page_title: Fifth North Carolina Provincial Congress
section_title: Delegates
hierarchical_section_title: Fifth North Carolina Provincial Congress / Delegates
caption_attribution_description: English: General James Kenan fought in the Revolutionary War; the town of Kenansville was named in his honor along with a Duplin county high school.
context_page_description: The Fifth North Carolina Provincial Congress was the last of five extra-legal unicameral bodies that met beginning in the summer of 1774. They were modeled after the colonial lower house. These congresses created a government structure, issued bills of credit to pay for the movement, organized an army for defense, wrote a constitution and bill of rights that established the state of North Carolina, and elected their first acting governor in the fifth congress that met in 1776. These congresses paved the way for the first meeting of the North Carolina General Assembly on April 7, 1777 in New Bern, North Carolina. The Fifth Congress met in Halifax from November 12 to December 23, 1776. Richard Caswell served as president, with Cornelius Harnett as vice-president.
context_section_description: Each county was authorized five delegates to this congress.  Some counties only had four delegates.  In addition, nine districts or borough towns were also authorized a single delegate.  These districts were the larger towns and population centers of the state.  The concept of district representation was a hold over from the Province of North Carolina in colonial times. Washington District, in the western end of the state and later became a county, elected four delegates to the congress.  The following list shows the names of the delegates and the counties or districts that they represented:
  Notes:
  Cornelius Harnett was a representative to the 2nd Continental Congress (1777–1779)
  Richard Caswell was a North Carolina Representative to the Continental Congress (1774)
  James Hogun resigned his position after being commissioned in the North Carolina Line, replaced by Egbert Haywood
  Possibly the father of William Murfree
  Whitmell Hill was a representative to the 2nd Continental Congress (1778–1780)
  James Ingram was commissioned in the North Carolina Line and replaced by Thomas Parker, who was elected to replace him.
  Allen Jones was a representative to the 2nd Continental Congress (1779–1780)
  Thomas Burke was a representative to the 2nd Continental Congress, 1777–1781
  Seated on December 16, due to voting irregularities in a first pole
  William Hooper was a representative to the 1st and 2nd Continental Congress (1774–1777) and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence
  William Sharpe was a representative to the Continental Congress (1779–1781) and elected to the North Carolina House of Commons in 1781 and 1782
  James Jones was deemed ineligible due to service in the Light Horse.  He resigned his commission on October 25, 1776 and was re-elected to serve in the congress.
  The Congress Journal shows that it was John Rice as delegate for Wake County. William Brown was the delegate for Bath.  This appears to be an error in the Lewis delegate listing.
  Joseph Hewes was a Representative to the 1st Continental Congress (1774), 2nd Continental Congress (1775–1776; 1779), and signer of the Declaration of Independence
  Willie Jones was a representative to the 2nd Continental Congress (1780)
  Abner Nash was a representative to the Confederation Congress (1782–1783)
caption: James Kenan
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