Date of its Formation and Origin of Name.
Cabarrus County was formed in 1792, from Mecklenburg County, and was so named in compliment to Stephen Cabarrus, member from Chowan County, and Speaker of the House of Commons. Mr. Cabarrus lived in Edenton, or near, at a place called Pembroke. He was a native of France, a man of great vivacity and talent, a useful and honorable man.
Situation and Boundaries.
It is situated in the south-western part of the State, and is bounded on the north by Rowan and Iredell, east by Stanly County, south by Union, and west by Mecklenburg.
Population,
Its population is 6,943 whites; 119 free Negroes; 2,685 slaves; 8,673 federal population; 753 persons who cannot read.
Products.
Its products are 86,300 bushels of wheat; 418,180 bushels of corn; 51,998 bushels of oats; 17,276 bushels of potatoes; 4,568,726 pounds of cotton; 10,460 pounds of wool; 3,761 dollars worth of gold.
It is remarkable for its production of gold fifty-two years ago.
The following is an account of the first gold mine ever discovered in the State:—
We have been kindly furnished by Colonel Barnhardt with the following history of the opening of the Reed Gold Mine, in Cabarrus County, and the number and weight of the pieces of gold found at different periods.
A sketch of the discovery and history of the Reed Gold Mine, in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, being the first gold mine discovered in the United States.
The first piece of gold found at this mine, was in the year 1799, by Conrad Reed, a boy of about twelve years old, a son of John Reed, the proprietor. The discovery was made in an accidental manner. The boy above named, in company with a sister and younger brother, went to a small stream, called Meadow Creek, on a Sabbath day, while their parents were at church, for the purpose of shooting fish with bow and arrow, and while engaged along the bank of the creek, Conrad saw a yellow substance shining in the water. He went in and picked it up, and found it to be some kind of metal, and carried it home. Mr. Reed examined it, but as gold was unknown in this part of the country at that time, he did not know what kind of metal it was: the piece was about the size of a small smoothing iron.
Mr. Reed carried the piece of metal to Concord, and showed it to a William Atkinson, a silversmith, but he not thinking of gold, was unable to say what kind of metal it was.
Mr. Reed kept the piece for several years on his house floor, to lay against the door to keep it from shutting. In the year 1802, he went to market to Fayetteville, and carried the piece of metal with him, and on showing it to a jeweler, the jeweler immediately told him it was gold, and requested Mr. Reed to leave the metal with him and said he would flux it. Mr. Reed left it, and returned in a short time, and on his return the jeweler showed him a large bar of gold, six or eight inches long. The jeweler then asked Mr. Reed what ho would take for the bar. Mr. Reed, not knowing the value of gold, thought he would ask a "big price," and so he asked three dollars and fifty cents
($3.50!). The jeweler paid him his price.
After returning home, Mr. Reed examined and found gold in the surface along the creek. He then associated Frederick Kisor, James Love, and Martin Phifer with himself, and in the year 1803, they found a piece of gold in the branch that weighed twenty-eight pounds. Numerous pieces were found at this mine weighing from sixteen pounds down to the smallest particles. The whole surface along the creek for nearly a mile was very rich in gold.
The veins of this mine were discovered in the year 1831. They yielded a large quantity of gold. The veins are flint or quartz.
I do certify that the foregoing is a true statement of the discovery and history of this mine, as given by John Reed and his son Conrad Reed, now both dead.
January, 1848. GEORGE EARNHARDT.
Weight of different pieces of gold found at this mine:—1803, 28 lbs. to 1835, Total 115 lbs. steel yard weight.
The annual products of the gold mines of the State have been estimated at five hundred thousand dollars.* * Report by John H. Wheeler, Superintendent of Branch Mint, to the Secretary of the Treasury, in 1838. "Six Months in America," by Vigne. The produce of Cabarrus mines in 1840, by the census, was estimated at thirty-five hundred dollars.
The revolutionary and colonial history of Cabarrus belongs to Mecklenburg, to which it was united. No part of the State was more fixed and forward in the cause of liberty than this immediate section.
At the Convention of Charlotte, in May, 1775, this part of Mecklenburg joined heartily in that fearful stand of pledging "their lives, fortunes, and most sacred honor" to defend, sustain, and protect their liberty and independence.
The circ*mstances of that declaration, the actors in the convention, the boldness -with which they proclaimed and vindicated their sentiments, as well as the instrument itself, have been already recorded in the former volume of this work.
Without any support from abroad; without any previous movement to guide their course, the conduct of this people meets at once our warmest admiration and enduring respect. It is one of the proudest pages of our country's history, and one to which her sons point to with joy and congratulation. The portion of Mecklenburg, now Cabarrus, entered freely into this important and patriotic movement.
But there is a circ*mstance connected with the early history of Cabarrus that deserves record. I allude to the destruction of the powder and other munitions of war, in 1771, by the citizens of Cabarrus, for which I am indebted to Hon. D. M. Barringer, our present Envoy to Spain, furnished by R. Kirkpatrick, Esq.
History of "The Gunpowder Plot," or the Black Boys of Cabarrus.
In the year 1771, some difficulties arose between Governor Tryon of North Carolina and the Regulators, and in order to coerce them into his measures, the Governor procured from Charleston, South Carolina, three or four wagon loads of the munitions of war, consisting of gunpowder, flints, blankets, &c. They were brought to Charlotte, North Carolina, and from some suspicious movements amongst the friends of liberty, wagons could not be procured to transport them on; at length Colonel Moses Alexander procured wagons to convoy it to Hillsboro', the then seat of government. The vigilance of the jealous Whigs was ever on the alert, and in a settlement lying now in the County of Cabarrus, known by the name of the Rocky River Settlement, sixteen miles north-east of Charlotte, and seven or eight south of Concord, there existed as much of the true spirit of patriotism as ever was found in the same bounds, and where not a Tory was ever born or ever breathed.
The following individuals, viz., Major James White, William White and John White (all brothers, born and raised on the bank of Rocky River, one mile from Rocky River church), Robert Caruthers, Robert Davis, Benjamin Cochran, James Ashmore and Joshua Hadley, bound themselves by a most solemn oath, not to divulge the secret on each other, and in order to keep themselves concealed they blacked themselves, and set out to destroy, if possible, the powder, &c, that had been procured to shed the blood of their countrymen. They set out in the evening, while the father of the Whites was absent to mill with two horse-loads of grain; fortunately they met him (the boys were on foot); they demanded of their father the horses, and ordered him to dismount. Ho pleaded lustily for the privilege of the horses until he could carry home his bags, but all remonstrance was vain; they lifted the bags off the horses and left them on the side of the road. They came up with the wagons that hauled the powder, &c, encamped on what was then called Phifer's Hill, three miles west from Concord, on the road leading from Charlotte to Salisbury, near midway between these places, at or near what is now Long's tavern. They immediately unloaded the wagons, stove in the kegs, threw the powder, flints, &c., into a pile, tore the blankets into strips, placed them on the pile, made a train of powder a considerable distance from the pile, and Major White fired a pistol into the train, which produced a tremendous explosion. A stave from the pile struck White on the forehead, and cut him considerably. As soon as it came to the ears of Colonel Moses Alexander, he put his whole ingenuity in requisition to find out the perpetrators of so foul a deed against his Majesty. The transaction remained a mystery for some time.
Great threats were made, and in order to induce some one to turn traitor, a pardon was offered to any one who would turn king's evidence against the rest. Ashmore and Hadley, being half-brothers and composed of the same materials, set out unknown to each other, to avail themselves of the pardon offered, and accidentally met each other on the threshold of Moses Alexander's house. When they made known their business, Alexander observed, "That by virtue of the governor's proclamation they were pardoned, but they were the first that ought to be hanged." The rest of the "Black Boys" had to fly their country.
They fled to the State of Georgia, where they remained some time. The Governor, finding he could not get them into his grasp, held out insinuations that if they would return and confess their fault, they should be pardoned. They returned, and as soon as it was known, Moses Alexander raised a guard, consisting of himself, two brothers, John and Jake, and others, and surrounded the house of old White, the father of the boys. Caruthers, the son-in-law of White, was also at White's.
They placed a guard to each door. One of the guard wishing to favor the escape of Caruthers, struck a quarrel with Moses Alexander at one door, while his brother Daniel Alexander whispered to Mrs. White, if there was any of them within they might pass out and he would not see him; in the mean time, out goes Caruthers, and in a few jumps was in the river. The alarm was immediately given, but pursuit was fruitless.
At another time, the royalists heard of some of the boys being in a harvest field, and set out to take them; but always having some one in company that favored their escape, as they rode up in sight of the field one of the company waved his hand, which the boys took as a signal. They pursued Robert Davis so close, that he jumped his horse thirty feet down a bank into the river, and then dared them to follow him.
They fled from covert to covert to save their necks from the blood thirsty loyalists, who were daily hunting them like wild beasts. They would lie concealed weeks at a time, and the neighbors would carry them food, until they fairly wearied out their pursuers. The oath by which they bound themselves was an imprecation of the strongest kind; the greater part of the imprecation was literally fulfilled in Hadley and Ashmore. Ashmore fled his country, but he lived a miserable life, and died as wretched as he had lived. Hadley still remained in the country, and was known for many years to the writer. He was very intemperate, and in his fits of intoxication was very harsh to his family in driving them from his house in the dead hours of the night. His neighbors, in order to chastise him for his abuse of his family (among whom were some of the "Black Boys"), dressed themselves in female attire, went to his house by night, pulled him from his bed, drew his shirt over his head and gave him a very severe whipping. He continued through life the same miserable wretch, and died without any friendly hand to sustain him, or eye to pity him. Thus we see Mecklenburg and Cabarrus (at that time but one county) were the first that set the ball in motion that ended in the independence of the American people.
Frequently, when the royalists ranged the country in pursuit of "the Black Boys," the Whigs would collect in bodies consisting of twenty-five or thirty, ready to pounce upon them if they had taken any of them. From the allurements held out to them to give themselves up, the boys, at one time, went to within a short distance of Hillsboro', to beg their pardon of the Governor (Tryon), but finding his intention, if he could get them into his hands, to have hanged every one of them, they returned and kept themselves concealed.
Thus we find in a region of country very little known in the history of the revolutionary struggle, that the spirit of liberty was cherished and matured ; the first to manifest itself in the Declaration of Independence, in the County of Mecklenburg, of which they were then a part. From that very neighborhood, delegates were sent to Charlotte on the 20th of May, 1775. In the transaction of burning the powder, those who were engaged (with the exception of Hadley and Ashmore, who were always cowards) gave their country a sure pledge of their attachment to the cause of liberty, which they faithfully redeemed, whenever their services were needed. Major James White, at the time the British lay in Charlotte, was continually annoying them. It was White who led the party on that memorable day when Col. Locke was overtaken and cut to pieces; and when Gen. Joseph Graham was also severely wounded. White rode a very fleet horse; he would ride near to the British forces, fire at them, and whenever they would sally out after him, he would put his horse, which he called Stono, to his speed, and outrun them.
John Phifer appears among those who assembled at Charlotte in May, 1775. The head of now a numerous and highly respectable family in Cabarrus, he was the devoted friend of liberty and his country. He was a member from Mecklenburg to "the general meeting of delegates of the inhabitants of the province, at Hillsboro, 21st August, 1775," with Thomas Polk, Waightstill Avery, James Houston, James Martin, and John McKnitt Alexander.
In 1776, he was a delegate with Robert Irvin, Zaccheus Wilson, Hezekiah Alexander, and Waightstill Avery, to the Convention at Halifax, which formed the State Constitution.
This place he resigned, and accepted the appointment of Lieutenant-Colonel of Volunteers. He filled an early grave. He was buried in Cabarrus; a rough slab covers his remains, now defaced and mutilated.* It is a tradition, that the British army, as they passed from Charlotte to Salisbury, built a fire on the tombstone, to show their hatred for his memory.
His descendants, John Phifer and Caleb Phifer, as will be seen, were often representatives from Cabarrus, and always sustained the reputation of honorable and faithful citizens.
John Phifer graduated at the University in 1799, was often a member of the General Assembly, influential and talented. He was for many years a ruling elder of the Presbyterian Church and died October 18th, 1845.
John Paul Barringer was born in Hanover, in Germany, on the 4th of June, 1721. He emigrated to this country, and settled first in Pennsylvania. He removed to this State before the Revolution. During our struggles, he sided with the friends of liberty. From his devotion to the cause, ho was taken prisoner, with others, by the Tories, and carried to Camden, South Carolina. He was, for a long time, kept in confinement, and was the only one who returned home. He died in Cabarrus, January 1st, , 1807.
His son, Gen. Daniel L. Barringer, now of Tennessee, lived for a long time in Wake County, where he married Miss White, grand-daughter of Governor Caswell. He represented Wake County in 1813, and from 1819 to 1822, in the House of Commons. He was elected a member of Congress, and served from 1826 to 1835. He removed to Tennessee, where he has been Speaker of the House of Representatives, in that State, where he now resides.
Another son, Gen. Paul Barringer, resided in Cabarrus. He was born in September, 1778. He had as good an education as the county afforded. He was fond of reading, and distinguished for his practical sense. He married Elizabeth Brandon, daughter of Matthew Brandon, of Rowan, a soldier of the Revolution, whose family were distinguished for the love of liberty. She died in 1848. He entered public life in 1806, as a member of the House of Commons, and was often afterwards a member of both branches of the Legislature. He died at an advanced age, at Lincolnton, in June, 1844. He left a family of nine children.
Daniel Moreau Barringer, now our Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Madrid, in Spain, was eldest. He was born in July, 1806. He was educated at our University; graduated in 1826; studied law with Chief Justice Ruffin; elected to the House of Commons in 1829, and served for several years; member of the Convention in 1835; elected to Congress in 1843, served continuously until 1849, when he was appointed by Gen. Z. Taylor, President of the United States, Envoy to Spain, where he now resides.
Dr. Charles Harris, of this county, was distinguished as a patriot, a soldier, and physician.
He was born in this county, when Mecklenburg, in 1763. While pursuing his studies at Charlotte, the invasion of the British caused him to exchange the gown for the sword. He joined the corps of cavalry under Colonel Davie, and was with that active officer in his brave and daring career. After the war was over he resumed his studies at Clio Academy, in Iredell. He commenced the study of medicine under Dr. Isaac Alexander, at Camden, S. C., and finished at Philadelphia. On his return he settled at Salisbury, and practiced with success; he then removed to Favoni, his seat in Cabarrus, where he ended his days.
Devoted to his profession, he was unrivaled as a physician and surgeon. His reputation was widely extended, and his skill and success justified this celebrity. He had a medical school, and instructed ninety three young men in the healing art. His temper was cheerful and his manner mild. He died Sept. 21, 1825. He left several children. William Shakespeare Harris, Esq., one of them, in 1836 represented Cabarrus in the House of Commons. I copy from his tombstone the following: "This monument is erected to perpetuate the memory of Charles Harris, M. D., born 23rd November, 1762; died 21st September, 1825, aged 63 years. Dr. Harris was engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery forty years; eminent in the former, in the latter preeminent. He was a man of extensive reading, of an acute inquisitive mind, friendly to all and beloved by all.
His heart entered deeply into the sufferings of his patients, mingling the medicine he administered with the feelings of a friend. He lived usefully, and died resignedly, and we humbly trust, through the sovereign virtue of the all-healing medicine of the Great Physician, he was prepared to rest in this tomb, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.
[Source: Historical sketches of North Carolina from 1584 to 1851; By John Hill Wheeler; Publ. 1851; Pgs.63-69; Transcribed for Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
