1754 - A Colonial Officer - 1773 :—^AND- His Times Alfred Moore Waddell THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA THE COLLECTION OF NORTH CAROLINIANA CB Wllw C.5 UNIVERSITY OF N.C AT CHAPEL HILL 00032690865 FOR USE ONLY IN THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION Form No. A- 368 -^ 7 C_r7f.(B .^ X^f-rfC^ This book is due on the last date stamped below unless recalled sooner. It may be renewed only once and must be brought to ^ 4- A COLONIAL OFFICER AND HIS TIMES, 1754-1773. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH GEN. HUGH WADDELL, NORTH CAROLINA. WITH NOTICES OF THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR IN THE SOUTHERN COLONIES ; THE RESISTANCE TO THE STAMP ACT IN NORTH CAROLINA (wiTH COPIES OF ORIGI- NAL DOCUMENTS NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED) ; THE REGULATORS' WAR ; AND AN HIS- TORICAL SKETCH OF THE FORMER TOWN OF BRUNSWICK, ON THE CAPE FEAR RIVER. BY ALFRED MOORE WADDELL. RALEIGH, N. C: Edwards & Broughton, Publishers. i8qo. Copyright 1885 by A. M. Waddell. 4 £-L^-t .f^lirtr^i^'^'-"^ '^ ^in4f\^ --fer-/^^<^^ ^ /^ 4 J:^ ^.^c_(l_ TO THE MEMORY OF MV GOOD AND GIFTED FATHER, WHO BORE, WITH ADDED HONORS, THE NAME HUGH WADDELL, THESE PAGES ARE REVERENTLY DEDICATED. [From Gov. Tryon's Letter-Book.] No. 59. Lord HilLvSborough : NewbERN, 28th January, 1771. The death of Mr. Heron and Mr. Eustace McCulloh's resignation of his seat in Council, making two vacancies in his Majest3^'s Coun- cil of this Province, I take the liberty to recom- mend for the King's nomination the three* following gentlemen as properly qualified to sit at that Board, viz : Colonel Hugh Waddell, Mr. Marmaduke Jones, and Sir Nathaniel Dukinfield. Colonel Waddell had the honor to see 3-our Lordship about two years since in Kngland. He honorabl}^ distinguished himself last war while he commanded the provincials of this Province against the Cherokee Indians, pos- sesses an easy fortune, and is in much esteem as a gentleman of honor and spirit. '•' '•' '•' *NoTE BY THE Author. — In all cases of vacancy in the Council, three names were forwarded from which a selection was made. PREFACE. To any one in possession of material, how- ever small, which, if published, would prove to be of historical value, the exhortation of Car- lyle, "Were it but the infinitessimalest frac- tion of a product, produce it," nia}^ well be addressed; and to none with more propriety than to a North Carolinian. The meagreness of the early public records of North Carolina, and the carelessness with which the history of the State has been written, have long been complained of b}- the historians of the United States, and have caused almost every notable and creditable event in that history' to be doubted or denied. Nor has this neglect been remedied by biographical literature, for—ex- cepting McRee's "Life and Correspondence of James Iredell," Caruthers's "Life of Cald- well," and Hubbard's " Life of General Wil- liam R. Davie"—no volume aspiring to the title of a biography has ever been published of a North Carolinian, as such. The lives of 6 PREFACE. some natives of the State—the three Presidents^ Jackson, Polk and Johnson, for example—have been written, but these lives were passed out of the State, and were not identified with her history. We are almost as destitute of that sort of literature concerning our distinguished dead as we are of statues or monuments to their memor3^ The volumes of Colonial Records, recently obtained in England under an Act of the General Assembly, and now being published under the intelligent super- vision of Secretary of State Saunders, will supply the long-desired material, and will, doubtless, stimulate some student to the patri- otic task of writing a history which will be worthy of the State. This little book, which is intended for North Carolina readers, and cannot be expected to have much circulation beyond tlie limits of the State, is accurate, if nothing else; and, while purporting to be merely a very imperfect biographical sketch of General Hugh Waddell, gives some information in regard to men and PREFACE. 7 events in the Colony between the years 1754 and 1773 which is not familiar to most readers. A sense of duty, stimulated by the expres- sions of regret in which several writers have indulged, that no sketch of General Waddell had ever appeared, prompted me to undertake it, notwithstanding the difficulties to be en- countered. There was ample material for his biography in his letters, papers, and official correspond- ence, which had been carefully preserved by his son, and which would have thrown light on the events occurring in the Province and elsewhere during the interesting period in which he lived, but the very means adopted to give value to this material resulted in a total loss of it. His son loaned it to Dr. Hugh Williamson, who had been a member of Con- gress before, at the time of, and subsequent to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and who was then (about the year 1800) writing a history of North Carolina in New York ; but although the most strenuous efforts were made to recover the papers after Dr. Williamson's 8 PREFACE. death in 1819, they could not be found, and all trace of them was lost. He not only failed to preserve and return them, as he promised to do, but made very little use of them in his two queer and unsatisfactor}' volumes. Dr. Williamson, although a man of culture and integrity, was ver}^ careless and eccentric, as his whole career proves, and while his his- tory contains some facts not elsewhere to be found, and is marked in some passages by vigor and elegance of style, he betrays his Keltic origin in the climax, and concludes his work by a long, elaborate, and utterly irrele- vant dissertation on fevers. Alfred Moore Waddell. Wilmington, N. C, January, 18.S9. — CONTENTS. PAGE. Preface 5 lutroductory 11 Letter of Tryou to Lord Hillsborough 4 CHAPTER L 1754—1757. GENERAL HUGH WADDELL. Born in Ireland—His Father's Duel and Flight to America Arrival of Young Waddell in America— Enters Military Service as Lieutenant in 1754—Makes Treaties with Indians and Builds Fort Dobbs— Military Service from 1754 to 1758 —A Vindication of Colonel James Innes and the North Carolina Troops in the Campaign of 1754 25 CHAPTER II. 1758— 1764. Forbes's Expedition to F'ort Du Quesne—Major Waddell Com- mands the North Carolina Troops—Sergeant John Rogers Return of North Carolina Troops and Expedition Against the Cherokees—Waddell Promoted to Colonelcy —Peace Declared —End of Dobbs's Administration —Notice of the Dobbs Family 55 CHAPTER III. 1765- Tryon Becomes Governor—His Character and Conduct—The Stamp Act—Arrival of Sloop of War Diligence at Bruns- wick—Colonel W^addell, with Colonel Ashe and others, Resists the Landing of the Stamps 73 lO CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. 1768— 1771. The Regulators' War—Its Origin and History —General Wad- dell's Connection with it 130 CHAPTER V. The Social Life of the Colony—Marriage of General Waddell— His Civil Services—Family—Death— Will— Conclusion of Biography 181 CHAPTER VI. Historical Sketch of Former Town of Brunswick 204 Appendix 235 NTRODUCTORY. The American Colonies in the Early Part of the Eighteenth Century—Their Trade, Population and Government—The French War—Settlements in North Carolina—Condition of the Province at the Beginning of Dobbs's Administra- tion in 1754. The contest between European powers for supremacy iu America, which began with the first settlements in the country, did not assume serious proportions until towards the middle of the eighteenth centurj^, when the increasing trade and population of the New World and the vast possibilities which its future promised, attracted the attention and excited the cupidity of those powers. In the year 1755, the strug- gle between France and England, which, because of the exhaustion of both parties, had temporarily ceased with the Treat\^ of Peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, was renewed b}^ France with increased vigor, not only in Europe, but also in India and America. On this continent she claimed the valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, and under- took to hem in all the English settlements by a series of fortifications, and to den\' to the settlers the right to cross the Alleghany Moun- tians. In pursuance of her purpose, after 12 INTRODUCTORY. securing the Northern frontier by a chain of posts extending from Canada along the lakes and rivers to the back of those settlements, she had, as early as the month of January, 1753, seized an English truck-house in the Twigtwees nation, and carried the traders as prisoners to Canada ; and in the latter, part of that year she built Fort Du Quesne on the Ohio, and erected another fortification on the headwaters of the Alabama river—meantime practicing the shrewdest diplomacy in concili- ating and making treaties with all the Indian tribes from Canada to Louisiana. A new life seemed to be infused into the administration of French interests at home and abroad, while the condition of England was, for once in her history, well-nigh pitiable. Imbecility marked her counsels, and disaster followed her arms. After the miserable failure of Braddock's expe- dition against Fort Du Quesne in 1755, which even the butchery in w^hich it ended could scarcely save from universal ridicule, and at the close of the year, when the alliance between England and Prussia was made, there were, according to a reliable authorit}^,'-' but three *Newcastle's "preparations for the great struggle before him may be guessed, from the fact that there were but three regiments fit for service in England at the beginning of 1756.'' Green's Short History, page 716.