North Carolina booklet : great events in North Carolina history

              Vol. XI JANUARY, 1912 No. 3
13he
floRTH CflHOIiIHfl BoOKIiET
** Carolina! Carolina! Heaven' s blessings attend her
!
While we live we will cherish, protect and defend her.**
Published by
THE NORTH CAROLINA SOCIETY
DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION
The object of the Booklet is to aid in developing and preserving
North Carolina History. The proceeds arising from its publication
will be devoted to patriotic purposes. > Editor.
ADVISORY BOARD OF THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET
Mrs. Hubert Haywood. Miss Martha Helen Haywood.
Mrs. E. E. Moffitt. Dr. Richard Dillard.
Mrs. Spier VVhitaker. Dr. Kemp P. Battle.
Mr. R. D. W. Connor. Mr. James Sprunt.
Dr. D. H. Hill. Mr. Marshall DeLancey Haywood.
Dr. E. W. Sikes. Chief Justice Walter Clark.
Mr. W. J. Peele. Major W. A. Graham.
Miss Adelaide L. Fries. Dr. Charles Lee Smith.
editor:
Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton.
OFFICERS OF THE NORTH CAROLINA SOCIETY
DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION 1910-1912
regent:
Miss MARY HILLIARD HINTON.
VICE-REGENT:
Miss DUNCAN CAMERON WINSTON.
honorary regent:
Mrs. E. E. MOFFITT.
RECORDING SECRETARY:
Mrs. CLARENCE JOHNSON.
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY:
Mrs. PAUL H. LEE.
TREASURER:
Mrs. frank SHERWOOD.
REGISTRAR:
Mrs. JOSEPH CHESHIRE WEBB, Js.
CUSTODIAN OF RELICS:
Mrs. JOHN E. RAY.
CHAPTER REGENTS
Bloomsbury Chapter Mrs. Hubert Haywood, Regent.
Penelope Barker Chapter Mrs. Patrick Matthew, Regent.
Sir Walter Raleigh Chapter,
Miss Catherine F. Seyton Albertson, Regent.
DeGraffenried Chapter Mrs. Charles Slover Hollister, Regent.
Founder of the North Carolina Society and Regent 1896-1902:
Mrs. SPIER WHITAKER.f
Regent 1902:
Mrs. D. H. HILL, Sr.*
Regent 1902-1006:
Mrs. THOMAS K. BRUNER.
Regent 1906-1910:
Mrs. E. E. MOFFITT.
•Died December 12, 1904.
tDied November 25, 1911.
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.
THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET
Vol. XI JANUARY. 1912 No. 3
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES*
ByR. D.W.CONNOR.
We are standing today on the threshold of American his-tory.
At no other point is it possible to obtain so general a
view, so broad a sweep of the whole field of achievements by
men of the English race in the New World as on this historic
spot. The whole panorama of American history unrolls
itself before us. That history began more than three hun-dred
years ago when men of the English race, landing upon
the sand banks which guard our eastern shore, laid their first
firm grasp upon the American continent. How unconscious
were those obscure sailors that they were there enacting one
of the most significant scenes in the world's history ! Three
and a quarter centuries have elapsed since that day, yet even
now, after all the tremendous results that have followed in
their train, we cannot fully appreciate the vast significance
of that simple ceremony. But for that ceremony there may
never have been a "Citie of Raleigh in Virginia," James-town
and Plymouth Rock may never have become immortal
names in American history, and English settlers may never
have found their way to the shores of Albemarle Sound.
Perhaps Wolfe might never have scaled the Heights of Abra-ham
and Daniel Boone might never have cleared the way for
English civilization beyond the Alleghanies. There may
have been no Thomas Jefferson to write a Declaration of
Independence, no George Washington to make good its prin-
• Address by R. D. W. Connor before the Roanoke Island Colony Association, upon its
annual pilgrimage to Roanoke Island, August 18, 1911, the 324th anniversary of the birth
of Virginia Dare.
136 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
ciples for the benefit of all mankind, no Constitution of the
United States to apply them practically to the government of
a mighty people. For there upon the coast of North Caro-lina
men speaking the English language, thoroughly imbued
with the principles of English law and English liberty, first
set foot on American soil with a view to permanent posses-sion,
and thus led the way to the planting of English civili-zation
amid the wild forests of the New World.
I am fully aware that many eminent historians sharply
dissent from this view. They count Sir Walter Raleigh's
efforts to plant an English colony on Roanoke as among the
great failures of history. This seems to me a narrow, short-sighted
view. It would doubtless be correct were it possible
to say that the history of the Roanoke settlements began
abruptly in the year 1584 and ended abruptly in the year
1587. But you cannot measure great historic events with a
yard stick. Men die, ideas are immortal. The idea of
another England beyond the waters of the Atlantic, con-ceived
by the master mind of Sir Walter Raleigh, was the
germ from which, through the developments of three cen-turies,
has evolved the American ISTation of the twentieth
century. There is a vital connection, both physical and
spiritual, between Roanoke and Jamestown. Among those
who founded Jamestown were ten of the men who had
cooperated with Raleigh in the settlements at Roanoke. In
these men we have the physical connection between the two,
while to the idea conceived by Raleigh and to the spirit of
conquest and colonization which his attempts on this island
called into existence, the English race in Europe, in Asia, in
Africa, in Australia and the islands of the sea, and in
America, owes the world-wide predominance which it today
enjoys among the races of mankind. Nothing can be clearer,
therefore, than that we, looking back over the events of the
last three centuries, can hail the Roanoke settlements as the
SIE WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 137
beginning of English colonization in America and through-out
the world.
The details of no event in English or American history
have been more faithfully recorded, or are better known than
the details of the three expeditions which Sir Walter Raleigh,
during the years 1584-1586, sent to Eoanoke Island. ISTo
good purpose, therefore, would be served were I now to
repeat that familiar story. Of the authors of those events,
however, the same cannot be said. Even in England, whose
history was so greatly enriched by their splendid deeds, an
eminent British historian classes some of them as among
"England's forgotten worthies." Their memory deserves a
better fate from English-speaking peoples on either side of
the Atlantic. Men who conceive and men who execute great
ideas should forever be held in honorable esteem that subse-quent
generations of their fellow-men may be inspired to
emulate their deeds and characters. Such a man was Walter
Raleigh, and such, too, were Philip Amadas, Arthur Bar-low,
Ralph Lane, John White, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Rich-ard
Grenville, Thomas Cavendish and Thomas Harriot—that
group of brilliant soldiers, sailors, adventurers and scholars
whose names are inseparably connected with the story of
Roanoke and to whose genius England owes her immense
colonial empire of today.
The marvelous deeds by which these men laid the founda-tions
of that vast empire found their inspiration in loyalty
to queen and country, love of liberty, and devotion to reli-gious
convictions. At various times in English history an
attack on any one of these sentiments has been sufficient to
call forth the mightiest exertions of the English nation;
during the closing years of the sixteenth century all three
were attacked at one and the same time by one and the same
arrogant power. Philip II of Spain, proclaiming Elizabeth
of England an usurper, had laid claim to her throne. Mighty
138 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
armies and navies had been levied and equipped throughout
his boundless dominions for the sole purpose of establishing
the despotism of Castile by overthrowing the liberties of
England. The Pope of Rome had commissioned His Most
Catholic Majesty to lead a crusade against the National
Church of England and "to inaugurate on English soil the
accursed vs^ork of the inquisition." As one man, w^ithout
regard to religious convictions or sectarian prejudices, the
people of England sprang to the defense of the throne, the
constitution, and the church with an enthusiasm that stirs our
blood with pride even after the lapse of three centuries. In
this contest with Spain, England was "pitted against the
greatest military power that had existed in Europe since the
days of Constantino the Great. To many the struggle
seemed hopeless. For England the true policy was limited
by circumstances. She could send troops across the channel
to help the Dutch in their stubborn resistance, but to try
to land a force in the Spanish peninsula for aggressive war-fare
would be sheer madness. The shores of America and
the open sea were the proper field of war for England. Her
task was to paralyze the giant by cutting off his supplies, and
in this there was hope of success, for no defensive fleet, how-ever
large, could w^atch all Philip's enormous possessions at
once."^ This was the work which was done so effectively by
Paleigh and Drake, Amadas and Barlow, Grenville and
Cavendish, that even until this day it has never been neces-sary
to do it over again.
Before I undertake to point out the special service which
entitles each of these men to an honorable place in our his-tory,
let me refresh your memories by stating briefly the
relation which each bore to the Roanoke settlements. The
connection of Sir Walter Raleigh with these events is known
of all men. Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow, you will
remember, were the captains of the expedition dispatched
> Fiske: " Old Virginia and Her Neighbors," I, 11, 22.
SIE WALTER EALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 139
by Raleigh in 1584 to explore the country and select a place
for the contemplated colony. Ralph Lane was governor of
the colony sent out in 1585. The fleet in which his colony
sailed was under the command of Sir Richard Grenville.
With Grenville sailed that "wonderful Suffolk boy," Thomas
Cavendish, aged twenty-two years, who, before he had reached
his twenty-ninth year, had rivaled the exploits of Sir Francis
Drake in the Pacific and circumnavigated the globe. Two
of the colonists with Lane were John White, afterwards gov-ernor
of the "Lost Colony," and Thomas Harriot, the histo-rian
and scientist of the colony, to whose scholarly narrative
we are indebted for most of our knowledge of its history.
And finally there was Sir Francis Drake, whose timely
arrival at Croatan in the summer of 1586 afforded Lane's
homesick men an opportunity of returning to England.
The impelling mind behind the achievements of these men
was the mind of Walter Raleigh. Grenville, Amadas, Barlow,
Cavendish, and the other glorious English "sea kings" of the
sixteenth century understood England's problem well enough
so far as it involved the ravaging of Spanish coasts and the
plundering of Spanish treasure ships. But Raleigh under-stood
that something greater and more permanent than such
exploits was needed to establish English supremacy in Eu-rope
and America. It was not sufficient for England to de-stroy
the power of Spain ; she must at the same time build
up the power of England. English colonies in North
America would not only offset Spanish colonies in the West
Indies, Mexico and South America, they would also develop
English commerce and afford an outlet for English manu-factures.
All this the far-seeing mind of Raleigh perceived
in his great design. The work of Grenville, Cavendish and
their fellow-rovers, though of vital importance to the accom-plishment
of England's destiny, was destructive ; Raleigh's
work was constructive in the hiohest degree. "An idea like
140 THE NOETH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
his has life in it, though the plant may not spring up at once.
When it arises above the surface the sower can claim it.
Had the particular region of the New World not eventually
become a permanent English settlement, he would still have
earned the merit of authorship of the English colonizing
movement."- "BafSed in his first eifort to plant the English
race upon this continent, he yet called into existence a spirit
of enterprise which first gave Virginia, and then ISTorth
America, to that race, and which led Great Britain, from this
beginning, to dot the map of the world with her colonies,
and through them to become the greatest power of the earth."^
First among the agents selected by Raleigh to carry his
great design into execution were Philip Amadas and Arthur
Barlow. Though these two daring sailors were the pilots of
that great Anglo-Saxon migration from England to America
which ranks among the greatest events in the history of the
human race, yet the details of their lives are almost totally
unknown. The fact that they were selected by so keen a
judge of men as Sir Walter Raleigh to command his expedi-tion
sets them much above the average adventurers of their
day. They were, as we know, bold and experienced naviga-tors.
The manner in which they conducted the enterprise
entrusted to them showed them worthy of the trust placed in
them. No expedition into an unknown region was ever con-ducted
with more complete success. From first to last such
was the judgment and skill of the commanders that not a
single mishap occurred to mar their triumph. The report
which they submitted to Raleigh upon their return to
England reveals a thorough understanding of their profession
and an extraordinary keenness of observation coupled with
rare good judgment. In their dealings with the savages they
displayed firmness of temper guided by brilliant diplomacy
and clear comprehension of the savage character. That Sir
s Stebbin: " Sir Walter Ralegh," p. 48.
' Henry: "Sir Walter Raleigh," in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America,
III. 105.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 141
Walter Raleigh was pleased with the manner in which they
conducted their enterprise is evident from the fact that in
the colony which he sent out under Ealph Lane, in 1585, he
appointed Amadas to the high and responsible position of
"Admiral of Virginia."
In Ralph Lane, Raleigh found a leader in whom were
combined in a strange degree the character of the soldier and
the spirit of the adventurer. Lane delighted in bold and
arduous enterprises, but he always kept his eyes open to the
main chance. In his character there appears something of
the dauntless spirit of his cousin, the famous Catherine Parr,
the last queen of Henry VIII. We find him constantly asso-ciated
with Burghley, Walsingham, Raleigh, Drake, Haw-kins
and Grenville in those great events which give to the
reign of Elizabeth its chief glory. With Lord Burghley he
was on terms of confidential relation and appears frequently
in the character of his adviser upon important public affairs.
From the queen he received more than one weighty commis-sion.
In the very year in which Amadas and Barlow sailed
for the ISTew World, Lane wrote that he "had prepared seven
ships at his own charges, and proposed to do some exploit on
the coast of Spain," and delayed only until he should receive
the queen's commission and the title of ^General of the
Adventurers.' " When all England was in a fever of excite-ment
over the approach of the Armada, called "Invincible,"
Lane was entrusted with carrying into effect measures for
the defense of the coast, and at a later date was appointed
"to assist in the defense of the coast of Norfolk." The next
year, after the Armada had been shattered, he sailed with
Drake on an expedition to the coast of Portugal, and in
1590 he was with Sir John Hawkins on a similar adventure.
During the Irish rebellion of 1593-1594 he served with the
royal army and won special commendation for his conduct.
Yet in spite of the high consideration in which he was held
by England's great leaders, we are told that all his life Lane
142 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
was a great beggar. If so he was a royal beggar, for he
begged only from his sovereign, as many greater men have
done, and in his mendicancy there was nothing mean or
groveling. Sir Henry Wallop complained to Lord Burghley
that Lane, while sheriff of County Kerry, Ireland, expected
"to have best and greatest things in Kerry, and to have the
letting and setting of all the rest."*
Such was the man whom Raleigh selected to lead his first
colony. x\t the time Lane was on duty for the crown in
Ireland, but the queen ordered a substitute to be appointed
in his government of Kerry and Clammorris, *4n considera-tion
of his ready undertaking the voyage to Virginia for Sir
Walter Raleigh at Her Majesty's command." The event
proved the wisdom of the choice. In his management of the
colony Lane displayed executive ability and foresight. His
dealings with the Indians were courageous and sagacious.
He pushed his explorations with energy and intelligence.
As Hawks has well said, a review of his conduct reminds us
forcibly of the proceedings of Captain John Smith under
circumstances not unlike his own. Lane remained at Roa-noke
only one year. At the end of that time force of cir-cumstances
over which he had no control compelled him to
choose between starvation and the abandonment of the under-taking.
Like a prudent man upon whom devolved the re-sponsibility
of men's lives, after making every reasonable
effort to carry his work to successful conclusion, he reluct-antly
and regretfully chose the latter alternative. For this
choice historians have censured him because, a few days
after his departure, Sir Richard Grenville arrived at Roanoke
with men and supplies sufficient to have placed the colony on
its feet. But Grenville had long been overdue, and fairness
to Lane requires that we should judge his conduct by the
information which he had at the time, not by that which we
now have. It is plain that he had no intention of returning
* See "Dictionary of National Biography," XXXII, 77-78; also Sainsbury's " Calendar
of State Papers; Colonial Series, 1574-1660," 2-4.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 143
to England until driven to it, as he said, by "the very hand of
God as it seemed." Certainly Elizabeth, Raleigh, Drake
and England's other great leaders, did not regard his course
unfavorably, for we find them shortly afterwards, at that
supreme moment in England's history when the great Armada
was bearing down on her coast, summoning him to their most
secret councils of war and entrusting him with important
commands; and in 1593, as a reward for services to the
crown, we see him kneeling before the great queen's repre-sentative
to receive the honor of knighthood. Dire necessity
occasioned by causes beyond the control of man drove him
against his will to his final decision and put an end to the
first attempt to found an English colony in America.
The fleet which transported Lane's colony to Roanoke was
under the command of one of the most remarkable men in an
age of remarkable men. Sir Richard Grenville combined in
his character all the faults and virtues of the age in which
he lived. Brave, loyal and ambitious, he was proud, tyran-nical
and cruel. Ralph Lane complained of his "intolerable
pride and insatiable ambition" during the voyage to Roanoke,
and declared that by reason of his "tyrannical conduct from
first to last, the action has been most painful and most per-ilous."^
From others of his contemporaries, as well as from
his own conduct, we learn that he was a man of "very unquiet
mind and greatly affected to war," and that his nature was so
"very severe" that "his own people hated him for his fierce-ness."
But if his followers hated him for his cruelty, they
admired him for his daring, ^o enterprise was too hazard-ous
for his courage, no hardship too severe for his endurance,
if it offered opportunity for either riches or glory. To
his credit let it be said that with Grenville the search for
wealth was a mere incident in his search for fame. Jn the
service of his queen and country he counted no odds too great
if only glory and honor waited upon success.
' Lane to Walsingham, "Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series," 3.
144: THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
Grenville's career is intimatelj connected with the events
which we comnQemorate today. He first became interested
in America through Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose untimely
death cut off prematurely one of the choicest spirits of the
Elizabethan Era. After Gilbert's death he allied himself
with his cousin, Sir Walter Raleigh, by whom he was placed
in command of the fleet which bore Lane's colony across the
Atlantic. That he did not underestimate the importance of
the part he played in that event is shown by the fact that upon
his return to England he wrote to Walsingham that he "had
performed the action directed and discovered, taken posses-sion
of and peopled a new country and stored it with cattle,
fruits and plants." Returning from Roanoke in 1585 he
had his first brush vsdth Spain when he was attacked by a
Spanish man-of-war which, "after some fighting," he over-powered
and captured. The following year he made a second
voyage to Roanoke, which he found deserted. Leaving fifteen
men to retain possession he again turned his prow eastward.
No good British sailor of the sixteenth century thought
that he had done his full duty to the queen if he crossed the
Atlantic without carrying home some trophy of his prowess
won from Spain. Grenville was not the man to form an
exception to this rule. On his return voyage, in 1586, he
touched at the Azores long enough to attack, capture and pil-lage
the Spanish towns there and to carry off for ransom a
number of important prisoners. In all the British kingdom
Spain had no more implacable foe, nor a more dangerous one.
Not Drake himself held her power so cheaply or manifested
his contempt more plainly.
Grenville's adventurous career was finally brought to a
close by an amazing exploit "memorable even beyond credit
and to the height of some heroical fable"—an exploit com-memorated
by Tennyson in one of the most stirring ballads
in our language. It was in the year 1591. Lord Thomas
^ *^^
-» « t
SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 145
Howard, commanding a squadron of sixteen sail, had taken
post at the Azores to intercept the Spanish treasure fleet upon
its annual voyage from Mexico and Peru to Spain. In this
squadron was the Revenge, commanded by Sir Richard Gren-ville,
vice-admiral of the fleet, a ship of 500 tons burden,
carrying a crew of 250 sailors. In the great fight against
the Armada she had been the flagship of Sir Francis Drake,
yet it is not Drake, but Grenville whose name occurs to us
when the Revenge is mentioned. Soon after his arrival at
the Azores, scurvy broke out among Lord Howard's crew
and in a short time half his men were down with this hideous
disease. While the epidemic was at its climax, a swift dis-patch
boat from England arrived on the scene with tidings
that a powerful Spanish armament of fifty-three sail was
bearing down upon the English fleet.
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore God, I am no coward!
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half of my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?"
Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are no coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."
So Lord Howard, crowding his sails, departed, leaving
Grenville to follow as soon as he had brought his. sick men
aboard.
And they blessed him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.
Scarcely had Sir Richard completed his task when the
Spanish fleet, carrying five thousand sailors, hove in sight.
Then the sturdy British tars, hankering for a tussle with the
Dons, inquired of their leader:
146 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
"Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now.
For to fight is but to die!
There'll be little of us left by the time the sun be set."
And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good Englishmen.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turned my back upon Don or devil yet."
Cheer after cheer from the throats of the British seamen
greeted this stirring reply as
—
sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below,
the little Revenge plunged into the midst of the jeering
Spaniards.
Four galleons drew away
From the Spanish fieet that day.
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay.
And the battle-thunder broke from them all.
* * <*: :!: 4c 4: «
And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the sum-mer
sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and
flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and
her shame.
For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could flght us
no more
—
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?
Wounded to the death, as he lay upon his deck, Sir Rich-ard
Grenville cried:
"Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!"
And the gunner said, "Ay, ay," but the seamen made reply:
"We have children, we have wives.
And the Lord hath spared our lives;
We will make the Spaniards promise, if we yield, to let us go;
We shall live to fight again, and to strike another blow."
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 147
And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last.
And they praised him to his face, with their courtly foreign grace;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:
"I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do;
With a joyful spirit I, Sir Richard Grenville, die!"
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.
The modern historians, who are accurate if not entertain-ing,
tell us that of the fifty-three ships in the Spanish fleet,
thirty-eight were transports and only fifteen were men-of-war.
But whether fifteen or fifty-three makes but slight dif-ference.
"When we have before us the fact that 150 men
during fifteen hours of hand-to-hand fighting held out against
a host of 5,000, and yielded only when not more than twenty
were left alive, and those gTievously wounded, the story
* * * is not rendered more interesting and scarcely less won-drous
by trebling the number of the host." And we are pre-pared
to believe James Anthony Froude, although his critics
assure us that he had no authority for his statement, when
he tells us that this action of the Revenge "struck a deeper
terror, though it was but the action of a single ship, into the
hearts of the Spanish people ; it dealt a more deadly blow
upon their fame and moral strength than the destruction of
the Armada itself, and in the direct results which arose from
it it was scarcely less disastrous to them."®
One of the vessels of Grenville's fleet which conveyed
Lane's colony to Roanoke in 1585 was commanded by
Thomas Cavendish, in whom Grenville must have found a
congenial spirit. Cavendish, like many other noblemen and
gentlemen of the times, having squandered his patrimony,
had determined to repair his fortune at the expense of the
common enemy. The voyage to Eoanoke, made in a ship
fitted out at his own charge, was his first maritime adventure.
He proved an apt scholar of his masters, Grenville and Drake.
« Sec "Dictionary of National Biography," XXIII, 122-124; "Calendar of State
Papers," 2-4.
148 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
While waiting at San Juan de Porto Rico, ostensibly to
build a pinnace, be and Grenville pounced upon and cap-tured
two Spanish frigates which contained "good and rich
freight and divers Spaniards of account," whom they ran-somed
"for good, roimd sums." This employment we can
well believe proved more congenial to the tastes and temper
of Cavendish than Raleigh's scheme of "Westerne Planting."
Upon his return from this voyage Cavendish, incited by
the exploits of Drake and Hawkins, prepared on his own
account an expedition to circumnavigate the globe. His
fleet consisted of three small vessels, the Desire, 140 tons
;
the Content, 60 tons, and the Hugh Gallant, 40 tons, and car-ried
123 sailors. Sailing from the west coast of England,
Cavendish steered straight for the Spanish main where he
repeated the exploits of Drake, sinking Spanish ships, burn-ing
Spanish towns and ravaging Spanish coasts. Through-out
Spanish-America his name soon became a signal for ter-ror
and consternation. Running down the Atlantic coast of
South America he passed through the Strait of Magellan
out into the Pacific. Hunger, storms and battles had so re-duced
the number of his crew that he found it advisable to
sink the Hugh Gallant, and with the Desire and the Content
pursued his voyage northward until he touched Lower Cali-fornia.
There falling in with the Great St. Anna, 700 tons,
the private property of the king of Spain, he took her after
a desperate battle of six hours. Her cargo of 600 tons of
the richest merchandise and more than $20,000 worth of
gold, proved a prize well worth taking. Yet so heavily were
his ships already loaded with Spanish plunder that Caven-dish
was forced to send the greater part of this new treasure
to the bottom along with the stately Spanish galleon. The
historian of the expedition, an officer aboard the Desire, de-clares
that "this was one of the richest vessels that ever sailed
the seas ; and was able to have made many hundreds wealthy
if we had had means to have brought it home." Satisfied now
SIR WALTER KALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 149
with the results of his expedition, Cavendish decided to leave
the Content to pursue her own way, and on JSTovember 19,
1587, turned the prow of the Desire homeward by way of the
Cape of Good Hope. ''On September 10, 1588," records
the chronicler of his exploits, "like wearied men, through the
favor of the Almighty, we got into Plymouth, where the
townsmen received us with all humanity."
All England rang with the fame of Cavendish. His ex-ploits
became the theme of ballads and his name was on every
man's tongue. For a time he held his head high among the
best of England's naval heroes. Soon, however, he found
that a fortune so easily gained was as easily lost. "Gal-lantry
and following the court" quickly depleted his purse
and he again looked toward the usual storehouse with a crav-ing
that was not to be resisted. In 1591 he fitted out a
second expedition for the Spanish main, but he now sailed
under an evil star. Fortune deserted him and after suffer-ing
untold horrors from hunger, storms and desertions, he
died at sea in 1592, it is said of a broken heart. Something
of the endurance required of English seamen of the sixteenth
century may be understood when we learn that of the seventy-six
men who sailed with Cavendish on this luckless voyage
only a "small remnant" of fifteen lived to return and they
were so weak from hardships and suffering that when they
arrived off Bearhaven, Ireland, they "could not take in or
heave a sail."^
In the summer of 1586, while Lane and the colonists at
Roanoke were anxiously awaiting the long overdue return of
Grenville with supplies from England, their anxiety was re-lieved
by the appearance off Croatan of Sir Francis Drake
with a fleet in which were counted twenty-three sails. He
was a welcome visitor, for he began at once to make prepara-tions
to supply the colony with all needful things. But
» "Dictionary of National Biography," IX, 358-363.
2
150 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
while these measures were under way a storm arose which
put an end to all plans for relief and resulted in the embark-ation
of Lane and his homesick men for England.
The man who thus came to the rescue of the forlorn group
on Roanoke Island was ''until Nelson's time celebrated as
the greatest of English seamen." Like Raleigh and Grenville,
he was a native of that county of Devon whence have come so
many of England's mighty sailors. Drake's mind and char-acter
raise him to a height far above Grenville and Caven-dish
and place him in the company of Raleigh, Blake and
Nelson. To Raleigh and Drake, more than to any other
men, England owes her world-mde colonial empire. As the
former first put into practice the policy of breaking down
Spain's colonial power by planting rival colonies in the ISTew
World, so the latter first carried into world-wide execution
the allied policy of destroying Spain's maritime power by
attacking her in American waters. His naval career was
begun under no less a leader than Sir John Hawkins, and of
course came at once into hostile collision with Spain. Span-ish
rapacity, cruelty and bigotry, we are told, "taught him
the same kind of feeling toward Spaniards that Hannibal
cherished toward Romans." Like Hannibal, he swore an
eternal enmity to his foe, but in pursuit of his passion he
deserved and met with a far better fate.
The most notable of his numerous exploits was the voyage
in the Golden Hind which first carried the flag of England
around the globe. Passing through the Strait of Magellan,
with a single ship of only twenty guns, he skirted along the
west coast of South America and "from Valparaiso north-ward
along the Peruvian coast, dashed into seaports and cap-tured
vessels, carrying away enormous treasures in gold and
silver and jewels. * * * With other property he meddled
but little, and no act of wanton cruelty sullied his per-formances.
After taking plunder worth millions of dollars
SIE WALTER EALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 151
this corsair-work gave place to scientific discovery, and the
Golden Hind sailed far northward in search of a northeast
passage into the Atlantic." In the course of this voyage
Drake looked in at the Golden Gate, took possession of Cali-fornia
in the name of Queen Elizabeth, christened it New
Albion, and after sailing as far northward as Oregon, turned
his prow into the Pacific, thence over the Indian Ocean, and
rounding the Cape of Good Hope, sailed into the harbor of
Plymouth in September, 1580. "The romantic daring of
Drake's voyage," says John Richard Green, ''as well as the
vastness of the spoil, aroused a general enthusiasm through-out
England. But the welcome he received from Elizabeth
on his return was accepted by Philip as an outrage which
could only be expiated by war. Sluggish as it was, the blood
of the Spanish king was fired at last by the defiance with
which Elizabeth received all demands for redress. She met a
request for Drake's surrender by knighting the freebooter,
and by wearing in her crown the jewels he had offered her as
a present. When the Spanish Ambassador threatened that
'matters would come to the cannon,' she replied, 'quietly, in
her most natural voice, as if she were telling a common story,'
wrote Mendoza, 'that if I used threats of that kind she would
fling me into a dungeon.' " One enthusiast, in an ecstasy
of admiration, declared that the Golden Hind ought to be
set upon the top of St. Paul's Cathedral, "that being dis-cerned
farre and neere, it might be noted and pointed at of
the people with these true terms : Yonder is the barke that
hath sailed round about the world."
In the same year in which Lane's colony landed on Roa-noke
Island, war having been declared against Spain, Drake
fitted out a superb fleet of twenty-three sails and embarked
for the Spanish main. On this expedition he took and
sacked Cartagena, St. Domingo and St. Augustine alid cap-tured
twenty prizes carrying 250 cannon.
152 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
After these exploits Drake turned his prow northward and
skirted along the eastern coast of jSForth America until he
came to Eoanoke, where he stopped to take a look in upon
Ealeigh's colony. He was a welcome visitor for, says Lane,
he made "a, most hountiful and honorable offer for the sup-ply
of our necessities to the performance of the action we
were entered into ; and that not only of victuals, munitions
and clothing, but also of barks, pinnaces and boats ; they
also, by him to be victualled, manned and furnished to my
contentation." But while preparations were being made to
carry these generous measures into execution "there arose
such an unwoonted storme, and continued foure dayes that
had like to have driven all on shore, if the Lord had not held
His holy hand over them." The vessels of Drake's fleet
were "in great danger to be driven from their ankoring upon
the coast. For we brake many cables and lost many ankors.
And some of our fleet which had lost all (of which number
was the ship appointed for Master Lane and his company)
was driven to put to sea in great danger in avoyding the
coast, and could never see us againe untill we met in
England. Many also of our small pinnaces and boats were
lost in this storm." As a result of this experience Lane,
after consultation with Drake, decided to embark his colony
for England. Then Drake, "in the name of the Almighty,
weying his ankers (having bestowed us among his fleet,)"
says Lane, "for the reliefe of whom hee had in that storm
sustained more peril of wrake than in all his former most
honorable actions against the Spanyards, with praises unto
God for all, set saile the nineteenth of June, 1586, and
arrived in Plymouth the seven and twentieth of July the
same yeere."
The next year, in an exploit which thrills our blood even
at this day, Drake reached the climax of his daring and
audacity. Cruising along the coast of Spain, he suddenly
SIK WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 153
dashed into the harbor of Cadiz, attacked and sunk the men-of-
war there on guard, loaded his ships with the spoils of
Mexico and Peru, and calmly set his sails for England. This
work he laughingly called "singeing the King of Spain's
beard." Philip, one day, invited a lady of his court to go
on board his barge on the Lake of Segovia, But the pru-dent
lady declined, saying that she dared not trust herself
on water even with his Majesty "for fear of Sir Francis
Drake."
It was with their spirits chafing at the insults but cowed
by the daring and skill of the English seamen that the sailors
and soldiers of Spain set sail in their Invincible Armada
for the conquest of England. In that wonderful world-victory
for freedom which an eminent historian calls "the
opening event in the history of the United States," the name
of Sir Francis Drake stands high on the roll of conquerors.*
Before taking leave of Cavendish, Grenville and Drake, I
wish to say just a word in regard to the character of the war-fare
which they waged. In the twentieth century we should
call those who engaged in such exploits pirates, and their
work piracy. But we should do a grave injustice to the
memory of those bold men who opened the way to the plant-ing
of English civilization in the New World if we should
so think of them. The strict and well-defined principles of
international law now prevailing throughout the civilized
world were totally unknown during the sixteenth century.
A Spanish fleet massacred a colony of French Huguenots in
Florida and a French ship, fitted out by a private gentleman,
retaliated in full measure at a time when the two countries
were nominally at peace with each other. As John Fiske
says: "A flavour of buccaneering pervades nearly all the
maritime operations of that age and often leads modem
writers to misunderstand or misjudge them. Thus it some-
' " Dictioaary of National Biography," XV, 426-442 ; Froude : " English Seamen of the
Sixteenth Century;" Green: "History of the English People."
154 THE NOKTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
times happens that so excellent a man as Sir Francis Drake,
whose fame is forever a priceless possession for English-speaking
people, is mentioned in popular books as a mere
corsair, a kind of gentleman pirate. Nothing could show a
more hopeless confusion of ideas. In a later generation the
warfare characteristic of the Elizabethan age degenerated
into piracy, and when Spain, fallen from her gTeatness, be-came
a prey to the spoiler, a swarm of buccaneers infested
the West Indies and added another hideous chapter to the
lurid history of those beautiful islands. They were mere
robbers, and had nothing in common with the Elizabethan
heroes except courage. From the deeds of Drake and Haw-kins
to the deeds of Henry Morgan, the moral distance is as
great as from slaying your antagonist in battle to murdering
your neighbor for his purse. "^ Even England has on her
honor rolls of ten centuries no more glorious deeds, no more
honorable names than those of Walter Raleigh, Richard
Grenville and Francis Drake. So effectively did those dar-ing
men do their work that Philip II, once the mightiest and
richest of European monarchs, lived to see his maritime
power shattered, his treasury empty and his glory departed.
Until this work had been done there could be no hope that
English colonies could be successfully planted in America.
Among those who accompanied Lane to Roanoke in 1586
were John White, the artist of the expedition, sent by Raleigh
to make drawings of the country and its people, afterwards
governor of the Lost Colony ; and Thomas Harriot, the his-torian
and scientist of the colony. To none who bore a part
in the efforts to plant a colony on Roanoke Island, save to
Raleigh alone, do we owe more than to White and Harriot.
The work of '^'these two earnest and true men"—the splendid
pictures of the one and the scholarly narrative of the other
—
preserve for us the most valuable information that we have
of "Ould Virginia." They were the intimate friends of
• "Old Virginia and Her Neighbors," 1, 24.
SIK WALTER RALEIGH AND PUS ASSOCIATES. 155
Raleigh whose love and loyalty could be affected by no degree
of prosperity or ill fortune. ''Raleigh," says Henry Stevens,
"was blessed in his household, or at his table, or in his confi-dence,
with four sterling adherents who stuck to him through
thick and thin, through prosperity and adversity. These
were Richard Ilakluyt, Jacques Le Moyne, John White and
Thomas Harriot. When Wingandacoa makes up her jewels
she will not forget these four, whom it is just to call
Raleigh's Magi. * * * Together Harriot and White
surveyed, mapped, pictured and described the country, the
Indians, men and women ; the animals, birds, fishes, trees,
plants, fruits and vegetables."
We are told that whoever compares the original drawings of
White with the engravings of De Bry, "as one may now do
in the British Museum, must be convinced that, beautiful as
De Bry's work is, it seems tame in the presence of the origi-nal
water-colour drawings. There is no exaggeration in the
engTavings." The late Henrj'^ Stevens, of Vermont, whose
work was done principally in London, who describes himself
as ''Student of American History, Bibliographer and Lover
of Books," predicts that "White's name in the annals of
English art is destined to rank high though it has hitherto
failed to be recorded in the art histories and dictionaries.
Yet his seventy-six original paintings in water-colours, done
probably in Virginia in 1585-1586, while he was there with
Harriot as the official draughtsman or painter of Raleigh's
'First Colonie' entitle him to prominence among English
artists in Elizabeth's reigTi."
Thomas Harriot was one of the most eminent scholars of
his age. No name in English history deserves to take prece-dence
of his in scientific achievement. A graduate of St.
Mary's Hall, Oxford, he was engaged by Sir Walter Raleigh
to reside with him as his mathematical tutor and adviser in
liis maritime adventures. In this capacity he was sent by
156 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
Raleigh to Roanoke with Lane, and upon his return pub-lished
at London, in 1588, "A Brief and True Report of
the New-found Land of Virginia." This work attracted
wide attention both in England and on tlie continent where
it was translated into Latin. The Edinhurgh Review de-scribed
it as a work ''remarkable for the large views it con-tains
in regard to the extension of industry and commerce,"
and as one of the finest examples in existence of statistical
surveys on a large scale. Harriot, in spite of weak health
which, he complained, made him unable to write or even
think accurately, and prevented his completing or publish-ing
his work, won a place among the great astronomers and
mathematicians of the world. After his death some of his
mathematical discoveries were published by his friend, the
Earl of J^orthumberland. "This work," we are told, "em-bodies
the inventions by which Harriot virtually gave to
Algebra its modern form." Had Harriot "published all he
knew in algebra," says a modem scholar, "he would have left
little of the chief mysteries of that art unhandled." In
astronomy he applied the telescope to celestial purposes si-multaneously
with Galileo with whose name his is forever
associated in one of the greatest branches of human knowl-edge.
By his wonderful work in mathematics and astronomy
Thomas Harriot, the historian and scientist of Roanoke, won
for himself a place among "the immortal names that were
not born to die."'"
Such were the men, and such was their work which won
for English-speaking people the noblest portion of the ISTew
World. Without their work all the statesmanship of Burgh-ley
and Walsingham would have been ineffective, Elizabeth's
glorious reign would probably have ended in disaster and
shame, and a long arctic night of bigotry and superstition,
like the Dark Ages, would have enveloped Europe in its
black and impenetrable folds. That these calamities were
*• Stevens: "Thomas Hariot and His Associates."
SIK WALTEE RALEIGH AND HIS ASSOCIATES. 157
averted, that the power of Spain was crushed never to rise
again, that the England of Elizabeth, Shakespeare and Ra-leigh
triumphed over the Spain of Philip, Alva and Menen-dez,
and that English ideals of liberty and law prevail
throughout the northern part of America today, the English
race throughout the world may thank Sir Walter Raleigh
and those bold and daring seamen and adventurers who
shattered Spain's naval power and here at Roanoke seized
the best part of the New World for England. May we in
America never forget that the glorious achievements of the
Raleighs, the Drakes and the Grenvilles of that generation
are as much a part of our inheritance as are the achievements
of the Hancocks, the Jeffersons, the Harnetts and the Wash-ingtons
of a later generation.
158 THE NOETH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
GOVERNOR BENJAMIN SMITH
BY COLLIER COBB,
Professor of Geology in the University of North Carolina.
Addressing Governor Kitchin, Professor Cobb said:
May it Please Your Excellency
:
On behalf of the North Carolina Society of the Sons of
the Revolution, I present through you to the State of North
Carolina the portrait of Benjamin Smith, patriot, legislator,,
soldier, statesman, and philanthropist; builder of highways
and of fortifications ; conservationist and drainer of swamps
;
opener of waterways; believer in education for every child
within the State, and the first benefactor of the University;
Grand Master of Masons; Governor of North Carolina one
hundred years before his time, and dreamer of dreams which
you, sir, now help to make come true.
LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF BENJAMIN SMITH.
Benjamin Smith's education began more than a hundred
years before he was born, for he came of a race of men who
did things. He was descended from Sir John Yeamans,
from old King Roger Moore, and his grandmother. Lady
Sabina Smith, was the daughter of Thomas Smith, second
Landgrave of his name in South Carolina. The father of
our present subject was Colonel Thomas Smith, of South
Carolina. So far as is known no relationship existed be-tvreen
him and his wife, whose name (as just stated) was
also Smith. Thomas Smith, the first Landgrave, had seen
rice cultivated in Madagascar; and one day, in 1696, when a
sea captain, an old friend of his, sailed into Charleston Har-bor
from Madagascar, Thomas Smith got from him a bag of
rice seed. This was carefully sown in a wet place in Smith's
•Address delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives at Raleigh, November
15, 1911, on the occasion of the presentation of portrait of Governor Smith to the Stat« by
the North Carolina Society of the Sons of the Revolution.
From the Painting by Jaques Busbee.
GOVERNOR BENJAMIN SMITH. 159
garden in Charleston. It grew, and the two Carolinas were
changed into a land of great rice plantations. His great-grandson,
Benjamin Smith, was later owner of the best rice
plantation in North Carolina, a portion of the original grant
to Landgrave Smith, who tried to establish settlements on the
Cape Fear River in 1690. Also to be counted among his
close kindred were the Bees and Grimkes, of South Carolina,
and the Rhetts, who changed their name from Smith to that
of their grandmother, Catherine Rhett, whose family in
South Carolina had become extinct. Benjamin Smith
thus came of a breed possessing ability, means, and position.
The William Smith who introduced the culture of cotton
into Virginia in 1621 is said to have been of the same stock.
While the public acts and many details of the private life
of Benjamin Smith may be gathered from the records of his
time, both State and National, and from the rather volumi-nous
correspondence of his distinguished contemporaries, the
date of his birth and the manner and place of his burial have
frequently been brought into question. The w^eight of author-ity
favors January 10, 1756, as his birthday, and Jan-uary
10, 1826, his seventieth birthday, as the date of his
death. Still there are those who contend that he was born
in 1750, and that he died on the 10th of February, 1829.
But a contemporary newspaper, the Raleigh Eegister, of
February 14, 1826, has a notice of his death as having oc-curred
recently at Smithville.
We know nothing, however, concerning his childhood and
youth, but he must have received careful training, for we
are told that, "While still young, just twenty-one years of
age, he served as aide-de-camp of General Washington in the
dangerous but masterly retreat from Long Island after the
defeat of the American Army in August, 1776. He behaved
with conspicuous gallantry in the brilliant action in which
Moultrie, in 1779, drove the British from Port Royal
160 THE NOKTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
Island, and checked for a time the invasion of South Caro-lina.
A Charleston paper says: 'He gave on many occa-sions
such various proofs of activity and distinguished
bravery as to merit the approbation of his impartial coun-try.'
" Yet during the siege of Charleston, in 1780, a blun-der
of Smith's brought about the premature surrender of the
city on the 12th of May. "Mr. Smith sent a letter to his
wife by Mr. Rutlege, who was taking to the Governor a com-munication
that had been confided to him orally, with the
strictest injunction that no written communication be taken
from the garrison. A letter addressed by a friend to his
wife under assurance that it was only a family letter, Mr.
Rutledge unwarily considered it no violation of his instruc-tions.
He was captured soon after he left the town and
printed copies of the letter were next day thrown into the
garrison in unloaded bombshells, and most unaccountably,
through a secret agency, dispersed through all parts of the
town in printed handbills. The letter plainly told that the
garrison must soon surrender, that their provisions were
expended, and Lincoln only prevented from capitulating by
a point of etiquette. From this time hope deserted the gar-rison,
while the reanimated efforts of the enemy showed their
zeal revived." Lincoln surrendered the fort, and Charleston,
with its stores, its advantages, and the army that defended it,
fell into the hands of the British commander. Smith prob-ably
hastened the surrender just a little, but he did not cause
it; for historians are generally agreed that Lincoln should
have fled and saved his army soon after Clinton began en-girdling
the city about the 1st of April, and before the British
fleet a week later ran by Fort Moultrie and entered the
harbor.
In 1783 we find Benjamin Smith in the General Assembly
of ISTorth Carolina, representing Brunswick County in the
Senate. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention
GOVERNOK BENJAMIN SMITH. 161
of 1788, that declined to accept the Federal Constitution,
and in that body did all in his power to secure its adoption,
since he was an ardent Federalist. He was a member of
the convention that adopted the Constitution in 1789, and
was on the committee that prepared the amendments which
North Carolina proposed to the Constitution of the United
States. He had some support for the Senatorship in 1789,
but Benjamin Hawkins was elected. This Legislature of
1789 chartered the University of ISTorth Carolina, and Smith
was named among the most eminent men of the State com-posing
the first board of trustees. At the first meeting of
the board, on the 18th of December, 1789, Colonel Smith
offered to the University warrants for 20,000 acres of land
in Tennessee that he had received as pay for his distinguished
services in the Revolution, and he handed over the warrants
at the second meeting of the board in 1790. He remained a
trustee of the University until 1824, and took great pride in
presiding over the meetings of the board during his term as
Governor of the State.
The warrants Colonel Smith gave were for land located
in Obion County, in the extreme northwest part of Tennes-see.
By the Treaty of Hopewell in 1795 the United States
ceded this territory to the Chickasaw Indians. In 1810 the
most terrific earthquake that has ever visited the interior of
our country turned portions of this region into lakelets, and
a large part of the University's tract is now occupied by
Reelfoot Lake, the scene of the night-rider raid of a few
years ago. It was not until twenty-five years afterward
that a sale was effected, realizing $14,000 for the University.
Smith Hall, built for a library half a century after the gift
of the land warrants and today occupied by the Law School,
the most attractive building on the campus, commemorates
the munificence of Colonel Smith.
In 1791 Smith again became a member of the Assembly,
162 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
and except for the three years, 1801, 1802 and 1803, he con-tinued
in the State Senate until his election as Governor in
the fall of 1810, and he was again in the Senate in 1816.
He was Speaker of the Senate from 1795 to 1799. In 1800
he was defeated for the Speakership by Joseph Riddick, and
in the next election he was defeated for the Senatorship bj
William Wingate, a Jeffersonian Democrat. In that day
personal conflicts growing out of political differences were
by no means unusual, and there is a tradition of a duel that
Smith fought with Thomas Leonard, a political opponent,
in which the General was seriously wounded. The ball
could not be extracted, and the Governor carried it in his
thigh to the end of his days.
During his career as a legislator he served on many im-portant
committees, and he always voted as a strict partisan.
He favored the making of roads, the building of causeways,
the draining of bog lands, the foresting of dunes, and the
keeping open of rivers and creeks at their falls for the free
passage of fish. As a Member of the Assembly he bitterly
opposed the founding of the city of Raleigh, and the removal
of the capital from Fayetteville and again from New Bern.
In contemplation of a war with France, or of a second
conflict with England, while General Washington was still
President, Colonel Smith was made Brigadier-General of
Militia, 1796. When a struggle with France seemed immi-nent,
during the presidency of John Adams in 1797, the
entire militia force of Brunswick County, officers and men,
roused to enthusiasm by a speech General Smith made them,
volunteered to follow his lead in the service of their country.
In 1810, when trouble with England was culminating, he
was again made Brigadier-General of his county forces.
In that same year he was elected Governor of North Caro-lina,
and in his message to the General Assembly, November
20, 1811, he recommended the adoption of a penitentiary
GOVEENOK BENJAMIN SMITH. 163
system, and appealed for a reform of the too sanguinary
criminal code of the State. He also advised encouraging
''domestic manufactures employing those persons who are un-able
or unfit to till the soil/' the improving of the militia, and
the establishment of public schools. In recommending the
schools he said: ''Too much attention can not be paid to
the all-important subject of education. In despotic govern-ments,
where the supreme power is in the possession of a
tyrant or divided amongst an hereditary aristocracy (gener-ally
corrupt and wicked), the ignorance of the people is a
security to their rulers ; but in a free government, where the
offices and honors of the State are open to all, the superiority
of their political privileges should be infused into every
citizen from their earliest infancy, so as to produce an enthu-siastic
attachment to their own country, and ensure a jealous
support of their own constitution, laws, and government, to
the total exclusion of all foreign influence or partiality. A
certain degTee of education should be placed within the reach
of every child in the State ; and I am persuaded a plan may
be formed upon economical principles that would extend this
boon to the poor of every neighborhood, at an expense trifling
beyond expectation, when compared with the incalculable
benefits from such a philanthropic and politic system." Ex-cusing
the rhetoric, this might have been written a century
later.
Upon retiring from the gubernatorial office he entered
upon the carrying out of certain engineering plans which he
had advocated as legislator and Governor for the improve-ment
of conditions within the State. He stood for the best
of what has characterized each and every administration
from the time of Governors Vance and Jarvis to the days of
Aycock and Glenn and of Your Excellency. He lived just
one hundred years before his time. He could not long re-main
out of politics, and in 1816 his neighbors returned him
164 THE NOETH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
to the State Senate. General Smith was a zealous Mason,
and during his prime was for three years, from 1808 to 1811,
Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of North Carolina.
Up to 1792 there were no homes in the neighborhood of
Fort Johnston, near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, and
Mr. Joshua Potts, of Wilmington, who made the first move-ment
toward establishing a town there, has given us an in-teresting
account of the settlement of Smithville in a manu-script
that has come down to us, and published in 1904 by
the University of iN'orth Carolina in James Sprunt His-torical
Monograph No. 4, pp. 8G-90. Mr. Potts has told us
how he and certain of his friends in 1790 undertook to lay
off a town there and obtain a charter. Their plan was un-expectedly
opposed in the Legislature by Colonel Smith, and
the charter for the town of "Nashton," as they purposed
calling the place, was defeated. A year after the defeat of
the bill at Fayetteville, General Smith's neighbors who fa-vored
the bill determined that he should not be sent to the
Assembly unless he would do his best to have an act passed
for the intended purpose. General Smith accepted the con-ditions,
was elected, and made good his word. The act was
passed at New Bern in 1792. General Smith, when he re-turned
from the Assembly, told his friends that on his mak-ing
a motion and offering the bill for the act, "Mr. Macon
or some other respectable member made an observation that
many applications had been acted upon for different towns
in the State, but that few, if any of them, had succeeded
;
that the said worthy member said, 'As General Smith has
applied in behalf of this petty town, it should be called
Smithville, as if by way of derision to the applicant, should
the town (like many others) not succeed.'
"
Benjamin Smith married Miss Sarah Rhett Dry, daughter
of Colonel William Dry, a man of ability, excellent education,
and rare accomplishments, and a member of the King's
GOVERNOR BENJAMIN SMITH. 165
Council. She was also a direct descendant from Cromwell's
admiral, Robert Blake, Both she and General Smith in-herited
large estates. We learn much of their manner of
life and their generous hospitality from the diary of General
Joseph Gardner Swift, of New York, first graduate of the
United States Military Academy at West Point, who in his
younger days enjoyed intimate association with General
Smith. Swift, a young second lieutenant in the corps of
engineers, "was sent to Wilmington in 1804 to examine the
harbor of Cape Fear, and to report a plan of defense there-for,
and also to direct the execution of a contract with
General Benjamin Smith, of Belvidere, to construct a battery
at the site of old Fort Johnston, in Smithville, of a material
called 'tapia.' " He gave to the United States Government
ten acres of land on Bald Head, or Smith's Island, which he
owned, on which to build the lighthouse at the mouth of the
Cape Fear River. He constructed the causeway from Wil-mington
across Eagles Island,
"As he advanced in years," to use the words of Dr. Battle,
"Governor Smith lost his health by high living and his for-tune
by too generous suretyship. He became irascible and
prone to resent fancied slights. His tongue became veno-mous
to opponents. He once spoke with undeserved abusive-ness
of Judge Alfred Moore, and the insult was avenged by
one of the members of the Assembly from Brunswick, Judge
Moore's son Maurice." General Swift has given us in his
"Memoirs" an account of this duel, which was fought on
June 28, 1805, just over in South Carolina, near to the
ocean side, where then stood the Boundary House, the line
running through the center of the entrance hall and main
passageway. Captain Moore was attended by his cousin,
Major Duncan Moore, while General Smith's second was
General Swift himself. Dr. Andrew Scott attended as sur-geon
for both combatants. At the second fire General Smith
3
166 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
received his antagonist's ball in his side and fell. Dr.
Scott, aided by Dr. Griffin, took the General to Smithville
by water, while General Swift hastened to Belvidere, and
conveyed Mrs. Smith in a chair to Smithfield through a
storm of lightning and rain. The ball lodged near the Gen-eral's
left shoulder-blade, and it (or the bullet fired by Leon-ard
years before) was the means of identifying Smith's
ashes many years later when his remains were removed to
the burial ground of St. James Church, Wilmington.
General Smith's great burden of debt was due to the
defalcation of Colonel Reed, collector of the port of Wilming-ton,
whose surety he was. It was to discharge this liability
that General Smith had contracted to build the tapia work
at Fort Johnston. General Swift has told us how this tapia
was prepared from equal parts of lime, raw shells and sand,
and water sufficient to form a paste or batter. All the engi-neering
work in which the old hero engaged was undertaken
to discharge debts, and it is sad to relate that in his old age
he was arrested by the attorney of the University, who,
Smith alleged, was his personal enemy, and held for a se-curity
debt, ''but on learning the fact he was released by the
Trustees with promptness."
Besides the home at Belvidere, Governor Smith at one
time owned Orton, which came down to him from his ances-tor,
Roger Moore, being originally the home of his kinsman,
Maurice Moore, grandson of Sir John Yeamans. Mrs.
Smith's flower garden was such an attractive place that Dr.
Griffin, dying of yellow fever in Wilmington, asked that he
be buried there. The Isabella grape, highly esteemed by
us for its fine flavor, was introduced to ISTorth Carolina from
Mrs. Smith's garden where it grew from a cutting, the gift
of a sea captain who had received some kindness at her
hands. General Swift visited his old friend, General Smith,
at Orton in 1818, and found him greatly depressed by his
GOVEENOK BENJAMIN SMITH. 167
debts, Mrs. Smith "evincing a well-balanced serenity to cheer
her husband." Swift returned to Wilmington, where he
"found it a fruitless essay to liquidate the large claims of
the General's creditors."
This man, of rare personal charm, of high character, and
of openhearted and openhanded hospitality, became in-volved
in such pecuniary difficulties that he was actually im-prisoned
for debt; and at the time of his death, in 1826,
some of his creditors resorted to the unusual method, though
allowed by the law of that day, of withholding his body from
burial until his friends could meet the demands of the credi-tors.
The deputies set to watch the body were lured away
temporarily to partake of refreshments, and when they re-turned
the coffin and its contents had disappeared. Friends
had taken it out on the river to the old graveyard on the site
of St. Philip's Church, then a ruin of old Brunswick town,
where in the dead of night they gave the body of their com-rade
Christian burial. A story, probably originating with
the careless watchers, that the coffin had been taken out on
the river and in the darkness committed to its waters by the
negroes who were trusted to row the boat, gained some
credence; but what is less probable: that devoted friends
would thus leave his body to slaves, or that they would let
the story pass as a probable means of concealing his last
resting place ?
In 1853 their old friend, General Swift, caused to be
erected over the grave of General and Mrs. Smith in the old
Brunswick cemetery a marble slab on which was inscribed
:
"In memory of that Excellent Lady, Sarah Rhett Dry Smith,
who died the 21st of ISTovember, 1821, aged 59 years. Also
of her husband, Benjamin Smith of Belvidere, once Gover-nor
of ISTorth Carolina, who died January, 1826, aged 70."
168 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
ACCEPTANCE
In a graceful speech, on behalf of the State, Governor
Kitchin thanked the Society for this gift of the portrait of
Governor Smith, and expressed his gratification upon learn-ing
that there had been manifested in ISTorth Carolina a cen-tury
ago such interest in public education and other benefi-cent
measures for the upbuilding of the State and the good
of its people. It is a source of sincere regret that Governor
Kitchin's speech of acceptance, having been delivered with-out
manuscript or notes, cannot be reproduced here. As is
always the case with that gifted orator, his remarks were a
source of entertainment and interest to his hearers, and it
would gratify us to place them in full before those of our
readers who were not so fortunate as to be present on that
interesting occasion.
queen's college ok liberty hall. 169
THE STORY OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE OR LIBERTY
HALL IN THE PROVINCE OF
NORTH CAROLINA
BY MARSHALL DeLANCEY HAYWOOD,
Author of "Governor William Tryon and His Administration in the Province of North
Carolina, 1765-1771," "Lives of the Bishops of North Carolina," etc.
Of all the Royal Governors of North Carolina none was
more interested in the educational advancement of the Prov-ince
than William Tryon. In December, 1770, while the
General Assembly was in session at New Bern, he sent a mes-sage
to that body, urging the further improvement of the
school system, which had already been bettered to some
extent during his administration. The Assembly continued
its sittings several weeks into the succeeding year, not
adjourning until January 26, 1771. On the 10th day of
January in the latter year (Chapter III of the Laws of
1770), the Assembly passed on its final reading an act to in-corporate
an institution of learning to be called Queen's
College, the same to be located in the town of Charlotte
and county of Mecklenburg. As a reason for such action
it was recited that "the proper education of youth has always
been considered as the most certain source of tranquillity,
happiness, and improvement, both of private families and of
States and Empires, and there being no institution or semi-nary
of learning established in this Province, whither the
rising generation may repair, after having acquired at a
Grammar School a competent knowledge of the Greek,
Hebrew, and Latin languages, to imbibe the principles of
science and virtue, and to obtain under learned, pious and
exemplary teachers in a collegiate or academic mode of in-struction
a regular or finished education in order to qualify
them for the service of their friends and country," etc.
This act of incorporation further recited that several Gram-
lYO THE NOKTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
mar Schools had already been established in the western part
of the Province, and in these could be obtained "very con-siderable
progress in the languages and other literary attain-ments,"
but that these schools were not able to give what was
considered a finished education. The trustees of Queen's
College were Edmund Fanning, Thomas Polk, Robert Har-ris,
Jr., Abraham Alexander, Hezekiah Alexander, John
McKnitt Alexander, Ezekiel Polk, Thomas ISTeal, William
Richardson, Hezekiah J. Balch, Joseph Alexander, Waight-still
Avery, Henry Patillo, and Abner Nash. All of these
fourteen trustees, with the exception of Fanning and ]S3"ash,
were Presbyterians, including several learned clergymen of
that denomination ; but, anticipating the opposition which
later came from the Court of St. James, and wishing to con-ciliate
the King if possible, this charter provided that the
President of this institution should be a member of the
Church of England, licensed by the Governor. As a source
of revenue it was provided that a tax of six pence per gallon
should be levied on all rum and other spirituous liquors
brought into and disposed of in Mecklenburg County for ten
years following the passage of the act of incorporation. On
January 15, 1771, Governor Tryon gave the act his official
approval. In a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, King
George's Secretary of State for the Colonies, to whom he
transmitted the act of Assembly for the King''s consideration,
Tryon wrote, under date of March 12, 1771, saying: "The
necessity for such an institution in this country is obvious,
and the propriety of the mode here adopted must be sub-mitted
to His Majesty. Though the President is to be of
the established Church and licensed by the Governor, the
Fellows, Trustees, and Tutors, I apprehend, will be gener-ally
Presbyterians, the college being promoted by a respect-able
settlement of that persuasion, from which a considerable
body marched to Hillsborough in September, 1768, in sup^-
queen's college oe libekty hall. 171
port of government." The last clause in the extract, just
quoted, has reference to the loyal support accorded Tryon
by the Presbyterians, both clergymen and laymen, in holding
in check the lawlessness of the Regulators. It was a service
which the Governor always held in grateful remembrance.
Unfortunately for the cause of education in North Caro-lina
the act establishing Queen's College had to take the
course of other colonial laws and be passed upon by a King
and Council in England who were never noted for their
tolerance in either religion or politics. First it was referred
to Richard Jackson, afterwards a member of Parliament,
who was legal adviser to the Lords Commissioners for Trade
and Plantations, a board which had oversight of affairs in
America ; and, upon Jackson's advice, this Board (in ses-sion
at Whitehall, on February 26, 1772), reported to the
King as follows
:
From this report of Your Majesty's Governor, and from the pre-valency
of the Presbyterian persuasion within the county of Meck-lenburg,
we may venture to conclude that this college, if allowed to
be incorporated, will in effect operate as a seminary for the educa-tion
and instruction of youth in the principles of the Presbyterian
Church. Sensible as we are of that tolerating spirit which generally
prevails throughout Your Majesty's dominions, and disposed as we
particularly are in the case before us to recommend to every reason-able
mark of favor and protection a body of subjects who, by the
Governor's report, have behaved with such loyalty and zeal during
the late troubles and disorders, still we think it our duty to submit
to Your Majesty whether it may be advisable for Your Majesty to
add encouragement to toleration by giving the Royal assent to an
establishment which, in its consequences, promises great and per-manent
advantages to a sect of Dissenters from the Established
Church who have already extended themselves over the Province in
very considerable numbers.
With this preliminary kick from Mr. Jackson and the
Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, the Queen's
College act of incorporation was passed forward -to King
George and the Lords of His Majesty's Most Honourable
172 THE NOETH CAEOLINA BOOKLET.
Privy Council at the Court of St. James, on April 22, 1772,
when it was formally vetoed, or "disallowed, declared void
and of none effect." It was nearly a year later, April 7,
1773, before this action was certified to Governor Josiah
Martin, Tryon's successor in office, who thereupon issued a
proclamation from the Governor's Palace in 'New Bern,
North Carolina, June 28, 1773, declaring the King's disap-proval
of the movement to establish the college in Charlotte.
On December 6, 1771, before the King had vetoed the
act incorporating Queen's College, Thomas Polk, one of its
trustees and a representative of the county of Mecklenburg
in the Provincial Assembly, introduced into the Assembly
an amendment to that act (Chapter IX of the Laws of 1771)
which provided for the election of a Vice-President of the
college, who should act as President when the latter official
was absent from North Carolina, as was then the case.
This amendment passed its final reading on December 12th,
and received Governor Martin's approval on December 23d;
but, when the act of incorporation itself was repealed, such
action worked as a repeal of the amendment also.
The nominal President of Queen's College was Edmund
Fanning, though nothing shows that he took an active part
in its management. Fanning was a much better man than
written history and the absurd traditions of North Carolina
have represented him, and few men in the Province equaled
him in scholarship. In 1757 he had graduated with the
degree of Bachelor of Arts from Yale, which later conferred
upon him the degTee of Master of Arts, finally honoring
him with the high degree of Doctor of Laws in 1803. In
1764 Harvard College gave him the degree of Master of
Arts, as did also King's College (now Columbia) in 1772.
Dartmouth College, in 1803, conferred upon him the degree
of Doctor of Laws, and he received the degree of Doctor of
Civil Law from the great University of Oxford, England,
queen's college oe liberty hall. 173
in 1T74. We doubt if any of Fanning's contemporaries, in
eitlier Great Britain or America, ever received so many
academic honors ; and yet this holder of literary degrees
which the greatest scholars of any time might covet, is rep-resented
by many writers as an abandoned extortionist and
libertine, whose sole title to distinction was the favoritism of
Tryon. In the Revolution, Fanning became a Loyalist, and
was a General in the army of Great Britain at the time of
his death in 1818. At that time it was written: "The
world did not contain a better man in all the various rela-tions
of life—as a husband, a parent, and a friend. As a
landlord and master he was kind and indulgent. He was
much distingTiished in the American war, and raised a regi-ment
there, by which he lost a very large property."
It was through no ill will of any one in ISTorth Carolina
that a charter was withheld from Queen's College. Gover-nor
Tryon did everything in his power to secure it, as did
also the Provincial Assembly. Both Churchmen and Dis-senters
throughout the Province regretted the outcome of
the effort to secure one, but all were then too loyal to call
into question what His Most Gracious Majesty had been
pleased to do—or undo. But this feeling did not last.
King George's power was soon likewise to be "disallowed,
declared void and of none effect." In the meantime. Queen's
College was conducted without a charter, doing much good
both morally and educationally. Among its students were
William Richardson Davie, Joseph Graham, and many
others who afterwards won fame as officers in the Revolu-tion.
It is also probable that one of its pupils was Andrew
Jackson, as we learn from his biography (unabridged edi-tion)
by Parton. In 1775 the college building is said to
liave been a rendezvous for some of the earlier meetings of
the Committee of Safety, though the Court House was used
for the principal sessions of that body.
174 THE JSrORTH CAKOLINA BOOKLET.
Queen's College was sometimes called Queen's Museum;
and, by Chapter XX of the Private Laws of 1777 (April
session), its name was changed to Liberty Hall—no
longer a namesake of royalty but of the fair goddess who
was henceforth ordained to preside over the destinies of
America. Under the new charter, in 1777, the trustees
were Isaac Alexander (President), Thomas Polk, Thomas
IsTeal, Abraham Alexander, Waightstill Avery, Ephraim
Brevard, David Caldwell, James Edmonds, John Simpson,
Thomas Reese, Adlai Osborne, Samuel McCorkle, John
McKnitt Alexander, Thomas McCaule, and James Hall
—
true Presbyterians and patriots all, with none to gainsay
their rights. By the act last mentioned, the Legislature
directed that the treasurer of the college should give bond to
the Governor of the State for the faithful discharge of his
duties; and a subsequent Legislature (Chapter XXIII of
the Private Laws of 1778, April session), appropriated for
its use all moneys which should accrue from the sale of lots
in the town of Charlotte, but even this could not make it a
prosperous institution in the midst of a war which was mak-ing
a heavy drain upon the resources of the people of the
State. x\nother act of the Legislature just after the war
(Chapter XXIX of the Private Laws of 1784, October ses-sion)
changed the name of Liberty Hall to Salisbury
Academy, and directed that it should be removed to Salis--
bury, in Powan County. If Salisbury Academy began
operations with as many pupils as it had trustees (thirty-six,
including those added in 1785), it had a promising-start,
but what its final fate was we are unable to say.
The building originally erected in Charlotte for the use
of Queen's College, and later operated under the name of
Liberty Hall, was evidently used for school purposes even
after the Legislature directed the removal of the institution
to Salisbury in 1784 ; for we find a not over-gratifying refer-
queen's college ok. liberty piall. 175
enee to it in Washington's Diary, May 28, 1791, when the
Father of his Country took a look at it and its surround-ings.
He wrote: "Charlotte is a trifling place, though the
Court of Mecklenburg is held in it. There is a school
(called a college) in which, at times, there has been 50 or 60
boys." Such was the sad lot of the first college ever erected
in I^orth Carolina—crippled in its infancy by the King of
Great Britain, and belittled in its old age by the President
of the United States
!
176 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
BIOGRAPHICAL, GENEALOGICAL AND HISTOR.
ICAL MEMORANDA
COMPILED AND EDITED BY Mrs. E. E. MOFFITT.
COLLIER COBB
Collier Cobb, who contributes for this number of The
Booklet the article entitled "Governor Benjamin Smith,"
was born at Mount Auburn, his grandfather's plantation, in
Wayne County, I^orth Carolina, March 21, 1862. His
father, the Reverend ISTeedham Bryan Cobb, was then chap-lain
in the Army of Northern Virginia. The Cobbs are of
English extraction and immigrated to Virginia in 1613.
Another ancestor, Martin Franks (Francke) came from
Germany to ISTew Bern and settled on the Trent river. His
daughter Susanna became the wife of William Heritage
(1769) and the mother of Elizabeth Heritage, who married
Jesse Cobb, a distinguished soldier of the Revolution, great-great-
grandfather of the subject of this sketch, and through
whose services he is a member of the ITorth Carolina branch
of the "Sons of the Revolution." He is also eligible and
member through ISTeedham Bryan Cobb, member of the
N"orth Carolina Provincial Congress of August, 1775 ; also
through Benjamin May, of Pitt County, member of the
I^orth Carolina Provincial Congress, ISTovember, 1776 ; also
through James Green, Secretary of the ISTorth Carolina Pro-vincial
Congress of April, 1776.
"Collier Cobb during his youth pursued his studies at
home and was prepared for college by his mother, Mrs.
Martha Louisa Cobb, a woman of vigorous intellect and very
strong will, who reared twelve children and instructed them
herself. This lady learned to read and speak German at the
age of forty, that she might teach that language to her
BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENEALOGICAL, 177
children, when by moving to another town, they had to give
up the instruction of a German tutor. From her Collier
Cobb inherited many of his characteristics, and her influ-ence
on his life has long been strong and lasting."
Collier Cobb entered Wake Forest College, 1878, at about
the age of sixteen, and the following year he entered the
University of JSTorth Carolina, where he pursued his course
of study. Earth science had always been attractive to him,
and at the University he determined on geology as a pro-fession.
After leaving the University he became a teacher
and studied the topographic features of every section in
which he taught. In the year 1885 he gave up teaching
and entered Harvard, in order to perfect himself in his pro-fession.
Here he was honored with the Secretaryship of the
Harvard liatural History Society, a post of distinction
which had been held by Edward Everett Hale, Alexander
Agassiz, Theodore Roosevelt, and many others. In 1889 he
received the degree of A.B. with honors in Natural History,
and five years later he received his Master's Degree from
Harvard, his major subject being "the origin of the topo-graphic
features around King's Mountain." Mr. Cobb was
assistant to Professor ]^. S. Shaler on the United States
Geological Survey (1886-92), The influence of this excel-lent
gentleman and learned scientist on the life of his pupil-associate
became very strong, and to him Mr. Cobb owes the
encouragement which induced him to persevere under great
difiiculties, and the retarding influences of ill health.
Mr. Cobb's activities cover a broad field, for while dur-ing
the four years as assistant in the United States Geo-logical
Survey he was also assistant in Harvard University
(1888-90) and instructor in the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (1890-92). Among his other acquirements and
accomplishments he is an artistic amateur photographer, his
pictures are widely known throughout the United States.
178 THE NOKTH CAEOLINA BOOKLET.
He has published many scientic papers, books and maps.
He is Fellow of the American Association for the Advance-ment
of Science, of the Association of American Geographers
and Geological Society of America and other kindred
Associations.
Mr. Cobb is notably active in the interests of his native
State. He rendered valuable assistance to Colonel William
L. Saunders in his monumental work, "The Colonial Records
of North Carolina." He is President of the North Carolina
Academy of Science ; a member of the Elisha Mitchell Scien-tific
Society ; has published two geographies of the State
;
also, in 1879, a valuable map of the State, which has been
used for over a quarter of a century in the schools. He was
elected Professor of Geology in the University of North
Carolina in 1892, and continues in that position, which
attests his great popularity and fitness for the place. His
extensive travels in other lands have proved of inestimable
value to his country as well as to himself. He is widely
known as a student of moving sands, which he has studied
on the coasts of France, Belgium, and Holland, as well as
those of the States, and of the desert regions of the world.
In the January number of The Booklet, 1905, Professor
Cobb contributed an article on "Some Changes in the North
Carolina Coast since 1585." This article throws much light
on the mooted question, as to which inlet the English adven-turers
of 1584 entered the sounds of North Carolina (then
called Virginia). His investigations covered a study of all
maps and originals obtainable, securing photogTaphs, or
tracings from John White's map of 1585, to the Coast Sur-vey
Charts of the present day. The notes presented by him
are based on his own researches, investigations and explora-tions
of the North Carolina coast. Many of the inlets found
by early explorers have been closed and others, formed by the
shifting sands, will reveal to the student of history some-
BIOGKAPHICAL AND GENEALOGICAL. 179
thing of the nature of the problem of which particular inlet
was entered by the English colonists. Whatever confusion
there may be as to names of various harbors mentioned, it is
generally conceded that the explorers from 1585 to 1590
headed for an inlet or harbor near Eoanoke Island called
''Hatorask." The influence of these shifting sands upon
the development of our State is an interesting subject for the
student of earth science in its relation to man.
Professor Cobb's object in his investigations was to study
the changes in the zone of early exploration and settlement
as they have influenced the history of the State. The round-ing
of Cape Hatteras is attended with such danger that the
loss to life and shipping is fearful indeed, and to avert this
the government now has under consideration the opening of
a gTeat inland waterway, which will not only be an economic
move, but humanitarian in its purpose.
Professor Cobb ranks high as a geologist, and in his fine
library in Chapel Hill he still pursues his studies and to
exert his powers on the students under his charge to become
useful factors in the building up of the State and its insti-tutions.
''The story of his life presents many features
of great use to young Americans, illustrating how persever-ance
and systematic endeavor will generally bring success.
He is indeed a representative American, not self-made,
though self-educated in the best sense, self-reliant and suc-cessful
in the career which he has chosen. He has lived
thoroughly up to his motto, 'Always do as best you can the
work that lies immediately at hand. Want whatever work
presents itself, and you will some day get the work you want
to do.'
"
In 1891 Professor Cobb married Mary Lindsay Battle,
a daughter of Doctor William Horn Battle. She died No-vember
27, 1900, leaving three children: William Battle,
Collier, and Mary Louise. In 1904 he married Miss Lucy
180 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
Plummer Battle, daughter of Honorable Richard H. Battle,
of Raleigh, N. C. She bore him one son, Richard Battle
Cobb. She died April 27, 1905. In November, 1910, Pro-fessor
Cobb married Miss Mary Catling, of Little Rock,
Arkansas, a descendant of Governor Richard Caswell.
Note.—Tho material for the above sketch was drawn from Captain Samuel A. Ashe's
sketch of Mr. Cobb, in the Biocraphical History of North Carolina, Vol. VI, p. 141; also
from The North Carolina Booklet, Vol. IV, January, 1903, article by Professor Cobb;
also from tho Records of the Sons of the Revolution of North CaroUna.
MES. HELEN DEBEENIEEE WILLS. 181
MRS. HELEN DeBERNIERE WILLS
Mrs. Helen DeBerniere Wills departed this life on June
24, 1911. The death of this highly esteemed and honored
member of the North Carolina Society Daughters of the
Revolution is greatly lamented, and the loss of her valued
service as Genealogist is sadly felt and deplored. Mrs.
Wills was a highly educated woman, naturally endowed with
a superior intellect, enriched with judicious culture yet pos-sessed
of a modesty so retiring that only those who knew her
intimately were able to appreciate the excellence of her
mind and character.
Under the guiding hand of a father of unusual literary
ability, Mrs. Wills became proficient as a teacher, and for
a time she pursued this occupation until her marriage to
James Wills, a prominent druggist of Wilson, North Caro-lina,
on August 12, 1867. As the years passed on, she was
repeatedly called upon to follow her dear ones to the tomb.
On October 26, 1884, her husband died, in the faith and
hope of a Christian, after many years of trial and suffering,
leaving her with two small sons. She again resumed teach-ing,
in which she met with continued success until her chil-dren
were fitted to take up their life work and repay her in
a measure for her care of them.
With a spirit of independence, her desire being to take up
some work to occupy her time and attention, she removed
to Raleigh, N. C. It was here that her services were called
into requisition by the Society of the Daughters of the Revo-lution
to undertake the office of Genealogist, a peculiar and
difficult branch of history. Not since the days of Mr. Hath-away,
of Edenton, N. C, has any one accomplished what
she did for Genealogy in North Carolina. Could she have
had the physical strength to take up the work where he left
4
182 THE NORTH CAKOLINA BOOKLET.
it off, our State would have been doubly enriched bj her
services, but a weak constitution forbade her undertaking its
continuance.
Mrs. Wills was a devoted church woman and a faithful
attendant upon the ministrations of her rector, the Rev. Dr.
I. McK. Pittinger, of the Church of the Good Shepherd in
Raleigh, in whose congregation she had a host of friends who
held her in the highest esteem. She was a type of the ante-bellum
Southern lady, impressing her personality upon all
those with whom she came in contact. Firm in her convic-tions,
based upon the broad view she took of life, her judg-ment
was to be relied on in matters of social or literary sig-nificance.
She was a voracious reader, and was authority on
general literature and language. She was especially a stu-dent
of history and had connected herself with several patri-otic
organizations.
She became a member of the Society of the Daughters of
the Revolution when it was first organized in the State, and
to the day of failing health was ever on the alert to aid in its
growth and progress. In all its difficulties and deliberations
her voice had a potent influence. The voluminous notes and
data which she had collected during her term of office will
be most valuable to her successor.
Mrs. Wills was also a "Daughter of the Confederacy"
from the time that the society was organized, and one more
faithful was not easily found. She was Historian of the
Johnston Pettigrew Chapter, U. D. C, of Raleigh, IST. C,
filling the place most effectually and faithfully.
She founded at Chapel Hill and was President of the
Leonidas Polk Chapter, the first and only Chapter of the
TJ. D. C. ever organized in that place, leaving it in a flour-ishing
condition upon her return to Raleigh.
Her devotion to the U. D. C, her intense interest in its
historic work, her desire to see recorded the truth of the
MES. HELEN DEBEBNIEBE WILLS, 183
cause, won for her the place of Chairman of the Historical
Text-book Committee of the State Division. To this she
spared no pains to vindicate the justice of the cause as she
saw it. Early in 1903 she issued a circular letter to the
President and Historian of every Chapter in the State, then
numbering about sixty. This circular was for the purpose
of reminding them of the importance of this branch of the
U. D. C. work—the preservation of a truthful history of the
War between the States, the training of our young people in
familiarity with such history and the endeavor to eliminate
from our schools the false teachings which traduce the South
and her heroes. She held up Jefferson Davis, R. E. Lee and
''Stonewall" Jackson as the highest types of American man-hood,
fit examples for the generations to come. These char-acters,
as well as other Confederate history, to be studied by
our young people in order to fit them to carry on the work
after the older "Daughters" have passed away, and to im-press
upon them their duty to the old soldier of the Lost
Cause while in life, and to keep green his grave after death.
This circular met with many favorable responses, not only
from the Society but from prominent educators and other
public-spirited citizens. Mrs. Wills's actual experience before
and during the war enabled her to recount the trend of events
with trusted accuracy. She heard the first gun fired at
Sumter, being at that time a resident of South Carolina, and
the echoes of that forerunner of a great fratricidal strife ever
remained a fearful memory.
A few years ago a society was formed by the descendants
of "Signers of the Declaration of Independence." In this
organization Mrs. Wills was solicited to enroll her name,
being eligible through her ancestor on the maternal side,
William Hooper, "The Signer." In this she became heartily
interested and attended two of the meetings, the last on
October 19, 1909, at Yorktown, Virginia—the one hundred
184 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
and twenty-eighth anniversary of the surrender of Lord Corn-wallis
to General George Washington. This historic town
was the scene of a memorable celebration conducted under
the joint auspices of the '^Descendants of Signers" and the
Yorktown Historical Society. A very interesting descrip-tion
of the occasion was written by Mrs. Wills for The
North Carolina Booklet of July, 1910.
On account of a failure in health, late in the year 1910,
she laid aside her work, to reside with her son, Mr. Henry
Wills, in Chapel Hill, 'N. C, hoping that a change of alti-tude
would restore her to health and enable her to resume
her wonted occupation, but her days were numbered. After
a lingering illness she passed away, surrounded by kind and
sorrowing friends. She is survived by two sons, Henry C.
Wills, of Chapel Hill, N. C, and George Wills, a prominent
architect of New York City ; also by one sister, Mrs. R. H.
Graves, now residing in Philadelphia, besides several
nephews and nieces.
GENEALOGY.
Mrs. Wills comes of a noble, patriotic, and cultured ances-try,
being lineally descended from the Hooper, Maclaine,
DeBerniere, and Jones families. She is the fifth in lineal
descent from the Rev. William Hooper, Trinity Church,
Boston, Massachusetts, the second Rector of that church from
1747 to his death in 1767. She is the fourth in descent
from his son, William Hooper (1742-1790), the ''signer" of
the Declaration of Independence, of National fame. She
is the third in descent from William Hooper third and Helen
(Hogg) his wife, of Brunswick County, N. C, who died in
1804. She is the second in descent from the Rev. William
Hooper (1792-1876), who married Frances Pollock Jones,
daughter of Edward Jones (1762-1841), for many years
Solicitor-General of North Carolina. Reverend Wm.
Hooper, D.D., LL.D., was for many years Professor in the
MES. HELEN DEBEENIEEE WILLS. 186
TJniversitj of North Carolina and other institutions of learn-ing,
an instructor of youth for sixty-five years. She was a
daughter of Professor John DeBerniere Hooper (1811-1886),
for many years Professor of Languages in the University of
North Carolina, who was acknowledged to be one of the most
accurate Greek, Latin and French scholars of his age and day.
From such ancestry Mrs. Wills inherited many varied
traits that characterized this remarkable family, and at her
demise many relatives and friends are left to mourn their loss.
186 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
IN MEMORIAM
Resolutions of Respect to the Memory of Mrs. Fanny DeBerniere
Hooper Whitaker, \vho Died November 28, 1911
Whereas, God, in His divine love and never-failing wis-dom,
has called from her temporary home to "the Great
Beyond" our beloved Founder, former State and Honorary
Regent, Mrs. Fanny DeBerniere Hooper Whitaker:
Therefore he it Resolved, That the ^orth Carolina So-ciety,
Daughters of the Revolution, laments the inexpressible
loss sustained in her death.
That they express the deepest gratitude for the high
standard she has set us by the beautiful example of her noble
life, and that they appreciate the great work she has done in
founding this society, whose influence has been recognized
as a factor in the universal historical awakening that is re-storing
North Carolina to her own, whose devotion will ever
be an inspiration to our members—her loyal followers—to
undertake more difficult tasks and to bring to accomplish-ment
enduring achievements.
That they will always miss the guiding hand that has
safely piloted them through troubled waters, and treasure
her hallowed memory through the coming years.
To the dear ones is extended our warmest sympathy in
this hour of sorrow.
That these resolutions be spread upon the minutes of the
society and a copy be sent to the family.
Mary Hilliard Hinton,
Mrs. Annie (Moore) Parker,
Mrs. Hubert PTaywood,
Regent Bloomsbury Chapter.
Mrs. E. E. Moffitt,
Committee.
MARRIAGE BONDS OF EOWAN COUNTY. 187
MARRIAGE BONDS OF ROWAN COUNTY, N. C.
BY MRS. M. G. McCUBBINS.
Squire Boone to Jane Vancleft. July 11, 1765. Squire
Boone, John Johnston and Sam (his X mark) Tate.
(Thomas Frohock). [This is framed and hangs on wall in
clerk's office.]
Andrew Beard to Anne Locke. February 1, 1790.
Andrew Beard and Jno. Beard. (C Caldwell, D. C.)
John H. Berger to Susanna Miller. February 15, 1790.
John H. Berger( ?) (in Dutch) and Peter (his X mark)
Berger.
Randel Bevin to Rachael Wood. February 15, 1790.
Randel (his X mark) Bevin and Benjamin Stony ( ?). (Ed.
Harris.).
Thomas Boulwin to Mary Coske (Cooke?). February 22,
1790. Thomas Boulwin ( ?) and AVilliam Aldredge.
Philip Brown to Rel)ekah Baker. March 1, 1790. Philip
(his X mark) Brown and Charles Dunn.
John Baker to Jean Mitchel. May 20, 1790. John
(his X mark) Baker and Sehon Smith. (C. Caldwell,
D. C.)
John Braley to Mary Carson. May 22, 1790. John
Braley and Wi'". St. Carson. (C. Caldwell, D. C.)
Wm. Brewer to Mary Shumaker. June 10, 1790. Wil-liam
(his X mark) Bruer and Rich*^ (his X mark) Speaks.
(Basil Gaither.)
John Biles to Margaret Whiteker. July 2, 1790. John.
Biles and John (his X mark) Whiteker. (Basil Gaither.)
William Barly, Jr., to Jane Patteson. July 26, 1790.
William Barly and Wm. Belay, Sr. (Jan Harris, D. C, for
Charles Caldwell.)
188 THE NOETH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
John Barklej to Yuiley( ?) Kern. August 21, 1790.
John Barcley and John Kern. (C. Caldwell, D. C.)
John Berger to MargTet Cruse. John Berger and Adam
Stiyerwalt. September 1, 1790. (C. Caldwell, D. C.)
Muddeas Beam to Polly Wise. September 21, 1790.
Muddeas Beam( ?) (both in Dutch) Jacob Beam. (C. Cald-well,
D. C.)
Samuel Badjet to Jenny Skene. October 21, 1790.
Samuel Badgett and Jacob Skeen. (C. Caldwell, D. C.)
James Brian to Margaret Johnson. December 8, 1790.
James Bryan and John Johnston. (C. Caldwell, C. C.)
Manning Brookshire to Elizabeth Sludder. December 14,
1790. Manning (his X mark) Brookshire and Jesse Brook-shire.
Douglass Blue to Charity Hill. May 18, 1791. Douglass
Blue and Moses Bellah. (Charles Caldwell, D. C.)
Archibald Blue to Martha Forest (or Foust). July 18,
1791. Arch^ Blue and Moses Bellah. (C. Caldwell,
D. C.)
David Bloomfield to Kachel Barkley. October 21, 1791.
David (his X mark) Bloomfield and Wilson McCay. Cun:™
Harris.)
John Buse to Sarah Wyatt. November 8, 1791. John
Buis and J. G. Lanmann. (Chs. Caldwell.)
Horatio Baker to Rachael Blaster( ?). December 29,
1791. Horatio (his X mark) Baker and Philip Coleman( ?)
(in Dutch). (Ad: Osborn.)
Jeremiah Brown to Mary Charian (Marian?). June 29,
1792. Jeremiah (his X mark) Brown and Thomas (his X
mark) Davis. (Chs. Caldwell.)
Jacob Bodenhamer to Elizabeth Spurgins. January 1,
1792. Jacob Bodenhamer and Peter Bodenhamer. (Jno.
Monro ?)
MAKKIAGE BONDS OF EOWAN COUNTY. 189
Moses Bella to Elizabeth Anderson. February 21, 1Y92.
Moses Bellah and Wm. Anderson. (Chs. Caldwell.)
John Biles to Betsay Smithe. March 12, 1792. John
Biles and Conrad Brem. (Chs. Caldwell.)
John Baxter to Hannah Owins(?). April 13, 1792.
John Backster and James (his X mark) Wood. (Chs.
Caldwell.)
William Balej to Lucy Foster. June 11, 1792. William
Baily and Robert Dial. (Basil Gaither.)
George Bullen to Chlora Castor. October 9, 1792.
George (his X mark) Bullen and Jacob Call (Castor?).
(Jo. Chambers.)
Leonard Bevins to Sarah Moore. October 16, 1792.
Leonard (his X mark) Bevins and Val : Beard. (Jos.
Chambers.)
N. B. on back of bond.—Jos. Chambers testifies that they
were married October 16, 1792.
Thomas Briggs to Esther Parks. October 19, 1792.
Thomas Briggs and Simon (his G mark) Watson. Jos:^
Chambers, D. C.)
Conrod Browii to Patience Penny. October (no date),
1792. Conrod (his X mark) Brown and David (his X
mark) Brown. (Jo. Chambers.)
Jacob Bining to ISTancy Rowan. November 17, 1792.
Jacob Binning and John Braly.
John Buise to Martha Wyatt. January 12, 1793. John
Buis, Jr., and Laurence Clinard. ( Jno. ( ?)onro.)
William Bunton to Mary Cowan. January 31, 1793.
William Bunten and Thomas Barrkley (or Barckley?).
(Jos. Chambers.)
William Bateman to Elizabeth Smith. March 4, 1793.
William (his X mark) Bateman and Mesheck( ?) Pinkstone.
(Jos. Chambers.)
190 . TnE NOKTH CAROLINA BOOKLET.
William Braly to Margaret Woods. March 8, 1793. Wil-liam
Braly and Jno. Braly.
Daniel Brown to Ann Rablin. August 26, 1793. Daniel
Brawn ( ?) and Mertin Rablin. (Jos. Chambers.)
John Henry Brinly to Catharine Easter. August 4, 1793.
John Henry Brennly and Peter Easter (or Easten ?). (Jno.
( ?)onro.)
William Brown to Lucy Chaffin. September 3, 1793.
William Brown and Valentine (his X mark) Holderfield.
(Jos. Chambers.)
Henry Benson to Jane Cathey. October 12, 1793. Henry
Bonson and Jno. McRavey. (Jos. Chambers.)
Charles Burros to ISTancy Renshaw. October 18, 1793.
Charles Burroughs and James Heathman. (Jos. Chambers.)
George Briles to Barbra Coonrod. George Brile and
David Coonrod (?) (in Dutch). (Jno. onro.)
Samuel Bucey to Katharine Seigler. February 10, 1794.
Samuel Bucey and Laurence Seigler. (John Pinchback and
Ly(?) Pinchback.)
John Burns to Mary Lopp. April 18, 1794. John (his
X mark) Burns and Charles (his X mark) Burns. (Jo.
Chambers.)
James Brown to Sarah Smith. July 23, 1794. James
Brown and Tobias Fouro( ?) (or Furr). (I. Troy, P. C.)
Daniel Benson to Mary Ham. August 25, 1794. Daniel
Benson and John Peraman. (Friedrick Miller.)
INFORMATION
Concerning the Patriotic Society
"Daughters of the Revolution*'
The Genera] Society was founded October 11, 1890,—and organized
August 20, 1891,—under the name of "Daughters of the American
Revolution"; was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York
as an organization national in its work and purpose. Some of the mem-bers
of this organization becoming dissatisfied with the terms of en-trance,
withdrew from it and, in 1891, formed under the slightly differ-ing
name "Daughters of the Revolution," eligibility to which from the
moment of its existence has been lineal descent from an ancestor who
rendered patriotic service during the War of Independence.
** Ihe North Carolina Society "
a subdivision of the General Society, was organized in October, 1896,
and has continued to promote the purposes of its institution and to
observe the Constitution and By-Laws.
Membership and Qualifications
Any woman shall be eligible who is above the age of eighteen years,
of good character, and a lineal descendant of an ancestor who ( 1 ) was
a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a member of the Conti-nental
Congress, Legislature or General Court, of any of the Colonies
or States; or (2) rendered civil, military or naval service under the
authority of any of the thirteen Colonies, or of the Continental Con-gress;
or (3) by service rendered during the War of the Revolution
became liable to the penalty of treason against the government of Great
Britain: Provided, that such ancestor always remained loyal to the
cause of American Independence.
The chief work of the North Carolina Society for the past eight years
has been the publication of the "North Carolina Booklet," a quarterly
publication of great events in North Carolina history—Colonial and
Revolutionary. $1.00 per year. It will continue to extend its work and
to spread the knowledge of its History and Biography in other States.
This Society has its headquarters in Raleigh, N. C, Room 411, 'Caro-lina
Trust Company Building, 232 Fayetteville Street.
1
Some North Carolina Booklets for Sale
Address, EDITOR, Raleigh, N. C.
Vol. I
"Greene's Retreat," Dr. Daniel Harvey Hill.
Vol. II
"Our Own Pirates," Capt. S. A. Ashe.
"Indian Massacre and Tuscarora War,"' Judge Walter Clark.
"Moravian Settlement in North Carolina," Rev. J. E. Clewell.
"Whigs and Tories," Prof. W. C. Allen.
"The Revolutionary Congresses," Mr. T. M. Pittman.
"Raleigh and the Old Town of Bloomsbury," Dr. K. P. Battle.
"Historic Homes—Bath, Buneomb Hall, Hayes," Rodman, Blount,
Dillard.
"County of Clarendon," Prof. John S. Bassett.
"Signal and Secret Service," Dr. Charles E. Taylor.
'Last Days of the War," Dr. Henry T. Bahnson.
Vol. Ill
"Volunteer State Tennessee as a Seceder," Miss Susie Gentry.
"Colony of Transylvania," Judge Walter Clark.
"Social Conditions in Colonial North Carolina," Col. Alexander Q.
Holladay, LL.D.
"Battle of Moore"s Creek Bridge, 1776," Prof. M. C. S. Noble.
"North Carolina and Georgia Boundary," Mr. Daniel Goodloe.
Vol. IV
"Battle Ramsaur's Mill, 1780," Major Wm. A. Graham.
"Quaker Meadows," Judge A. C. Avery.
"Convention of 1788," Judge Henry Groves Connor.
"North Carolina Signers of Declaration of Independence, John Penn
and Joseph Hewes," by T. M. Pittman and Dr. E. Walter Sikes.
"North Carolina Troops in South America," Judge Walter Clark.
"Rutherford's Expedition Against the Indians," Capt. S. A. Ashe.
"Changes in Carolina Coast Since 1585," Prof. Collier Cobb.
"Highland Scotch Settlement in N. C," Judge James C. MacRae.
"The Scotch-Irish Settlement," Rev. A. J. McKelway.
"Battle of Guilford Court-house and German Palatines in North Caro-lina,"
Major J. M. Morehead, Judge O. H. Allen.
2
Vol. VII. (Quarterly.)
July. No. 1.
" North Carolina in the French and Indian War," Col. A. M. Waddell.
"Locke's Fundamental Constitutions," Mr. Junius Davis.
" Industrial Life in Colonial Carolina," Mr. Thomas M. Pittman.
Address: "Our Dearest Neighbor—The Old North State," Hon. James
Alston Cabell.
Biographical Sketches: Col. A. M. Waddell, Junius Davis, Thomas M.
Pittman, by Mrs. E. E. Moffitt; Hon. Jas. Alston Cabell, by Mary
Hilliard Hinton.
Abstracts of Wills. Mrs. Helen DeB. Wills.
October, No. 2.
" Ode to North Carolina," Pattie Williams Gee.
" The Finances of the North Carolina Colonists," Dr. Charles Lee
Raper.
" Joseph Gales, Editor," Mr. Willis G. Briggs.
"Our First Constitution, 1776," Dr. E. W. Sikes.
" North Carolina's Historical Exhibit at Jamestown Exposition,"
Mary Hilliard Hinton.
Biographical Sketches: Dr. Kemp P. Battle, Dr. Charles Lee Raper,
Willis Grandy Briggs, Pattie Williams Gee. By Mrs. E. E. Moffitt.
January, No. 3.
" General Robert Howe," Hon. John D. Bellamy.
" Early Relations of North Carolina and the West," Dr. William K.
Boyd.
" Incidents of the Early and Permanent Settlement of the Cape Fear,"
Mr. W. B. McKoy.
Biographical Sketches: John Dillard Bellamy, William K. Boyd, Wil-liam
B. McKoy. By Mrs. E. E. Moffitt.
April, No. 4.
"St. James's Churchyard" (Poem), Mrs. L. C. Markham.
" The Expedition Against the Row Galley General Arnold—A Side
Light on Colonial Edenton," Rev. Robt. B. Drane, D.D.
" The Quakers of Perquimans," Julia S. White.
" Fayetteville Independent Light Infantry," Judge James C. MacRae.
Biographical Sketches: Mrs. L. C. Markham, Rev. R. B. Drane,
Julia S. White, Judge James C. MacRae. By Mrs. E. E. Moffitt.
Vol. VIM.— (Quarterly )
July, No. 1.
"John Harvey," Mr. R. D. W. Connor.
"Military Organizations of North Carolina During the American Revo-lution,"
Clyde L. King, A.M.
"A Sermon by Rev. George Micklejohn," edited by Mr. R. D. W. Connor
3
Vol. v.— (Quarterly.)
No. 2.
"History of the Capitol," Colonel Charles Earl Johnson.
"Some Notes on Colonial North Carolina, 1700-1750," Colonel J. Bryan
Grimes.
"North Carolina's Poets," Eev. Hight C. Moore.
No. 3.
"Cornelius Harnett," Mr. R. D. W. Connor.
"Celebration of the Anniversary of May 20, 1775," Major W. A.
Graham.
"Edward Moseley," by Dr. D. H. Hill.
No. 4.
"Governor Thomas Pollok," Mrs. John W. Hinsdale.
"Battle of Cowan's Ford," Major W. A. Graham.
"First Settlers in North Carolina Not Religious Refugees," Rt. Rev.
Joseph Blount Cheshire, D.D.
Vol. VI-(Quarterly.)
October, No. 2.
"The Borough Towns of North Carolina," Mr. Francis Nash.
"Governor Thomas Burke," J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Ph.D.
"Colonial and Revolutionary Relics in the Hall of History," Col. Fred.
A. Olds.
"The North Carolina Society Daughters of the Revolution and its
Objects."
Biographical Sketches: Dr. Richard Dillard, Mr. Francis Nash, Dr.
J. G. de R. Hamilton and Col. Fred A. Olds, by Mrs. E. E. MoITitt.
January, No. 3.
"State Library Building and Department of Archives and Records,"
Mr. R. D. W. Connor.
"The Battle of Rockfish Creek, 1781," Mr. James Owen Carr.
"Governor Jesse Franklin," Prof. J. T. Alderman.
"North Carolina's Historical Exhibit at Jamestown," Mrs. Lindsay
Patterson, Mary Hilliard Hinton.
Biographical Sketches: Mrs. S. B. Kenneday, R. D. W. Connor, Jamea
Owen Carr, and Prof. J. T. Alderman, by Mrs. E. E. MoITitt.
April, No. 4-.
"The White Pictures," Mr. W. J. Peele.
"North Carolina's Attitude Toward the Revolution," Mr. Robert Strong.
"Some Overlooked North Carolina History," J. T. Alderman.
Biographical Sketches: Richard Benbury Creecy, the D. R. Society
and Its Objects, Mrs. E. E. Moffitt.
Genealogical Sketches: Abstracts of Wills; Scolley, Sprott anu Hunter,
Mrs. Helen de B. Wells.
Biographical and Genealogical Sketches: R. D. W. Connor, Clyde L.
King, Marshall DeLaneey Haywood, by Mrs. E. E. Motlitt.
"Abstracts of Wills," Mrs. Helen DeB. Wills.
October, No 2.
"Convention of 1835," Associate Justice Henry G. Connor.
"The Life and Services of Brigadier-General Jethro Sumner," Kemp
P. Battle, LL.D.
"The Significance of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence,"
Prof. Biuce Craven.
Biographical and Genealogical Sketches: Judge Henrv G. Connor, Kemp
P. Battle, LL.D., Prof. Bruce Craven, by Mrs. E.'e. MoHitt.
January, No. 3.
"The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence," Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr.
"The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence," Prof. Bruce Craven.
"Mr. Salley's Reply."
"Mr. Craven's Rejoinder."
Biographical and Genealogical Sketches: Prof. Bruce Craven, Mr. Alex-ander
S. Salley, Jr., by Mrs. E. E. Moffitt.
"Patriotic Objects."
"Information Concerning the Patriotic Society D. R."
April, No. 4.
"Unveiling Ceremonies."
"Carolina," by Bettie Freshwater Pool.
"The Battle of King's Mountain," by Dr. William K. Boyd.
"Schools and Education in Colonial Times," by Dr. Charles Lee Smith.
"Nortli Carolina Heroines of the Revolution," by Richard Dillard, M.D.
Biographical and Genealogical Sketches: Bettie Freshwater Pool, Wil-liam
K. Bovd, Charles Lee Smith, Richard Dillard, bv Mrs. E. E.
Moffitt.
Vo'. IX.— (Quarterly.)
July, No. 1.
"Indians, Slaves and Tories: Our 18th Century Legislation Regarding
Them," Clarence H. Poe.
"Thomas Person," Dr. Steplien B. Weeks.
"Sketch of Flora McDonald," Mrs. S. G. Ayr.
Biographical and Genealogical Memoranda: Clarence H. Poe, Dr. Stephen
B. Weeks, Mrs. S. G. Ayr, Mrs. E. E. :\Ioffitt.
Abstracts of Wills: Shrouck, Stevens, Sanderson, Shirley, Stevenson,
Shaiee, Shearer, Shine, Smithson, Sitgreaves, by Mrs. Helen DeB.
Wills.
October, No. 2.
"General Joseph Graham," Mrs. Walter Clark.
"State Rights in North Carolina Through Half a Century," Dr. H. M.
Wagstaff.
5
"The Nag's Head Portrait of Theodosia Burr," Bettie Freshwater
Pool.
Biographical and Genealogical Memoranda: Mrs. Walter Clark, H. M.
Wagstaff, by Mrs. E. E. Moffitt.
Abstracts of Wills: Arnold, Ashell, Avelin, Adams, Battle, Burns, Boge,
Bennett, by Mrs. Helen DeB. Wills.
January, No. 3.
"History of Lincoln County," Mr. Alfred Nixon.
"Our State Motto and Its Origin," Chief Justice Walter Clark.
"Work Done by the D. R, in Pasquotank County," C. F. S. A.
Biographical and Genealogical Memoranda: Alfred Nixon, Walter Clark,
by Mrs. E. E. Moffitt.
Abstracts of Wills: Clark, Evans, Fendall, Fort, Gorbe, Gambell,
Grainger, Hill, White, by Mrs. Helen DeB. Wills.
April, No. 4.
"Der North Carolina Land und Colonie Etablissement," Miss Adelaide
L. Fries.
"George Durant," Capt. S. A. Ashe.
"Hatorask," Mr. Jaques Busbee.
"The Truth about Jackson's Birthplace," Prof. Bruce Craven.
Biographical and Genealogical Memoranda: Miss Fries, Captain Ashe,
Professor Craven, by Mrs. E. E. Moffitt.
VoL X.—(Quarterly.)
July, No. 1.
"The Chase," James Sprunt.
"Art as a Handmaiden of History," Jaques Busbee.
"Sketch of Colonel Francis Locke," George McCorkle.
"Unveiling of Tablet at Nixonton, N. C," Mrs. Walker Waller Joynes.
"Address Delivered at Unveiling of Tablet at Nixonton, N. C," by
Former Lieutenant-Governor F. D. Winston.
"A Glimpse of Historic Yorktown," Mrs. Helen DeB. Wills.
"Colonel Polk's Rebellion," Capt. S. A. Ashe.
"Was George Durant Originally a Quaker?" William B. Phelps.
October, No- 2.
"The History of Orange County, Part L" Francis Nash.
January, No. 3.
"The Croatans," Hamilton McMillan.
"State Aid to Transportation in North Carolina: The Pre-Railroad
Era," J. Allen Morgan.
"Joseph Hewes and the Declaration of Independence," R. D. W.
Connor.
April, No. 4.
"An Address for the Baptism of Virginia Dare," Rt. Rev. Joseph
Blount Cheshire, D.D.
"The Early History of Craven County," S. M. Brinson.
"Jacob Marling, an Early North Carolina Artist," Marshall DeLancey
Haywood.
'The Social Condition of North Carolina in the Year 1783," Captain
S. A. Ashe.
"Rowan County Wills and Marriage Bonds," Mrs. M. G. McCubbins.
Vols. I, II, III, IV, 25 cents each number.
Vols. V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, 35 cents each number.
The North Carolina Booklet
A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION ISSUED UNDER
THE AUSPICES OP THE
NORTH CAROLINA SOCIETY DAUGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION
-^x^ir
THIS PUBLICATION treats of important
events in North Carolina History, such
as may throw light upon the political, social
or religious life of the people of this State
during the Colonial and Revolutionary
periods, in the form of monographs written
and contributed by as reliable and pains-taking
historians as our State can produce.
The Eleventh Volume began in July, 1911.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION:
One Year, One Dollar; Single Copies, TKirty-five Cent's.
Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton, Editor, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Registered at Raleigh Post-office as second class matter.
No'.ice should be given if the subscription is to be discon-tinued.
Otherwise it is assumed that a continuance of the sub-scription
is desired.
All orders for back numbers and all communications relating
to subscriptions should be sent to
Miss Mary Hilliard Hinton,
Midway Plantation, Raleigh, N. C.