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الجديد
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الميحيى
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Cornell University Library
Ithara, New York
FROM W.J. Andrews
F 262W2 C44 Cornell University Library
History of Wake County, North Carolina,
olin 3 1924 032 304 887
UNI
1865
IN
D
ED
A
Cornell University Library
The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032304887
HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
A518676 COPYRIGHT, 1922 BY MRS. WILLIAM JOHNSTON ANDREWS
MRS. ALEXANDER BOYD ANDREWS
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF OUR LATE BELOVED CHAIRMAN MRS. ALEXANDER BOYD ANDREWS (JULIA MARTHA JOHNSTON) BY THE WAKE COUNTY COMMITTEE OF THE NORTH CAROLINA SOCIETY OF COLONIAL DAMES OF AMERICA UNDER WHOSE AUSPICES IT IS WRITTEN AND PRINTED
Author's Dedication
O her just pride in her own colo- nial ancestry, Mrs. Alexander Boyd Andrews (Julia Martha Johnston) added a strong inter- est in the early history of her State. From the tradition of Mecklenburg where she was born, she came to be intensely interested in the annals of Wake, her adoptive County, and in the development of Raleigh, where she lived to be a blessing to all who knew her.
She was a patriot, as well as a Christian wife and mother; she loved the inspiration of old days, as well as the new friends she found everywhere. She was honored by being chosen as Vice-Regent from North Carolina of Mount Vernon Ladies Association. Often during her lifetime she recommended to the writer of this book the writing of a history of Wake County as a worthy work for this Committee of the North Carolina Society of Colonial Dames in America.
Thus this book becomes a memorial to her friendship and to her ideals, a sincere labor
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AUTHOR'S DEDICATION
of love undertaken at her often expressed de- sire. It pictures the community she loved. It embodies the interests of that Committee which came into activity under her leadership. It is the fittest monument to her worth and dignity that we can raise. May she know that we remember and feel that we still love her, and approve of our dedication to her of the book she inspired.
Contents CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
Introductory Paragraph-Lawson, Explorer, 1700-Journey through the Carolinas-Visit to Falls of "News Creek"-Possibly traversed what is now Wake County-Granville Tobacco Path- Beginnings in North Carolina-Causes of great love of Liberty- Poor Government of Lords Proprietors-Locke's Fundamental Constitutions-Geographical and Topographical Conditions-Inde- pendence of Settlers-Col. Byrd's libel of Settlers-Good character of same-Growth of Settlements in North Carolina-Wake existed as parts of Johnston and Orange Counties in 1765-Tryon's Admin- istration as Governor-Contrast between East and West of Colony- Tryon's Palace at New Berne-Grievances of Different Sections- The Regulators War-Tryon's Expedition against Regulators- Setting off of four New Counties in 1771, of which the Fourth was Wake-Tryon's Camp at Hunter's Lodge in Wake County, spring of 1771-Laying off of Rhamkatt Road-Naming of Wake County -Esther Wake, Margaret Wake, Lady Tryon-Derivation of Terri- tory of Wake-Position in State-Soil-Products-Elevation- Climate-Streams-Raleigh Capital City and County Seat.
CHAPTER II
THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
Tryon's March from Wake to Alamance-The Quelling of the Regulators-Rapid Growth of Revolutionary sentiment-Thomas Jefferson's Tribute-1772, First Court held in Wake-Wake Cross Roads-Bloomsbury-Source of Name-Joel Lane's Tavern- "First Capitol"-Inscription on Tablet-Supplies furnished by Joel Lane-Inauguration of Gov. Thomas Burke-His Inaugural Ad - dress-Sketch of Burke's Life-Burke Square-Interval between Yorktown and 1789-Location of New Capital-Discussed in In-
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CONTENTS
tervals of Debates about the Ratification of the Federal Constitu- tion-Account of Debate on Location of Capital-Wake County Site voted Aug, 2, 1788-Pros and Cons-Constitution Ratified 1789-Wake County Site Confirmed 1791-Willie Jones and Com- missioners-Joel Lane's Tract-Laying Off of Streets-Price of Tract, etc .- Description of City Plan-Names of Streets-Park System-First Sale of City Lots-Building of State House.
CHAPTER III EARLY WORTHIES
Number of Inhabitants of Wake County in 1800-Character of Settlers-General Mode of Life in 1800-Cotton-Transportation -Tobacco-Corn -Wheat-Live Stock-Homes -Vehicles - Horseback Riding-Amusements-Look of Country-Mode of Liv- ing of Settlers-Easy Success-Slavery-Schools-Stores and Tav- erns-Court Week-Religious Services-Discontent with Primitive Conditions-Prominent Citizens of Wake-John Hinton and De- scendants-Theophilus Hunter and Descendants-Joel Lane and Brothers-Story of Lane's Scheming-Two Jones Families of Wake -Kinship with Allen and Willie Jones-Mingling of Blood of First Families of Wake-Fanning Jones the Tory-Dr. Calvin Jones of Wake Forest-Names of Taxpayers of Wake, 1800-Same Names to-day.
CHAPTER IV RALEIGH THE CAPITAL VILLAGE
Colonel Creecy's Description of Raleigh in 1800-Old Sassafras Tree-Governor Ashe, 1795,-First Governor Residing in Raleigh- First Governor's Mansion-Joel Lane House-Andrew Johnson House-Academy-(Old Lovejoy's) Begun 1802-Female Depart- ment 1807-Additions-Curriculum-Dr. McPheeters-Other Early Schools of Wake-John Chavis-Presentation of Globes to Univer- sity of North Carolina by Matrons of Raleigh-The old "Palace" or Governor's Mansion at Foot of Fayetteville Street-Community Life of Old Raleigh-Plays-Processions-Speakings-Banquets-
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CONTENTS
Census of Raleigh in March, 1807-City Government-City Watch, 1811-Art Treasure of Old State House-Story of Canova's Statue of Washington-Fourth of July Celebration, 1809-Subsequent Celebrations -First Church Edifices -List of Subjects for Further Interest in Raleigh History.
CHAPTER V EARLY LIFE AND THOUGHT
Forgetting the New Necessary to Understanding of Old-Politics -Economics-Definition of Democracy-Federalists-Jeffersonians -Warring Ideals, French and English-Andrew Jackson-Political Change in North Carolina-State Banks-"Tippecanoe and Tyler Too"-Henry Clay-Old Whigs-Backwardness of Education-The Western Fever-Discussions of Slavery-New England's Didacti- cism-Internal Improvements-Canals-High Costof Living, 1821- Stage Coach Travel-Newspapers-The Gales-Raleigh "Register" -"The Standard"-Scarcity of Books-Food in Raleigh-Furniture -Fashions-Table Ware-Housewives, Duties-The Unmanage- able Young Folks of the Twenties and Thirties.
CHAPTER VI GIANTS OF THOSE DAYS
Col. William Polk-The Old State Bank-Colonel Polk on Duel- ing (Alfred Jones Duel)-Colonel Polk Beats an Old Neighbor-His Dancing-His Son Leonidas-His Friend and his Cousin and his Bank Janitor-Sketch of William Boylan-Invention of Cotton Gin -Mr. Boylan's Kind Heart-His Home, Wakefield-Peter Brown -Practising Lawyer-His Return to Raleigh-Judge Seawell- Moses Mordecai-William Peck-Anecdote of State Bank Days- Young R. S. Tucker-Dr. William McPheeters-Disciplinarian - Peace Brothers-Joseph Gales and Mrs. Winifred Gales his Wife- DavidL.Swain-His Life-His HistoricalWork-Mentionof Familiar Characters in the Raleigh of His Time.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER VII
MORE BIOGRAPHIES
Notice of John Marshall-Anecdote of his Stay in Raleigh-Refer- ence to Him from Governor Swain-Quotation by Judge Badger- Judge Gaston-Influence on Constitutional Convention of 1835-Last Religious Disability Removed by Influence of William Johnston- Gaston's Eloquence-His Piety-John Haywood, State Treasurer- Other Members of the Haywood Family-John Haywood's Friendly Ways-Popularity-Devotion to University of North Carolina- Funeral Eulogy-Judge Badger-Youthful Ability-Many Honors -Battle Family-Duncan Cameron-His Buildings-Leonidas K. Polk (Fighting Bishop)-Brigadier-General in Confederate Army- His Life, Services as Bishop and as Soldier-Brave Death.
CHAPTER VIII
IMPROVEMENTS AND PROGRESS
Stimulus of Loss-Burning of the Old State House-Destruction of Statue of Washington-Other Alarms of Fire-Miss Betsy Geddy -Controversy over New Capitol-Judge Gaston's Influence-Ap- propriation for New Capitol-Building Committees-Corner Stone, July 4, 1833-Same Day, Railroad Plan-Final Cost of Capitol- Its Material-Its Designers and Builders-Method of Moving Stone for Capitol-Mrs. Sarah Hawkins Polk and Her Street Cars-Spirit- ed Raleigh Women-Poor Fire Protection-Hunter's Pond-Descrip- tion from Petersburg Paper-Eagerness for Railroad in North Caro- lina-Capitol Finished-Railroad Comes In-Great Double Cele- bration-Described by Witness-Early Engines, Tracks and Cars -Time Table-Breath of Progress.
CHAPTER IX THE MIDDLE YEARS
Rapid Progress-Establishment of Capital as Center, Political and Social-General Prosperity-Plantation Homes-Mexican War-
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CONTENTS
Discovery of Gold in California-Effect on Men's Minds-Cheerful Temper-Great Political Campaign Waged in Wake-Educational Interest-Saint Mary's School-Wake Forest College-Free School -Growth of Population-Increase of Luxury-Of Fashion-Dress and Food-Advantage of Railroads though Despatched Without Telegraphs-Interest in Farming Methods-Culture-Reading- Discord over Slavery-Rift Growing Wider-Differing Opinions in Raleigh-Old Heads-Hot Young Hearts-The Actual Secession- After-The Surrender of the Capital as Narrated by Governor Swain-The "End of an Era."
CHAPTER X OUR BENEFACTORS
Five Citizens-One Stranger-A Woman-John Rex the Tanner and his Bequest for a Hospital-Intention not Fully Realized and why-William Peace and Peace Institute-Dorothea Dix-Sketch of Life-Story of Founding of State Hospital for Insane-Stanhope Pullen-His Peculiarities-His Business Success-His Gifts : to City, to State, to State College for Women - John Pullen: Charitable, Consecrated-His Example-His Remarkable Funeral-R. B. Rainey-His Gift of Library to City-His Modesty-The Real Meaning of his Gift.
CHAPTER XI DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
General Lafayette-Henry Clay-President James K. Polk- President Buchanan-General Joseph Lane-Stephen A. Douglas- Mrs. Jefferson Davis-President Andrew Johnson-President Theo- dore Roosevelt-Woodrow Wilson, Just Before Becoming Candidate for the Presidency-Vice-President Sherman-Vice-President Mar- shall-State Literary and Historical Speakers-Edwin Markham -- James Bryce-Henry Cabot Lodge-Jules Jusserand-Ex-President Taft-Frenchmen of the High Commission during World War- General Tyson-Dorothea Dix Several Times-Dr. Anna Howard Shaw-Miss Rankin the First Congresswoman.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER XII THESE LATER DAYS
Life Story of a Nation-Wm. L. Saunders and Colonial Records -Self-Consciousness in History Comes Later-Early Manufactur- ing-Hand-loom Products-Home Dyes-Women's Handicrafts- Early Before-the-war Cotton Factories-None in Wake-Cotton Gins in Wake-Cotton-seed Oil made in Wake Before the War- Pianos made in Raleigh-Paper Mills in Wake: Joseph Gales' and Royster's-Disposal of Latter Mill-Agricultural Methods-War- time Impetus to Manufacturing-Home Work Given Out to Country Women-Sewing-Knitting-Manufactures in Raleigh for Confederacy - Powder - Guncaps - Cartridges - Matches - Curry-combs-Metal Findings-John Brown Pikes-Wooden Shoes -Cotton Cloth Found in Devereux Mansion -Cotton Cultiva- tion -Reconstruction Period -Priestley Mangum and Mangum Terrace -Developed More Perfectly-Walter Page-State Chroni- cle-Watauga Club-Agricultural and Mechanical College-Growth of Manufactures in Raleigh-Rural Free Delivery-Progress all over Wake County.
CHAPTER I
Introductory
T is difficult to realize beginnings. Let us turn back the stream of time, let us look at our old famil- iar places in the light of former days. No one has stepped twice in the same river, and its onward flow changes all shores.
Who has not said to himself, as he passed along familiar streets and considered familiar landmarks,-
"I wish I'd seen
The many towns this town has been."
So it is with this country we live in and pos- sess. When we go abroad upon the hilly roads of this pleasant inland County of Wake, when we note the outlines of its ridges against the sky, and see field and forest and farm, and scenes of man's long residence, we often wish to think backward and perceive clearly these old well-known scenes with the eyes of the first European explorers as they threaded
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
their way through forest glades, peopled at that time only by the red men.
The first historian of North Carolina, the explorer Lawson, although known to have passed through the central part of this State, cannot actually be proved to have trod the soil of Wake County. One authority on our local history thinks that he did, and indeed it seems more than possible.
Lawson made a journey through western and middle Carolina in the year seventeen hundred or thereabout. His course was a long loop coming out of South Carolina and cross- ing the Catawba and the "Realkin" (or Yad- kin) and other streams, continuing in a north- easterly direction and then due east, until he finally reached the settlements of the North Carolina seaboard. His descriptive travel- ler's journal reads as fresh and as crisply in- teresting as if penned last year, and we get the impression of a writer alert in every sense and perception. He was a fine optimistic fellow, and though he was hired no doubt to praise the new colony, and so draw in settlers from among the readers of his account, yet no one can close his book without the feeling that he
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INTRODUCTORY
too, like many another coming to North Car- olina to live, soon fell in love with the climate, and delighted to bask under the sunny sky.
Hear his account of leaving "Acconeechy Town" (which must have been near Hills- borough), and marching twenty miles east- ward over "stony rough ways" till he reached "a mighty river." "This river is as large as the Realkin, the south bank having tracts of good land, the banks high, and stone quarries. We got then to the north shore, which is poor white sandy soil with scrubby oaks. We went ten miles or so, and sat down at the falls of a large creek where lay mighty rocks, the water making a strange noise as of a great many water wheels at once. This I take to be the falls of News Creek, called by the Indians We-Quo-Whom."
For a first trip through an unknown wilder- ness, guided only by a compass, this suggests the neighborhood, and describes the granite ridges that traverse Wake County, and pro- duce the Falls of Neuse, where the river flows across one of these barriers.
During the next days' travel he comments on the land "abating of its height" and "mixed
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
with pines and poor soil." This, too, makes it sound as if he perceived the swift transition which may be seen in the eastern part of Wake County from one zone to the next, from the hard-wood growth to the pine timber, and from a clay to a sandy soil.
Lawson highly praised the midland of North Carolina, between the sandy land and the mountains, and it is pleasant to read his en- thusiastic account of this home of ours, and learn the impression it made on a good observ- er in its pristine state, and before the white man's foot had become familiar with the long trading path, which must have crossed west, near this section, but not certainly in the exact longitude of Wake County.
This trail is known to have passed Hills- borough, and to have crossed Haw River at the Haw Fields. It may well have followed the same course, as later did the Granville Tobacco Path, which certainly traversed Wake County near Raleigh.
Wake County was one of the latest of the pre-Revolutionary counties to be set off from the rest, and its boundaries were not in any sense natural boundaries, dependent upon
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INTRODUCTORY
natural barriers or the course of streams, but were run and divided for purely political reasons.
The story of the making and naming of Wake County is an interesting one, and prop- erly to tell it requires some general account of the Colony of North Carolina and its begin- nings.
The first settlement of the Carolinas was begun under the charter of a company of English noblemen, the Lords Proprietors. If these owners received their quit-rents as speci- fied, they did not take much further interest in their plantations, nor molest the settlers; hence, the northern colony, being so neglected and more isolated, was ever the freest of all the Old Thirteen; one might even say the freest and easiest of them. Having no good harbor, and hidden behind the sand-bars from the storms of Hatteras, it enjoyed its immun- ity. Not being easily reached from outside, it did as its people chose with governors and edicts, dodged its taxes, harbored fugitives, and governed its own affairs quite comfort- ably.
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
The Lords Proprietors employed John Locke, the great English philosopher, to draw up a form of government for their two infant colonies, and when he did so a more unsuitable set of constitutional provisions for a thinly settled state would be hard to find.
This "Fundamental Constitution" was a confused and complicated plan full of strange titles and orders of nobility, with its "Land- graves" and its "Caciques," a plan which it would have been hard enough to follow in a populous society, with no will of its own; and which it was quite impossible to carry out in a sparsely peopled edge of the wilderness where the principal aim in life of the inhabit- ants was to escape all outside coercion, and to delight in space and liberty.
The confusion brought about by this fam- ous Locke Constitution was also a cause of this glorious opportunity, eagerly grasped by the colonists, to avoid outside interference, as well as dispense with all the inconveniences of home rule and superfluous government.
Still another cause of freedom was the rapid succession of governors sent by the Lords Proprietors, some grossly incompetent, some
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INTRODUCTORY
most tyrannical, and all objectionable to the temper of the colony even when of average diligence, or because of that diligence.
The later Royal governors were on the whole better men, but the custom had gone on too long for them to subdue those who had defied so long and so successfully any other government save their own.
Again, the liberty of North Carolina was favored simply by the shape of the coast as mentioned above, indented as it is by sounds and wide tide-water rivers, intersected by great swamps, and the whole shut in from the highway of nations by shallows and sand-bars. Even neighborhoods were secluded from each other by sounds and estuaries, while the whole was protected from outside interference. The individual planter scarcely saw a dozen folk outside of his own family in a year.
This freedom of the free in North Carolina was well known, and many came to her bor- ders to enjoy it.
The adventurous, then as now, longed for a wilderness in which to wander; the hunter wanted game, and found abundance there.
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
Religious sects, persecuted elsewhere, were unmolested in North Carolina; dissenters and Quakers could settle in peace. Indeed the colonists, like Sir John Falstaff, had almost forgotten what "the inside of a church was like." Those also who wanted to rub out their reckoning and begin life over again, could do so unquestioned, and those who simply wanted to make a living, could make it al- most too easily for their own welfare, by half cultivating the rich bottom-lands.
At no time were there any more really crim- inal persons in North Carolina, in proportion to the population than there were in Virginia, al- though there may well have been more fugi- tives from the law in the strip of no-man's- land that intervened between North Carolina and Virginia before the dividing line was run and agreed upon.
One may read and smile at the witty libel of Colonel William Byrd of Westover, and note how this colony and its liberty roused the ire of the aristocratic Virginian.
He regards it as a big brother does a very impertinent smaller one who has run away and is making faces from over the fence. His
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INTRODUCTORY
chuckles are a bit spiteful as he describes the inferiority, compared with Virginia, of the "Rogues Harbor," this "Redemptioners Ref- uge." He waxes sarcastic over their over- primitive homes, and habits of living, choosing extreme examples; he refers to their lack of piety and churches, adverts to their love of liquor and laziness, their lack of baptism for their children and of the sanction of church ceremony for the union of the parents, and then, having had his merciless fling at them, he unwillingly acknowledges that the dividing line will have to be run fifteen miles or so north of the line that Virginia has always been claim- ing.
He is also forced to record that all the set- tlers on this strip of territory were glad to hear that they had been set off into North Carolina forever, but seems also to regret that by this means these undesirables and border ruffians were deprived of chance for future amend- ment.
Colonel Byrd coveted the pleasure of seeing them put to rights, although the including of them in Virginia would have seemed to spoil the high moral average of that colony accord- ing to his telling.
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
The fundamental nature of our population was sound and wholesome, incentive to crime was lacking; there was plenty of a rude sort, no crowding for any, and the excess of liberty was better endured there than in the west of of the eighteen-fifties, where there was gold, and the lust of it, to excite men's ambition.
Colonists were coming in great numbers by the middle of the eighteenth century. Great Indian wars were fought to a conclusion, and the west was opened up more and more, as people pushed up the great rivers. By 1765, Mecklenburg and Rowan had filled up, faster perhaps than the intervening lands. The soil grew more fertile farther west. Scotch-Irish, Moravian and Pennsylvania "Dutch", second generation pioneers, came down the Piedmont and settled the pleasant valleys.
A few years later, Salisbury and Charlotte were thriving little frontier towns and Hills- borough was almost as large as it is today.
For many years after Col. William Byrd and Edward Mosely had surveyed the dividing line, Wake County was but an undistinguished part of the middle western woods, with here and there a settler; but by 1765 it had become ad-
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INTRODUCTORY
joining parts of the counties of Johnston and Orange.
It was in this same year that William Tryon came to be the new Royal Governor of North Carolina, and the colony became daily more prosperous, the west having filled up as stated, while the eastern precincts grew rich and be- came refined in their ideas of comfort and even luxury. Those eastern folk enjoyed agricul- tural abundance from the fertile soil, they plied a coastwise trade, and owned large ships trading to Bermuda and even to English sea- ports. Their sons were sent to be educated in England or in the northern colleges, and the leading men showed "a prevalence of excel- lent education" although there were no col- leges and few schools worth the name in all Carolina.
The different levels of rank were as well marked in the east as in Virginia at that time, but in the west, in Carolina, as in western Virginia, the settlers were mostly Presbyter- ians and other dissenters, were small farmers, and did not own slaves, which were always the rule for working the broad plantations in the tide-water country.
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
These western folk were often pious, but if by chance some one was careless in religion he was all the more eager for liberty. Pio- neers, and the sons of pioneers, some settled and some pressed on, piercing the wooded passes of the mountains and faring over into Kentucky and Tennessee. They were the second generation in the colony, Americans born, who cared nothing for the King and the "Old Home," but rejoiced to find the whole boundless continent before them. Woods- men and explorers these, like Daniel Boone, who once settled for a little time in western North Carolina, but felt himself crowded when he could see smoke from a neighbor's fire closer than twelve miles of wilderness away.
This was the Old North State when Tryon came from England to his difficult task, that of bending the pride of the east, and subdu- ing the independence of the west, and thus governing the heterogeneous mixture.
Tryon had many good qualifications. It is certain by evidence that he must have been a fine figure of a man; he had been a soldier; his ability was far above average; he was the
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INTRODUCTORY
possessor of fine tact, reinforced by an iron will, and a determination to govern at all costs. His first problem was the trouble about the stamp tax and he handled the news of its repeal in a masterly manner, gaining from it the full advantage in behalf of the Royal Government. Also he cunningly util- ized the joy and good humor over this repeal as an opportunity for asking money to build a governor's mansion in New Berne, then the seat of government.
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