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UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA.

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Form No. A-368

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THE EARLY HISTORY OF RALEIGH,

THE CAPITAL CITY OF NORTH CAROLINA.

fl CENTENNIAL ADDRESS

DELIVERED BY INVITATION OF THE COMMITTEE ON

THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE

FOUNDATION OF THE CITY,

OCTOBER 18, 1892;

BY

Kemp^ F». Battle, LL. D.,

professor of history in the university of north carolina.

AND

AN ACCOUNT OF THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION,

PREPARED BY THE

CHAIRMAN OF THE PUBLICATION COMMITTEE,

AT THE REQUEST OF THE BOARD OF MANAGERS.

RALEIGH: Edwards & Broughtox, Printers and Binders.

1893.

T a meeting of the Board of Managers of the Ealeigh Centennial Celebration, held Xovember 4, 1S92, the following resolutions were adopted :

''Besolved, That the grateful thanks of this Board of Managers be tendered in behalf of the citizens of Ealeigh, to Hon. Kemp P. Battle, for the able and scholarly address upon the historic past of Ealeigh, in which he has preserved for us and our children so much of the wit and wisdom of our forefathers.

^'EesoJved^ That Dr. Battle be requested to furnish a copy of his valuable address for publication.''

The following gentlemen, on the resolution of the Board, were appointed by the Chair to prepare and publish a full account of the Celebration and incidents connected there- with, and the Centennial Address and Poem :

C. B. Dexsox, T. E. Jekxigax,

JosEPHUs Daniels, E. H. Lewis,

W. S. Primrose, J. J. Hall,

S. A. Ashe.

At a meeting of the Committee of Publication, held July 12, 1893, the following was presented by a sub-committee of Messrs. AV. S. Primrose, S. A. Ashe and K. H. Lewis, M. D., and adopted by the Committee :

Whereas, This Committee, appointed to publish an account of the Centennial Celebration of the City of Kal- eigh, appreciates most highly the unselfish labor which Capt. C. B. Denson has bestowed on this volume, and desires to make some fitting recognition of his work ;

Resolved^ That the thanks of this Committee are hereby especially tendered to Captain Denson for his valuable ser- vices, so lov^ally and patriotically rendered the City of Ral- eigh, and that this resolution be printed in the volume, as expressive of our sentiments.

RALEIGH.

PRIZE CENTENNIAL POEM.

BY MISS MINNIE MAY CURTIS, RALEKiH, N. C.

() Raleigh I noble namesake of a man of fairest fame, Our fathers chose most wisely when they crowned you with his name I

And his spirit — brave, undaunted — seemed to nerve them for the strife —

For the earnest, arduous effort that brought 3^ou into life.

A hundred years of patience, of weary toil and care.

Have yielded a rich fruitage, have reared your structure fair.

O noble State I be proud and glad ; rejoice on every side I

Thy queenly daughter celebrates her natal day with pride.

Let loving hands delight to fling gay banners to the breeze ;

Let children's happy voices ring beneath the spreading trees ;

Let joyous paeans echo from the mountains to the sea.

To celebrate with gladness our day of jubilee !

For all that Science, Art and Skill have brought us by the way ;

For all that makes life sAveet and good, we thank thee. Lord, to-day ;

For godly shepherds who have led their flocks to pastures fair ;

For skilled physicians Avho have wrought with never-weary- ing care ;

For statesmen Avise, who framed our laws with justice and with truth ;

For faithful teachers who have trained Avith earnest zeal our youth ;

For tradesmen in the busy mart ; for tillers of the soil ;

For all Avho built our city up Avith patient, arduous toil.

O noble pioneers! who wrought through long and weary

years. We reap with joyful hearts to-day what you have sown in

tears I AVe know your happy spirits, in the blissful realms above, Are looking down upon us now in tenderness and love.

Iluslied be the noise of party strife; contentions die away I

This is a holy festival — a glad, yet solemn, day —

A day when wrongs should be forgiven, and bitterness

should cease, And over all should brood in love the fair, sweet dove of

peace. As God has loved us, let us love ; let no one dwell apart ; Let one broad band of love extend, uniting heart with heart. In union lies our strength, and we may win vet brighter

fame In years to come, if one in heart, we labor with one aim.

So may our city ever be a steady beacon bright,

"Whose beams of purity and love shine with far-reaching- light.

So may the nations honor us, and children-s children rise

To call our memory blessed, when we've passed beyond the skies ;

So may they celebrate with joy another hundred years.

And garner up with grateful hearts, with happy smiles and tears,

A nobler harvest ; and witlj still a greater pride may they

Pay homage to a glorious and a grand Centennial Day I

INTRODUCTORY.

Fellow Citizens: — Allow me to explain that I have pre- pared this address under great disadvantages. In the first place, m.y University duties, since the reception of the invi- tation so kindly extended me by the Committee of Arrange- ments, have been very exacting. And secondly I have been embarrassed in endeavoring to avoid repeating substantial parts of my centennial address July 4, 1876. I began my work with the hope that I could cover the whole period of one hundred years, but soon found it impossible to do so without writing a book instead of an address. I concluded, therefore, to confine myself mainly to the inauguration of the city, and to the institutions and leading citizens of the first two decades. Even with this limitation I must omit in the delivery more than half of what I have prepared.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF RALEIGH,

THE CAPITAL CITY OF NORTH CAROLINA.

THE COI'NTY OF WAKE.

The county of Wake dates its birth from troublous times. The Regulators, whose iusurrectionary movements were prin- cipally in the middle counties of the State, had broken up courts, cruelly beaten officers of the law, and were threaten- ing to march on Newbern* and enforce their demands at the rifle's mouth. The Assembly concluded that a state of civil war existed and determined to coerce the rebels into submis- sion. The militia of the loyal counties were ordered to be embodied. Martial law was virtually declared. The safe- guards of liberty were suspended by the passage of the act, approved by one party as necessary and proper, and stigma- tized bv the other as the " Bloody Bill." It must have been with the double design of appeasing the angry feelings of the disaffected by granting them greater convenience for the transaction of public business w^ih increased representation in the Legislature, and of lessening the opportunities of gath- ering numbers from wide areas, that four new counties were erected by this Assembly of 1770. From Rowan was cut ofl" the county of Surry, named after Lord Surrey, a prominent member of the British Parliament, favorable to the colonies. Orange lost part of her territory to form the new county of Chatham, called in honor of the " Great Commoner " recently transferred to the House of Peers. From Orange and Rowan was erected the county of Guilford, in honor of the father of Lord North, heir-apparent to the earldom of Guilford, who in the same year entered on his long and baleful service as Prime Minister. And lastly, from Johnston, chiefly, with slices of Cumberland and Orange, was carved the grand county, the capital of which is the city whose centennial we are celebrating to-day.

The royal Grovernor of that period was a man of striking personal "Equalities and of high family connections, William Tryon. In a less turbulent time he would have been the

* I adopt " Newbern " instead of '* New Bern " or " New Berne,' because I find that mode of writing the name most usual in the Acts of Assembly, and because it is so written in the Post-office Directory. Tliere are numerous analogies, e. g., Newcastle, Newport, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Charleston, etc.

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best beloved of all our colonial Governors. There was a Charles Tryon who married the d^iughter of Earl Ferrers, and I conjecture that he was their son. His wife was a Miss Wake, whose fortune of £20,000 (§100,000) entitled her in those days to be called wealthy. She probably w^as a scion of the noble house of Wake, which a few years before had given to England an Archbishop, and she was known in our colony as " Lady Tryon." Governor Tryon had a sister wdio, in our Colonial Records, is styled the " Honorable •Miss Trj^on," so that she was maid of honor to the Queen. Lady Tryon's sister, Esther Wake, having the same name as one of the Archbishop's daughters, accompanied her to North Carolina, and by her surpassing loveliness of person and ele- gance of manners, possibl}^ set off b}^ her probable posses.sion of a fortune equal to that of her sister, made the hearts of our colonial legislators palpitate admiringly under their capa- cious waistcoats and frilled shirt-bosoms. It was partly her irresistible appeals which carried the votes of great sums for the building at Newbern of the finest palace in America for the Governor's use.*

This palace was finished in 1770, and Governor Tryon and his lady, as representatives of the King and Queen of England, sat in arm-chairs in its grandest hall and received the representatives of the people and the elite of the capital at a brilliant ball given in honor of the completion. Gor- geous curtseys by the ladies and bows by the men were made in presence of the viceroy and his fair consort, and stately minuets danced before them in the good old stately style. The general admiration and respect culminated in giving the name of Wake to the new county, whether, in honor of Tryon's wife, or, as others say, of her sister, it is impossible now to determine. Probably the married mem- bers had in mind the former, while the bachelors hastened to win a smile from the fascinating Esther by the assurance that their stentorian "Aye" on the passage of the measure was prompted by devotion to her charms.

The reason given in the preamble of the act for the erec- tion of the count}" is that " because of the large extent of Johnston, Cumberland and Orange it w^as grievous and bur- thensome to attend the courts, general musters and other public meetings." The first corner was at " the Edgecombe line on Moccoson swamp, a mile above James Lea's planta-

* I follow the generally accepted tradition. The late James W. Brvan contended that Esther Wake is a myth. He stated that Judge Gaston so thought. It will grieve me if I find evidence which will force me to consign to the realms of fancy so charming a lady.

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tion." The line theu ran straight to "Neuse river, at the upper end of John Beddingfield's plantation ; then to David ^limm's mill creek between iMimm's mill and Tanner's old mill; then the same course continued to the ridge which divides Cumberland and Johnston counties ; then a straight line to Orange line, at the low^er end of Richard Hill's plan- tation on Buckhorn ; then the same course continued five miles ; then to the corner of Johnston county on the Gran- ville line; then with the same line and Bute [now Franklin] line to Edgecomb line to the beginning." Afterwards, in 1786, the part lying east of Moccoson swamp was ceded to Franklin. Joel Lane, John Smith (after whom Smith field was named), Theophilus Hunter, Farquard Campbell (from him Cambellton, or lower Fayetteville, w^as called), and Walter Gibson, were appointed Commissioners to survey and mark the boundary lines between Wake, Johnston, Cumber- land and Orange.

The question of the location of the county seat^ often left to a vote of the people in our day, was entrusted to seven Commissioners appointed by the General Assembly, the upper house of which was composed of the Governor and his Coun- cil. These w^ere Joel Lane, Theophilus Hunter, Hardy Sanders, Joseph Lane, John Hmton, Thomas Hines and Thomas Crawford. The Commissioners for building the court-house and jail w^ere Joel Lane, James Martin and Theophilus Hunter. Judging from the foregoing names, it seems clear that the General Assembly predetermined the site, because we find that one member of the committee of location owned the land w^here the court-house was built, and certainly two others, his brother Joseph and Theophilus Hunter, w^ereowmers of adjoining plantations.

The legal union of Church and State, which at this time had little practical influence on the life of the people, was indicated bv constituting the entire county a Parish of the Church of England under the name of Saint Margaret.

The names of the townships, until 1868 called precincts, of St. Mary, of St. Matthew, of St. Mark, which still survive, are mementoes of this legal union, dissolved forever by the severance of our political bonds w4th Great Britain. There were probabh^ few members of the Church of England in the county, as there is no tradition of any chapels or other church buildings in its limits. With the exception of the Lane family I know of no members of this denomination w^hose families resided in the county at the date of its erection. Probably there were a few others.

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WAKE COURT HOUSE.

The ancestors of Joel Lane removed from the Albemarle country to Halifax. Thence he with two brothers, Joseph and Jesse, transferred their homes before the Revolution to the part of Johnston county afterwards Wake. Part of his residence still stands in the Boylan homestead. .The court- house was a log building on the hillside in front of his dwelling, probably at the crossing of the roads from Xew- bern to Hillsboro and from Petersburg to Cross creek, after- wards Fayetteville. The name given to the county seat, Bloomsbury, sounds so much like a woman's fancy ,that I am constrained to beHeve it was selected by the lovely Esther Wake and her sister, Lady Tryon. We may surmise that they intended to transfer to their county the name of the pretty hamlet then near London, now a part of that wonder- ful city, as Bloomsbury Square, near the British Museum. I love to conjecture that it was their English home. Our ancestors showed scant courtesy in substituting for their choice the homely "Wake Court House." They made amends, however, by not erasing from the list of counties their name when they inflicted the indignity on Tryon and Bute of substituting for the former Lincoln and Rutherford, and for the latter Franklin and Warren. I make bold to suggest that the title of Bloomsbury Square shall be in this 'centennial year restored to the hill on which the old court- house was located.

About the year 1800 a new courthouse was erected on the Fayetteville street site — rectangular, of wood, of the shape of the old-fashioned country meeting-house. This was sold about 1835, and removed bodily to the southeast corner of Wilmington and Davie streets, and was for a long time a family residence, and then Cook's hotel. The brick structure which replaced it was built in 1835, and remodeled in 1882, at which time the statue of Justice was placed over its front as a guardian and a monitor.

THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT OF NORTH CAROLINA IN COLONIAL DAYS.

In colonial times the Governor resided at his own home and summoned the General Assembly to meet at some point deemed by him most convenient. For many years such place ^'as in the northeastern counties. The earliest of these

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temporary capitals wa^, so far as has been liauded dowD, at the house of Captain John Hecklefield in the county of Per- quimans. The important Assembly of 1715, the firrit whose full proceedings are known to us, which, soon after the terri- ble trials of the Tuscarora war, showed its hatred of arbitrary government by passing strong resolves against recent despotic acts of the executive and the military officers, met at the dwelling of Col. Richard Sanderson on Little river in the county of Perquimans. Five years later we find its session held at the court-house in Chowan, about five miles from Edenton, andin 1 $22, the year of Governor Eden's death, the fair young town, looking out on the placid waters of Chowan bay,*^named in his honor, was officially established as the seat of government. During Governor Gabriel Johnston's admin- istration the centre of population moved away from the Albe- . marie section towards the southwest. The Governor called Tx the Assembly to convene in 1738 and 1739 at Xewbern on ^ account of its central position. He earnestly advocated that this town should be made the permanent ''seat of govern- ment." The Albemarle counties bitterly opposed this, and, having five members to each county, while the others had only two, for some time regularly voted down all proposals for the change. At length, in 174(3, the Governor appointed a session at Wilmington during the month of November, when the inhabitants of Albemarle were busily engaged in fatten- ing and slaughtering and curing and driving to market their crop of hogs. Their members, a majority of the body, were not present when the roll was called. According to the pre- cedents of half a century there was no quorum able to trans- act business. Then ensued the earliest and most unblush- ing arbitrary tactics ever witnessed in our State. The mem- bers present first voted that fifteen should be a quorum, and then passed an act reducing the representation of the Albe- marle counties to two each. (Quickly followed an act fixing the seat of government at Xewbern and making it the centre of the court system, the Westminster of North Carolina; and although theKing disallowed the act, and the Albemarle people stoutly refused to recognize the laws of the rump Assembly, the practical result was that after the sessions of the Assembly in 1740, 1741 and 1743 the town of Edenton witnessed legislative gatherings no more forever. Newbern had the exclusive honor, with the exception of sessions at Wilmington in 1740,17-^4, 1761, 1763 and 1765, and one called at Bathtown,now Bath,in 1752, the year of Johnston's death.

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Our State provisional revolutionary bodies, called Con- gresses, were held at Newbern, Hillsborough and Halifax, the latter adopting the Constitution which went into opera- tion on the 23d day of December, 1776.

THE REVOLUTION.

The sessions of the Assembly during the Revolution were affected to a considerable extent by the exigencies of war. Those in 1777 and the first session of 1778, as well as the first of 1780, were held in Xewbern. The second session of 1778, the second of 1780, and those of 1782 and 1783 were at Hills- borough. The third session of the General Assembly of 1778, which met in January, 1779, was at Halifax, as was likewise the second session of 1779. The first of 1779 was at Smith- field. The first of 1781 was " in Wake county," presumably at the court-hou.se. One was appointed for Salem, but a quorum did not attend.

After the Declaration of Peace the sessions of 1784 were, the first at Hillsborough, and the second at Xewbern, as was also that of 1785. That of 1787 was at Tarboro. Those of 1 786, 1788, 1789, 1790 and the first session of 1793 were at Fay- etteville. Those of 1791, 1792 and the second session of 1793, held in June, 1794, were in Newbern.

From the foregoing it appears that the first capital of the State was Edenton, and the second practically at Xewbern. As the act of 1746, designating Xewbern as the seat of gov- ernment, was not approved by the King, the claim of that town rested on the action of the Governor, who had power to designate the places as well as the times of the sessions of the Assembly.

MOVEMENTS FOR A PERMANENT CAPITAL.

It was plainly impossible that the public business could be properly conducted when the Governor and other State oflficers lived at diverse points, when the Legislature migrated with less regularity than wild birds, and the public records were scattered about according to the convenience or whims of officers. Xorth Carolina has suffered sorely in money and reputation from losses of her archives. In 1789 the General Assembly made this humiliating declaration, that "it is rep- resented by the agents of the State that many officers and whole regiments of privates who served in the continental line of this State are not to be found on the musters in the war or pay-ofifice of the United States, and that no account has been taken of numerous wagons and teams with which

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the armies of the United States have been supplied by this State," and then orders the Comptroller to search for such musters among the private papers of the late Governors and of such military officers as may be supposed to have them. It was the opinion of all our statesmen and well informed men of the Revolution, and afterwards, that great injus- tice was done to North Carolina in the settlement with the general Government by reason of papers, which would have shown our expenditures for the war, having been lost or hopelessly mislaid.

Notwithstanding these evils, there w^as such a want of homogeneousness in the State, one part trading w^th Nor- folk, others with Petersburg, Richmo'nd, Charleston, Wil- mington, Newbern and Fa^^etteville, that it was with great difficulty that a change could be made. The General Assem- blies shrank from preferring one part over another. A con- vention of the people w^as to be held in Hillsborough in 1788 to consider the new^ Federal Constitution. The General Assembly of 1787, sitting in Tarboro, requested the people to instruct their delegates to "fix on the place for the unalter- able seat of government.^

In accordance w-ith this suggestion the Convention of 1788, having decided that the Constitution of the United States ought not to be adopted without amendments, took up the question thus referred to it. ''After deliberation the majority evidently concluded to adopt as near as possible the geographical centre of the State, and instructed the General Assembly to provide for the selection of a site within ten miles of the plantation of Isaac Hunter, in the county of AVake. ' Doubtless other centres w^ere voted for, but the Jour- nal of the Convention cannot be found, and I am unable to give them. It will be seen hereafter that the Wake county circle w^on by a combination of the delegates from the val- leys of the streams flowing into the sounds of Albemarle and Pamlico, and that the most formidable opponent was Fay- etteville.

This historical tract of Isaac Hunter lies about three and a half miles north of our city on what was once the great road from the North to the South by way of Petersburg, Warrenton, Louisburg, Wake Court House to Fayetteviile, Charleston and other points. The great oaks wdiich prob- ably sheltered Isaac Hunter and the guests of his hos- pitable home, still stand about one mile north of Ci:abtree bridge. Within ten miles is a long stretch of Neuse river, and many of the delegates most probably supposed that the

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new city would possess wharves and shipping, as it was then, and for years afterwards, believed that the Xeuse could be made navigable to its Falls, and even beyond to the hills of Orange. Indeed, Hamikon Fulton, a Scotch engineer, em- ployed by the State during the canal fever, about 1820, gives it as his ofDinion that Raleigh can be directly connected with the ocean by a system of dams and locks from the crossing of the Fayetteville road over Rocky branch. He gives the fall down that stream and Walnut creek to Xeuse river at seventy-four feet three inches, and the distance ten miles, four furlongs and eleven rods. He recommends, however, in preference to this, that the port of Raleigh should be on the Crabtree at the Louisburg road crossing, estima- ting the expense of dams and locks on the creek, and a horse railroad from Raleigh to the landing, at 835,255. It would be still better, he said, to have Raleigh's port on Xeuse river with a six-mile railroad. It is a liistoric truth that our people invested money in a Xeuse River Xavigation Com- pany, and succeeded in sending one boat, James H. Murray captain, down to Xewbern and back. It is not surprising, with such visions in the air, that the inhabitants of the val- leys of the streams flowing into the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds united in a legislative log-rolling. / The General Assemblies were slow in carrying into effect the ordinance of the Convention. There was fierce hostility to the location in Wake. There were charges of trickery and management in securing it. In Xovember, 1788, Willie Jones, in the Senate, moved to carr}^ the ordinance into effect. The bill passed by a vote of 26 to 20. The Journal of the lower house shows that it was received, amended and passed its second reading. As it was not ratified, very probably the opposition understood the trick of killing bills with odious " riders," and the friends of the bill not liking the amendments allowed it to drop.

The Convention and the General Assembl}^ of 1789 met in Fayetteville at the same time. The adoption of the Fed- eral Constitution was of such momentous importance that .probably the failure of the Assembly to consider the ques- tion of the seat of government was caused b}^ forgetful n ess. In 1790 the Assembly, meeting in the same town, was so evenly divided that the proposition to carry into effect the ordinance of 1788 passed the House by the casting vote of Stephen Cabarrus, its Speaker, and failed in the Senate by the casting vote of a Western man, William .Lenoir, the Speaker.

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The intensity of the feeling of tlie friends of Fayetteville was shown bv its struggle to secure the meeting of the fol- lowing General Assembly— that of 1791. After a long and close contest Newbern carried the vote, and the cause of Flora McDonald's town was lost forever. • At this Assemblv of 1791 an act was passed to carry into effect the mandate of the people in convention assembled Nine Commissioners, not ten, as has been erroneously stated, were appointed to locate the city and five to erect a State- house at a co=t of $20,000. The bill passed the Senate m Januarv, 1792, by the close vote of 27 to 24, and the House bv 58 to 53. In the former body Joseph R. Gautier, a promi- nent lawyer. Senator from Bladen, who, by the by, left m his will a valuable librarv to the State University, presented a strong protest, which, with the names of the signers, I give in fuU, as showing the strength of the feeling on the subject:

Because pprmanence cannot be insured to a measure carried by so

inconsiderable a majority-a measure by which the interest of our con^

stituents are materiallv injured-hy which the public good is sacnhced

. to local combinations and personal influence, and against which as men,

to answer the trust delegated to us. we solemnly protest:—

Because although it mav be inconvenient and inconsistent with the dignity of this State that its government should continue to be ambula- tor v vet in the determination neither economy or policy are consulted— the interest of the most valuable part of the State sacritieed (perhaps tor jealousy of its importance) by the tyranny of an accidental and most

^"^Becfus^the'^M-ecedent of deciding on carrying into effect measures attended with such infinite expense to the country under the sanction ot an accidental vote which mav be reversed at a day not far distant, is precrnant with the most fatal mischiefs, and will in future, as it does on theWesent occasion, encourage an intrigue in our counsels, and aban- don the command of the treasury and the control of the properties of the people to the efforts of design, and to the machinations ot an inter- ested party. rgj ^^^-| Joseph McDowell (the elder, of Burke),

John A. Campbell (of New Hanover),

Joseph Hodge (of Orange).

David Caldwell (of Iredell).

Richard Singleton (of Sampson).

J. R. Gautier (of Bladen),

F. Campbell (of Cumberland). Zebedee Wood (of Randolph), Joseph Winston (of Stokes), John Stewart (of Chatham). Joseph Graham (of Mecklenburg), David Gillespie (of Guilford), Joseph Dickson (of Lincoln), Thomas Wade (of Anson), James Turner (of Montgomery), J. W^iLLis (of Robeson), Richard Clinton (of Sampson), Thomas Tyson (of Moore).

C. Galloway (of Rockingham),

G. H. Berger (of Rowan).

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There are strong men in this list. We find Gen. Thomas Wade, of Anson, after whom Wadesboro is named ; General Joseph Graham, father of Governor W. A. Graham; Joseph Dickson, Joseph Winston and Joseph McDowell, senior, all three afterwards members of Congress. If attention is paid to the counties represented by them it will be found that there are eight in the Cape Fear basin: Bladen, Chatham, Cumberland, New Hanover, Kandolph, Guilford, Sampson and Moore. Of the others, the following at that day traded almost exclusively with Fayetteville, to- wit: Anson, Mont- gomery, Robeson, Rowan, Orange, Rockingham and Stokes. The. remaining western counties, Burke, Iredell, Lincoln, Rutherford and Mecklenburg, strangely as it may appear to us, traded largely in the same direction. It thus appears that the contest was on behalf of this good old town, which, on account of its being the head of navigation of the Cape Fear, w^as one of the most important places in our State. Five meetings of the General Assembly and the Convention of 1789, which adopted the Federal Constitution, had been held within its limits. It w'as made a court town of a new judicial district. This same Convention had conferred on it the extraordinary privilege of sending a borough member to the General Assembly. Its citizens and friends had pro- cured charters authorizing the clearing and deepening of the channel of the Cape Fear from Wilmington to Averasboro. All road hands living within two miles of the river could be compelled to this work for twelve days in the year. In 1790 a charter was granted to make Cross creek navigable. Great manufacturing enterprises were to be inaugurated. Henry Emanuel Lutterloh was authorized by special law to import from abroad capitalists and skilled laborers, who were to be exempt from all taxation for five years. To make the offer still more tempting, the immigrants were in terms vested with the perpetual powder of erecting their own churches and school-houses. Lutterloh was authorized by law to raise by a lottery §6,000 for the purpose of paying the expenses of transportation and settlement. Perhaps it is an indication of the confident hope of securing for this commercial and manufacturing centre the further advantages of the seat of government, that the citizens called the public building, in which General Assemblies sometimes met, burnt in the great fire of 1831, which occupied the site of the present market- house, the "State-house." These facts explain the strong language of Gautier's Protest. It was the beginning of the great "Eastern and Western" contest.^

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ELECTION OF COMMISSIONERS OF LOCATION.

The act of 1791 provided for one commissioner of location from each of the Judicial Districts, and a ninth from the State-at-large. The following nominations were made :

For the Morgan District — Joseph McDowell, the elder.

For the Salisbury District — Matthew Lock and James Martin.

Nor the Hillsborough District — Thomas Person and Joseph Hodge.

For the Halifax District — Thomas Blount.

For the Edenton District — William J. Dawson.

For the Newbern District — Frederick Hargett.

FortheFayetteville District — Farquhard Campbell, Henry William Harrington, Henry E. Lutterloh and John Willis.

For the Wilmington District — James Bloodworth, Edward Jones and John A. Campbell.

For the Xinth Commissioner — '■'Willie Jones, Griffith Ruth- erford and Alexander Mebane.

The following were elected :

For Morgan District — Joseph McDowell, the elder.

For Salisbury District — James Martin.

For Hillsborough District — Thomas Person.

For Halifax District — Thomas Blount.

For Edenton District — William Johnston Dawson.

For Newbern District — Frederick Hargett.

For Fayetteville District — Henry William Harrington.

For the Wilmington District — James Bloodworth.

For Ninth Commissioner — Willie Jones.

BUILDING COMMITTEE.

The following nominations were made for the Building Committee of five :

Richard Benehan, " the venerable Judge Williams,"' John Macon, Robert Goodloe, George Lucas, Nathan Bryan, Theophilus Hunter, William Cain, Wyatt Hawkins, James Porterfield.

Of these, Messrs. Richard Bennehan. John Macon, Robert Goodloe, Nathan Bryan, Theophilus Hunter were elected.

The Commissioners for Location will be described hereaf- ter. Of the Building Committee Richard Bennehan w^as of Orange. Coming from Petersburg as a clerk in the country store of a rich Hillsboro merchant named Johnson, partly by marriage, but mainly by investments from time to time

* Pronounced Wi-ley.

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of his earniogs in slaves and in the rich bottom lands of the Neuse and its tributaries, tbe Eno and Flat, he accuniuhatfd one of the largest estates in Xorth Carolina. His only daughter married Judge Duncan Cameron, and at the death of her brother, Thomas D. Bennehan, who never married, succeeded to all the estates of her father. Richard Benne- han was a man of boundless hospitality, of large public spirit, one of the early Trustees of the University, of which he was a generous benefactor.

John Macon was much trusted by the people of Warren, for four years a Commoner and ten years consecutively Sen- ator. He was a brother of the more eminent Nathaniel Macon, from the same county.

Robert Goodloe was a citizen of Franklin, a prominent planter and builder, whose descendants are among the best people of Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. One of them, Colonel Green Clay Goodloe, is now a paymaster in the United States Marine Corps. The eminent statesman and lawyer, Robert Goodloe Harper, who had the peculiar honor of being elected to Congress from two districts in South Caro- lina at the same time, and who, after marrying a daughter of Charles Carroll of CarroUton, became one of the leaders of the Baltimore Bar and United States Senator from Mary- land, was a nephew of Robert Goodloe.

Nathan Bryan had been a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1788, was then Senator from Jones and after- wards a member of Congress.

Theophilus Hunter was a brother of the Isaac Hunter who owned the centre of the circle within which the location was to be ma'^le, and will be hereafter more particularly described.

LOCATION OF THE CAPITAL.

It has been generally believed that the Commissioners liad unrestricted powers in regard to the new city. This is a mistake. The General Assembly prescribed the width of the streets, limited the quantity of Jand to be purchased at not exceeding one thousand acres, and the area of the city at not less than four hundred acres, and commanded that at least twenty acres should be reserved for the State house and other public buildings. The compensation of the Com- missioners w^as twenty shillings, or §2 per day.

On Tuesday the 20th March, 1792, there assembled at the house of Isaac Hunter five of the nine Commissioners, viz., Frederick Hargett, of Jones; William Johnston Diwson, of

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Chowan; Joseph McDowell (the elder), of Burke; James Martin, of Stokes ; Thomas Blount, of Edgecombe. They did not organize, but adjourned at once to the house of Joel Lane, at Wake Court House. On the next day they began their work by viewing the lands which had been offered to them as suitable sites. On the 22d they were joined by Willie Jones, of Halifax.

It is- pleasant to travel on horseback with these worthy citizens among the gentle hills of Wake, then putting on the green loveliness of spring. As the squirrels chattered in the oaks and hickories, the rabbits tripped into the broomsedge, the mocking-birds poured out their mimetic melody, they scanned closely, with woodman's eye, the ridges and streams and level uplands, and discoursed SMgely about the prospects of the coming city. And when they reached their place of repose at night, and refreshed their weary frames with the fragrant toddy and savory beef, venison or mutton, with smoking biscuit and buttered batter-cakes which the busy housewife most hospitably set before them, they discussed the great questions pending in the political world — how the French Revolution would make all the world free, whether Hamilton or Jefferson in Washington's Cabinet w^ould most influence the action of their great chief. And they discussed, too, the rising influence of the Democratic Republican party, w^hich was destined to destroy the Federalist party and con- trol the government for many years, and, with wonderful vitality and sanguine expectation of victory, is now reaching out its hands to grasp again the reins of power.

The tracts offered to the commissioners, and which they were eight days in riding over, not stopping for Sunday, were —

1. The land of Nathaniel Jones, of White Plains, prob- ably including the town of Cary.

2. That of Theophilus Hunter, senior, on the Fayetteville road, one mile from his residence, called Spring Hill. This tract is now^ part of the Bledsoe land.

3. That of Theophilus Hunter, junior, two miles south of Wake Court House, now owned by W. G. Upchurch, the Caraleigh company, and others.

4. That of Joel Lane, at Wake Court House.

5. That of Henry Lane, one mile north of Wake Court House, lately belonging to Henry Mordecai, deceased, a de- scendant of Henry Lane.

b. That of Isdac Hunter, the center of the circle, now the property of the estate of Mrs. Mary Smith Morehead.

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7. That of Nathaniel Jooes, still belonging to his heirs, the home tract of Mrs. Kimbrough Jones.

8. That on both sides of Neuse river, at the Great Falls, now owned b}^ the Raleigh Paper Companj% and others.

9. That of Thomas Crawford, on the north side of Neuse, three miles below the Great Falls, now owned by L. C. Dunn.

10. That of Dempsey Powell, on south side of Neuse, at Powell's bridge, seven miles of Isaac Hunter, now owned bv W. H. Pace.

11. That of Ethelred Rogers, on the north side of Neuse river, at Rogers' Ferr\', now owned by Mrs. Fabius J. Hay- wood, the elder.

12. Those of Michael Rogers, Hardy Dean and John Ezell, adjoining the last tract ; nearly all of which land now belongs to Mrs. Fabius J. Haywood, the elder,, the granddaughter of Michael Rogers.

13. That of John Hinton, on the north side of Neuse, one mile below his dwelling-house, late the property of Mrs. Betsey Hinton.

14. That of Kimbrough Hinton, on the north side of Neuse near the eastern part of the circle, now belonging to the heirs of Madison C. Hodge.

15. Those of Lovett Bryan and others, on the south side of Neuse, betw^een Crabtree and Walnut creeks, now belonging to the estate of AVm. R. Pool.

16. That of William Jeffreys, on the south side of Neuse, opposite Rogers' Ferry, still in the hands of the same family.

17. That of William JefFre^^s, on the south side of Neuse, three miles from Jacob Hunter's, on the road to Powell's bridge, still belonging to the same family.

It is recorded that on the 27th the Commissioners took a second view^ of the lands of Joel and Henry Lane. The prices demanded for each of the seventeen tracts are not stated in the report.

On Thursday, the 29th of March, the Commissioners pro- ceeded to organize themselves into a Board, choosing unani- mously as chairman the estimable Frederick Hargett, who was likewise chairman of the Board which selected the site of the Universit3\ They then proceeded to ballot for the place most proper to be purchased. Only three obtained any vote. John Hinton's tract on the north side of the Neuse, near Milburnie, received three votes; Joel Lane's tract at Wake Court-house received two votes; and Nathaniel Jones' tract near Cary received one vote. So there was no choice.

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It will be noticed that eight of the seventeen tracts offered were on Xeuse river, and of these some were at the points where there is water-power. As one-half of the Commission- ers on the first ballot expressed their preference for John Hinton's land, only one mile from Milburnie, it is clear that there was considerable expectation in the public mind that the new city ought to be a manufacturing centre, with some, if not great, navigable facilities. It would be an agreeable pastime to go into a conjectural estimate of what would have been the development of our city if the Ilinton land could have obtained one more vote.

That vote was not had. The Board adjourned until next day. Willie Jones was a master of the art of persuasion and was an intimate friend of Joel Lane. Lane himself was a man of influence, who had served the State in the Colonial Congress and as Senator for ten years in succession. Very probably he offered new inducements as to price. At any rate, on Friday, the 30th of March, a second ballot was taken, with the result that Wake Court House received five votes, and the Hinton land received only one vote. Possibly Lane was" adversely criticised for his tactics in winning the contest. There was abundant room for unpleasant talk on account of his entertaining the Commissioners at his house. They wei'e acting as judges and were certainly, notwithstanding iheir high character, liable to the criticism that they ate the bread of one of the litigants. I cannot find their accounts of expenses, but it is altogether probable that they paid for their entertainment. I notice that Lane w^as Senator from 1782 to 1792, both inclusive, but that in the next year James Hinton had his place. This is some evidence that the Hin- ton famil}" resented his success in the negotiation and that the people took their side. If so, the displeasure was evanes- cent, for he was Senator again in 1794 and 1795. The soli- tary supporter of