250 and Counting

Tag: North Carolina History

  • July 18, 1775: The Burning of Fort Johnston

    Cover art for July 18, 1775: Photo of Fort Johnston taken in 2008, via Wikipedia. Photographed by User Dincher and available under Creative Commons Attribution.

    Although Fort Johnston was originally a British fort, a few years into the Revolutionary War, the Colonies recognized that it could be a valuable place to have a fort, and in 1778 they appropriated the money to have it rebuilt. That fort was also destroyed and, although reconstruction began in 1794, it took many years to complete the project.

    Time and again Fort Johnston was destroyed or abandoned, and then repaired or refurbished. The fort regained importance during the Civil War but was officially removed from seacoast defense in 1881. For many years it held multiple military-adjacent agencies or tasks, until it was finally decommissioned altogether in 2004.

    Today it holds the North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport.

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  • June 20, 1775: The Liberty Point Resolves

    Cover art for June 20, 1775: historical marker denoting the place where the Liberty Point Resolves were developed.

    Mike has already mentioned the location of the historical marker in today’s art. It’s tough to read even when you’re standing there, so here’s the text:

    At or near this place
    ever since known as
    “Liberty Point”
    was promulgated in
    June 1775,
    by patriots of the Cape Fear
    A Declaration of Independence
    of the British Crown.

    This was an extremely historic neighborhood, should you choose to visit. There are at least eight other historical markers within a short walking distance of this one, not all of them are connected to the American Revolution. In fact, one of them dates back to living memory of some of the locals.

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  • May 20, 1775: The Mecklenburg Declaration

    Cover art for May 20, 1775: Detail of the Mecklenburg Declaration.

    When the folks in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, heard about the events at Lexington and Concord a month earlier, they were quite incensed. So much so that they decided they were going to declare independence from Britain.

    Maybe. Maybe not. Tune in as Mike explains the controversy.

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  • April 27, 1775: Skullduggery and Rebellion Here & There

    Cover art for April 27, 1775: Robert Eden, by Florence Mackubin after Charles Willson Peale (1914)

    The war was hot in Massachusetts, but it was still cold elsewhere. But that didn’t mean that there wasn’t rebellious activity going on, since by this point everyone knew what was going on up north.

    It manifested itself in different ways. In Maryland, it appeared that Patriots were straight-up lying to the Royal Governor in order to deprive the British troops of some of their arms and gunpowder stores.

    And in North Carolina, the Royal Governor loudly declaimed his disdain for anyone who didn’t agree with him. Unfortunately for him, that included the entire North Carolina Assembly. Their response was to do exactly the opposite of everything he asked.

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  • April 13, 1775: North Carolina Raises the Dragoons

    Cover art for April 13, 1775: Private in the Light Dragoons. Painting by Charles Lefferts, 1910.

    It seems fitting that groups like this changed names and designations quickly, given that events in the Colonies were also moving quickly. In two events this week, we’ve told you stories of armies that were raised to defend individual colonies but quickly became part of the Continental Army. The Light Dragoons of North Carolina would be one of those groups.

    Likewise, the rest of this episode is a throwback to TWO earlier episodes, as the activities are formally recorded in the Virginia Gazette.

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  • April 12, 1775: North Carolina Takes the First Step

    Cover art for April 12, 1775: Portrait of Josiah Martin, the last Royal Governor of North Carolina. Artist unknown.

    First off: apologies for the late posting. I had a very rough night last night, and there was no element of today that was my own. We’ve all had days like that, I think, and I thank you for your forbearance.

    A lot of people get their American History from the play 1776, and it’s mostly accurate with the facts, if not necessarily with the people involved or the specific dates. And that’s also why it gets cited here as often as it does: we hope that the common cultural touchstone provided by the play demonstrates to you that it wasn’t entirely made up, though the writers did play a little fast and loose to make for a good story.

    As a result of this play, most people think that Virginia came up with the whole Independence thing first, and there’s a kernel of truth in it: the activity leading to the Declaration did emerge from the Lee Resolution, but North Carolina was the first to send delegates to the Continental Congress with instructions to call for independence, through something called the “Halifax Resolves.”

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  • April 2, 1775: Calvin Jones–Physician, Soldier, Benefactor

    Cover art for April 2, 1775: Portrait of Calvin Jones (details not known to us at time of publication)

    Calvin Jones may have looked like an unassuming fellow, but that unassuming look concealed a very powerful mind and a strong moral compass.

    And today we’ve got Cake and Candles for him, since this day in 1775 was the date of his birth. Jones was a physician before his teenage years ended, and he began to design criteria that would separate good doctors from bad ones. He organized militias even though he was under no orders to do so. And then when the War of 1812 broke out, he became a major general with a reputation for excellence, to the point where nobody really worried about whether North Carolina would fall to the British.

    After the war he basically helped shepherd the development of a brand-new field of medicine, and after his death, much of his land became Wake Forest University. What’s more, it was because of Jones that the school has a head-scratcher of a name rather than an incomprehensible one.

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