Duncan Stewart in North Carolina as the Revolution approached.
1763 is given as the date of the approach of the American Revolution: Chapter 12: The Approach of the American Revolution, 1763-1775. by Hugh Talmage Lefler in his history of North Carolina.[1] So Duncan’s childhood is spent in this time leading to the revolution.
Duncan was born in 1763 along with his twin James. He was the second/third son of William Stewart and Janette Stewart. We know nothing of his childhood. His father was a well-to-do man with land and slaves plus mills as noted in his will. But we do know that a lot was going on in the colonies and in North Carolina at this time leading up to the Revolution.
Most of the 17th century settlers of North Carolina come from England but the 18th century saw Scotch-Irish, Germans and Scottish Highlanders who had no inherited affection for English institutions, policies, or laws and who manifested a spirit of independence. The basic principal on which English colonization was grounded was mercantilism but the half century after 1713 was one of neglect by the crown and the colonies had been allowed to go their own ways. To cope with new problems as western lands, Indians, defense, and war debts resulting from England’s victory over France in 1763, England inaugurated its new Colonial Policy. To achieve more effective control of its old colonies and four new ones (Quebec, East and West Florida, and Grenada) the Grenville ministry decided to keep a standing army in the colonies, tighten the mercantile system by stricter enforcement of the old trade laws and by the enactment of new laws. The impact of this fell less heavily on North Carolina than most colonies.
Parliament in 1765 passed the Stamp Act, the first direct or internal tax levied by Parliament on the colonies. North Carolina along with the other colonies resisted. Maurice Moore, a North Carolinian, published in 1765 “one of the ablest literary attacks on the British theory of taxation and representation.” The first significant demonstration against the Stamp Act in North Carolina occurred at Wilmington on October 19 when about five hundred people assembled and hanged the effigy of Lord Bute whom they incorrectly blamed for the passage of the law. On October 31, Halloween, the day before the Stamp Act was to become effective, another large Wilmington crowd marched to the doleful music of the muffled town bell and a drum draped in mourning toward the churchyard for the burial of an effigy of Liberty carried in a coffin. At the grave a final examination revealed a faint pulse-beat in the effigy. Rejoicing that Liberty still lived, the crowd bore the effigy to a large bonfire, placed it comfortably in an armchair, and spent the evening celebrating. On February 18,1776 a meeting in Wilmington of “the principal gentlemen, freeholders, and inhabitants” of several counties of the Province elected leaders and signed an agreement that “We will at any risqué…unite…in preventing entirely the operation of the Stamp Act.” The next day several hundred armed patriots marched to Brunswick and posted a guard around the governor’s residence. On February 20 with reinforcements up to a thousand men now, they boarded the Viper and compelled the captain to release the seized merchant vessels that had been taken because of the lack of stamps on their clearance papers. The following day a large armed group went to the governor’s house to secure Comptroller Pennington who had taken refuge there. The standoff was defused when Pennington resigned his office and went with the men and took an oath to not issue stamped paper. The men them returned to their homes in Brunswick, New Hanover, Duplin, and Bladen counties in triumph. Where any of the Stewarts involved? They could hardly not have known of the local actions in the lower Cape Fear.
After the repeal in 1770 of the opposed Townshend Act[2] of 1767 there was an interval of calm for the next three years.
In 1773 Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts on a southern tour spent a night with Cornelius Harnett of New Hanover County. They were promoting a continental correspondence for communication and common action when needed. And in December of that year the North Carolina assembly created its first Committee of Correspondence. Duncan is now ten years old and certainly hearing of the rumbles of discontent.
The Tea Act of 1773 also led to the famous Boston Tea Party in December 1773. North Carolina had its own “tea party” but not so close to the Cape Fear. The ladies of Edenton in northeast North Carolina met in what has been called the earliest known instance of political activity on the part of women in the colonies.
In May 1774, Providence and the committees of correspondence in New York and Philadelphia suggested a general congress of the colonies. North Carolina Governor Josiah Martin (who succeeded William Tryon in 1771) refused to summon the legislature. A mass meeting was held in Wilmington in July and invited delegates to New Bern in August. Thirty of the thirty-six counties and four of the six borough towns elected delegates. They met and elected delegates to the congress. The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia September 8-October 26, 1774. They adopted the Continental Association, a complete non-importation, non-exportation, non-consumption agreement which would be enforced by a Committee of Safety in each colony. Duncan Stewart, who would later be very political and hold several elected offices, could not be uninterested in these political events even if he was only eleven.
Governor Martin tried to stem the tide of revolution and summoned the assembly to meet in New Bern on April 4, 1775. The patriots called for a Second Provincial
Congress to meet at the same place on April 3. The composition of the two bodies was almost identical. They adopted a general declaration of rights, “Resolved, that his Majesty’s subjects have an undoubted right at any time to meet and petition the Throne for a redress of grievances, and that such rights include a further right of appointing delegates for such purposes and therefore that the Governor’s proclamation issued to forbid this meeting and his proclamation afterwards commanding the meeting to disperse are illegal and an infringement of our just rights and therefore ought to be disregarded as wanton and arbitrary exertion of power.” The assembly approved the Continental Association, endorsed the actions of the Continental Congress and approved the reelection of the North Carolina delegates. Governor Martin dissolved the assembly—the last royal assembly that ever met in North Carolina. A member of this assembly was Duncan Stewart’s future father-in-law, Tignal Jones as a deputy from Wake County.[3]
On April 19, 1775 the battles of Lexington and Concord fired “the shot heard round the world.” War had come.
In 1774 and 1775 eighteen counties and four towns of North Carolina set up safety committees. The Wilmington-New Hanover committee regulated trade by seizing British cargoes, fixing the price of imported goods, urging all merchants not to sell or export gunpowder, and calling on all householders in Wilmington to sign the association. The most significant action of a safety committee was in Mecklenburg County in May 1775. When the meeting held in Charlotte on May 20 declared the citizens of that county “a free and independent people” word spread throughout the state.
Also in May, Governor Martin, fearful of the rumors of plans of the New Bern committee to seize the palace, fled to Fort Johnson on the Cape Fear. When he heard reports of plans of the Wilmington and New Hanover committees to attack the fort, he took refuge in the British ship, Cruzier, lying offshore. On July 18, 1775 the militia and minutemen did indeed burn the fort. 300 Bladen County militia were involved in the capture of Fort Johnson.[4]
A convention assembled at Hillsborough on August 21, 1775 representing every county and town. The body resolved that since Governor Martin had “deserted” the colony, it was necessary to establish a temporary government. The chief concern of the Hillsborough Congress was preparation for war. Two regiments were authorized for the Continental Line. Six battalions of minutemen were also authorized.[5]
Duncan and his twin were twelve. His father was old, in his sixties or older. None of these would be likely candidates for soldiers at this time. However, Duncan’s older half brother Patrick Stewart was noted to be one of the minutemen.
[1] The
History of a Southern State North Carolina by Hugh Talmage Lefler and Albert
Ray Newsome, Third Ed. 1973.
[2] It put
all royal governors on the civil list by providing that part of the revenues to
be derived from the taxes would be applied to the salaries of royal governors
and judges.
[3] A
Defence of the Revolutionary History of the State of NC by Joseph Seawell Jones
[4] Years of
History by CE Crawford, a limited history of Bladen Co. 1987.
[5] The
History of a Southern State, pp. 191-210
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