Imagine the Scene

Town Center

Walk or drive to the front of the Old Courthouse (built 1844). The 1768 map below shows the town’s first courthouse overlapped the site of this one, though it may have been closer to King Street, with its long side running along King. A market building is between it and the Churton intersection, probably with archways large enough to admit wagons all around for unloading and stalls inside. This section’s events occurred in that courthouse and these grounds, which are probably packed dirt given the foot traffic.[ii]

Regulators (see “Situations” above): The Regulator protests turn violent here on Monday, September 24, 1770, when hundreds arrive due to a court session starting. In those days courts did more than they do today; they were effectively the county governments, and counties were much larger. According to one of the judges who attempts to hold court here on that date, in the streets and around the courthouse is a raucous mob waiting for the doors to open.

Judge Richard Henderson writes, “‘After eleven o’clock the Court was opened, and immediately the house filled as close as one man could stand by another, some with clubs, others with whips and switches, few or none without some weapon. When the house became so crowded that no more could well get in, one of them (whose name I think is Fields) came forward and told me he had something to say before I proceeded to business.’”

Henderson allows it, and Fields says he understands the judge does not intend to try anyone over the abuses the Regulators oppose, but if he would “it might prevent some mischief…” After about a half hour, the Regulators leave the courthouse.

However, they hang out all around you. When one lawyer tries to enter, they attack him with clubs, and he runs to safety in a storehouse. They grab a number of men associated with the government or court and whip them, possibly using stocks behind the building. Clerk of Court Edmund Fanning, often cited as corrupt by the Regulators, was a special target. He was on the judge’s platform with Henderson. A newspaper reported, “‘They seized him by the heels, dragged him down the steps, his head striking violently on every step, carried him to the door, and forcing him out, dragged him on the ground over stones & brickbats…’”[a]

Henderson said Fanning “‘by a manly exertion miraculously broke holt (sic) and fortunately jumped into a door that saved him from immediate dissolution.’”[b] He escapes for the moment.

Sometime around three or four in the afternoon, the Regulators allow Henderson to adjourn court and escort him to his lodgings nearby. He escapes out the back around 10 that night. “The next day the regulators placed the corpse of an executed black in the judge’s chair and held mock sessions of the court, leaving a profane set of court minutes.”[2]

The following spring, when the court refuses to convene due to this event, a colonial army of part-time “militia” soldiers marches out under Royal Gov. William Tryon to confront the Regulators. On the way it camps a half-mile south or southeast of town (exact location unknown).

On Saturday, May 11, 1771, the army of nearly 1,000 men with more than a dozen wagons and eight small cannons marches up Churton Street to the right of the courthouse. They are heading for a camp by Hart’s Mill, northwest of town on the Eno. But Tryon says they halted in the town for six hours to replace stolen horses for the wagons. He doesn’t explain why this took the entire army, or six hours![3]

The force defeats the Regulators at the Battle of Alamance south of modern Burlington and then returns here by way of Bethabara in today’s Winston-Salem (see Tryon’s March).

The army arrives back in Hillsborough on Thursday, June 13, marching from the north down Churton, turning this way at the nearby intersection, and continuing a mile east to the Few Plantation, which Tryon calls “Back Creek Camp.” This was owned by the father of the one Regulator executed right after the battle, James Few. The land now is occupied by the Ayr Mount historic home and gardens (see “Historical Tidbit”). The horses and cattle are turned out on those grounds. Tryon notes the distance from Bethabara as 85 miles.[4] (This is remarkably accurate: Two online calculators say the distance to Bethania, three miles past Bethabara, is 79 or 80 miles by way of the interstates.)

Starting on Saturday, the remaining 15 Regulator prisoners are put on trial in the courthouse, in a “court of oyer and terminer,” equivalent to a county criminal court today. The trial resumes on Monday, and ends on Tuesday with 12 men condemned to hang.

Also during this period, per Tryon’s orders, letters, and journal from the campaign,[5] on:

• Friday, June 14: From what he calls “Hillsborough Camp,” the men are ordered to “March with Spirit” through town with “a Sprigg (sic) of Oak on the left side of their Hatts (sic)…” (He does not say why; it seems like this might be out of order and actually applied to their march to the camp.)
• Sunday, 16: Apparently shoes are wearing out, because he orders the commissary (supply officer) to deliver all the leather they have, and the identification of all shoemakers in the army.
• Monday, 17: Tryon asks for a head count of all of the companies and their arms.

The rest of this story will be told at a later stop.

The clock in the tower today existed at the time, but in a church a block away we’ll visit later. (A clock restoration Web site claims this is “the oldest continuous-running tower clock in America,” if you ignore two restorations 200 years apart.[6]) Most sources agree it was made sometime in the 1750s in England, given to Hillsborough by King George III, and installed in the church in 1766. So most if not all of the people described on this page would have checked the time on this clock.

Cornwallis 2/1781: Cornwallis had the Royal Standard (flag representing the King) placed somewhere on the grounds in front of you, and may have used the courthouse as his headquarters during the day.

Historic Homes

Walk or drive out King Street away from Churton Street. Partway down the block, spot the “Yellow House” across the street (there is a small sign to the left of it).

The Yellow House, built in 1768, is believed to be one of two places Cornwallis slept while his army camped here. Fearing for his safety in a town that was a center of the rebellion, sources suggest he switched between this and Faddis’ Tavern located to the left (not the current house there).

An 1849 visitor was told Cornwallis used a large wooden building behind Faddis’ as his headquarters. It supposedly also served that role for both Gates and Greene, who passed through town on the way to taking over from Gates in late 1780. Legislators were known to use it as a hotel when meeting in town, he said, in which case it was surely targeted by Fanning’s raiders.[c]

Perhaps in one of these buildings, on Tuesday, February 20, 1781, Cornwallis issues a call for help. He states his purpose of “driving the rebel army out of this province” to fulfill the king’s “most gracious wish to rescue his faithful and loyal subjects from the cruel tyranny under which they have groaned for several years…” (Of course, cruel tyranny is exactly what the Patriots have accused the king of!) He goes on to “invite all such faithful and loyal subjects to repair, without loss of time, with their arms and ten days provisions, to the Royal Standard now erected at Hillsborough, where they will meet with the most friendly reception.”

There’s a reason he told them to bring provisions, meaning food. Charles Stedman, a Loyalist supply officer, wrote: “Lord Cornwallis could not have remained as long as he did at Hillsborough had it not been for a quantity of salt-beef, pork, and some hogs, found in the town. Such was the situation of the British army, that… a file of men was obliged to go from house to house, throughout the town, to take provisions from the inhabitants, many of whom were greatly distressed by this measure.”[d]

Continue east on King. The last house on the right is the town Visitor’s Center. Tour the center if you want to learn about other history and attractions of the area or pick up a map.

Fanning 9/1781: The house across from the Visitor’s Center was William Reed’s Ordinary, or tavern. During the war, only the main two-story part in front existed (with a different porch). Reed was county sheriff and responsible for certifying that scales, such as those at grain mills, were accurate. The tavern in the basement had its own entrance with possible sleeping rooms, in which case it would have been checked by David Fanning’s raiders for government members.[7]

Notice Saint Mary’s Road going off diagonally to the right from the ordinary. This goes toward Ayr Mount, and was the route of the Great Trading Road, one of two main routes for merchants and immigrants from Pennsylvania to North Carolina (see “Historical Tidbits” below). King Street continued in a straight line east of town toward Halifax and Edenton.

Regulators Hang

Cross Cameron Street and go up the driveway of the Orange County Board of Education. A historical marker at the back of the parking lot tells more about the Regulators. Continue up the sidewalk to the small fenced-in plot. It looks like, but is not, a grave.

Regulators 1770: The last day has arrived for some of the Regulators, Wednesday, June 19, 1771. According to Tryon’s orders[8], a unit called the Pioneers used as rangers during the campaign are sent out at 6 a.m., “to open the woods near the place of Execution” here. The army was ordered to form at 11 to escort the prisoners. The companies, per orders, “March in an Oblong square, the first Line to form the Right and the second Line the left Face.” The artillery are placed in front and back. The prisoners and their guards are in the middle, and the Light Horse is placed on the flanks “to prevent the Mob crowding on the Men.”

After they arrive, six men are reprieved to await the King’s judgment, “in Compliance with the Wishes of the Army; The Officers having recommended them…” Harmon Cox, whose mill near modern Ramseur was a Regulator meeting site and will play a role in the coming Revolution, is one of the lucky six. Among the unlucky six are Benjamin Merrill. He was captured at his home on the 1^st by Edmund Fanning when the army was near the Yadkin River (see “Tryon’s March“).

One at a time, each condemned Regulator is made to stand on a barrel at this spot near the King Street of that time. The noose of a rope has been thrown over the branch of a tree, and is placed around his neck. He is given a chance to say his final words, the barrel is kicked out from under him, and he jerks about until dead. His body is removed, and the scene is repeated. Merrill dies gallantly with his wife Jemima and children watching.[iii]

A single source written sixty years later claims one of them declares, “‘The blood that we have shed will be as good seeds sown in good ground—which soon shall reap a hundredfold!’” After repeating the complaints of the Regulators, he accuses Fanning of being “unfit to hold any office.” Fanning orders the soldier nearby to kick out the barrel.[9] (That source says the Regulator was James Pugh, but later researchers indicate it was almost certainly his brother Enoch, and consider the story propaganda.)

Gates 1780: Gates, the new commander of the Continental Army’s Southern Department, arrives from the east down King Street to the militia camp that was probably right here on Thursday, July 13, 1780. He fires off letters to the Continental Congress and the governors of Virginia and North Carolina begging for supplies and troops. Eight days later he marches the 1,400 militia south (turning left at Churton) to join the rest of the army at Harmon Cox’s Mill—the same place Tory leader David Fanning is based the following year.

Cornwallis 2/1781: Come February, you are most likely also standing in the first camp of Cornwallis’ roughly 2,200 men plus camp followers, filling most of the area from here to the Yellow House and up the road in the other direction. But you do not see orderly rows of tents, because Cornwallis had them burned along with other supplies in today’s Lincolnton, vainly hoping to move fast enough to catch the Continentals in the Race to the Dan. People either sleep in the open or perhaps build small shelters from bushes and tree branches. (Read more about Revolutionary War camps.)

After learning the Continental Army has returned to N.C. from Virginia, Cornwallis decides this location is too vulnerable if Gates’ successor Nathanael Greene decides to attack him here. Drums beat the commands to pack up for the move on Saturday, February 24, 1781. The men form into columns, and the ones at this location march down King, wheel left in the intersection just past the courthouse, and march south out of town to the heights across the Eno River. (See “The Ford” below if you would like to visit a likely part of that campsite.)

Walk directly across the grass from the hanging site, and spot the trail into the woods by a small sign that says “N.C. Society of the Cincinnati.” Follow the trail to a fenced-in area.

The first Hillsborough home of James Hogg stood here. Hogg joined his brother in Wilmington from Scotland, spent a year in Cross Creek (now Fayetteville), and then settled on the 1,100-acre farm his brother bought for him here along the Eno. During the Regulator riot, an assembly member wrote, “Two of the men at first came to Mr. Hogg’s house, and insulted and abused him a good deal, and robbed him of his watch and buckles, and made him deliver up his keys…” But he is able to arrange a guard with the leaders and loses nothing else.[e]

Hogg became a member of the Transylvania Company that sponsored the excursions of famous frontiersman Daniel Boone into what now is Kentucky. (Judge Henderson was a founder of the company.) The company sent Hogg to the Continental Congress to press for the Transylvania region’s recognition as a new colony, which was unsuccessful despite questionable tactics. When he tried to bribe Patrick Henry with Kentucky land in exchange for his support, an historian says, the Virginia governor “‘practically threw him out of the office.’”[w] Little is known of Hogg’s other wartime activities except that he served on the local Committee of Safety responsible for area militia. He was captured here at the house during David Fanning’s raid, but not held long. Hogg was later on the first Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina, and convinced Chapel Hill landowners to donate the original campus.

A month after the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the war, Patriot veterans from across the state meet here on Thursday, October 23, 1783, to form the North Carolina Chapter of the Society of the Cincinnati. This group of former Continental officers was named for a Roman general who, like George Washington, retired from the military and went back to farming rather than using the army to take power.

Roaming with the Raiders

Return to modern King Street. Follow the armies back past the courthouse to the intersection of King and Churton. Notice the monument on your left. Contrary to what it says, Boone was not yet with an expedition to the Cumberland Gap in Virginia when some members left from the courthouse during the early part of the war, starting out Sunday, March 17, 1776.

Fanning 9/1781: Move forward seven months after Cornwallis left, to Wednesday, September 12, 1781. David Fanning’s Tory army is converging on this point from the north, south, and west. Starting at 7 a.m. on a foggy morning, his militia roam about town taking government officials prisoner. You begin to hear gunshots fired out of windows from a few houses around town. The Tories eventually capture 100 to 140—including members of the General Assembly, the Council of State, and Gov. Thomas Burke![f] Also nabbed were two militia colonels, one “hacked and cut” by Fanning.[g]

Turn right, and go north up Churton one block. Step to the right down Tryon Street. The first house on the left was another ordinary, built in 1754. Given its proximity to our next stop, it surely housed some members of the government in 1781 and thus was a target of Fanning’s raid.

Return to and cross Churton. Markers about the nearby church and museum building are on the Churton side. Read them and tour the museum if you wish, and then continue west on Tryon until you can see the current Presbyterian Church from the side.

The modern church occupies the site of St. Matthew Episcopal Church, built in 1768 and still the only church in town during the Revolution. In the Episcopal Church’s steeple is the town clock now in the Old Courthouse. The rioters two years later supposedly broke apart the church bell, which had been a gift from Edmund Fanning, but their leaders stopped them from pulling down the building.[h]

A year before independence, starting Sunday, August 20, 1775, the Third Provincial Congress meets here through September 10 in defiance of the royal governor, Josiah Martin. The 184 delegates have a few choice words for a recent proclamation from Martin condemning the actions of budding rebels, calling it “false, Scandalous, Scurrilous, malicious, and sedicious (sic) Libel, tending to disunite the people of this province.” They ordered it to be hung at the gallows.[10] The congress also approves creation of the first two N.C. regiments for the regular Continental army and support for militia companies. Vitally, it forms an executive council to run the government—because the governor has been chased by coastal rebels onto a ship off the mouth of the Cape Fear River!

Fanning 9/1781: As David Fanning’s raiders crawl over Hillsborough, a unit of 25 or so new Continental Army recruits happen to be spending the night in the church on the way to joining the regular army, now in South Carolina under Greene. No doubt the gunshots awaken them. Some try to escape, but are captured. The rest barricade themselves inside.

Tory militia surround the church and negotiations begin. Around 9 a.m., two hours into the raid, the troops surrender. This ends resistance to the raid.

As noted on a marker in front of you, in 1788 the state’s convention to consider the proposed United States Constitution was held here in the Episcopal Church.

Walk into the graveyard and past the front of the Presbyterian Church. Follow the stone walkway that continues straight when the sidewalk turns right, going back and to the left into the largest brick enclosure. At the center of the rear wall, find the grave with the small metal sign.

William Hooper, one of three North Carolina signers of the Declaration of Independence, was buried here. When the battlefield park was established at Guilford Court House in the 1930s, part or all of his remains were moved to a monument there (records aren’t clear).

Walk to the front wall and you can see the grave of James Hogg. There are “Alves” graves around him. That’s because he had his children’s surnames changed to his wife’s maiden name, to spare them the bullying he had suffered over “Hogg.”

Go back past the front of the church to Tryon Street and turn right (away from Churton). Walk a half-block further west to the Nash-Hooper House, marked by a sign. It is a home, so please respect the owners’ privacy.

The first part of this house was built in 1768 for an aide to Royal Gov. William Tryon. But it was expanded four years later for new owner Francis Nash, and he lived here until going to war. Nash fought alongside Tryon against the Regulators, but was in the Provincial Congress at Halifax that declared support for independence in April 1776. During the war he rose to command of the North Carolina regular troops in the Continental Army. Nash earned fame at the Battle of Brandywine (Penn.) under Gen. George Washington in 1777, only to be mortally wounded months later at the Battle of Germantown (Penn.) by a glancing blow to his hip from a cannon ball.

Hooper bought the house near the end of the war (1782) and lived here until his death. It is the only remaining home of a Declaration of Independence signer in the state.

Edmund Fanning is Punished

Walk back to Churton and turn right. Walk down to King Street, and turn right again. Continue out of the commercial block to the second standalone building, the Masonic Hall built in 1823.

Regulators 1770: In 1770 on the day of the Regulator riot, here stood the wooden home of Edmund Fanning (no known relation to David). The second day of the riot, the Regulators learn of Judge Henderson’s escape (as described back at the courthouse). The mob comes here, breaks in the door in front of you, and after a moment drags Fanning out. They strip him above the waist and whip him. They go in and destroy his furniture. They rip open the mattresses, throw his china and glass in the street, and parade his clothes on a pole through the streets.[i] Then they take his clothes, papers and books into the middle of the street, running back and forth past you, before setting the pile aflame.

Cross the street and walk a little further out to the misnamed Colonial Inn, which was not built until 1838. Look down and spot the flat flagstones.

Cornwallis 2/1781: At one time the center of town was paved with these stones and others like them 150 yards in each of the four directions from the intersection. Local tradition holds that Cornwallis got so tired of the muddy streets, he ordered his troops to put them in. (There are no contemporary reports to support or refute this.)

Walk back to the intersection, imagining the men working at the paving. Turn right and walk halfway down the block along Churton. Look across the street. Around the back of the Old Courthouse stood the town jail, oddly sticking into Churton. The stocks used to punish people were located nearby.

Regulators 1768: In May 1768, with the Regulators refusing to pay taxes, Edmund Fanning has Regulator spokesman Herman Husband and another man arrested for insurrection—before they could have even seen the proclamation they supposedly violated![11] Expecting trouble, the militia guard the town, and small cannons called “swivel guns” are mounted on the jail’s roof. Fanning orders Husband moved to the jail in New Bern.[j] But as many as 1,500 Regulators materialize just across the Eno River on the south edge of town, including women.[k] Fanning wisely lets the jailed men go at dawn. (This story continues at our next stop.)

Tryon comes to Hillsborough that summer, and on learning that the troubles continue, goes west to gather militia (see the Regulators page for details). After returning, he eventually has 1,461 men camped just east of town.[m] He places 50 around the Market House mentioned earlier in front of today’s Old Courthouse, with a cannon to guard it, plus another 50 split between the two ends of King Street. Swivel guns are again mounted on the jail’s reinforced roof—along with a gallows.[n] The precautions are needed. At least 800 Regulators come within a mile of town this time, and estimates range up to 3,700.[o]

Tryon holds a “council of war” at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, August 23, attended by his officers and assembly members, probably in the courthouse. They decide Tryon should offer a pardon to the Regulators if they meet several conditions.[p] The Regulators cannot agree on a response, and simply melt away overnight.

Unrelated to the “Situations” described on this page, a famous set of 130 prisoners arrive up Churton to the jail on Thursday, November 23, 1780. These are the last of the 600 Tory and British soldiers captured at the Battle of King’s Mountain (S.C.) nearly seven weeks earlier. They have walked from the battlefield southwest of Charlotte through Bethabara (in today’s Winston-Salem) with their hands bound, often starving and abused by Patriot soldiers or locals. The officers are placed in a nearby house; the rest are crammed into the small building here.[13]

At an unknown date after Greene takes over the southern Continental army in December, those not yet paroled are marched to a new prison in Salisbury.

Fanning 9/1781: Inside the jail on the day of the Tory raid are 30 condemned Loyalists awaiting their execution, which probably explains its timing. David Fanning’s militiamen break in and release them. They also drag out two small cannons that had been stored inside.

During the raid, some of the Tory soldiers find liquor supplies and get drunk. As the militia officers try to keep order, several houses are looted. Fanning finally leads the army and its prisoners past you to the right out of town, intending to take them back to Cox’s Mill. (They don’t make it there, instead getting ambushed at the Battle of Lindley’s Mill south of today’s Graham.)

The Ford

Follow all of the armies down Churton to Nash & Kollock Street on the right. Turn right. If you are only driving this route, pull into the parking lot on the left and get to where you can see the old bridge over the Eno, to the right of the current main bridge.

Otherwise, walk to the Riverwalk entrance at