Journey to the Yadkin. Salisbury. A Night with a Cotton-planter near Concord. side of Abbott's Creek, a tributary of the Yadkin), at half past two in the afternoon, not a flake of snow remained. Charley and I had already lunched by the margin of a little stream, so I drove through the village without halting, hoping to reach Salisbury, sixteen miles distant, by twilight. I was disappointed; for the red clay roads prevailed, and I only reached the house of a small planter, within a mile of the east bank of the Yadkin, just as the twilight gave place to the splendors of a full moon and myriads of stars in a cloudless sky. From the proprietor I learned that the Trading Ford, where Greene and Morgan crossed when pursued by Cornwallis, was only a mile distant. As I could not pass it on my way to Salisbury in the morning, I arose at four o'clock, gave Charley his breakfast, and at earliest dawn stood upon the eastern shore of the Yadkin, and made the sketch printed upon page 395. The air was frosty, the pools were bridged with ice, and before the sketch was finished, my benumbed fingers were disposed to drop the pencil. I remained at the ford until the east was all aglow with the radiance of the rising sun, when I walked back, partook of some corn-bread, muddy coffee, and spare-ribs, and at eight o'clock crossed the Yadkin at the great bridge, on the Salisbury road. The river is there about three hundred yards wide, and was considerably swollen from the melting of the recent snows. Its volume of turbid waters came rolling down in a swift current, and gave me a full appreciation of the barrier which Providence had there placed between the Republicans and the royal armies, when engaged in the great race described in this chapter. From the Yadkin the roads passed through a red clay region, which was made so miry by the melting snows that it was almost eleven o'clock when I arrived at Salisbury. This village, of over a thousand inhabitants, is situated a few miles from the Yadkin, and is the capital of Rowan county, a portion of the "Hornet's Nest" of the Revolution. It is a place of considerable historic note. On account of its geographical position, it was often the place of rendezvous of the militia preparing for the battle-fields; of various regular corps, American and British, during the last three years of the war; and especially as the brief resting-place of both armies during Greene's memorable retreat. ⚫ Here, too, it will be remembered, General Waddell had his head-quarters for a few days, during the "Regulator war." I made diligent inquiry, during my tarry in Salisbury, for remains of Revolutionary movements and localities, but could hear of none.' The Americans, when fleeing before Cornwallis, encamped for a night about half a mile from the village, on the road to the Yadkin; the British occupied a position on the northern border of the town, about an eighth of a mile from the court-house. I was informed that two buildings, occupied by officers, had remained until two or three years ago, when they were demolished. Finding nothing to invite a protracted stay at Salisbury, I resumed the reins, and rode on toward Concord. The roads were very bad, and the sun went down, while a rough way, eight miles in extent, lay between me and Concord. Night approached, brilliant and frosty; the deep mud of the road soon became half frozen, and almost impassable, and I was beginning to speculate upon the chances of obtaining comfortable lodgings short of the village, when a large sign-board by the way-side indicated a place of entertainment, and relieved my anxiety. Such an apparition is so rare in the upper country of the Carolinas, where the traveler must depend upon the hospitality of the planters, that it is noteworthy. Passing through a lane, I came to the spacious mansion of Mr. Martin Phifer, one of the largest planters in Cabarras county. It is in the midst of one of the finest districts of North Carolina for the production of upland cotton. Practical observations upon that great staple of the South was the chief topic of our evening's conversation, which was protracted to the "small hours of the morning;" 1 The Yadkin rises in North Carolina, on the east of the Alleghany range, and flows east and southeas* into South Carolina. A few miles below the Narrows, in Montgomery county, it receives tho Rocky River, and from thence to its mouth at Winyaw Bay, near Georgetown, it bears the name of the Great Pedee. 2 An ancient stone wall exists at Salisbury, but tradition has no knowledge of its origin. It is laid in cement, and plastered on both sides. It is from twelve to fourteen feet high, and twenty-two inches thick The top of the wall is a foot below the surface of the earth at present. It has been traced for three hund. red feet. Six miles from Salisbury there is a similar wall, and may connect with the other. Conjecture alone can read its history. May it not be a part of the circumvallation of a city of the mound builders? A Patriot's Grave at the Red Hills. Picturesque Scenery. Arrival at Charlotte. Ancient Church and Congregation Mr. Phifer is a grand and I left his hospitable abode a wiser man than when I entered it. nephew of John Phifer, one of the leading patriots of Mecklenburg, whose remains lie buried at the Red Hills, three miles west of Concord. A rough, mutilated slab covers the grave of the patriot. Tradition avers that when the British army was on its march from Charlotte to Salisbury, a fire was built upon the stone by the soldiers, in contempt for the patri ot's memory. Departing from the post-road, a little distance from Mr. Phifer's, I traversed a nearer, though a rougher route to Charlotte than through Concord, passing that village about three miles to the westward, close by the Red Hills. The scenery through this whole region is extremely picturesque. Wooded hills, deep ravines, broad cultivated slopes and uplands, and numerous water-courses, present diversified and pleasing pictures at every turn of the sinuous road. In summer, when the forests and fields are clad, the roads hard, and the deep shades of the ravines and water-courses desirable, I can not imagine a more agreeable tour for a traveler of leisure than that portion of my journey from the Roanoke to the Cowpens, across the Broad River, back to the eastern side of the Catawba, and so down to the verge of the low country, near Camden. In the vicinity of Concord are the head-wa 1 ters of several tributaries of the Yadkin and Catawba, and between that village and Charlotte I crossed the Coddle, Stony, and Mallard Creeks, and one of the main branches of Rocky River. The latter, which is a considerable tributary of the Yadkin, is here a small stream, but very turbulent, and broken into numerous cascades. I reached Charlotte at half past three o'clock, having traveled only twenty-one miles since morning. It was Saturday, a and I eagerly coveted the Sabbath's rest, after a week of excessive toil. Charley, too, was jaded, and needed repose; for a large portion of the circuitous journey from Hillsborough hither had been through a region abounding in red clay, saturated with rains and melting snows. a Jan. 6, 1849. Two gentlemen, I called upon anBeing an entire Charlotte has historical notoriety, chiefly on account of its being the place where a convention of patriots assembled in 1775, and by a series of resolutions virtually declared themselves and those they represented free and independent of the British crown. To this event I particularly directed my inquiries, but was singularly unsuccessful. to whom I had letters of introduction from President Polk, were absent. other, whom he named, but could not obtain information of much value. stranger, I knew not unto whom to apply, and I left Charlotte on Monday, with feelings of disappointment not to be expressed. Since my visit, I have received varied and important information from James W. Osborne, Esq., superintendent of the Branch Mint, and others in that vicinity, which compensates me, in a measure, for my failure. By the merest accident, I ascertained that the mill upon Sugar Creek, two or three miles 1 Charlotte is the capital of Mecklenburg county, and contains about fourteen hundred inhabitants. It is pleasantly situated upon a rolling plain, on the east side of the Sugar or Sugaw Creek, a small tributary of the Catawba. It is in the midst of the gold region of North Carolina, and here a branch of the United States Mint is established. Eastward of Charlotte are several productive gold mines, which are now but little worked, partly on account of the more inviting field for miners in California. The first settlers in Mecklenburg county were principally the descendants of the Puritans, Scotch-Irish, and Roundheads; and, near Charlotte, the “Sugar Creek Congregation," the first on the Catawba, was established. I passed the brick meeting-house about three miles from the village, where worshiped the PARENT of the seven congregations from which came delegates to meet in political convention in 1775.* This meeting-house is the third erected by the Sugar Creek Congregation. The first stood about half a mile west from this, and the second a few feet south of the present edifice. In the second, the mother of Andrew Jackson, late president of the United States, worshiped for a-while, when she took refuge in the Sugar Creek Congregation, after the massacre of Burford's regiment, near her residence on the Waxhaw, in May, 1780. Near the site of the first church is the ancient burying-ground. Therein is the grave of Alexander Craighead, the first minister of the congregation. His only monument are two sassafras-trees, one at the head, the other at the foot of his grave, which are the living poles used as a bier for his coffin, and stuck in the ground to mark, temporarily, his resting-place.† These were Sugar Creek, Steel Creek, Providence, Hopewell, Center, Rocky River, and Poplar Tent.-Foote, p. 190. ↑ Ibid., p. 192. Colonel Polk's Mill. The People of Mecklenburg. Scheme for a Republican Assembly. A Convention called south of Charlotte, and known as Bissell's, was formerly the property of Colonel Thomas Polk, one of the active patriots in that section. Early on Monday morning, I rode down to the mill. Informed that it had been materially altered since the Revolution, I did not stop to sketch the locality. It is an interesting spot, for there a portion of Cornwallis's army was encamped, and the mill was used during the cantonment there, to supply his troops with flour. Let us glance at the historical events which render Charlotte famous in our annals. While public sentiment in North Carolina and its sister colonies was making rapid strides toward a bold resistance to augmenting oppressions, the people of Mecklenburg and vicinity, between the Yadkin and the Catawba, were neither indifferent nor inactive, notwithstanding their distance from the sea-board. There was no printing-press in the upper country; and as no regular post traversed that region, a newspaper was seldom seen there among the people. They were in the habit of assembling at stated places to hear printed hand-bills from abroad read, or to obtain verbal information of passing events. Charlotte was a central point for these assemblages, and there the leading men in that section often met at Queen's Museum or College, the Faneuil Hall' of North Carolina, to discuss the exciting topics of the day. These meetings were at first irregular, and without system. It was finally agreed that Thomas Polk, a large property-holder in the vicinity of Charlotte, colonel of the militia of Mecklenburg, a man of great excellence of character, extensive knowledge of the people around him, and deservedly popular, should be authorized to call a convention of the representatives of the people whenever circumstances should appear to require it.' It was also agreed that such representatives should consist of two from each captain's company, to be chosen by the people of the several militia districts, and that their decisions, when thus legally convened, should be binding upon the people of Mecklenburg. This step was in accordance with the recommendation of the eleventh article of the American Association, adopted by the first Continental Congress (see page 62), and now generally acted upon throughout the colonies. a April, 1777 When Governor Martin made an attempt to prevent the assembling of a Provincial Con gress at Newbern, a the people were much exasperated, for they remembered his arbitrary proceedings in dissolving the last Provincial Legislature, after a session of four days, and before any important business had been transacted. The excitement throughout the province was intense. While the public mind was thus inflamed, Colonel Polk issued a notice to the elected committee-men of the county, to assemble in the courthouse' at Charlotte toward the close of May. On what precise day they first met, can not now be positively determined. They appointed Abraham Alexander,' an esteemed citizen, 1 Colonel Polk was great uncle to the late President Polk. His brother, Ezekiel Polk, whose name appears quite conspicuous in the annals of Mecklenburg county, was the president's grandfather. "The house in which President Polk is supposed to have been born," says Honorable David L. Swain, in a letter to me of recent date, "is about two hundred yards south of Sugar Creek, and eleven miles south of Charlotte, on the lands of Nathan Orr. The house shown to me is of logs, was never weather-boarded, and is covered with a decaying shingle roof. It is formed by joining two houses together." 2 The court-house was a frame building, about fifty feet square, placed upon brick pillars, ten or twelve feet in height, with a stair-way on the outside. It stood in the center of the town, at the intersection of the two principal streets, now the village green. The lower part was a market-house; the upper part was used for public purposes. Stedman says it was a "large brick building," and Lee says it was of stone. Tradition of undoubted character pronounces it such as I have described. The village at that time contained about twenty houses. 3 Abraham Alexander was a leading magistrate in Mecklenburg county, and represented it in the Colonial Legislature. At the time of the convention, of which he was appointed chairman, he was almost threescore years of age. He died on the twenty-third of April, 1786, at the age of sixty-eight years. He was buried in the old church-yard, near Charlotte, where a plain slab, with an inscription, marks his grave. Elijah Alexander, a relative of the chairman, and who was present when the Mecklenburg Resolutions were read to the people at Charlotte, died at the residence of his son-in-law, James Osborne, Esq., in Cornersville, Tennessee, on the eleventh of November, 1850, at the age of ninety years. He voted for every president of the United States, from Washington to Taylor. His widow, to whom he was married in 1784, was yet living in 1851. Officers of the Convention. Speakers on the Occasion. Preamble and Resolutions. who had served them in the Colonial Legislature, chairman, and Dr. Ephraim Brevard,' a scholar and unwavering patriot, clerk or secretary. According to tradition, intelligence of the affairs at Lexington and Concord, in Massachusetts, was received during the session of the delegates, and added greatly to the excitement among the people, who had assembled in great numbers around the court-house, eager to know the resolves of their representatives within. The principal speakers on the occasion were Dr. Brevard, Reverend Hezekiah J. Balch, William Kennon (a lawyer of Salisbury), and Colonel Polk. The first three gentlemen were appointed a committee to prepare suitable resolutions, and on the thirty-first of May, 1775, the following preamble and resolves were unanimously adopted :' "Whereas, By an address presented to his majesty by both Houses of Parliament in February last, the American colonies are declared to be in a state of actual rebellion, we conceive that all laws and commissions confirmed by or derived from the authority of the king and Parliament are annulled and vacated, and the former civil Constitution of these colonies for the present wholly suspended. To provide in some degree for the exigencies of this county in the present alarming period, we deem it proper and necessary to pass the following resolves, viz. : I. That all commissions, civil and military, heretofore granted by the crown to be exer Ephraim Brevard was one of the " seven sons" of his widowed mother who were "in the rebel army." He graduated at Princeton, and, after pursuing medical studies a proper time, settled as a physician in Charlotte. His talents commanded universal respect, and he was a leader in the movements in Mecklenburg toward independence, in 1775. When the British army invaded the Southern States, Dr. Brevard entered the Continental army as a surgeon, and was taken prisoner at Charleston, in May, 1780. Broken by disease, when set at liberty, Dr. Brevard returned to Charlotte, sought the repose of privacy in the family of his friend, John M'Knitt Alexander, who had succeeded him as clerk of the Mecklenburg Committee, and there soon expired. His remains were buried in Hopewell grave-yard. No stone marks his resting place, and " no man living," says Mr. Foote, can lead the inquirer to the spot." He was a remarkable man, and, as the undoubted author of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and Constitution of Government, deserves the reverence of all patriots. His pen was often employed in the cause of freedom, and he was probably the most accomplished writer, of his day, in Western Carolina. Minute biographical sketches of these leading patriots of Mecklenburg, if they could be obtained, would make an exceedingly useful and entertaining volume. Of the general character of the people in that vicinity at the period of the Revolution, J. G. M. Ramsey, M.D., the historian of Tennessee, who has studied the character of the Mecklenburg patriots with great care, writes thus appreciatingly to me, under date of January 19, 1852: "In regard to the people, then residing between the Yadkin and the Catawba, it is almost impossible to conceive, at this day, the incalculable benefits the country received from their immigration and settlement in it; nor the happy influences, secular, civil, religious, and literary, they uniformly dif fused in their respective neighborhoods. To these are we indebted, in a great measure, for the enterprise, industry, thrift, skill, frugality, love of order, sobriety, regard for wholesome laws, family and social government, establishment of schools, churches, and a high standard of education and training for youth, attachment to well-regulated liberty, and the representative principle in government." 2 The following are the names of the leading patriots in Mecklenburg, and reported to have been members of the Mecklenburg Committee, who met in the Convention at Charlotte: ABRAHAM ALEXANDER, EPHRAIM BREVARD, JOHN M'KNITT ALEXANDER, ADAM ALEXANDER, HEZEKIAH ALEXANDER, Ezra AlEXANDER, CHARLES ALEXANDER, WAIGHTSTILL AVERY, HEZEKIAH J. BALCH, THOMAS POLK, JOHN FLENEKIN, JAMES HARRIS, NEIL MORRISSON, DAVID REESE, ROBERT HARRIS, senior, RICHARD BARRY, DUNCAN OCHILTREE, JOHN FORD, WILLIAM KENNON, SAMUEL MARTIN, ZACHEUS WILSON, senior,† BENJAMIN PATTON, ROBERT IRWIN, JOHN DAVIDSON, JOHN PFIFER, HENRY DOWNES, WILLIAM GRAHAM, MATTHEW M'CLURE, JOHN QUEARY, WILLIAM WILSON. * When Cornwallis was in pursuit of Greene, he passed near the plantation of the Widow Brevard, and ordered it to be desolated. When asked why he was so cruel toward a poor widow, he replied, "She has seven sons in the rebel army " What higher compliment could that noble mother have received. †The Wilsons were all stanch Scotch-Irish, and sturdy Republicans. The wife of Robert Wilson, a brother of Zacheus like the Widow Brevard, had "seven sons in the rebel army," and also her husband. When Cornwallis retired from Char lotte, he halted upon Wilson's plantation, and himself and staff quartered at the house of the patriot. Mrs. Wilson was very courteous, and Cornwallis endeavored to win her to the royal cause by flattering words. Her reply deserves to be inscribed upon brass and marble: "I have seven sons who are now, or have been bearing arms; indeed, my seventh son, Zacheus, who is only fifteen years old, I yesterday assisted to get ready to go and join his brothers in Sumter's army. Now, sooner than see one of my family turn back from the glorious enterprise, I would take these boys (pointing to three or four small sons), and with them would myself enlist under Sumter's standard and show my husband and sons how to fight, and, if necessary, to die for their country!" "Ah, general," said the cruel Tarleton, "I think you've got into a hornet's nest! Never mind; when we get to Camden, I'll take good care that old Robin Wilson never gets back again!" Mrs. Wilson died in Williamson county, Kentucky, on the 20th of April, 1853, aged ninety years.-See Mrs. Ellet's Women of the Revolution, iii., 347. Autographs of the Mecklenburg Committee. Ab. Are alcunder Hez mz Riche Burry он 2 Henry Dorns — Poble Harris Ezra Abrunder Kill Momsson AUTOGRAPHS OF THE MEMBERS OF THE MECKLENBURG COM cised in these colonies, are null and void, and the James Haris Constitution of each particular colony wholly suspended. II. That the Provincial Congress of each province, under the direction of the great Con tinental Congress, is invested with all legislative and executive powers within their respective provinces, and that no other legislative or executive power does or can exist at this time in any of these colonies. III. As all former laws are now suspended in this province, and the Congress has not I am indebted to the kindness of the Honorable David L. Swain, of Chapel Hall, John H. Wheeler, Esq., author of Historical Sketches of North Carolina and James W. Osborne, Esq., superintendent of the Branch Mint at Charlotte, for the originals from whi? these fac similes are made. |