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Chapter 15

This webpage reproduces a chapter of
History of North Carolina

The Lewis Publishing Company
Chicago and New York, 1919
Volume I by
R. D. W. Connor

The text is in the public domain.

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and I believe it to be free of errors.
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Chapter 17
This site is not affiliated with the US Military Academy.

Vol. I
p287
Chapter 16
Westward Expansion

In 1764 Governor Dobbs, who had grown peevish with age, was given permission to surrender the cares of his office to a lieutenant-governor and return to England. While he was busily packing for his trip "his physician had no other means to prevent his fatiguing himself than by telling him that he had better prepare himself for a much longer voyage." He set sail on this "longer voyage" March 28, 1765.

Dobbs was succeeded by William Tryon who took the oath of office at Wilmington April 3, 1765. It was Tryon's misfortune to administer the government of North Carolina in times of domestic violence and civil strife and so to have his name associated with events which cannot even now be discussed with that calmness and impartiality which alone gives value to the judgments of history. However, the load of obloquy which tradition so long heaped upon his name has been largely lifted by the publication within recent years of contemporaneous records which reveal the man and his career in a new and better light. The ablest of the colonial governors of North Carolina, he was distinguished for the energy of his character, the versatility of his talents, and the variety of his interests. His public papers, which are far superior to those of any of his predecessors, reveal him as a man of great executive ability, keen insight, and liberal views. He had the ability to see and understand the view-point of the colonists and he always strove to represent it fairly, even when he heartily disapproved of it. His critics love to dwell on his extravagance and love of display; but perhaps this fault — to which, indeed, he must have pleaded guilty — may be traced less to personal vanity than to his views of public policy. He entertained exaggerated ideas, common to his time, of the proper method of upholding the dignity of exalted official position, and had high notions of authority, which he enforced with a strong hand, but his public conduct was always  p288 inspired by a sense of official duty and never, as so many of his critics have charged, by vindictiveness. His tact was unfailing, and his genius for winning the personal friendship of those who most vigorously opposed his public policies was remarkable. Long after he had left the colony, the General Assembly bore testimony to their conviction of his "good intentions to its welfare," and gave a striking expression of "the great affection this Colony bears him, and the entire confidence they repose in him."

One of the important results of the French and Indian War was the opening of the region beyond the Alleghanies to settlement by the English. The English colonies had long been advertent to the importance of this region to their future expansion. In 1748 the Board of Trade reported "that the settlement of the country lying to the westward of the great mountains would be for His Majesty's interest and the advantages and security of Virginia and the neighboring colonies;" and in 1756 Sir Thomas Pownall wrote that "the English settlements as they are at present circumstanced, are absolutely at a standstill; they are settled up to the mountains and in the mountains there is nowhere together land sufficient for a settlement large enough to subsist by itself and to defend itself and preserve a communication with the present settlements." Both England and France claimed this vast region, but in 1763 by the terms of the Treaty of Paris, which brought the French and Indian War to a close, France was compelled to withdraw her claims leaving only the Indians to contest the inevitable advance of the English settlers.

Virginia, North Carolina, and other colonies had long asserted jurisdiction over this western region, but the British government was not disposed to recognize their claims. In 1763, immediately after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the king issued a proclamation forbidding settlements beyond the mountains and instructing the colonial governments to issue no grants in that region. How long this proclamation would have delayed the colonization of the West had people obeyed it cannot be said; as it was the hardy pioneers on the frontier calmly disregarded it, took the problem of settlement into their own hands, and within half a decade after the close of the French and Indian War began to cross the mountains and build their cabins along the Watauga, the Holston, and the Cumberland rivers without permission of either king or royal governors.

 p289  All of that part of the region beyond the Alleghanies which is now embraced within the State of Tennessee was included in the Carolina grant of 1665 and was therefore nominally within the jurisdiction of North Carolina. From North Carolina it received its first settlers. Although at the time of the Treaty of Paris no attempt had been made to plant white settlements within its limits, the region had long been familiar to English traders and hunters. In 1748, Thomas Walker of Virginia led a band of hunters far into the interior of what is now Middle Tennessee, giving names to the Cumberland Mountains and the Cumberland River. In 1756, as we have already seen, the English built Fort Loudoun on the Tennessee River. Most famous of all the hardy pioneers who explored this region was Daniel Boone who as early as 1760 was hunting along the Watauga River. The following year at the head of a party of hunters Boone penetrated the wilderness to the headwaters of the Holston as far as the site of the present Abingdon, Virginia. From this time forward he was constantly hunting in the Tennessee and Kentucky country. Boone and his fellow hunters brought back to the settlements in Virginia and North Carolina glowing reports of the richness and beauty of the land beyond the mountains and thus paved the way for the pioneers of more settled habits whose purpose was to carve out of the wilderness homes for themselves and their children.

A study of this westward movement reveals no feature that has not already appeared in the movements which resulted in the settlement of the older communities. Like the original settlement on the Albemarle, it was not the result of organized effort but of spontaneous, individual enterprise, a perfectly natural overflow of population from the parent colony. First a few hardy, adventurous individuals broke their way into the wilderness; soon they were followed by an occasional family, and, finally, as the movement gathered momentum, by groups of families. The same motives, too, which inspired the settlers in the older communities, reappear as the inspiration of those in the new. We find in both the same restless spirit of adventure, the same desire for new and cheap land, and the same discontent with political, economic and social conditions in the parent country. Such discontent was wide-spread throughout the back country of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. In North Carolina it culminated in the organization of the Regulators and their disastrous attempts to secure reforms in the colonial administration.  p291 In contrast with the ills at home were the freedom, the unlimited opportunities, and the charms of adventure in a new land; and the choice of the new was made by hundreds who after 1768 joined in that migration across the Alleghanies which resulted in the founding of the states of Kentucky and Tennessee.

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Daniel Boone

The earliest settlements beyond the Alleghanies were made in that broad and beautiful valley between the Great Smoky and Unaka ranges on the east and the Cumberland Mountains on the west, through which the Holston, the Watauga, the Nolichucky, the Clinch and the French Broad rivers flow to form the Tennessee. In 1768 a few Virginians settled at Wolf Hills on the Holston River, the present Abingdon, whence settlements gradually expanded southward until they reached the Watauga where some North Carolinians built homes in the winter of 1768‑69. Most of the settlers on the Watauga came from the back counties of Virginia and North Carolina, and were of Scotch-Irish stock. Among them of course, as in all frontier communities, were to be found some of the outcasts of civilization, but they were not the dominant element in the settlement, nor did they determine its character. The great majority of the settlers "were men of sterling worth; fit to be the pioneer fathers of a mighty and beautiful state. They possessed the courage that enabled them to defy outside foes, together with the rough, practical commonsense that allowed them to establish a simple but effective form of government, so as to preserve order among themselves."​1 Since their political and social ideals were genuinely democratic, it is not strange that out of their experience should have come the first government springing from the people ever organized by native-born Americans.

The most important figure in the history of the Watauga settlement is that of James Robertson.​a Born in Virginia, Robertson was carried to North Carolina in his eighth year and grew to manhood in what is now Wake County. Like a later and more famous native of Wake County who also moved to Tennessee, Andrew Johnson, Robertson was taught to read and write by his wife. Although never attaining more than a "rudimentary education," Robertson was, says Roosevelt, "a man of remarkable natural powers; * * * his somewhat somber face had in it a look of self-contained strength that made it impressive; and his taciturn, quiet, masterful way of  p292 dealing with men and affairs, together with his singular mixture of cool caution and most adventurous daring, gave him an immediate hold even upon such lawless spirits as those of the border. He was a mighty hunter; but, unlike Boone, hunting and exploration were to him secondary affairs, and he came to examine the lands with the eye of a pioneer settler."​2 Such was the man who, in 1770, discontented with the conditions then prevailing in the back counties of North Carolina, set out from his Wake County home to cross the Alleghanies and become the "Father of Tennessee."

Robertson was so delighted with the beauty and fertility of the valley of the Watauga, that he determined to carry his family there. Accordingly he remained just long enough to raise a crop of corn, and then returned to North Carolina for them. Conditions in the back counties had gradually grown worse; discontent was more wide-spread than ever. He had no difficulty therefore, in interesting his friends and neighbors in the new country beyond the mountains and when he set out on his return to Watauga he was accompanied by about a dozen families besides his own. This accession of sturdy settlers assured the permanence of the settlement, yet it was only the vanguard of the army that soon began to pour into that region, as a result of the overthrow of the Regulators at Alamance, May 16, 1771. Morgan Edwards, a Baptist preacher who visited the back counties of North Carolina in 1772, wrote that many of the Regulators "despaired of seeing better times and therefore quitted the province. It is said that 1,500 families departed since the battle of Alamance and to my knowledge a great many more are only waiting to dispose of their plantations in order to follow them." Although this estimate is certainly an exaggeration, yet it is indicative of the extent of the immigration from North Carolina to Watauga and the other western settlements. When Watauga asked to be annexed to North Carolina in 1776, the petition was signed by 111 settlers.

These settlers had come to Watauga believing it to be in Virginia, but in 1771 Anthony Bledsoe, a surveyor, discovered that it was really in North Carolina. His discovery was somewhat disconcerting since most of the people had settled there because of their dissatisfaction with political conditions in North Carolina. They were therefore reluctant to appeal to North Carolina for protection, or to acknowledge the jurisdiction  p293 of the North Carolina government. Accordingly under the leader­ship of Robertson they determined to set up a government of their own. This determination resulted in the Watauga Association, the first government erected beyond the Alleghanies and the first written constitution by native Americans. At a general meeting, the inhabitants qualified to take part in so important an undertaking chose thirteen representatives, apparently one for each block-house or palisaded village, to represent them in the first frontier legislature. These representatives met at Robertson's station and selected five commissioners, among whom were Robertson and John Sevier, destined to fame surpassing even the fame of Robertson, to administer the government. The commissioners exercised both judicial and executive functions. They recorded wills, issued marriage licenses, made treaties with the Indians, decided cases at law, punished criminals, and supervised the morals of the community. In their judicial capacity they gave their constituents no cause to complain of the law's delay. An instance frequently cited as typical of their exercise of their judicial functions is that of a horse thief who was arrested on Monday, tried on Wednesday, and hanged on Friday. So sure and swift was their execution of the criminal law that some unruly citizens chose to flee to the Indians rather than submit to Watauga justice.

One of the first problems which the Watauga Association as an organized government had to solve was its relations with the Indians. The same year in which the association was formed, 1772, Virginia made a treaty with the Cherokee which fixed the southern boundary of that colony, 36°30′ north latitude, as the dividing line between the whites and the Indians west of the Alleghanies. Thereupon Alexander Cameron, the British agent residing among the Cherokee, demanded that the Watauga settlers withdraw from their lands which, of course, fell within the Indian reservation. The settlers refused and in their refusal were supported by the Cherokee themselves who, reluctant to lose the trade of the whites, requested that they be allowed to remain provided they encroached no farther on the domains of the Indians. Accordingly a treaty was made by which the Indians leased their lands to the settlers for a period of eight years. This treaty established peaceful relations between the two races which continued until the outbreak of the Revolution.

The first result of the Revolution was to bring Watauga into closer relations with the mother colony. At the beginning  p294 of the dispute between the king and the colonies, the Watauga settlers, as was to be expected of men of their race, embraced the cause of the colonies, "resolved to adhere strictly to the rules and orders of the Continental Congress," and "acknowledged themselves indebted to the United Colonies for their full proportion of the Continental expense." In 1775 they united with the settlers on the Nolichucky River to form Washington District, — the first political division to be honored with the name of Washington, — and the next year petitioned the North Carolina Provincial Council to be annexed to North Carolina and admitted to representation in the Provincial Congress. The petition was granted and on December 3, 1776, John Sevier, the first representative from beyond the Alleghanies, took his seat in the Provincial Congress at Halifax just in time to participate in the formation of the first constitution of the independent State of North Carolina. The next year Washington District became Washington County, a land office was opened, and a system of land grants similar to that of North Carolina was instituted. In spite of war the settlement continued to grow and in 1779 Sullivan County was erected out of Washington. Nevertheless it seems not to have been contemplated that Washington County should remain permanently a part of North Carolina, for the Declaration of Rights, adopted in 1776, expressly provides that the clause which defines the boundaries of the State as extending from sea to sea, "shall not be construed so as to prevent the Establishment of one or more Governments Westward of this State, by the consent of the Legislature."

By this time other settlements had been made even farther west than the Watauga, in which Richard Henderson, an eminent North Carolina jurist, was the moving spirit.​b Like many of his contemporaries, Henderson had become affected with the fever for western lands and had begun to dream of vast proprietaries beyond the mountains in which he was to play the part of a William Penn or of a Lord Baltimore. He had made the acquaintance of Boone whose good judgment, intelligence and character had so impressed him that in 1763 he sent Boone to explore the region between the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers. During the next decade Boone prosecuted his explorations with great vigor, perseverance and daring, but the story of his romantic career is too well known to need repetition here. In 1774, as a result of his work, Henderson organized at Hillsboro a land company, first called the  p295 Louisa Company, later the Transylvania Company, to promote the settlement of this region. Prominent among the incorporators besides Henderson himself were John Williams of Granville County, one of the first superior court judges of North Carolina under the Constitution of 1776, James Hogg, Nathaniel Hart and Thomas Hart of Orange County. In March, 1775, at Sycamore Shoals on Watauga River, Henderson and his associates negotiated a treaty with the Overhill Cherokee Indians by which the Indians sold to the Transylvania Company all the vast region between the Cumberland and Kentucky rivers, which Henderson named Transylvania.

Even before the treaty was completed, Daniel Boone had been sent forward to open a trail from the settlements on the Holston to the Kentucky River. This trail was the first regular path into the western wilderness and is famous in the history of the frontier as the Wilderness Trail. Leading through the Cumberland Gap, it crossed the Cumberland, Laurel and Rockcastle rivers, and terminated on the Kentucky River. There on April 1, 1780, Boone began to lay the foundations of Boonesborough where he was joined twenty days later by Henderson with a party of forty mounted rifle­men. At Boonesborough Henderson opened a land office and proceeded to issue grants and to organize a government for the colony of Transylvania.

These activities, however, were somewhat premature. The Transylvania purchase was in direct controvention of the king's proclamation of 1763, and neither the British nor the colonial authorities would recognize its validity. Since part of the new colony lay within Virginia and part within North Carolina, the governors of both colonies issued proclamations declaring Henderson's treaty with the Indians null and void. Governor Martin of North Carolina denounced it as a "daring unjust and unwarrantable Proceeding," forbade the company "to prosecute so unlawful an Undertaking," and warned all persons that purchases of lands from the Transylvania Company were "illegal, null and void." Henderson and his associates the governor characterized as an "infamous company of Land Pyrates." But in 1775 proclamations of royal governors had lost something of their former effectiveness, and Henderson and his company proceeded with their enterprise in disregard of the two governors' prohibition. Failing to secure recognition from the colonial governments, in September, 1775, the company sent James Hogg to Philadelphia to appeal to the Continental Congress for admission  p296 into the ranks of the United Colonies as the fourteenth colony. But both Virginia and North Carolina, whether under royal rule or as independent states, were opposed to such a surrender of their western lands, and they succeeded in securing the rejection of their petition. After this rebuff, Henderson's grandiose scheme collapsed. However in compensation for the "expence, risque and trouble" to which he and his associates had been put, in 1778 Virginia granted them 200,000 acres in that part of Transylvania which lay within her limits, and in 1783 North Carolina made a similar grant within her western territory. That part of Transylvania which fell within the limits of Virginia afterwards became the State of Kentucky; the rest together with Watauga became Tennessee.

In 1779, the indefatigable Henderson opened a land office at French Lick on Cumberland River and invited settlers to purchase grants. Among those who came was James Robertson, who quickly became the leader of the new colony as he had been at Watauga. In 1780 on a high bluff at French Lick, Robertson built a block-house which he named Nashborough in honor of Abner Nash who had just been elected governor of North Carolina. Later it became Nashville. The early history of the Cumberland settlement resembles that of Watauga. In the face of crop failures, Indian attacks and other hardships which threatened it with destruction, it was held together by the genius of Robertson, and on May 1, 1780, representatives from the several communities met and adopted a temporary plan of government which they called the Cumberland Association modeled after the Watauga Association. It was to be effective only until the settlement could be organized as a county of North Carolina, which was done in 1783 when the Cumberland Association became Davidson County with James Robertson as its first representative in the General Assembly.

The tracing of the development of these western settlements in a continuous story has carried us chronologically somewhat beyond the period of Tryon's administration in which they originated and to which we must now return. Tryon met his first Assembly at New Bern, May 3, 1765. He had already evolved in his own mind a really constructive program for the colony, part of which he laid before the Assembly. It embraced the fixing upon a permanent seat of government, the establishment of a postal system, the promotion of religion, the encouragement of education, and other progressive policies. The Assembly met his suggestions with  p297 favor, but before it could carry them into execution, North Carolina became involved in the Stamp Act quarrel, which was scarcely settled before the War of the Regulation broke out. Tryon's administration, therefore, began in storm and strife and closed in war and bloodshed. Yet to its credit, besides other measures which will be discussed elsewhere, must be placed the quieting of a gathering storm among the Cherokee Indians, the fixing upon a seat of government and the erection there of a suitable public building, and the crushing of a dangerous insurrection in the very heart of the province.

In spite of domestic violence and emigration the decade from 1765 to 1775 was a period of growth and improvement. In 1766 Tryon expressed the opinion that North Carolina was "settling faster than any [other colony] on the continent; last autumn and winter," he added, "upwards of one thousand wagons passed thro' Salisbury with families from the northward, to settle in this province chiefly." All the back country, from Salisbury to the foot of the mountains, and beyond, was filling up "with a race of people, sightly, active, and laborious."

This influx of population brought on a troublesome situation with the Cherokee Indians. As the settlers pushed westward they encroached more and more on the Cherokee lands, depriving the Lower Cherokee of their most valuable hunting grounds. Daily contact between the two races produced conflicts and frequent bloodshed. Nor was the trouble confined to the Cherokee. A similar situation existed all along the borders of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The complaints of the Cherokee, wrote John Stuart, "have been echoed through all the Nations." The Cherokee, the Creeks, and the other Indians of the Southern Department were alarmed and discontented, and ready upon the slightest provocation to take up the hatchet.

Peace could be preserved only by establishing plain and unmistakable boundaries and forbidding each race to encroach upon the territories of the other. John Stuart exerted himself to secure adjustments in all the colonies in his department. In February, 1766, he wrote to Governor Tryon that "the fixing of a boundary Line is a measure necessary and essential to the preservation of peace with the Indian Nations." But Tryon hesitated to move because he had received no instructions bearing on this matter and had no money with which to defray expenses. Happily both these causes for delay were soon removed. The secretary of state for the  p298 colonies directed him to apply himself "in the most earnest measure" to remedy the complaints of the Indians and to prevent hostilities, and in November, 1766, the Assembly agreed to meet the expenses of the survey. In April, 1767, the Council unanimously advised Tryon to go in person to meet the Cherokee chiefs, and since this advice fell in with his own wishes, he decided to adopt it.

The commissioners to represent the colony in running the line were John Rutherford, Robert Palmer, and John Frohock. To escort himself and the commissioners Tryon ordered out a detachment of fifty men from the Rowan and Mecklenburg militia which he put under the command of Colonel Hugh Waddell. Although he was going into a hostile country, among a savage and treacherous race, to settle a dispute which was about to bring on war, Tryon has been severely criticised for his action in ordering out these troops. And yet the only criticism of his conduct which can be justified by the facts should be aimed at his fool-hardiness in venturing upon so dangerous an expedition with so weak an escort. At Salisbury he was joined by Alexander Cameron, deputy superintendent of Indian affairs in the Southern Department. The march westward from Salisbury was begun May 21, 1767. On June 1 Tryon met the Cherokee chiefs at "Tyger River camp," where after exchanging "talks" they came to an agreement as to the boundary. The survey was started June 4, which Tryon regarded as an especially auspicious date since it was the king's birthday. Rutherford, Palmer, Frohock, Cameron, and the Cherokee chiefs composed the surveying party. They began the line at a point on Reedy River where the South Carolina-Cherokee line, recently run, terminated and continued it fifty-three miles northward to a mountain which the surveyors named in honor of the governor. Tryon himself had already returned to Brunswick. He had made a favorable impression upon the Indians who named him "The Great Wolf." Upon his return to Brunswick he issued a proclamation setting out the line agreed upon, forbidding any purchases of land from the Indians, and prohibiting the issuance of any grants within one mile of the boundary line. When the Assembly met in December it thanked the governor for "superintending in person" the running of this line and appropriated money for paying the expenses of the survey, which amounted to about £400.

Upon his return from this expedition Tryon turned his attention seriously to the erection of the public building at  p299 New Bern for which the Assembly of November, 1766, following his recommendation, had made an appropriation. Other governors had repeatedly urged the necessity for such action. "The Publick Records," wrote Governor Johnston, nearly twenty years before, "lye in a miserable condition, one part of them at Edenton near the Virginia Line in a place without Lock or Key; a great part of them in the Secretary's House at Cape Fear about Two Hundred Miles Distance from the other; Some few of 'em at the Clerk of the Council's House at Newbern, so that in whatever part of the Colony a man happens to be, if he wants to consult any papers or record he must send some Hundred of Miles before he can come at it." In 1744 he told the assembly that the unsatisfactory condition of public affairs and the "shamefull condition" of the laws, which were "left at the mercy of every ignorant transcriber and tossed about on loose scraps of paper," were largely due to "the want of a fixt place for the dispatch of publick business. It is impossible," he continued, "to finish any matter as it ought to be while we go on in this itinerant way. * * * We have now tried every Town in the Colony and it is high time to settle somewhere." The soundness of this advice was indisputable, yet the Assembly did nothing. The trouble was the question could never be considered on its own merits. The act of 1746, fixing the capital at New Bern, was involved in the representation controversy and vetoed by the king upon the protest of the northern counties. In 1758, upon the recommendation of Governor Dobbs, the Assembly passed an act fixing the capital at Tower Hill, on the Neuse River about fifty miles above New Bern; but the Board of Trade claimed for the Crown the right to select the site for a capital and rebuked Dobbs for consenting to the act. Besides, after its passage it was found that Dobbs himself owned the land on which the town was to be located, and charges of speculation and corruption were so freely circulated that the Assembly itself asked the king to disallow the act.

Here the situation stood when the outburst of loyalty and good-feeling which followed the repeal of the Stamp Act gave Tryon a favorable opportunity for asking the Assembly for funds to erect a suitable public building at New Bern. The Assembly, in November, 1766, complied with the request, appropriating £5,000 for the purpose. A year later an additional appropriation of £10,000 was made. The work begun in 1767 was finally completed in 1770. The building, though called the "Governor's Palace," contained in fact a residence  p310 for the governor, a hall for the Assembly, a council chamber, and offices for the provincial officials. Built of brick and trimmed with marble, it was admittedly the handsomest public building in America. Its erection brought much undeserved odium upon Tryon. True it fastened a debt upon the province which it could ill afford at that time; nevertheless it is pertinent to remark that this debt was incurred not by the governor but by representatives of the people. The governor merely expended the money which the Assembly voted. Nor can there be any doubt that the establishment of a permanent capital, the concentration of the public records in a central depository, and the erection of suitable executive offices and legislative halls greatly facilitated and improved the transaction of the public business.

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The Tryon Palace

While all this is undoubtedly true, yet it was an unfavorable time for the Assembly to enter upon such an expensive enterprise. The eastern men, who controlled the Assembly and upon whom chiefly the burdens of the Stamp Act would have fallen, in their joy at being relieved of those burdens, forgot that other sections of the province had grievances of their own. The back counties were already deeply agitated over abuses in the administration of their local affairs and the inequalities in the system of taxation, and a wise administration would not have given them an additional cause for dissatisfaction. Their complaints were aimed not so much at the fact of erecting a provincial building as at the method adopted for raising the money. This method was the imposition of a poll tax for three years which fell on rich and poor alike and was particularly burdensome in the back settlements where money was so scarce. They complained that "as the people in the lower counties are few in proportion to those in the back settlements, it [a poll tax] more immediately affects the many, and operates to their prejudice; for * * * a man that is worth £10,000 pays no more than a poor back settler that has nothing but the labour of his hands to depend upon for his daily support." The Regulators of Orange County, at a meeting held on August 2, 1768, told the sheriff, "We are determined not to pay the Tax for the next three years, for the Edifice or Governor's House. We want no such house, nor will we pay for it." Thus the erection of the "Governor's Palace" was closely connected with those two events, the Regulation and the Stamp Act, which hold so large a place in the history of North Carolina during the decade from 1765 to 1775.


The Author's Notes:

1 Roosevelt: Winning of the West, Vol. I, p219.

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2 Winning of the West, Vol. I.


Thayer's Notes:

a For a fuller view of James Robertson, complete with a more or less contemporaneous oil portrait, as well as a more detailed look at his backwoods explorations with John Sevier, see Constance Skinner, Pioneers of the Old Southwest, pp165 ff.

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b A much fuller view of Richard Henderson and his Transylvanian project is given by Constance Skinner, Pioneers of the Old Southwest, pp129‑140; and his journal of his expedition, Mar. 20 to Jul. 25, 1775, can be read in full in The North Carolina Booklet, III.9.


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