Mark Pace was a teenager when the United States celebrated its 200th birthday in 1776. He remembers watching CBS’s ‘Bicentennial Minute’ productions, mini history lessons that aired in 60-second episodes, featuring celebrities and other famous people talking about snippets of history from 200 years ago.
In fact, Pace credits the whole Bicentennial celebration as one of the main reasons that he first became interested in history. Pace, North Carolina Room Specialist at Thornton Library in Oxford, and WIZS’s Bill Harris talked about some key people and events from that time when the 13 Colonies were subjected to taxes they considered unfair and laws they considered unjust.
Massachusetts has Boston and the Tea Party; it has Lexington and Concord, the site of the first military conflict in the American Revolution. The city claims Paul Revere and John Hancock, too.
But North Carolina has the Halifax Resolves, the Battle of Moores Creek and the area known now as Old Granville County.
No battles were fought in the area that now encompasses present-day Vance, Granville, Warren and Franklin counties, Pace said, but there were many individuals who became quite well known for their roles in the American Revolution.
John Penn, one of the three signers of the Declaration of Independence, made his home in northern Granville County, near what is now Stovall.
But there were other “movers and shakers,” Pace said, who hailed from Granville County.
Take Thomas Person, for example. He was the largest landowner in the county, with about 80,000 acres, Pace said. “But he was a behind-the-scenes guy,” he added. It was Person, he said, who pushed for Penn to be a delegate to the Continental Congress, the group which ultimately produced the Declaration of Independence.
Person was a key player in the creation of the Halifax Resolves, which was drafted in April 1776 calling for independence from Britain – three months before the iconic Declaration of Independence.
That three-month head start is the reason that North Carolina license plates boast “First in Freedom.”
Truth be told, Pace said, in 1775, North Carolina was sitting the proverbial fence about whether to remain loyal to the Crown or to take up the cause for freedom and a new form of government.
The Battle of Moores Creek, which took place near Wilmington, was one example of that divided allegiance.
“It was a significant battle because it was North Carolinians versus North Carolinians,” Pace said. The battle was short, he said, only lasting about 10 minutes. On the Patriot side, there was only one casualty; but on the other side, more than 100 Tory sympathizers were captured.
That short encounter showed the British that they couldn’t count on having support from that part of the American Colonies.
“It was going to be a little bit tougher than they thought to put down this rebellion,” Pace said.
The sentiment around Granville County back then, however, most definitely came down on the side who backed independence from Britain. Pace said residents were an independent-minded group, and support to break from the Crown rule was strong.
One way they pushed back included renaming a part of Granville County that had splintered off in 1764 to form Bute County. By 1779, the area known as Bute County was split again to be known as present-day Franklin and Warren counties.
See, the Lord of Bute was a tutor of the much-maligned King George III, and Pace said the new counties were renamed “specifically for patriotic reasons, in addition to practicality.”
Franklin County is named for Benjamin Franklin; Warren County gets its name from Dr. Joseph Warren, who died in the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Franklin County lays claim to Richard Fenner, who was born in New Bern but who moved to the area after his military service came to an end. Fenner joined the Second Regiment of the Continental Line of the N.C. militia in 1777 and was a lieutenant when taken as a prisoner of war. He was held in Charleston until the war ended.
He came to Franklin County, studied medicine and was elected to be the first president of the N.C. Medical Society in 1799.
As for Warren County, Pace said perhaps its most famous son was Nathaniel Macon.
He became the fifth Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, made him one of the most powerful North Carolinians in the 1810’s and 1820’s.
Before rising to national political prominence, Macon served in the American Revolution as a teenager – probably when he was 16 or 17.
At that time, Warren County was very influential in state and national politics. At one point, the governor, both U.S. senators and a congressman all were from Warren County and in office.
As a private in the American Revolution, Pace said, Macon no doubt developed at an early age a mindset of individualism – and a dislike of the British Empire.
One person from the area – Philemon Hawkins – had been supportive of the British Crown during the Regulator War, which had taken place in North Carolina just a few years prior to the start of the Revolution.
This Philemon Hawkins (there was an original and then many namesakes, Pace and Harris explained), was Philemon Hawkins II, who lived from 1717-1801.
Hawkins was Gov. Tryon’s aide-de-camp during the Regulator War, but then he shifted his allegiance to back the movement for independence.
He is buried in Warren County.
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