Counties That Have Vanished
You'll look in vain on your inap of \orlh
Carolina for the counties of Tryon. IKute.
Glasgow anil Hobbs, but many years ago
they wore a part of the slate.
THE three original Carolina Coun¬
ties were Albemarle, Bath and
Clarendon which disappeared from
the map after but brief existence.
There also were four other counties,
established at a much later date, which
have vanished- Tryon, Bute. Glas¬
gow and Dobbs.
Most famous of our Iloyal Gov¬
ernor.' was William Tryon, and ho
was once high in favor with the rank
and tile of Carolina people. The
Colonial Assembly, anxious to do
honor to the representative of British
Royalty, created the county of Tryon,
a western empire, centering in what
is now the county of Rutherford. To
further wind themselves into the good
graces of his Excellency, the obseqious
Assembly established an eastern
comity, which was named in honor
of Esther Wake, the Governor's
sister, and in the course of events this
comity became the seat of the state
government.
But Tryon became involved in
numerous troubles with the people,
which grew more serious with the
passage of the years. Parliament
passed the hated stamp act, which
brought to Carolina the honor of
being the first Colony to offer armed
resistance to British authority, for
the patriot forces under the leader¬
ship of Hugh Waddell, .John Ashe
and Cornelius Harnett, marched upon
the Governor's residence at Ru**oI-
boro on the lower Cape Fear, forced
the resignation of William Houston,
the Stamp Collector, and compelled
three British sloops of war to leave
the harbor without unloading their
cargoes of stamped paper.
An Ambitious Man
I.ike Julius Caesar, Tryon was an
ambitious man, and he proceeded to
levy onerous taxes upon a burdened
people, with the proceeds of which
he erected a palace in our city of
New Bern, a building which, when
constructed, was pronounced the
finest in all America, a portion of
which remains in existence and in
use to rhis day, and constitutes one
of the show places of our State. The
|»eoplo began to nourish in their hearts
By €. T. ELMS
a growing resentment against the
Royal Governor.
Then the local officers of the Crown
exacted numerous illegal fees and
were guilty of daily extortions in
office,
и
notorious ease being that of
Edmund Fanning, Clerk of the Court
in Orange County, whose acts in
office wore so tyrannical as to cause a
local Revolution. Having appealed
to the Royal Governor for redress
without success, the people became so
restive under the illegal exactions of
the local Government, that they
formed themselves into an organiza¬
tion known as the "Regulators.” They
marched into Hillsboro, freed some
of their comrades who had been im¬
prisoned. drove the Colonial Judges
from the Bench, destroyed Tryon's
residence, whipped one of the At¬
torneys in attendance on the court,
and committed divers other acts of
violence.
Defeat of the Regulators
Tryon determined to exert the full
force of his Royal authority against
the Regulators and he marched against
them with some two thousand troops.
The Regulators had no one recognized
leader, knew nothing of warfare, had
but loose organization, and were
utterly unable to withstand the
organized and disciplined troops of
the Governor. The contending fac¬
tions came into conflict, and what is
known as the "Battle of Alamance
Creek" ensued in which the Regula¬
tors wore completely routed and their
power utterly crushed. Tryon was
merciless in hi* dealings, and on the
heels of his victory and without any
trial or hearing lie summarily hung a
number of the Regulators; and forced
the Regulator leader, Herman Hus¬
bands io flee the State. But from his
exile Husbands wrote an account of
the Regulators which has lived
through the year# and which pillories
Tryon for the manner of man that
ho was.
Forced to take cognizance of the
illegal acts of Fanning, he was finally
indicted and convicted by the court
in numerous case* of extortion in
office, whereupon the court impo-od
as punishment a fine of — one penny!
The actions of the Governor against
the Regulators evidently brought him
into higher favor with the British
Ministry, and he was named as Gov¬
ernor of the State of New York. He
left his palace in New Bern never tc
return to Carolina: and a burdened
people breathed a sigh of relief.
Notwithstanding all of which, there
are today in Carolina two memories
of Governor Tryon — one in the Polk
County town of that name; the other
an important street in our Queen
City of Charlotte, a city declared by
my Lord Cornwallis to lie a “Hornet's
Nest" of revolutionists against the
British authority. It seeing strange
that in such a city, the site of the
adoption of the "Mecklenburg Decla¬
ration of Independence of May 20,
1775," one of its principal busine--
streets should continue to bear the
name of this Roynl Governor.
Bute County
in Colonial days, the English noble¬
man, Lord Bute, was high in the favor
of our people, and the Assembly de¬
lighted to do him honor by creating
a large eastern county ami designating
it with his name. When the Revolu¬
tion came on, Tories were numerous
in Carolina, the earliest Carolina
battle of that historic struggle for
liberty having Ix-en fought at Moore's
Creek Bridge between the patriot
forces and the Scotch Tories under the
leadership of General Allan Mac¬
donald. husband of the famous Flora.
Indeed so active did the Tories become
that a large band under the leadership
of the notorious David Fanning, made
a raid upon the seat of Government
at Hillsboro, captured Governor
Thomas Burke and members of his
suite, and carried them to Charleston,
where they were held captive by the
British for some eighteen months
until the Governor succeeded in effect¬
ing hi* osca|»o.
But all the |<cople of Bute «ere
patriots, and there was a saving which
lias come down to us through the years
( ( 'Ofl/f FI UC(l fill 1M//C foil r/^t*/i )
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