The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1927-06-24
NORTH CAROLINA
DARES DEFIANCE
Continued from first page)

In August of that year a conven-
ton had met under the governors
nose in Berne and sent delegates
to the Continental congress. For
the rest of that year the separate
counties had been busy with meet
ings and preparations, and in
April, 1775, the assembly which
met by the authority of the crown
the last one-was also a cOnven-
ton of the people. They trans
formed themselves from time to
time into one and then the other,
so Governor Martin, who was a
soldier, said, and thus, as Doctor
Morrison sees it, strained the
British constitution to the utmost
or, in other words, the breaking
point. At the same time, a GER
tain Col. Richard Henderson and
his associates, all North Carroll
ians, had formed a company, with
Daniel Boone for field leader, and
set up a government in a tract Of
land which they had bought from
the Cherokees without royal war
rant. That land, which they nam
ed Pennsylvania and which includ-
ed a great part of Tennessee and
Kentucky, they had practically
proclaimed to he Independent not
only of Great Britain but Of North
Carolina and Virginia as well.
They asked, indeed, to have it ac-
knowledged by congress as the
fourteenth province Of the Confed-
GRAFTON.
King Denounced
Obviously, the North CAROLYN
ians were not in submissive mood
when the news of the first blood
shed in the North arrived. What
happened at Arson county court
house when the messenger rode
that place is recorded in a
certain family Bible to which Doc
tor Henderson has had access The
writer is a young man named
Morgan Brown, an eyewitness. He
says that the messenger found the
county court in session and the
magistrates, some of whom were
tories, on the bench. The people
forced the court to adjourn with
out the form of doing it in the
kings name. Then they rushed
out bearing the sheriff with them,
leaving the tory magistrates still
sitting on the bench. Afterwards:
"The people consented for them
to meet and close some unfinished
business upon condition that it
should not be called in the kings
name or that the words God save
the king should not be added by
the crier. for said they, we will
have nothing done in the name of
a king who has his troops slaughter
our citizens And thus ended the
royal authority. For the court,
closing their record, never
sat again"
All Night Meeting
At Charlotte, some fifty miles
away. the messenger appears to
have found an assembly of the
citizens of Mecklenburg
summoned from the various "com-
Danies' throughout the county by
he colonel commandant, Thomas
Polk. According to the received
chronology, the messenger arrived
May 10 and threw the gathering
nto a fever. The secretary. John
NcKnitt Alexander, says they sat
the courthouse all night, neither
sleepy nor hungry nor fatigued,"
md in the morning passed a set
resolutions prepared by Eph-
aim Brevard.
In the resolutions occurred the
'ollowing declarations:
"Resolved That we
dissolve us with the mother cOun-
.ry and absolve ourselves from al
eeiance to the British crown; and
Resolved, That we do hereby
declare ourselves a free and indie
pendent people; that we r and
Of right ought to be a sovereign
and self-governing people under
he power of God and the general
congress-
It should be noted that the text
5 taken from Judge Francois x.
Martins History of North Caro-
ina" which text is supposed to be
he same that was printed in the
ost Cape Fear Mercury. for even
he more ardent North Carolians
10 not deny that the original doc
lment was destroyed in 1900 when
Alexander's house was burned.
Sought Their Rights
Returning again to the story:
resolutions were read to the