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Griffith Rutherford in Revolutionary North Carolina James Matthew Am C Donald Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College

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Griffith Rutherford in Revolutionary North Carolina James Matthew Am C Donald Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2006 Politics of the personal in the old north state: Griffith Rutherford in Revolutionary North Carolina James Matthew aM c Donald Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Mac Donald, James Matthew, "Politics of the personal in the old north state: Griffith Rutherford in Revolutionary North Carolina" (2006). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3625. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3625 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. POLITICS OF THE PERSONAL IN THE OLD NORTH STATE: GRIFFITH RUTHERFORD IN REVOLUTIONARY NORTH CAROLINA A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In The Department of History By James M. Mac Donald B.A., University of Delaware, 1995 M.A., Appalachian State University, 1997 May, 2006 To My Parents ii Acknowledgments I would like to thank my committee for their support and suggestions during the writing of my dissertation. As a student, I had the good fortune of taking seminars with each member beginning with my first graduate class at LSU. Mark Thompson became director late in the course of the project and generously agreed to chair the committee during the last semester. Dr. Thompson provided sage advice and helped keep me on task with chapter submissions. This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Diane Mac Donald and the late John Mac Donald. During my childhood, our family vacation destinations read like a roll call of famous historical places in the northeast. From the Freedom Trail in Boston to Colonial Williamsburg, our summer adventures aboard the station wagon encouraged my curiosity. Somewhere in between my car ride lectures about the Yorktown campaign and scene setting talks on Cemetery Ridge, they must have realized they created a monster. My wife Anna Tapia endured long months of rarely seeing her husband emerge from his cabinet with the exception of taking meals. Her perceptive inquiries about Rutherford’s life helped me clarify points throughout the dissertation. Anna’s steadfast patience and sense of humor helps create an oasis of sanity in our home. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………..…iii Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………v Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter One Early Life…………………………………………………………………….....11 Chapter Two A Primer in Politics……………………………………………………………..35 Chapter Three The Cherokee Expedition……………………………………………………....64 Chapter Four Creating the State of North Carolina…………………………………………...95 Chapter Five The Revolution Comes to North Carolina………………………………….....112 Chapter Six Fighting the “Imps From Hell”………………………………………………..138 Conclusion On To Tennessee……………………………………………………………...170 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………....185 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………..198 iv Abstract In the annals of North Carolina history, few figures stand out more than Griffith Rutherford. An orphan when he arrived in the new world, Rutherford settled in the North Carolina backcountry two decades before the American Revolution. Almost immediately he ascended a social and economic ladder in Rowan County in his service as a soldier and elected assemblyman. A consummate “fixer” during his military career, Rutherford continually rushed to scenes when a Loyalist insurrections or party of marauding Indians threatened the state. As a militia general during the Revolution he was responsible for the defense of the entire western quadrant of the state. When he was not engaging insurgents or leading an army into Cherokee villages, Rutherford served in several elected offices. His first came during the 1766 Regulator insurrection that disrupted North Carolina. After helping draft the state constitution in 1776, Rutherford served in the state Senate, a post he held in between military campaigns that took him to Georgia and South Carolina. This dissertation is the story of how Rutherford, in spite of his humble origins, eventually became one of the most prominent men in his state. Though the information about his life is often scant, enough can be gleaned to utilize Rutherford as an example of a rapidly ascending backcountry figure. By taking full advantage of the opportunities and connections afforded him, Rutherford illustrates how late colonial North Carolina was a place where rapid advancement could take place. Rutherford proved unusual, however, in the way he combined politics and military service at various times in his life. On several occasions, Rutherford underwent a grueling military campaign and upon his return quickly jumped in the current political v debate. His experience in one service always affected the other and shaped his decisions as a militia officer and as an elected official. Though he lacked the legal or formal education of many of his contemporaries, Rutherford earned the respect and sometimes rage of the individuals who helped secure and create the state of North Carolina. vi Introduction Along Route 74 in Rutherford County in North Carolina, a highway sign marks the location of Fort Hampton. The marker, not far from my family’s home in the foothills, is one of many reminders of a bygone colonial frontier. Fort Hampton served as an outpost of defense against loyalists, British troops, and Native Americans in the Carolina wilderness. Driving on Interstate 40 east of Asheville, one can see an exit sign marking the spot of Old Fort, at one point the farthest reach of colonial settlement in North Carolina. During the opening days of the Revolution, it became a rallying point for displaced settlers during the Cherokee War of 1776. Moving toward Asheville near route 25, among strip malls and fast food restaurants, one can find another series of markers indicating the location of “Rutherford’s Trace.” In these locations, the signs simply read that “The expedition led by Gen. Griffith Rutherford against the Cherokee, Sept. 1776, passed here.”1 Highway markers are some of the only reminders left from the life of Griffith Rutherford. They are scattered in what was once the frontier of the colony of North Carolina. One such marker identifies the location where his home stood just outside Salisbury in Rowan County. Others, located in western counties near the border of Tennessee, indicate the places where his militia force went into the woods to attack Cherokee settlements in 1776. Although little else of Griffith Rutherford’s legacy remains visible in contemporary North Carolina, he was one of the most important people in the history of the colony. 1 Michael Hill ed., Guide to North Carolina Highway Historical Markers (Raleigh: Division of Archives, 1990), 180,181, 191. 1 An orphan when he landed in the New World, he arrived in the colony in his early thirties. Within a short time, he purchased significant tracts of land, married, and started a family. War on the frontier provided him another opportunity to advance as an officer in the army. In time Rutherford used this military notoriety to initiate a political career. As an elected representative Rutherford served first in the colonial assembly and later in the revolutionary government of North Carolina. Later, his fame as an officer helped him reach the highest echelons of power. In that capacity Rutherford shaped policies in his state. For the biographer, Griffith Rutherford poses a host of challenges. His family background is cloaked in mythology and conjecture. Almost nothing is known about his first thirty years of life. Early histories of the state portray him as a Daniel Boone type, the quintessential mountain man who dabbled in politics and saved the western part of the state from annihilation when the Cherokee attacked in 1776. Some contemporaries liked to think of him as an undereducated annoyance, often playing to policies that his western constituents would approve of. Of his military skills, one loyalist called him “a perfect savage.” To one historian of the state, he was “by far the most important military man during our Revolutionary struggle in North Carolina.”2 During his life Rutherford rarely failed to tell people what he thought. And for our twenty-first century sensibilities he definitely would not win humanitarian awards. He owned other people in order to make his existence more comfortable. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War he led a column of militia that decimated Cherokee Indian towns in the mountains of North Carolina. The campaign was marked by looting, 2 Robert Gray, “Observations on the War in Carolina,” in John Rhodehamel ed. The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence (New York: Library of America, 2001), 766; Samuel A. Ashe, Biographical History of North Carolina (Greensboro, NC: Charles L. Van Noppen, 1905), 2: 381. 2 scalping and shooting unarmed men. After returning to the legislature, Rutherford began a legislative crusade against Loyalists in the state. To him, they were traitors; Rutherford failed to see any reason to keep allegiance to the King of
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