course, proceeded to found Boonesborough, and to establish an independent government. The Transylvania declaration of independence, made by North Carolinians in May 1775, has been little noted in American history. In addressing this, the first legislative body on the American continent which ever convened west of the Alleghanles, the president, Col. Richard HENDERSON, boldly declared on May 23, 1775: We have a right to make necessary laws for the regulation of our conduct without giving offense to Great Britain or any of the American Colonies, without disturbing the repose of any society or community under heaven." In their reply to this address, the pioneer legislators on May 25 unanimously endorsed it, submitting: "That we have an absolute right, as a political body, without giving umbrage to Great Britain, or any of the Colonies, to frame rules for the Government of our little society can not be doubted by any sensible mind—and being without the jurisdiction of, and not answerable to any of his Majesty's Courts, the constituting tribunals of justice shall be a matter of our first consideration." At Oxford, in Granville County, on September 25, 1775, the proprietors of Transylvania held a meeting and elected James HOGG as a delegate, armed with an ably prepared memorial to the Continental Congress then in session at Philadelphia, petitioning for recognition of Transylvania as the fourteenth member of the united colonies "Having their hearts warmed with the same noble spirit that animates the United Colonies," the memorial sets forth, "and moved with indignation at the at the late ministerial and Parliamentary usurpation, it is the earnest wish of the Proprietors of Transylvania to be considered by the Parliaments as brethren, engaged in the same great cause of America as the Congress shall judge to be suitable to their abilities." In December, 1775, James HOGG, as ambassador of the Colony of Transylvania, was dispatched to Philadelphia to interview Messrs. HOOPER and HEWES, and to Petition Congress for the recognition of Transylvania as the fourteenth member of the United Colonies. The time was no riper now than in the June preceding, when Captain Jack went on his famous journey; and even such impetuous libertarions as John and Samuel ADAMS pointed out the "impropriety in embarrassing our reconciliation with anything new, and the taking under our protection a body of people who have acted in defiance of the King's proclamation will be looked upon as a confirmation of that independent spirit with which we are daily reproached." "Messrs. HOOPER and HEWES," relates HOGG, "joined me in opinion that I should not push the matter further" all realizing the "very critical situation of affairs." So wanted and fell the star of Transylvania—North Carolina's bold effort to establish a free and independent colony in the heart of the trans-Alleghany wilderness. III. If you will follow with me the course of the courier who entered the bounds of North Carolina in May 1775, and sowed broadcast the red seeds of revolution tragically spilled at Lexington, you will follow the course of the revolution in North Carolina in 1775. No sooner had the message arrived in New Bern, on May 6, than it was forwarded to the committee of Onslow County, with the endorsement thereon of Samuel SMITH, R. COGDELL, John GREEN, William Tisdale, Thomas McLIN, A, NASH, Joseph LEECH, John FONVILLE, William STANLEY, and James COOR, for the committee of safety of Craven County. Fired to martial zeal by the news, the men of Craven began at once to organize and arm themselves; and on May 18, Governor MARYIN reports to the Earl of Dartmouth: " In this little town they call independent companies under mu nose, and civil Government becomes more and more prostrate every day." The committee met again May 23, and their spokesman, Abner NASH, headed a popular assemblage to protest to the Governor against dismounting the cannon on the palace grounds. Indefatigable researches in the hope of locating the proceeding of the Craven County committee of safety, which are not to be found in the Colonial Records, have, until recently, proven fruitless: it is through the kindness of Miss Adelaide L. FRIES, the discoverer of this document in the Morayian archives, that I am enabled to set before you in full the proceeding of the committee for the town of New Bern and the county of Craven, of memorable date, May 31, 1775. I would call your attention to two most significant facts in connection with the committee. First, that, just as in the case of the people of Philadelphia, the people of New Bern upon receipt of the news from Lexington immediately –pray note the fact—set about arming themselves and forming themselves into military companies; and in the second place dispatched printed copies of their inflammatory proceeding from one and of the colony to the other—urging upon the several committees of the province, "in these times of general danger, to adopt something of the like nature for our common safety and defense." Proceeding of the committee for the town of New Bern and county of Craven, May 31, 1775. Circular letter to the several committees of this province. Gentleman; we herewith transmit you a copy of the proceedings of our committee, hoping they will meet with your approbation and that you will think it necessary, in these times of general danger, to adopt something of the like nature for our common safety and defense. We think it necessary, upon this occasion, to inform you, that association papers have been circulated through this county (supposed under the direction of the Governor, as they are in the hand writing of his private secretary) with a direct view to draw off the people from the cause of liberty and to create in them suspicions and jealousies of those who openly declare in favor of freedom. Some few very ignorant people in this county were by the artifice our enemies drawn in to subscribe such association, but we have the pleasure to acquaint you that they have been since convinced of their error, with indignation tore off their names, and now look with horror on the trap that was laid for them. If such papers have been circulated in your county, we doubt not they will, through your vigilance, be easily and suddenly put a stop to. We also transmit you a letter from Charleston committee, which was sent to the several committees in that province, for the better information of the people at large: which explains and sets in a clear light the real state and nature of the present disputes between Great Britain and America, in which this province is involved as well as the rest. It is, we think, the duty of the several committees to inform the people of their danger. We remain most respectfully, gentlemen, your obedient servants, etc. In the committee at New Bern, May 31, 1775. Whereas it appears by letters from the committees of correspondence in New York and Philadelphia, and by the public papers, that all exportation to Quebec, Nova Scotia, Georgia, and Newfoundland, or any part of the fishing coasts or islands, is suspended. Resolved, That the above measure be recommended by the committee to the merchants and inhabitants of this town and county, and that from this time no provisions, or any other necessaries, be sent from this port to the Army or Navy at Boston, unless otherwise directed by the Continental Congress. Whereas having received certain intelligence that a most bloody and barbarous action hath lately been committed by the army under General GAGE on the inhabitants near Boston, whom they unmercifully fell upon and murdered in cold blood, and without provocation, as they marched through the country, having no regard to age, sex, or infirmity: at the same time ravaging the country, burning, destroying, and laying all waste wherever they came, until at length they were met by a few companies of provincials, who then thinking themselves justified by all the laws of God and Nations, took up arms in the immediate defense of their lives, and by a manly exertion of that brave spirit which a good cause never fails to inspire, they, though greatly their inferiors as to numbers, providentially put a stop to their destructive career, and forced them to retreat with precipitation and much loss, for nearly 20 miles, to their fortified city of Boston, which unhappy devoted place the army now consider as their own property, in open exclusion of the right owners. From all which it manifestly appears that the British Ministry mean no longer to receive the peaceable addresses of the much injured people of America, on the subject of their invoded rights, but are determined, since they will not voluntarily make a total surrender of their freedom and Constitution, to wrest it from them by the brutal hand of violence. The people of America are therefore now driven to this fatal extremity—either they must tamely submit to slavery, and agree for themselves and their posterity forever, to work for and maintain, with the sweat of their brows, their proud masters and overseers, the ministerial pensioners, placemen, and hirelings, of every denomination whatsoever, which God gave, and the Constitution warrants. The latter resolution our sister colonies have unanimously adopted, and accordingly have now in the field not less, from the best accounts we have received, than 25,000 men, well disciplined, and equipped with a large train of artillery, and every kind of military implement necessary for immediate action. And whereas there is much reason to fear, in these times of general tumult and confusion, that the slaves may instigated and encouraged by our inveterate enemies to an insurrection, which in our present defenseless state might have the most dreadful consequences; we therefore, induced by these most weighty considerations, do think it our indispensable duty to take every precaution that prudence and forethought can possibly suggest, go as to be prepared in time against the worst event that may happen. We therefore recommend it strongly to our constituents, the inhabitants of New Bern and Craven County, that they form themselves immediately into companies, and nominate proper officers to each company; that such officers, when nominated, use unwearied diligence in instructing their respective companies in the use of arms: and from time to time, as they shall judge expedient, that they send out detachments to patrol and search the negro houses, and all other suspected places within their several districts, giving strict orders to the officer of such detachment to seize all arms ammunition found in their possession, and to apprehend and carry before the next magistrate all such negroes as they shall find under circumstances of suspicion, to be dealt with according to law. The following persons are appointed for the present to summon together the several companies, viz. Abner NASH, Lovick JONES, Richard BLACKLEDGE, Charles CRAWFORD, Moses ALMOND, John Gray BLOUNT, Lemuel HATCH, Nathan BRYAN, Levi DAWSON, Frederick HARGETT, Francis DILIAMAR, Samuel SMITH, Richard NICKSON, and Thomas McLIN. And in order that the most perfect union and good understanding may prevail amongst the good people of this county and town on subjects of such importance, it is further recommender that the several companies, so to be formed as aforesaid, do meet in their several districts twice a month, if convenient, to advise and consult together how they may best act with united force, in case of any sudden and dangerous emergency. Resolved, That the proceeding of this committee be printed and made public, with the printed letter from the committee of South Carolina to the inhabitants of their province, explaining the real state and nature of the present disputes between Great Britain and America, The connection between the actions in New Bern and in Mecklenburg is vitally made in the letter to Richard CASWELL written by Richard COGDELL, chairman of the Craven County committee, dated New Bern, June 18, 1775, enclosing a copy of The North Carolina Gazette of June 16, 1775, containing the Mecklenburg resolves; he writes in part: "We have transmitted the copy of our proceedings to every county and town in the province, and have had the pleasure to hear many counties have had their private musters and elected their officers—you'll observe the Mecklenburg resolves, exceeds all other committees, or the Congress itself." IV. In approaching the subject of the meeting here in Mecklenburg in May 1775. I wish to state in advance that for many years I have given deep study and reflection to the intricate and delicate questions involved in this classic controversy. It has been my endeavor, during this long period of study, to discover some one fact or circumstance, in connection with the meeting here, which once established independently and by irrefutable documentary evidence strictly contemporaneous, would for all time establish the truth of, or disapprove, the allegation that there was a meeting here in Charlotte on May 19, continued on May 20, 1775, on which latter date independence of Great Britain was formally declared. There are three ways in which the events may have shaped themselves. There is, first: the theory that there were no meeting on May 19, and 20, on which latter date independence was declared; but that all resolutions which tended toward independence, or declared conditional or unconditional independence, according to interpretation, are embodied in a series of 10 resolves passed on May 31. There is, second, the theory that there was no meeting on May 31; that all actions tending towards independence or unconditional independence were taken on May 20, preceded by a discussion on May 19; and that the so-called 31st resolves were actually passed on 30. There is, third, (Continued on Page 10.) (Continued from Page 9.) The theory that there was a convention which assembled here on May 19, at the call of Col. Thomas POLK, and on May 20 declared the county of Mecklenburg free and independent of Great Britain; and that on May 31, the committee elected by that convention met again and passed a series of resolves, getting forth in unmistakable terms, the constitutional grounds of colonial independence, and outlining a well-articulated system of local laws for the government of the county of Mecklenburg under the new regime of independence. There is a further hypothesis which, so far as I know, has never been advanced by any national historian—an hypothesis which on the face of it is undeserving of credence by any rational being, This is the hypothesis that nothing of any sort whatever transpired when the news of the battle of Lexington reached Charlotte, save the issuance of a call by Colonel POLK for an election of delegates to a meeting nearly two weeks later: and that the arrival of the news was greeted with stolid indifference. For this theory there is no support, on logical, rational, or evidential grounds. The resolves of May 31 are not such as would be passed by a body of men under immediate stress of great excitement and high feeling. The reports of the participants of the meeting of May 20 accord much more nearly with the accounts of similar meetings held after report of the battle in Lexington had been received, differing only in their more drastic form. The resolves of May 31, on the contrary, are such as would naturally be passed by a committee appointed for the purpose of drafting an informal code of laws for a new government under republican rule. Critical examination of these resolves shows that they follow the lives which would naturally be followed in the effort to provide a temporary form of government for a body of men who, having declared themselves " free and independent" of the afore-constituted authority, found themselves for the moment without a code of laws. At Philadelphia, as I have recalled to your minds, there was action in the form of a popular assemblage within less than 24 hours of the arrival of the news. In New Bern the action was immediate, as we have seen, in the organization of independent military companies quickly followed by vehement appears to all the committees throughout the colony, in Anson, as we shall see a little later, from evidence which I have recently discovered, there was immediate and drastic action, of a highly revolutionary nature. In Mecklenburg, meeting had frequently been held prior to May 19, at which discussions concerning independence and the parlous state of the country constituted the immediate purpose of meeting. That there was immediate action upon receipt of the stirring news in Mecklenburg already rendered highly inflammable through continued appeals to sentiments of liberty, is the only rational conclusion. Any able student of psychology and of the constitution of the human mind will testify to the associative faculty in memory, and to its power of tenacity when other _timulative processes prove abortive of result. Ever since PITCAIRN and PARKER faced each other upon Lexington green, the date April 19, 1775, had been deeply and permanently graven upon the popular cons_lou_ness by the corrosive acid of dramatic and tragic experience. No fact would be so dramatically affective in its associative _____ the arrival of the historic news of the first blood shed in the Revolution, on precisely the same day of the month, one month later---effective in particular, upon the thoughtful individuals in a popular assemblage gathered together to discuss the alarming crisis in the country originally focused by that very event. No chronological fact would be so readily remembered in after years as this striking collocation of date with date of action with action. Now at blast emerges into light the one crucial point, capable of final settlement, in connection with the meetings in Charlotte. The best first-hand evidence, as well as the logic and of the situation is conclusive on the point that the arrival of the news of the Battle of Lexington precipitated immediate and drastic action. Although a skeptic has depominated the famous narrative of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence a "strange and almost incredible story of the fallibility of human memory," the evidence of the participants and eye-witnesses is none the less valuable and to the point. To resume, in brief, the testimony of the participants and eye-witnesses in this one is illuminating and impressive, for those participants and eye-witnesses who recalled the events with the greatest particularity and details concur on the point that the arrival of the nows of the Battle of Lexington occurred on the first day of the great meeting and was the immediate—as the dramatic critic would say—the exciting—cause of the Declaration of Independence. Col. John McKnitt ALEXANDER, whose "rough notes" (from memory) constitute the most important authority among the extant documents, in speaking of the effect in Mecklenburg produced by the relief of Boston, observes. "And soon afterward we smelt and felt the Blood and Carnage of Lexington which ___ all the passions into fury—and revenge which was the immediate cause of abjuring Great Britain on May 19, 1775." And earlier in the same notes he says, in describing the meeting of May 19; "After a short conference about their suffering every hardship in Boston and the American blood running in Lexington, etc., the ___ fire flew into every breast." Explicit is the testimony on these three points; namely, that the meeting was held on May 19, that the delegate had already received the news of the Battle of Lexington, and that it was the arrival of this news which precipitated revolutionary action. In the more fully elaborated narrative prepared by Joseph McKnitt ALEXANDER from his father's papers, we read; "In conformity to said order on the 19th of May, 1775 the said delegation met in Charlotte town vested with unlimited powers, at which time official news by express arrived of the Battle of Lexington of that day of the preceding month—every delegate felt the value and importance of the prize and the awful and solema crisis which had arrived—every bosom swelled with indignation at the malice, inveteracy and unsatiable revenge developed in the late attack at Lexington." Explicit also is this testimony on the same three points. After giving the date of the great meeting on May 20, General Joseph GRAHAM, whose memory was unusually acute, as evidenced by the particularity of the narrative states: "The news of the Battle of Lexington the 19th of April preceding had arrived. There appeared among the people much excitement." Col. Wm. Polk, in his account of first revolutionary movements in North Carolina effectively states the situation as follows " To aid the end which the leaders had in view it fortunately happened that on the day of the meeting the news of the action at Lexington reached them, which gave a fair and fortunate opportunity for those who were inclined to urge the propriety of dissolving the union between the mother country and the Colonies and to assume a Republican form of government which was the great object of the leaders. The evidence before us leads to perfectis (sic) definite and unavoidable conclusions. It is not necessary, let me point out, for you or me to attempt to discover independently from contemporary sources the date of the great meeting. This attempt has been made by virtually all investigators of the problem in disregard of the testimony of the eye-witnesses and participants, yet thus far their efforts have not been crowned with success. The one fixed fact in the classic controversy this, that on whatever day the great meeting in Charlotte was held, on which according to the evidence of those best qualified to judge, namely the participants and eye-witnesses, the people declared themselves free and independent of Great Britain, there arrived on the day preceding, the news of the Battle of Lexington. This is the verdict of logic psychology, common sense: this is the testimony of participants and eye-witnesses who, whatever else they might fail to recall, would ever t_nac_oualy hold in memory the doubly striking coincidence first, the accidental collocation, April 19 –May 19 and second, the memorable instance of cause and result embroiled in sequence of the arrival of the news of bloodshed at Lexington precipitating a declaration of independence of Great Britain. In order to disprove that a great meeting participated, in by nearly half the men in the county was held in Charlotte on May 19 and 20, at which time independence was declared, it is only necessary to show that the news of the Battle of Lexington reached Charlotte on May 30, if it could be conclusively demonstrated that this news first reached Charlotte on May 30, it would forever dispose of the contention that there was a declaration of independence made on May 20, and would prove indubitably that the Resolves of May 31 constitute the one and only declaration of independence. The f_lchrum upon which the whole situation turns, the pivot upon which the whole fabric revolves, is this crucial query: "On what date did the news of the Battle of Lexington actually reach Charlotte?" That, ladies and gentlemen, has been the goal of my researches for years; to discover the date when that thrilling news from New England reached this town. If I had discovered that the news first reached Charlotte on May 30, I should have frankly abandoned the familiar story of the events of May 20 as an involuntary figment of the fancy; for I should have been convinced that the witnesses in speaking of the declaration of independence recalled imperfectly the Resolves of May 31. But if it shall transpire that the news of the Battle of Lexington reached Charlotte on May 19, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that on the following day, May 20, the assembled multitude, according to the testimony of active participants, declared themselves free and independent of Great Britain. In saying this, this further comment is necessary that no draft of this declaration in the preciso (sic) form in which it was passed has, I believe, ever come to light since the destruction of the records in 1800. There is no reason to doubt the secondary character of all known drafts of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence; yet there is equally no reason to doubt that the action on May _0, assuming such a meeting, was on authentic and unconditional declaration of independence. V. As one who has been in the employ of the United States Government as an engineer, I have studied the problem of the routes over which couriers might pass, in bringing the news southward from Philadelphia, and the rates of speed at which they must necessarily move in order to reach given points at specified dates, In making this investigation, I have relied strictly upon indisputable facts. They speak for themselves in the following calculations. Let us take the ride of Captain James JACK. He is known, from authentic evidence, to have been in Philadelphia on June 28, and to have arrived at Salem, N.C., on July 7. Had he left on the very day he was known to have been in Philadelphia he would have reached Charlotte on July 10, at latest, thus making the journey in eighteen days at most. If Captain JACK left Charlotte on June 1 or 2, he would have arrived in Philadelphia on June 19 or 20, which accords precisely with the facts. Hence an express, starting from Philadelphia on April 25 and coming via the shortest route, would, at the same rate of speed at which Captain JACK traveled would arrive in Charlotte on May 13 at the latest. Compare this with the rate of travel on foot. It is recorded in the Movavian archives (September 21, 1775), that a man came on foot from Bethlehem, Va. To Salem, N.C. in 30 days. Presuming the same time to go from Philadelphia to Salem—though it would doubtless take less—and we have a pedestrian leaving Philadelphia on April 25 and arriving in Charlotte on May 25 at most. It is obvious, by processes of pure reason, that the news of the Battle of Lexington, which was sent post haste by mounted couriers, must have reached Charlotte some time after May 13 and before May 25, and that in order to reach Charlotte as late as May 30, the indispensable contention of those who disbelieve in the declaration of May 20, it must have been slowly brought all the way on foot from Philadelphia—an absurd travesty on the real facts. The most striking disproof of the contention that the news of the Battle of Lexington reached Charlotte on May 30 is found in the original diary of my great-great-grandfather, preserved in Wisconsin. Remember that famous Wilderness Trail had just been cut through the forests, namely in March and April, 1775, by Daniel BOONE in employ of Transylvania company, and that it was nothing but a bridle path for much of the way. From Hanover Court House to Boonesborough---according to the routes of travel given by contemporary travelers, notably by John _ILSON, Dr. J._.D. SMYTHE, William BROWN, and others—was some five hundred and fifty miles via Fort Chiswell, and at the regular rate of horseback travel in the, wilderness, the journey would consume 28 days. We know that the news of the Battle of Lexington reached King William County on May 1, and hence must have reached Hanover Court House on May 2, at latest, Hence the news should reach Boonesborough, Kentucky, on May 29. And with starting accuracy I found the following laconic entry in Judge Richard HENDERSON's dairy, written at Boonesborough. Of date Monday, May 29, 1775; "Letter with an account of the Battle at Boston," To suppose that it would take one day longer to go from Hanover Court House to Charlotte, a distance of only three hundred miles, over main traveled roads, than it would to go from Hanover Court House to Boonesborough, a distance of five hundred fifty miles over one of the worst routes on the continent, is to suppose the most patent of absurdities. At the very slow rate of speed at which news traveled to Boonesborough, it would have reached Charlotte exactly on May 19, at latest. On May 9(?), Henry MONTFORD, at Halifax, N.C., sent to Thomas BURKE at Hillsborough a letter containing the news of the Battle of Lexington. At most it must have reached Hillsborough on May 13. Examination of Waight_till AVERY's Diary, written in 1759(?), shows that it took him at most five days at any time to go from Hillsborough to Charlotte. At this very leisurely rate of speed, the news of the Battle of Lexington must have reached Charlotte exactly on May 18(?). If we consider the approach to Charlotte from the south, the evidence is equally conclusive. The news of the Battle of Lexington, as shown by contemporary documents, reached Charleston, S.C., on May 8, by water, on May 11 by land. To cover the distance of 240 miles from Charleston to Charlotte, via Kingstree and Camden at the rate of 40 miles per day (instead of 50-odd, at which rate the very couriers bearing this news were proven by the records to have traveled) would bring the news to Charlotte by May 16. One more illustration, the most impressive of all---and I shall come to the conclusion which we all await. The papers borne by the couriers were ordered to be dispersed to the adjoining counties; Cornelius HARNETT endorsed the dispatch: "For God's sake send the man on without the least delay." The news once received, was disseminated in all directions. I have recently discovered a remarkable narrative, written in an old Bible preserved today in Tennessee, describing the arrival of the news of the Battle of Lexington at Anson Court House, only 52 miles from Charlotte. This narrative was written by Morgan BROWN, who was born in Anson County, N.C. in 1758 and died in Davidson County, Tenn., in 1840. So dramatic is this remarkable narrative of the news in Anson, so similar in its effect upon popular feeling to the happenings in neighboring Mecklenburg, that I shall quote it in considerable fullness. Says Morgan BROWN in his narrative. "My father intended me for a physician, and although the schools of the country were of little account. I was kept constantly at them for four or five years, after which I was to have been sent to an academy at Charlotte in Mecklenburg County, then recently established. But my father having some business in Maryland in the year 1774, when I was about 15 years old, sent me on the long journey…"… "It was late in the Fall when I returned home and my intended commencement at the Academy at Charlotte was postponed until Spring. But before Spring the increasing prospect of war was such that it was postponed forever. Hostilities commenced and filled with real and enthusiasm for the liberties of my country I determined to give her my aid at every call, and devote my life to her service. I was now entering my seventeenth tear; armed with a good ride in hand, a pistol and tomahawk in my belt and a silver crescent with the words " Liberty or Death" placed on the front cock of my hat, mounted on a good horse, I felt myself ready to rush into service upon the first exigency. This year, 1775, was remarkable for a total suspension of Government a circumstance rarely or perhaps never known before amonga regular and orderly set of civilized men. At the May Court, which was attended by a multitude of people, we received the news of the Battle of Lexington in New England the first blood drawn. The court was sitting; some of the magistrates were Whigs and some Tories. The news was first whispered and then proclaimed. At first the people seemed struck by awe and silence but in a few minutes became clamorous! The sheriff was ordered to adjourn court which he did in usual form until the last words which in form were "God save the King" These he omitted, and the Tory magistrates ordered him to conclude in the usual form, adding that "they would have him know that the court sat in the King's name and by his royal authority!" Several people sitting near the door forbade the conclusion in those words as it was the last time it ever should sit in the King's name or by his authority. Some high words ensued and threats were used but the people all rushed out hearing the sheriff with them and leaving the Tory part of the court sitting by themselves; but they also soon left the bench. "After some time it was proposed to call court again. The people consented for them to meet and close some unfinished business upon condition it should not be called in the King's name, or that the words "God save the King" should not be added by the cryer, "for" said they, "we will have nothing done in the name of a King who has his troops slaughtering our citizens." And thus ended royal authority; for the court after closing their record never sat again! In the afternoon the heads of the people came together and concluded to appoint a committee of the most respectable men in the county who should exercise general and discretionary powers in the civil as well as military departments so far as restraining wrongs and injuries among the people, and corresponding with the leaders of the other counties." Of the arrival of the news of the Battle of Lexington at Anson Court House at the May sitting of court, it is proven from the North Carolina Colonial Records that the news was brought by one Samuel WILLIAMS, and that eh (sic) must have arrived about May 20: for about May 25 the committee which organized on the day of the arrival of the news, was already some days, at the very least, in existence. The remarkable effect upon the people of North Carolina of the news of the Battle of Lexington, so conspicuously exemplified here and Mecklenburg, is described by MARTIN to Dartmouth, June 30, 1775, in which letter he says of the reports of the Battle of Lexington circulated in North Carolina in 12 or 13 days after the battle, that they had already like all first impressions taken a deep root in the minds of the vulgar here universally and wrought a great change in the face of things, confirming the seditious in their evil purposes, and bringing over vast numbers of the fickle, wavering and unsteady multitude." It is what people call a moral certainty, my friends, that according to the unimpeachable figures given above, the news of the Battle of Lexington reached Charlotte on May 19. But something more than moral certainty, valuable as that may be, is required by the historian. An absolutely contemporaneous documentary statement that the news of the Battle of Lexington reached Charlotte on May 19, or Salisbury on May 18, or Salem on May 17, for example, is all that is required; but thus far no historian has ever succeeded in finding such a statement. After years of research I have at last found that record—found it in the famous old Moravian Records at Salem, where Traugott BAGGE's famous record rests secure. In the Salem Diary, for the year 1775, of date May 17, we read: May 17, Nachmittags brachte Br. Richter von Bethabara ein Paquet Briefe und Gomein- Nachrichten and Zeitungen aus Bethlehem und Lititz welches Christel Conrad, der heute von Pennsylvania zuruck gekommen, mitgebracht hat; die Briefe waren von 25 April und 1 May, unter andere meldeten sie das unangenehme dass um den 19 April herum ein Scharmuetzel bey Provinz Militz vorgefallen say---." The English translation is as follows: May 17, 1775. 'This afternoon Brother RICHTER brought from Bethabara a packet of letters and Church periodicals and papers from Bethlehem and Lititz which Christel Conrad, who got back today from Pennsylvania, brought with him; the letters were of dates April 25 and May 1, among other things they announced the unpleasant news that about April 19 there occurred a skirmish near Boston between the Royal troops and the Provincial Militia." I have the honor to present to the Society of Descendants of the Signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence a photographic facsimile of this memorable entry in the Salem Diary: and to present to the Queen City, of Mecklenburg, a reproduction of a portrait of Queen Charlotte, former Princess of Mecklenburg, owned by my great-great- great-grandmother, Elizabeth Maxwell STEELE, May they testify to my love and reverence for the history of North Carolina, and for the great memories of Mecklenburg. May you cherish forever this absolutely contemporaneous documentary record which constitutes irrefragable proof that the news of the Battle of Lexington reached Charlotte on May 19. For it was on the following day, according to a host of witnesses, that the people of the County of Mecklenburg, aroused to a rash pitch of patriotic fervor by the arrival of the news, declared themselves free and independent of Great Britain. ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Sloan Mason - slomas7@comcast.net ______________________________________________________________________