Biography

David Fanning was not yet born when in 1755 his father, a landowning farmer in Virginia, drowned in the Deep River while looking for land in Orange County.[1] His mother moved them to what now is Wake County, but died when he was 8. Fanning eventually became a ward of a county justice in today’s Smithfield. He was treated mostly as a worker and otherwise neglected, but learned outdoor skills, horsemanship, and to read. He developed a scalp disease, likely eczema, that may have caused some baldness and led him to wear a wig in lat