The Papers of Governor Locke Craig
A selection of nearly 600 documents from the papers of Governor Locke Craig, whose term spanned from 1913 to 1917.
History of Revolutionary War Pension Legislation
History of Revolutionary War Pension Legislation
State Pension Act of 1784
The North Carolina General Assembly granted pensions to disabled Revolutionary War veterans. It also granted smaller pensions to widows and orphans of deceased veterans.
Federal Pension Act of 1806
This act provided federal pensions to all disabled veterans, including those who served in the state militia and Continental Line.
Federal Pension Act of 1818
This act allowed lifetime pensions to Revolutionary War veterans who had served at least nine months in the federal army or navy. To qualify, applicants had to demonstrate a financial need.
Federal Pension Act of 1832
This act granted at least partial pensions to all men who had served six months or more in any unit. Veterans no longer had to prove a disability or financial need to qualify.
Federal Pension Act of 1836
This act made Revolutionary War widows eligible to receive their husbands' pensions provided that they were married prior to the end of the war and never remarried.
Federal Pension Act of 1838
This act granted a pension to Revolutionary War widows who were married before January 1, 1794.
Federal Pension Act of 1848
This act allowed pensions to all qualifying widows who had married their husbands prior to January 2, 1800.
Federal Pension Act of 1878
This act allowed pensions to all widows of men who had served at least 14 days during the war, regardless of the date of their marriage.
What Does a Pension Application Consist of?
Pension applications required that a widow prove her marriage, her husband's military service, and her good moral character.
A federal pension application for a veteran required that the man make an affidavit proving his military service and obtain additional affidavits from locals supporting his claims and attesting that the man was well-respected in the community.1 Widows had to provide the same documents and also prove that she had married the veteran when she claimed. The bulk of an application was made of affidavits, which had to answer a number of questions set by the pension office and be sworn and certified before the local court, a time-consuming and confusing process for many elderly widows. These affidavits were even more difficult to obtain if the widow had moved recently (and so was lesser known in her community) or was too infirm to attend court in person.2
Compiling all these application materials was complicated, especially for elderly widows who were often illiterate, unfamiliar with the legal system, and who may have found it difficult to leave their homes due to their health. Consequently, most widows employed a pension agent or lawyer who would help assemble an application for them, typically with the understanding that the agent would receive a commission if the pension claim was approved. Agents became advocates for their clients, doggedly pursuing claims on widows' behalves when widows were unable to navigate the complex application system on their own.
Newspaper article from the Nashville Union and American, 15 March 1853. By offering pension services with no upfront cost, firms like Smith and Jones helped Revolutionary War widows pursue their claims.
What were the Outcomes of Pension Applications?
Although many widows' claims were approved, others were rejected due to a lack of evidence.
The pension office rejected applications for a variety of reasons. Commonly, it was because applicants did not provide enough detail in their statements or because their evidence contained contradictions. In 1832 Thomas Robison applied for a pension based on his service in the Caswell County Regiment of the North Carolina Militia. Though Robison thought he served in 1781, service records showed that a "Thomas Robertson" served in 1779. Because Robison's statement and the service certificate were "so much at variance," the pension office rejected it. Later in her own claim, Robison's widow Mary tried to explain the error. She stated that her husband's "memory was almost lost" in his later years and he had likely suffered from some form of dementia. She assured the office that the service records were correct, but because she had no other affidavits to support her claim, the pension office rejected her.
Even a small technicality might be enough to delay or reject an application. In 1836 Rosana Murray applied for a pension based on her husband John B. Murray's service. However, no "John B. Murray" appeared in the military service records, only "John Murray." Given it was a common name and Rosana did not know the exact units or dates of her husband's service, the application was rejected. Only after two more tries was her pension finally approved in 1850, fourteen years later.
Rachel Debow's pension application. Her claim is noted as "am" or admitted. Courtesy of the National Archives.
Margaret Strozier's pension application. Her claim is stamped "Rejected." Courtesy of the National Archives.
Due to processing delays, some widows died before their claims were approved.
Some applications only took a couple months to process, but if the U.S. Pension Office determined that additional proof was needed, it might take years before a widow's pension was approved. And every widow did not always have years to wait. Lydia Ray first applied for a pension in 1837. In her application, she explained that her husband Joseph fell sick and died while on a furlough from the North Carolina Militia in 1780. Despite Lydia's claim that her husband died while he was in service, the pension office initially rejected her claim, arguing that his death was not classified as "in service," as he was on a furlough at the time. Moreover, Joseph had not served for at least three months in the militia, so Lydia did not qualify.
Lydia and her pension agent applied again in 1840, clarifying that Joseph had served a four-month tour in the North Carolina Light Dragoons in 1779. Therefore, Joseph had served enough time in the military prior to his death and Lydia was eligible for a pension even if they wanted to contest that her husband's death had not been while he was in service. The pension office delayed again, wanting additional proof of Joseph's dragoon service.
Finally in 1845 the pension office determined that they could approve Lydia's claim, but only if her agent proved the ninety-three-year-old was still alive. After the local county court clerk sent an affidavit proving Lydia was still living, the pension office approved her claim and issued a pension. Mail delays, however, meant that when the pension certificate arrived in December. It was too late, as Lydia had died just two weeks prior, unaware that she was ever recognized officially as a Revolutionary War widow.
What Can Pension Applications Reveal?
Pension records often contain the only extant record of a family's births and deaths.
To be eligible under the 1836 federal pension law, Revolutionary War widows needed to prove that they had married a veteran before his term of service ended. One way to do this was by sending an official marriage certificate. Still, some women had long since lost this certificate, and not all county courts kept matrimonial records during that period. In the absence of a marriage certificate, the U.S. Pension Office also accepted a family's record of births (sometimes called a bible record because it was often written in the family bible) as evidence to prove a couple's marriage date. Instead of a certified copy however, the pension office increasingly only accepted the original record, often torn straight out of the bible, in an attempt to mitigate fraud.3
Once a pension application was processed, the birth record was not returned to the family, but instead remained with the claim, eventually ending up in the National Archives. Today, these birth records are a valuable resource for researchers and genealogists, but they came at a cost. Many applicants had intended to pass their bible records down through multiple family generations as a treasured heirloom. Instead, the listings of birth, marriage, and death data all end at the time the pension application was submitted, divorcing later generations from their early family history. The original family records available in pension claims today stand as a testament to the sacrifices families made to make sure Revolutionary War widows received the support they needed.
Family records like the one Rosana Murray submitted with her pension application can provide researchers with valuable geneological information.
Applicants hid facts that hurt their claims, like previous divorces.
Because pension applicants wanted their claim to succeed, they may have hidden details about their life that made them ineligible, like a divorce. For example, Ruth Edwards, a Revolutionary War widow residing in Yancey County, may have obscured details about her divorce in her pension application.
Pension forms often never asked applicants directly if they had been divorced, as the practice was relatively uncommon. Prior to 1790, there were no formal laws or processes regarding divorce in the State of North Carolina. When a law passed in 1790, it required either spouse to file a petition directly with the North Carolina General Assembly, a daunting task few couples followed through with. Even then, the state granted its first legal divorce in 1794.4
Although Ruth and her husband John filed for a divorce with the Buncombe County court, they did not submit anything to the state legislature, meaning if they did separate, it was not technically legal. Whether their separation was legally official or not, by 1800 Ruth and John were listed separately on the Burke County census. Later, family tradition suggests that John went to live with his sister in Washington County, Tennessee, while Ruth only appeared on censuses in North Carolina.5 We can't know the true nature of the Edwards' marital arrangement, but their case does demonstrate how pension records can sometimes raise more questions than answers.
Many widows used the pension process to share many details about the entirety of their lives.
When some widows came before their local county courts to apply for a pension, they had a lifetime of experiences to share and a captive audience. Revolutionary war widows, many of whom were illiterate or otherwise left no personal papers themselves, used the pension application process as an early form of oral history.
Pension applications are illuminating not only for the descriptions of Revolutionary soldiers and their service histories, but the extra details that women added to their retelling. Rachel Debow, for example, talked about how she sowed oats in the field while her husband was away. Lydia Ray's pension application contained information about her career as a midwife after her husband died during the war, as well as an exasperated note from her lawyer to the pension office asking that the pension office approve her claim soon so that she would stop bothering him about her claim. While her lawyer may have found Lydia's pursuit of recognition irksome, the note now stands as a testament to how doggedly Lydia and countless other widows like her asserted themselves and demanded recognition for their wartime experiences.
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Even though it was not relevant to her wartime experiences, Lydia Ray's application includes information about the thirty years she spent as a rural midwife.
Special thanks to Riley Sutherland and Connie Schulz for their assistance with the inception of this topic.
- National Archives and Records Adminstration, Descriptive Pamphlet for Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, M804 (Washington, DC: NARA, 1974) 1-3; The National Archives' Prologue Magazine has published a variety of helpful articles highlighting the history of and various uses for the revolutionary pension claims in their collection. See Jean Nudd, "Using Revolutionary War Pension Files to Find Family Information," Prologue Magazine (Summer 2015) 47:2 https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2015/summer/rev-war-pensions.html (accessed 4 January 2023); Damani Davis, "The Rejection of Elizabeth Mason: The Case of a 'Free Colored' Revolutionary Widow," Prologue Magazine (Summer 2011) 43:2 https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/summer/mason.html (accessed 4 January 2024); Claire Pretchel-Kluskens, "Follow the Money: Tracking Revolutionary War Army Pension Payments," Prologue Magazine (Winter 2008) 40:4 https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2008/winter/follow-money.html (accessed 4 January 2024); Theodore J. Crackel, "Revolutionary War Pension Records and Patterns of American Mobility, 1780-1830," Prologue Magazine (Fall 1984) 16:3 https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1984/fall/pension-mobility.html (accessed 4 January 2024); Constance B. Schulz, "Revolutionary War Pension Applications: A Neglected Source for Social and Family History," Prologue Magazine 15 (Summer 1983): 103-114.
- Other works that discuss the early history of pension legislation include: Michael A. McDonnell and Briony Neilson, "Reclaiming a Revolutionary Past," Journal of the Early Republic 39:3 (Fall 2019), 467-502; John P. Resch, "Politics and Public Culture: The Revolutionary War Pension Act of 1818," Journal of the Early Republic 8:2 (Summer 1988), 139-158.
- Applicants and their families were sometimes hesitant to send in the originals of their family record, even if it meant a delay in their claim. In 1839 Huldah Hill's son William wrote to the U.S. Pension Commissioner stating that the government should accept the certified copy of the record he had sent instead. He wrote of the register, "it belongs to the family alone. I Shall keep my farthers register and hand it down in my family as he has done." Letter from William Hill Jr. to James L. Edwards. In 1840 when the pension office refused Huldah's pension due to the lack of an original register, William wrote again that "I think no respectable family will [send their original register], that I take it as an insult from your department to my family." Letter from William Hill Jr. to James L. Edwards, 9 October 1840. It was only in 1845 when they finally sent the original family record, and five years after Huldah Hill had died, that the pension office approved the Hill's claim. Affidavit of Jonathan J. Hill and William Hill in support of a Pension Claim for Huldah Hill, 24 April 1845.
- Cynthia Kierner, The Tory's Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2023) 128-131. In 1814 the state passed another law, moving the issue of divorce proceedings to the courts, rather than to the legislature.
- 1800 Census, Morgan, Buncombe County, North Carolina, National Archives M32, Roll 29, Page 167-168; 1830 Census, Buncombe County, North Carolina, National Archives M19, Roll 118, Page 284; Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society, "Edwards Family," OBCGS.com, https://www.obcgs.com/edwards-family/ (accessed 9 January 2024); Rob Neufeld, "Visiting Our Past: With the Constables in 1790s Buncombe County," Citizen-Times (Asheville, NC), 13 November 2016, https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2016/11/13/visiting-our-past-constables-1790s-buncombe-county/93671380/ (accessed 9 January 2024).
On the Homefront: Women as Family Guardians during the American Revolution
On the Homefront: Women as Family Guardians during the American Revolution
With men away in military service, the American Revolution highlighted how women protected and managed their households. In some ways, women were the very lifeblood of the newly emerging American society. They grew the crops that fed the army, nursed wounded and sick soldiers back to health, and sewed and washed the soldiers' uniforms. Moreover, while at home, they raised and educated their children all while keeping a watchful eye out for British troops or loyalists who might try to attack them and rob them of their property. Women became family guardians, protecting and caring not only for their children, but also their war-weary husbands, brothers, and fathers.
Rachel Debow
"She had to watch while her husband and Murphy slept they had their swords... and a gun a pair"
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Rachel Debow, 1 July 1837
Mary Robison
"Her Mother went to see her father in the army and take some Clothing to him"
-Affidavit of Agnes Johnson in support of a Pension Claim for Mary Robison, 17 February 1835
Milly Yarborough
"She prepard his Cloaths that her father made Nathan a pair of shoes"
-Affidavit of Milly Yarborough in support of a Pension Claim for Nathan Yarborough, 5 August 1833
The term "family guardian" is all encompassing, and refers to the variety of ways women supported their families. While many of the duties that women assumed were not new, the American Revolution compounded women's responsibilities in unique ways. Mary English, for example, married Thomas Robinson and immediately became the stepmother to six children. A stepparent caring for their children is not novel, but because of the war, Thomas almost immediately returned to the militia after their marriage, leaving his children under Mary's sole supervision. Similarly Milly Yarborough had frequently sewn and washed her brother Nathan's clothing, but when he joined the militia, she and her father also had to coordinate delivering fresh clothing, shoes, and foodstuffs to him as the militia travelled by, making sure he had ample supplies to see him through the war safely. In these ways and many others, North Carolina women saw their families through the many struggles of the Revolutionary era.
Engraving of a woman watching a large group of children. Courtesy of New York Public Library.
North Carolina Widows in Their Own Words
The Night Watch: Rachel Debow
It was a clear, crisp day in late March 1781 as Rachel Debow dusted her hands and looked over her plowed field in Caswell County. Earlier that week, she had sown the whole field full of oat seed. Normally her husband Frederick would have done the farming, but he was away serving in the militia and there was no telling when he'd be back. Rumor was that some large battle had happened in nearby Guilford County.1 The British had won and now part of their army was camped nearby, possibly at a tavern called the Red House.
Rachel Debow's signature. Courtesy of National Archives.
1808 Price and Strother map indicating the location of the Red House and Archibald Murphy's home. Courtesy of Library of Congress.
That evening, Rachel's husband Frederick and Major Archibald Murphy, her brother-in-law, appeared at the door. As she prepared meals and stoked the fire, Rachel asked them about the latest news from the Patriot army. The two men had stopped in to make sure she and the Debow children were okay, but the soldiers' presence also jeopardized Rachel and the children's safety, especially with several British patrols nearby. After the men finished their meals, they went to bed, each still clutching their officer's swords as they slept. Meanwhile, Rachel sat near their guns and kept watch through the night, ready to rouse her husband to defend their home should any British soldiers make their approach. Well-rested the next morning, the two men waved Rachel goodbye and set out to rejoin the American army.
While soldiers were out on tour, women like Rachel were also willing to defend their families. Whether their husbands were present or not, women had to be on constant alert for enemy soldiers who might try to seize their property. As their husbands and children were quietly asleep in their beds, women like Rachel took on the responsibility of seeing their families through the night.
Stepping in for Family: Mary Robison
Mary Robison's signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
When Mary English married Thomas Robison, she married into a family. The year prior, Thomas' first wife Rachel had died. Now as he marched off to join the Caswell County Militia, eighteen-year-old Mary found herself solely responsible for six stepchildren, including Agnes, who was five years Mary's junior, and Michael, an infant.
While Thomas was away in service, Mary travelled to meet him at his camp. Along with news from home, she probably brought him freshly laundered clothes and food. Meanwhile, Agnes watched her siblings, feeding her brother Michael bottles in her stepmother's absence.
While their husbands were away serving in the Patriot army, women often served as their children's primary caregivers. In cases such as Mary's, women became guardians not only for their own biological children, but for stepchildren they had just met. While men were drafted to serve, women also made sacrifices to ensure the family's children were well cared for.
Uniform in the Making: Milly Yarborough
In June 1781 Milly was at home in Chatham County when she spotted a man coming up the walk. Although the man was disheveled and soaked from the recent rains, Milly might have recognized the uniform he wore, as she had washed it by hand many times. The man was her older brother Nathan, who she'd last seen six months prior when he marched off into service as part of the North Carolina Militia.
As her father ushered Nathan in to warm up by the fire and recount tales of his recent adventures, Milly busied herself with making her brother something to eat, getting him a fresh set of clothes, and drying out his knapsack. While Milly washed the mud out of her brother's uniform, she might have thought about how she had sewn his uniform for him when he was first drafted, or how she and her father brought him freshly laundered shirts and new shoes to the Patriot camp at nearby Ramsey's Mill earlier that year.
Milly Yarborough's signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
American soldiers needed women like Milly to make, repair, and clean their clothes. The Patriot army often depended on camp followers (women who travelled with the army) to sew and launder their clothing.2 In other cases, men like Nathan who had family nearby might depend on their female relatives to do such tasks. Proper laundering was essential for keeping the army organized and free from disease. Moreover, it was women like Milly who helped take care of former soldiers once they were formally discharged from service.
- The battle in question was the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, fought on March 15, 1781. Although the British technically won the battle, it was a pyrrhic victory and the aftermath of the battle helped General Nathanael Greene and the American army dislodge British control of South Carolina. See "Guilford Courthouse: A Pivotal Battle in the War for Independence," National Parks Service, April 2023, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/upload/TwHP-Lessons_32guilford.pdf (accessed 18 December 2023).
- For more information about camp followers during the American Revolution, see Holly A. Mayer, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community during the American Revolution (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1996); Nancy K. Loane, Following the Drum: Women at the Valley Forge Encampment (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009); Heather K. Garrett, "Camp Followers, Nurses, Soldiers, and Spires: Women and Modern Memory of the Revolutionary War," History in the Making, 9:5 (2016) 1-36.
Free Women of Color during the American Revolution
Free Women of Color during the American Revolution
Contrary to our understanding of military policy in the 19th century, North Carolina's Patriot army was an integrated force. White men and free men of color served alongside one another with no distinction in pay or status.1 Prior to North Carolina revising its state constitution in 1835, all free adult men, regardless of race, were subject to the draft.2 The notion of the Patriot army in North Carolina being bureaucratically colorblind was so firmly entrenched that payrolls, discharges, and other military documents seldom made note of a soldier’s race. In many cases, it is only when veterans and their families later went to apply for a pension that primary sources actually indicate the soldier's racial identity.
While states such as South Carolina banned people of color from serving in the army and other states such as Rhode Island segregated their units, it was within the norm and was in fact expected for North Carolinian men to serve alongside one another. Some enslaved men served in the military as well, sometimes as a substitute for their enslavers or as part of an agreement that they would be freed for their service, though this was less common.3
Just as free men of color served in the American militiary, free women of color also made many sacrificies to keep their homes and families together during the war. Two such North Carolinians are Rachel Pettiford Locus and Nelly Evans Taburn.
Rachel Locus
"She is the Widow of Valentine Locus, who was a private Soldier in... the Revolutionary War"
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Rachel Locus, 24 May 1838
Nelly Taburn
"That she is the Widow of William Taburn Sr. who was a private in the No. Carolina Militia"
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Nelly Taburn, 26 May 1845
After the war, the Locuses, Taburns, and many other veteran families of color collected their bounty lands to which all veterans were entitled. However, despite their many contributions to the war effort, free people of color faced a mounting level of discrimination as time went on. Free women of color had never been allowed to vote, and the white delegates of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention revoked free men of color's voting rights in 1835. Moreover, though they had a right to petition the legislature, they could not testify in court against their white peers. This restriction posed an issue for many free people of color in their lives. For the Locus family, it meant they could not bring a suit against the white men who assaulted them and tried to kidnap and sell their children into slavery. These widows' stories are a testament to the many struggles free women of color in North Carolina had to overcome during the era of the early republic.4
Engraving of an African American woman. People of color participated in the American Revolution in ways similar to their white peers, whether as soldiers, farmers, or nurses. Courtesy of New York Public Library.
North Carolina Widows in Their Own Words
Keeping the Family Together: Rachel Locus
Despite Rachel Locus' identification as a free woman of color, her experience during the American Revolution was likely very similar to that of her white neighbors. For two years while her husband was away serving as a private in the Continental Line, Rachel cared for the children, grew crops, and managed their homestead. After her husband returned home, the Locuses eventually settled in Wake County, near Lick Creek.
The many struggles Rachel faced in her life only compounded after the American Revolution. One night in 1801, a group of white men burst into her home and abducted two of the Locus children, Absalom and Polly. During the invasion, the men also violently assaulted Rachel and her husband Valentine, "to such a Degree as scarcely to leave life."
Rachel Locus's signature. Courtesy of National Archives.
Article from the Weekly Raleigh Register, October 6, 1801.
The abductors likely intended to bring the children into the Deep South and sell them into slavery despite their status as free people of color. Even if they knew the kidnappers, the Locus' status as free people of color meant that they could not testify against the white criminals. Thankfully, after a tense night, Absalom and Polly were able to escape from their captors and find their way back to their parents' homestead. Sources indicate the criminals were never identified or charged for their crime. Rachel and Valentine appear to have made a full recovery following the assault. Still, the incident demonstrates how tenuous the Locus family's grip on freedom was.
After Valentine died in 1811, Rachel continued to raise her family of eight on her own. In 1838 she applied for a Revolutionary War widow's pension. After obtaining letters of support and other forms of proof of both her marriage and her husband's military service, Rachel's claim was approved. The difficulties of obtaining her pension did not stop there, however. In 1839 she wrote a letter to the Secretary of War, explaining that her pension agent, Thomas Edwards, had been collecting her pension on her behalf and keeping it for himself, effectively scamming her of her pension benefit. It was only when the federal government interceded on Rachel's behalf that she finally received the just entitlement of her claim as a Revolutionary War widow.
Struggle for Recognition: Nelly Taburn
Nelly Taburn's signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
Twenty-four-year-old Nelly Taburn was living in Granville County when the revolution started. Born free people of color, Nelly and her husband William participated in the war just as their white neighbors did. William was drafted for three separate terms of duty, spending over ten months away in service during the war. While William was away, Nelly grew crops and managed the growing Taburn family on their tract near Fishing Creek.5
When it came time for William (and later Nelly) to apply for a Revolutionary War pension, his application faced additional scrutiny which those of his white peers did not. Simply put, the U.S. Pension Commissioner did not believe that an African American man could have served along white soldiers during the war. It did not matter how many glowing affidavits of support the Taburns collected from officers and other soldiers Taburn served with, it was unfathomable to the commissioner that the North Carolina Militia was an integrated force. It was only after North Carolina's Secretary of State verified that free people of color were subject to the draft during the war that the Taburns' claim was processed successfully.
Nelly likely suffered many hardships as she aged. By the time William applied for a pension, he was "almost blind" and living in the county poorhouse, meaning that Nelly was unable to rely on him for support. After her husband's death in 1835, she likely lived with one of her children or another family member, as she does not appear on the 1840 census.
1776 Mouzon map indicating the location of Fishing Creek in Granville County.
- It is important to state that despite the colorblind nature of North Carolina's Revolutionary-era forces, people of color still faced a great deal of additional scrutiny because of their race. Although white and free African American men experienced equal treatment as privates, African American soldiers were far less likely to be promoted in rank, let alone receive officer's commissions. For more information about Black men's experiences in North Carolina as part of the Patriot army, see W. Trevor Freeman, "North Carolina's Black Patriots of the American Revolution," MA Thesis, East Carolina University, June 2020 https://thescholarship.ecu.edu/handle/10342/8572 (accessed 2 January 2024). For Black Patriots at large, see Judith L. Van Buskirk, Standing in Their Own Light: African American Patriots in the American Revolution (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017); Alan Gilbert, Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013); Gary Nash, The Forgotten Fifth: African Americans in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press, 2006); Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, NC: 1961); William Cooper Nell, The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (1855).
- Free men of color were briefly barred from enlisting in the North Carolina Militia in 1812. The law was repealed in 1814 and free men of color did serve in the state militia once again, albeit in segregated units or columns. Warren E. Milteer Jr., North Carolina's Free People of Color, 1715-1885 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2020) 56-7.
- Pension records suggest that a little over 400 men of color served in North Carolina Patriot forces. A larger amount may have served in the British army or used the war as an opportunity to self-emancipate. Freeman, "North Carolina's Black Patriots of the American Revolution," MA Thesis, East Carolina University. One enslaved North Carolinian who won emancipation due to his military service was Ned Griffin. See Jeffery Crowe, Black Experience in Revolutionary North Carolina (Raleigh: North Carolina Office of Archives and History, 1977) 100.
- For the case study of another free woman of color from North Carolina who struggled to obtain a widow's pension, see Damani Davis, "The Rejection of Elizabeth Mason: The Case of a 'Free Colored' Revolutionary Widow," Prologue Magazine (Summer 2011) 43:2 https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/summer/mason.html (accessed 4 January 2024).
- Granville County Land Grant Files, State Archives of North Carolina, S.108.718, No. 115, Frame 1115 https://nclandgrants.com/frame/?fdr=390&frm=443&mars=12.14.66.1178 (accessed 3 January 2024).
Seeking Shelter: Women as Refugees during the American Revolution
Seeking Shelter: Women as Refugees during the American Revolution
The tumultuous events of the American Revolution forced many people from their homes. Many thousands of American Indians and loyalists (both whites as well as people of color) lost their property as a result of the war.1 Yet when the tides of war turned towards British occupation, Patriots and their supporters also became refugees were also displaced from their homes and properties.
Two North Carolinian women who became refugees because of their Patriotic sympathies were Lucy Brown and Margaret Strozier. When the British approached, they, like many women, had no choice but to flee for their families' safety.
Lucy Brown
"Being small she was allowed to approach [where Col. Brown] was confined and to peep at him."
-Affidavit of Susan Wright in support of a Pension Claim for Lucy Brown, 3 April 1839
Margaret Strozier
"She fled with her family of little children through South Carolina, half begging & starving"
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Margaret Strozier, 1 February 1842
Refugees not only faced the physical loss of their homes and the rigors of an oftentimes dangerous evacuation, but also the dealt with a profound sense of loss and uncertainty about their futures. For Lucy Brown, she and her parents had to evacuate from Wilmington to her husband's estate thirty miles away. When her husband was captured as a prisoner of war, Lucy sent her younger sister to the jail to visit him, as it was not safe for her to go herself. Margaret Strozier had to leave her home in Georgia when a group of loyalists destroyed it out of retaliation for her husband's involvement in the local Patriot militia. Margaret then walked with her children through two states to reach her husband's army camp in present-day Tennessee. Both Lucy Brown and Margaret Strozier, as well as countless other North Carolina women, showed remarkable fortitude when faced with the decision of fleeing their homes and protecting their families.
Engraving of a woman leading two children on a journey. Courtesy of New York Public Library.
North Carolina Widows in Their Own Words
The Colonel's Wife: Lucy Brown
Raised a Quaker in Chester, Pennsylvania and later Wilmington, North Carolina, Lucy Bradley took a dramatic turn away from her pacifist roots in 1780 when she married Thomas Brown, a colonel of the nearby Bladen County Militia. While her husband was away in service, Lucy might have stayed at her parents' home in Wilmington along with at least two other sisters. It wasn't long, however, until the dangers of being a military wife struck close to home. About a year after their marriage, the British army marched into Wilmington and occupied the city. The wife of a prominent Patriot officer, Lucy and her family had to flee the city and moved onto Thomas' estate in Bladen County.
Lucy Brown's signature. Courtesy of National Archives.
1808 Price & Strother map indicating the location of General Brown's home in Bladen County. Courtesy of Library of Congress.
Later that month, Thomas Brown was severely wounded in the arm while leading an attempt to retake Wilmington. Though Lucy and her family tried their best to tend to his injuries, the colonel never regained use of his arm. That summer, Thomas Brown returned to his unit only to be captured by the British and imprisoned at the New Hanover County Courthouse in Wilmington, just a few blocks away from Lucy's father's home.
While her husband was a prisoner of war, Lucy Brown sent her younger sister Susan to check in on him. As a young girl aged eight or nine, Susan was innocent-looking enough that the British soldiers allowed her "to peep at" Colonel Brown through the prison bars and check on his welfare. When British forces left Wilmington in November 1781, Colonel Brown was freed and Lucy Brown's family finally returned to their homes in the city.
A Harsh Winter: Margaret Strozier
Margaret Strozier's signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
In December 1780 as she put her children in jackets, bundled up their meager belongings, and closed the door on the remains of her former home in Wilkes County, Georgia, Margaret Strozier might have contemplated what had brought her to this moment. Forty years old, she and her husband Peter had lived much of their lives in North Carolina. The couple moved to Georgia just prior to the American Revolution, likely in search of inexpensive land and better opportunities for their children. A couple of years later, Peter enlisted in a local militia regiment and from then on was away from home for most of the year.
While Peter was away fighting, Margaret too was an ardent Patriot and joined other local women in feeding hungry American troops. Her husband's service and her own outspoken activity hurt her however. When the British took nearby Augusta, Georgia, she found herself firmly in loyalist-held territory with no protection. The Strozier farm, she later recalled, "was broken up" by loyalists "and every thing of any consequence destroyed."2
Faced with the prospect of supporting her family through the winter without adequate food or shelter, Margaret determined that her best option would be to find her husband, who was still attached to the Patriot army in the North Carolina backcountry.3 Leaving their home in Georgia, Margaret and her children, including newborn John, trudged through South Carolina "half begging & half starving" before finally finding her husband, having walked more than one hundred miles. The Stroziers became camp followers, travelling with and supporting the Patriot army by cooking meals and doing laundry. Following the war, the Stroziers rebuilt their home in Georgia.
1796 Tanner map indicating the approximate location of the Strozier home in Wilkes County. Courtesy of Georgia Archives.
- Maya Jasonoff, Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (New York: Random House, 2011); Cassandra Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty (New York: Random House, 2007); Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980) 195-196.
- Charles C. Jones, Memorial History of Augusta, Georgia: From its Settlement in 1735 to the Close of the Eighteenth Century (Syracuse, NY: D. Mason & Co., 1890) 109. Patriot general Elijah Clarke failed to take Augusta in September 1780 and quickly retreated north through South Carolina to the North Carolina backcountry. As a form of retribution, British forces near Augusta began targeting anyone associated with Clarke's army, including noncombatants. As Peter Strozier was serving under General Clarke, the Strozier farm was one of about one hundred plantations and homesteads that the British destroyed. By staying in the area, even without their family farm, Margaret Strozier and her children might have faced additional dangers because her husband was a known Patriot.
- General Clarke's camp in the North Carolina backcountry was likely located in the region that later became Washington County, Tennessee. See Pension Application of John Waddill, 2 June 1854, (R10977), RG 15, National Archives; Wayne Lynch, "Elijah Clarke and the Georgia Refugees Fight British Domination," Journal of the American Revolution 15 September 2014 https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/09/elijah-clarke-and-the-georgia-refugees-fight-british-domination/ (accessed 29 December 2023)
Treating the Wounded: Women as Nurses during the American Revolution
Treating the Wounded: Women as Nurses during the American Revolution
During the American Revolution in the rural Carolinas, armies had far less support infrastructure than in the northern colonies. Rather than calling on a fleet of regimental surgeons, many army commanders relied on area physicians. After a battle, an army surgeon or a local doctor might face a flurry of wounded men from both sides demanding their attention. Further, the nature of 18th century medicine was such that wounded men would still have a long road to recovery. Supporting short-staffed doctors and tending the sick and wounded, thousands of women served as nurses.1
Susana Alexander
"Susan Alexander being Instrumental, in saving the life of Captian Joseph graham."
-Affidavit of John Allison in support of a Pension Claim for Susana Alexander, 21 September 1851
Margaret Kinder
"She went over... with a waggin... and braught home Peter Kinder who was wounded"
Huldah Hill
"Her brother the Capt. was shot with a ball broke his Collar bone & lodged in his Shoulder"
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Huldah Hill, 3 February 1838
Rosana Murray
"She went to Orangeburg where he was sick... to see... and take care of him."
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Rosana Murray, 30 October 1842
Lydia Ray
"After he entered the service her oldest child James Ray sickened and died."
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Lydia Ray, 10 February 1837
Mary Yarborough
"His mother came in afterwards & stayed with him until he got well."
-Affidavit of Thomas Yarborough in support of a Pension Claim for Mary Yarborough, 27 April 1852
Not only did women provide medical care, but they also served as advocates for their loved ones while they were in field hospitals, filling in where doctors could not. If loved ones received word that a relative had been wounded or fallen ill while in the army, male relatives often went out to find them. In rarer cases, wives or sisters left their homesteads and ventured out to look for their loved ones themselves. Margaret Kinder, for example, left her home in Virginia and crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains to find her husband, who had been wounded at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.
When men were able to return home on their own, their wives and sisters took on the primary responsibility of caring for them. After Mary Yarborough’s husband was shot in the spine during the Battle of Halifax, a British surgeon removed the bullet, but it was Mary’s duty to nurse her husband back to health. Similarly, Huldah Hill's brothers came home from the Battle of Beatti’s Bridge wounded. As she tended to their injuries, she learned her husband had sustained “several wounds on the head,” been captured by the British, and now needed her care as well. Women were not just caretakers of their own loved ones either. After the Battle of Charlotte, Susana Alexander sheltered her neighbor Capt. Joseph Graham, who had such a severe head wound that "some of his brains exuded."2
Engraving of a woman sitting by a sick man's bedside. Aside from parenting the children, women were also responsible for caring for sick or wounded family members. Courtesy of New York Public Library.
Through an informal system of cooperation, rural women helped the men in their communities recover from their war wounds and diseases. Below are examples of how some North Carolina women undertook new roles as nurses and nursing advocates during the Revolution.
North Carolina Widows in Their Own Words
Behind Enemy Lines: Susana Alexander
One morning in September 1780, Susana Alexander went to the Sugar Creek spring in Mecklenburg County. She needed water, but Susana approached the spring cautiously, unsure of who she might find. The day prior Patriot forces had fled when British troops invaded nearby Charlotte. Roving bands of enemy cavalry might be nearby. As Susana approached the spring, she found not a British officer, but an American one: Capt. Joseph Graham.
During the battle Captain Graham had led a group of cavalry in stalling the British dragoons while the remainder of the American army retreated to safety. In the course of that mission, British dragoons knocked Graham from his horse and wounded him severely, leaving him for dead. Mustering all his strength, Graham had dragged himself from the battlefield towards the spring, bloodied and semi-conscious.
Susana Alexander's signature. Courtesy of National Archives.
1776 Mouzon Map indicating the location of Sugar Creek.
Susana quickly sprang into action, putting Graham on her pony and bringing him back to her family's house, where she and her mother tended to him. They alerted Graham's men to their captain's condition and whereabouts, but the Alexanders worked in secret for fear the British might take Graham prisoner. Though they did their best to nurse him, the Alexanders worried Graham's multiple sabre and bullet wounds were mortal.
Due to Susana's efforts, Graham's men were able to evacuate him behind Patriot lines the next day. After several months recuperating, he rejoined the North Carolina Militia, attaining the rank of major. Even decades later, Major Graham credited Susana with saving his life—so much so, that Graham named his son William Alexander Graham, perhaps in Susana's honor. William Alexander Graham later fulfilled his family's debt and was instrumental in helping Susana receive recognition for saving his father's life and a pension.
Over the Blue Ridge: Margaret Kinder
Margaret Kinder's signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
Margaret Kinder was at her farm in Montgomery County, Virginia when she learned her husband Peter had been shot in the leg during the Battle of Guilford Courthouse and brought to Salem, North Carolina for treatment. Leaving her eighteen-month-old son George in the care of his aunt and a loyalist refugee who was living with her, Margaret and her brother-in-law Philip Kinder hitched a horse to a cart and started a one-hundred-mile journey over the Blue Ridge Mountains to bring Peter home.
Margaret was no stranger to long journeys. Seeking better opportunities outside of war-torn Palatinate Germany, Margaret's parents immigrated to Pennsylvania when she was nine. By age twenty, Margaret had found herself facing another war—the American Revolution—and she and Peter were trying to do their best to protect their son. Peter was a private in a local regiment of the Virginia Militia, but his unit left him in Salem when his wound made him unfit for travel.
In Salem, Peter's care was now left to a overburdened doctor who was unable to provide one-on-one treatment to his many patients. Not content to sit by and pray for his recovery, Margaret went to find Peter and ensure that he was receiving the best treatment. After making her way to Salem, a place Margaret had likely never been before, Margaret stayed with her husband and provided that vital nursing care herself.
Once he was stable enough, Margaret and Philip loaded Peter into a cart and began their return trip over the Blue Ridge Mountains to Virginia. Thanks to Margaret's care, Peter survived the war, living until 1809. Over sixty years after the event, people on Margaret's pension application recalled how remarkable Margaret's long journey to save her husband was.
A Military Family: Huldah Hill
Teenaged Huldah Jackson was living on her family's Anson County farm when a recent arrival from Halifax, John Hill, caught her eye. Huldah came from a prominent local family, with Huldah's father and oldest brother serving as local militia officers. When Huldah and John began courting, Huldah's father disapproved, likely because John was a new arrival and fifteen years Huldah's senior. Still Huldah and John wanted to be married. While her father was away in service, Huldah snuck away from her home to meet John, and they married in secret.
Huldah Hill's signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
1808 Price and Strother map indicating the approximate location of the Jackson and Hill homesteads. Courtesy of Library of Congress.
Although the Jacksons initially disapproved of the marriage, they welcomed John into the family, perhaps more than even John had intended. A few months after their marriage, John was drafted into the Anson County Militia, where he served with Huldah's two brothers under the command of John Jackson, his father-in-law.
John Hill and the Jackson men marched off into service leaving Huldah behind to manage her growing family. In August 1781 Huldah, with two babies under a year old, likely feared the worst when she learned that her two brothers had been seriously wounded and her husband captured at the Battle of Beatti's Bridge.
Her brother Jonathan was shot in the shoulder. The other, Isaac, was shot in the mouth, knocking out some of his teeth. When John Hill finally returned home on a parole from the British army, he too had a serious head injury. Huldah quickly devoted herself to tending to the men. Due to Huldah and the other Jackson women's nursing care, all three men made a recovery and survived the war.
Finding the Missing: Rosana Murray
Rosana Murray's signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
Rosana Murray was about eighteen when she married John B. Murray in Rowan County, North Carolina. Her husband soon joined the Patriot army, leaving Rosana to raise the couple's growing family. In July 1781, John fell sick while stationed in South Carolina and was unable to return home. Hearing of her husband's fate, Rosana left her three children (all under the age of four) in a loved one's care and went to Orangeburg to find her husband.
According to Rosana's later recollection, upon his arrival at the field hospital in South Carolina, John had been so poorly that doctors were unsure of his name or identity. When Rosana arrived she had to walk through rows of cots, trying to recognize her husband in the mass of wounded and sick men.
Rosana found her husband and provided him with nursing care until he recovered. She likely brought foods from home to feed him, changed his clothes, and gave him the comfort of a familiar face. Other soldiers, who were alone and more dependent on the doctor's periodic check-ins, might not have fared so well. John, due in great part to Rosana's attentions, made a full recovery and rejoined his family.
Two Funerals and a Baby: Lydia Ray
In the fall of 1780 in Orange County, Lydia Ray had more household duties than there were hours in the day. With her husband Joseph away in the militia and four children under age nine and a fifth on the way, Lydia managed the busy harvest season. Her brother and sister-in-law had recently moved into the Ray home after being harassed by loyalists, and they might have helped her bring crops into the barn or tend to the Ray's cattle herd.
Lydia's troubles compounded when her oldest son, James, fell sick. James deteriorated quickly, growing weaker and weaker. Lydia stayed by her son's bedside, willing him to recover. Yet, fearing the worst, she sent word to her husband telling him to return home as quickly as possible to see their son.
Lydia Ray's signature. Courtesy of National Archives.
1808 Price and Strother map indicating the approximate location of the Ray homestead. Courtesy of Library of Congress.
Leaving his regiment on a furlough, Joseph rushed home to see his sick son, getting there just before James died in late November or early December. In mourning, Joseph found himself unable to return to his regiment when he too fell sick, likely catching whatever illness James had. Lydia shifted from her son's bedside to her husband's. Hoping to give her husband time to recover, she paid a local man to serve as Joseph's substitute in the militia, meaning he would not have to serve out the remainder of his tour. Despite Lydia and the Ray family's nursing care, Joseph died by New Year's Day, 1781.
Tragedy struck the Ray home for a third time in February 1781 when the British army, en route to Guildford Courthouse, camped nearby. Although she resisted the soldiers' plundering her homestead and taking her cattle, Lydia had to prioritize her children's safety. Lydia gave birth to her fifth child that month while enemy troops still occupied her home. Lydia's son George later recalled that the British had stolen or destroyed nearly everything on their farm save Lydia's bed and nursery, another testament to Lydia's devotion to her family.
The War Comes Home: Mary Yarborough
Mary Yarborough's signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
After marrying Randolph Yarborough in March 1781, Mary Bailey moved from her family farm in southern Virginia to her husband's home in Halifax, North Carolina. The Yarborough’s honeymoon phase was cut short when General Charles Cornwallis and the British army marched into Halifax.
A private in the local militia, Randolph marched into battle while Mary fled into the countryside for safety. In attempting to defend the city, Randolph was shot in the chest, the bullet exiting near his spine. With Randolph's militia unit seriously outnumbered, the British occupied Halifax for several days.
A British surgeon extracted the bullet from Randolph's spine. Mary rushed back to Halifax and remained by her husband's bedside until he recovered. With no formal military hospital, the militia discharged Randolph when he was injured, leaving him to recover (or not) entirely independently. Randolph, like so many men wounded during the war, depended on his wife for nursing care. Despite the location of the wound, Randolph made a full recovery and rejoined the militia. Randolph carried a scar for the rest of his life, but it was a life he might not have had without Mary's nursing care.
- Ida Cohen Selavan, "Nurses in American History: The Revolution," American Journal of Nursing, 75:4 (April 1975) 592-594; "Healing Heroines," American Battlefield Trust, 7 September 2023 https://www.battlefields.org/learn/head-tilting-history/healing-heroines (accessed 10 January 2024); Blake McGready, "Abigal Hartman Rice, Revolutionary War Nurse," Journal of the American Revolution, 28 November 2016 https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/11/abigail-hartman-rice-revolutionary-war-nurse/ (accessed 10 January 2023).
- William A. Graham, General Joseph Graham and His Papers on North Carolina Revolutionary History (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1904) 64.
Sowing the Seeds: Women as Farmers during the American Revolution
Sowing the Seeds: Women as Farmers during the American Revolution
Some historians have called the American Revolution a “Farmer’s War” due to the many yeoman farmers and poor laborers who filled the ranks of the Patriot army.1 The concept of a “Farmer’s War,” however, should also highlight the critical role women played through their efforts planting, cultivating, and harvesting crops at home. This agrarian work at home was just as essential to the war effort as that of militiamen. While men were away in service, women’s efforts in the fields fed their own families and the Patriot army.
Mourning Davis
"She was thereby compelled... to complete and finish the cultivation of the growing crop."
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Mourning Davis, 4 September 1843
Rachel Debow
"She and her negro woman were endeavouring to sow oats it was in the Spring."
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Rachel Debow, 1 July 1837
Ruth Edwards
"She with the help of their little Children made two Crops during her husbands absence "
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Ruth Edwards, 31 October 1844
Anna Guest
"He does know that his Wife made the Crops... & did nearly all the work in the field."
-Application for a Veteran's Pension from William Guest, 9 March 1835
Sarah Jenkins
"She had to work in the field in her husbans place."
-Application for a Widow's Pension from Sarah Jenkins, 14 March 1842
Mary Yarborough
"She had to plow for her father while her Brother was in the army."
-Affidavit of Mary Yarborough in support of a Pension Claim for John Bailey, 20 June 1825
In respect of men’s duties at home during the harvest season, North Carolina Militia regiments often drafted men for a term of three or nine months. In reality, farming was a year-round obligation, and the many tasks of farm life could not wait for men to return home from the service to fulfill them.2 Women who had previously assisted in farm responsibilities alongside their husbands, brothers, and fathers now found themselves as independent farm managers with families, armies, and the American economy dependent on their success.
Although not subjected to military service, farming women were not immune from the threats of war. Women might carefully nurture a growing crop only for the army to appear at their doorstep at harvest time and seize it. Despite these many challenges, not only did women manage to keep their families and homesteads running, but they also cultivated and nurtured grain crops and livestock that fed the Patriot army.3 Through an informal system of cooperation, rural women relied on one another and managed their homesteads. Below are some examples of how some North Carolina women undertook new responsibilities on the farm during the Revolutionary War.
Engraving of a woman milking a cow. Aside from farming crops, women were also responsible for caring for the livestock. Courtesy of New York Public Library.
North Carolina Widows in Their Own Words
Called to Service: Mourning Davis
A resident of Johnston County, Mourning Pilkinton was about seventeen years old when she married John Davis in 1778. A year later when John enlisted in the 3rd North Carolina Regiment of the Continental Line, Mourning took on the responsibility of cultivating and harvesting their 300-acre plot of land.4 For the following two years, Mourning was the family farm manager, growing crops such as potatoes, carrots, squash, and cucumbers.
Mourning Davis' signature mark on her pension application. People who were otherwise illiterate often signed their documents with an X or a mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
Farming Under Fire: Rachel Debow
Rachel Debow's signature. Courtesy of National Archives.
Rachel Rogers was no stranger to managing a farm when she married Frederick Debow in Caswell County in 1777. Growing up in Orange County, Rachel had often participated in the yearly harvests at her parents' orchard, where the community gathered together to help pick apples and boil them into cider.
By the time her husband Frederick joined the service, Rachel was well prepared for the many duties of being a rural farmwife. In her pension application, she recalled how she and an unnamed African American woman she enslaved were sowing a crop of oats near Cane Creek when they heard the distinct sound of cannon fire in the distance, likely stemming from a skirmish around the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. Despite the sounds of violence in the distance, they continued to plant their crop, for there would be nothing to eat the following winter if they did not get the family's fields seeded soon enough.
A Family Affair: Ruth Edwards
Throughout the course of the American Revolution, Ruth Edwards' husband John was away performing military service for fifteen months. Unable to depend on her husband for support, Ruth found herself left at home with four children, one still an infant and the eldest no older than seven years old. In spite of her circumstances, Ruth made do and taught her oldest son William how to hold the plow while she directed the team of livestock. During John's absence, Ruth and her children seeded and harvested two years worth of crops.
Ruth Edwards' signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
Single Motherhood: Anna Guest
Anna Guest's signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
In 1780 Anna Guest found herself alone on her farm on the Yadkin River in Wilkes County. Holding Squire, her newborn infant, Anna had to tend to her growing crop through the spring and summer while her husband William was away in service with the Wilkes County Regiment of the North Carolina Militia. Although William came home occasionally, Anna frequently went without seeing him for months at a time. As Anna later reflected in her pension application, she "had to work and make a support... and do the best she could."
A Community Task: Sarah Jenkins
Prior to the war, the intensive nature of farm labor had often united many farm families within a community. When the time of year came for plowing or reaping, families like the Jenkinses and their neighbors helped one another in a spirit of cooperation, gathering together at each other’s homesteads to help thresh wheat or pick fruit from the orchards. These collaborative community networks became even more important during the American Revolution. While their husbands were away, neighborhood women like Sarah Jenkins assisted one another in the routine tasks of childrearing and farm maintenance. Not only was Sarah responsible for growing her own crops, but she also upheld her husband's promise that the Jenkinses would help tend to their neighbors' crops too.
Sarah Jenkins' signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
Filial Duty: Mary Yarborough
Mary Yarborough's signature mark. Courtesy of National Archives.
Mary Bailey was about seventeen when her older brother John came home with a soldier's uniform and told the family that he'd enlisted in the Continental Line. While John was away in service for the following three years, Mary's father depended on her to perform many kinds of manual labor on the farm including plowing the fields and harvesting the crops. All the while, Mary also helped care for her younger siblings.
When Mary married Randolph Yarborough in 1781, she moved to her own farmstead in Halifax County, North Carolina. There, she continued to assume a lead role in farm management while her husband was away in service and, later, recuperating from wounds he sustained during the war.
- Allan Kulikoff, From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000) 264.
- Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980) 36. Corn crops need thinning as they grow, and grain crops such as oats require processing after harvest time to preserve them. Even simple routine tasks such as watering, weeding, and removing pests from the crops all had to be done by hand, compounding the time needed. Ed Shultz, "Weedkiller," Colonial Williamsburg, 22 May 2021 https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/living-history/weedkiller/ (accessed 11 December 2023).
- In one case a North Carolina woman offered some American soldiers some food, only to find her home the scene of a skirmish when loyalist troops arrived and demanded the food from the hungry patriots. More commonly soldiers robbed defenseless families of their crops and livestock. Sometimes the military paid for the goods they seized, but merely with highly-inflated paper currency or with a promise to pay later, both of which were next to useless when women needed to feed their families. Cynthia Kierner, Southern Women in Revolution, 1776-1800: Personal and Political Narratives (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1998) 17-18; Kierner, The Tory's Wife: A Woman and Her Family in Revolutionary America (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2023) 154; Elizabeth Fries Ellet, Women of the Revolution (New York: Baker and Scribner, 1848) 1:16.
- Johnston County Land Grant Files, No. 2115, State Archives of North Carolina, S.108.754, frame 220 https://nclandgrants.com/frame/?fdr=956&frm=220&mars=12.14.78.2095 (accessed 12 December 2023).
In Their Own Words: North Carolina's Widows of the American Revolution
A collection of seventeen widows' pensions outlining the contributions of North Carolina women to the war effort during the American Revolution.
Nearly 250 years after the American Revolution, North Carolina women's contributions to the Patriot war effort remain little understood. Using pension applications, we can understand women's experiences during the War for Independence through their own words. The pensions in this exhibit are especially unusual, as they contain women's recollections not only about their husbands' wartime service, but also the widow's own actions during the war, whether it was in the role of farmer, nurse, refugee, or as a family guardian.
Today, these pension applications are a remarkable resource for researchers. Although these women were largely illiterate and do not often otherwise appear on the historical record, pension applications afforded them an opportunity to chronicle not only their wartime experiences, but the full breadth of their lives. Moreover, the complicated process of applying for a pension demonstrates the obstacles that women, and especially women of color, faced in obtaining due credit for their wartime contributions.
Keep Scrolling to Learn More
North Carolina's Women of the Revolution by the Numbers
Transcribed
Digitized
Most Common Person Mentioned
Farmers
Many North Carolinian women managed family farms during the war, feeding not only their families, but also the Patriot army.
Nurses
North Carolinian women dragged wounded men from the battlefield and helped others recover from illnesses and injuries.
Free Women of Color
White and African American soldiers served alongside each other in the North Carolina Militia. Free women of color also supported the war effort, maintaining their households while their husbands were away.
Refugees
When the war came to women's doorsteps, some women had no other choice but to flee from their homes, walking hundreds of miles with their children in search of safety.
Family Guardians
Women took on the full responsibility of maintaining and protecting their household during the war, often with little outside support.
Pension History
How do you read a pension? What sorts of information do revolutionary pensions contain, and what did women need to prove when applying for one?
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The illustrations of women used in this exhibit are from the Alexander Anderson Scrapbooks, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. New York Public Library Digital Collections. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/alexander-anderson-scrapbooks#/?tab=navigation (Accessed 12 December 2023)
The daguerreotypes and other early photographs of women used in the banner and icon for this exhibit are from public collections at the Library of Congress and the State Archives of North Carolina.
Early Life and Marriage
Thomas Walter Bickett was born in the small town of Monroe, North Carolina on February 28, 1869. His father, Thomas Winchester Bickett (1836–1882), was a physician and druggist who served the Confederacy as an assistant surgeon. Following the war, Dr. Bickett married Mary Ann Covington (1845–1900), and the couple settled in Monroe, where they had five children: Annie L. Ashcraft, Thomas Walter Bickett, Susie E. Bickett, Lillian E. Brewer, and Lawrence Covington Bickett.
Around 1877, Dr. Bickett’s health began to fail, and though the exact nature of his illness is unknown, it was severe enough that he gave up his physicians practice and shifted his full focus to his pharmacy business.1 Life continued this way for the Bicketts until July 1882, when at the age of forty-two, Dr. Bickett died from “paralysis.”2 The younger Thomas—who, as a boy, answered to the name of Walter—was just thirteen. How Dr. Bickett’s early death impacted the future governor remains unknown. Any surviving writings or correspondence that might betray his personal feelings on this chapter in his life have, so far, remained elusive.
Despite the loss of its patriarch and primary provider, the Bickett family seems to have comfortably supported itself via income derived from the ownership of property in Monroe.3 As a teenager, Walter earned extra money by working summers in cotton fields for twenty-five cents a day.4 In his free time, young Bickett preferred shooting marbles or swimming, “careing (sic) nothing for baseball or the rough sports of that day.”5 He attended and graduated from Monroe High School, where schoolmates were delighted by his clogging skills.6 A song and dance act he performed with his older sister Annie Bickett Ashcraft at a Monroe High commencement ceremony “brought down the house” and was remembered by classmates for decades.7
At seventeen, Bickett entered Wake Forest College, taking out notes (loans) to cover tuition. As a member of the Euzelian Literary Society, he gained a reputation as a strong and capable orator and could often be found with a stack of books the night before a debate. E. H. Austin, a college classmate and lifelong friend, characterized Bickett during this time as “studious, reserved and very ambitious.” “‘I am going to make something out of my life,’ he told me on one occasion,” recalled Austin, “and knowing of his ambition and determination…I have never been surprised at the progress he made in mounting the ladder of success.”8
Above: The earliest known portrait of Thomas W. Bickett, published in 1908. From The Franklin Times, 3 July 1908. Below: An 1895 advertisement for Bickett's new law office in Louisburg. From The Franklin Times, 11 January 1895.
Governor Thomas W. Bickett, Fannie Neal Yarborough Bickett, and William Y. Bickett, circa 1903. Courtesy State Archives of North Carolina.
Bickett's aunt, Elizabeth Andrews Covington, characterized him as “sunshine and good cheer personified.”9 Others remembered Bickett’s unparalleled devotion to his friends. Enoch W. Sikes, another Wake Forest classmate, described Bickett as “an appreciative friend who demanded nothing of me, who never embarrassed me, and in whose presence I felt free to express myself without the slightest hesitation.”10 Upon learning of Bickett’s death in December 1921, G. L. Jones mourned the loss of a dear friendship: “I feel that I have lost more than a friend—almost a brother, or even a father.”11
Graduating from Wake Forest in 1890, Bickett embarked on a brief career as a school teacher to repay his college debts before enrolling in the University of North Carolina to study law.12 Bickett passed the law exam in February 1893 and by 1895 had moved to Louisburg to open a law practice. By the following December, he had so well established himself there that he won election to serve as attorney for Franklin County.13
As Bickett developed his burgeoning law career, he likely caught the eye of a professionally driven, well educated, and ambitious local woman: Fannie Neal Yarborough. In August 1894, at age 24, Yarborough had completed her college studies and returned home to Louisburg to open a private school for girls with her cousin Edith Graham Yarborough.14 It is presumed Fannie had settled down a bit then, with the exception of small social trips and distant summer courses, and met Bickett while teaching in town, but the exact nature of the couple’s early courtship is currently unknown. Either way, by November of 1898, the two had determined to marry and did so on the 29th of that month.15
The Bickett’s marriage, from all available evidence, seems to have been a strong one. In his only surviving will—dated July 4, 1902, just over two years into married life—Bickett left for his children
the infinite riches of their mother’s love, for though they are young now and may not know it I want to tell them in this my last will and testament that their mother is the very noblest and sweetest woman in this world, and if they will walk in her ways they will be happy. I want this clause of my will read to my children once a year.
For Fannie herself, he left all his real and personal wealth and “my blessing for what she has done for me.”16
Their bond was undoubtedly tested when the couple suffered two devastating losses rather early in their marriage. Though their first born, a son named William Yarborough Bickett, lived to adulthood, their youngest two children did not. Thomas Walter Bickett, Jr. died at only eight months old in June 1902. Mary Covington Bickett, having reached fifteen months, died in September 1904. The immense grief caused by their premature deaths remained with Fannie for the rest of her life. In an interview decades later, William’s wife Sarah Cecile Meetze Bickett, recalled her mother-in-law often saying, “There are two kinds of mothers—the ones who have lost little babies, and the ones who have not.”17
Around the turn of the century, the Bicketts began to take on the burdens of public service. The future governor became an active member in the Democratic Party while Mrs. Bickett dedicated herself to the work of social groups and clubs, a common pursuit for women of her social standing at that time. The timing of their emergence into the political and social scenes of the day placed them right in the thick of an ascendant political campaign that would have far reaching consequences for American democracy: the white supremacy movements of 1898 and 1900.
Fannie Neal Yarborough Bickett (1870–1941) was impressive in her own right. After graduating from St. Mary's in Raleigh, Bickett attended the University of Chicago and pursued study at the University of North Carolina. She returned to school later in life, studying law at Wake Forest College and passing the state bar at the age of sixty. Learn more about Fannie Bickett on NCpedia!
1. Proceedings of the North Carolina Pharmaceutical Association, at its Third Annual Meeting, Held at Winston, N.C., August 9th and 10th, 1882 (Wilmington, N.C.: S. G. Hall, Book and Job Printer, 1882), 13-14.
2. Secondhand information provided to a reporter at the time of Governor Bickett’s death in 1921 indicated that he believed he would die as his father and uncle had, from “paralysis.” Most likely this is a reference to a stroke. “Former Governor Bickett Suffers Stroke Paralysis; Little Hope for Recovery,” News and Observer (Raleigh), 28 December 1921. A childhood friend later recounted that Dr. Bickett died from typhoid fever. “Brief Biography of War Governor,” Monroe Journal, 30 April 1940.
3. “The Snow Storm at Monroe,” Wilmington Morning Star, 8 December 1886.
4. “Monroe Reminiscences of Ex-Governor T. W. Bickett,” Charlotte Observer, 30 December 1921.
5. “Bickett Entered College the Day of Charleston Earthquake,” Monroe Journal, 30 December 1921.
6. “Monroe Reminiscences of Ex-Governor T. W. Bickett,” Charlotte Observer, 30 December 1921.
7. “Bickett’s Love for ‘Sweet Union,’” Monroe Journal, 30 December 1921.
8. “Bickett Entered College the Day of Charleston Earthquake,” Monroe Journal, 30 December 1921.
9. Letter from Elizabeth Andrews Covington to Fannie Neal Yarborough Bickett, January 12, 1922; PC.216, Box 10, Folder “Correspondence 1921 Sympathy, Tributes;” Mrs. Thomas W. Bickett Papers, 1917-1922; State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.
10. “Brooks Tells of Bickett’s Dream,” News and Observer (Raleigh), 30 December 1921.
11. “Intimate Friend Speaks a Tribute,” Asheville Citizen, 29 December 1921.
12. “Bickett Entered College the Day of Charleston Earthquake,” Monroe Journal, 30 December 1921.
13. “Licensed to Practice Law,” News and Observer (Raleigh), 5 February 1893; “County Commissioners,” The Franklin Times (Louisburg), 11 December 1896.
14. “Select Private School,” advertisement, The Franklin Times, 20 July 1894.
15. “Wedding Bells,” The Franklin Times, 2 December 1898.
16. Thomas W. Bickett, will dated July 4, 1902. Ancestry.com. North Carolina, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
17. Interview with Sarah Cecile Meetze Bickett, “First Ladies Project Papers,” Jeanelle Coulter Moore Papers (PC.1751), State Archives of North Carolina.
Launching a Political Career
Unable to secure political power within the framework of the American democratic system, white North Carolina Democrats resorted to intimidation, terrorism, and legal chicanery to wrench control of state government from the fusionists—a biracial coalition of Populists and Republicans.1 A barbaric white terrorist organization known as the Red Shirts embarked on a campaign of unbridled violence to prevent fusionist voters, especially Black men, from participating in the 1898 election cycle.2 Anti-fusion bloodlust peaked in Wilmington on November 10 when white supremacists murdered dozens of Black citizens and took control of city government at gunpoint.3
White supremacist forces successfully gained control of the state legislature in 1899 and immediately set about disenfranchising Black men via an amendment to the state constitution—one that would enact new requirements for voting, namely passage of a literacy test and payment of a poll tax.4 Prominent Democrats throughout the state rallied around the proposal and worked to solidify public support in favor of it. In May 1900, Thomas W. Bickett joined dozens of prominent North Carolina attorneys in publishing a statement in support of the amendment plan.5 That summer, he became more directly involved with the pro-amendment campaign by joining J. Bryan Grimes on a speaking tour of various “white supremacy clubs” and Democratic Party gatherings in the state.
Members of the terrorist organization the Red Shirts wore red tunics to signify their affiliation with the group. Courtesy North Carolina Museum of History.
Members of an armed terrorist organization known as the Red Shirts pose outside of a polling station, circa 1898. Courtesy State Archives of North Carolina.
Reflecting the state’s larger views on race at the time, white public opinion of Bickett’s efforts was overwhelmingly positive. At one such address, the future governor “got the best of the argument,” Raleigh’s Morning Post reported, “and the WHITE men of the crowd were delighted with the day’s work for the cause of white supremacy.”6 A “White Supremacy Club” in Franklinton welcomed Bickett as its first speaker and was similarly pleased with his skillful presentation on “political issues of the day”—a thinly veiled reference to the suffrage amendment.7 At Black Jack, a small community in Pitt County, Bickett “preached to them pure Democracy and White Supremacy” for two hours, turning the crowd—which reportedly included “mounted Red Shirts”—decidedly in favor of “White Supremacy” and the suffrage amendment.8
These efforts paid off for white Democrats. Put before the voters on August 2, 1900, the amendment passed with ease.9 Black North Carolinians wouldn’t have their suffrage rights restored until the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.10
After quietly practicing law in Louisburg for several years, Bickett determined to run for public office and, in May 1906, announced his intention to run for Franklin County’s seat in the North Carolina House of Representatives. His lengthy, published appeal to the voters placed special emphasis on his desire to increase funding for both public education and for the care of those who struggled with mental illness, issues that would become part of his campaign platform for governor a decade later.11 Franklin Countians must have liked what they had read—Bickett easily won the seat and travelled to Raleigh in January 1907 to join the General Assembly.
During his single term in the legislature, Bickett served as chair of the Committee on Insane Asylums and as a member of the committees for the judiciary, insurance, education, appropriations, and salaries and fees. Outside of his committee work, Bickett championed a failing effort to pass a bill that required lobbyists to register with the Secretary of State.12 A host of other bills introduced by Bickett and relating strictly to Franklin County—ranging from prohibition measures to school bonds to river cleanliness—faired far better and secured relatively easy passage by the assembly.13
Perhaps his greatest legislative achievement, however, was the creation of and successful campaign for the passage of a half-million-dollar appropriation in support of public health, the largest amount ever authorized for said purpose up to that point.14 Known informally as “the Bickett bill,” the act established a state hospital commission and entrusted the group with identifying, funding, and overseeing desperately-needed improvements to the state’s hospitals.15
Over the course of his political career, Thomas W. Bickett held the following offices:
- Attorney for Franklin County
- Member of the General Assembly (1907–1908)
- Attorney General (1909–1917)
- Governor (1917–1921)
This is how the Capitol appeared to Bickett when he arrived to take his seat in the state house of representatives in 1907. Courtesy State Archives of North Carolina.
Bickett’s monumental efforts to secure passage of the “Bickett bill” had certainly caught the interest of the press, but it wasn’t until the Democratic convention of 1908 that Bickett grabbed the attention of the electorate. His speech nominating Confederate veteran Ashley Horne for Democratic gubernatorial candidate was characterized as “the hit of the convention.”16 With only one term of service in the state legislature under his belt, the charismatic lawyer was considered a relative political nobody, a “new man” on the convention floor.17 Nevertheless, his rousing speech for Horne had “caught the ear of the convention and the ear of the state,” resulting in his stunning—shocking, even—emergence as the Democratic candidate for attorney general.18 Almost overnight, Bickett’s was a household name.
By early 1913, Democrats were considering Bickett’s potential to serve as the next governor of the state, an office that wasn’t to be filled by election for four more years. His popularity among the people couldn’t be ignored. When Bickett was called to take the oath of office as attorney general for Gov. Locke Craig’s administration on January 15, 1913, an “outburst of applause…broke with great energy” from the crowd of five thousand.19 A man in the gallery showed his enthusiasm more conspicuously, standing to shout, “There’s the next governor of the state.”20
1. James L. Hunt, “Fusion of Republicans and Populists,” NCpedia, https://www.ncpedia.org/fusion-republicans-and-populists, accessed July 13, 2023.
2. James L. Hunt, “Red Shirts,” NCpedia, https://www.ncpedia.org/red-shirts, accessed July 18, 2023.
3. Timothy B. Tyson, “The Ghosts of 1898: Wilmington’s Race Riot and the Rise of White Supremacy,” News and Observer (Raleigh), 17 November 2006.
4. James L. Hunt, “Disfranchisement,” NCpedia, https://www.ncpedia.org/disfranchisement, accessed August 8, 2023.
5. “The Franchise Amendment,” The Wilmington Messenger, 27 May 1900.
6. “The Other Fellow Skinned,” The Morning Post (Raleigh), 29 May 1900; “Tar Drops,” The Franklin Times (Louisburg), 1 June 1900.
7. The Franklin Times (Louisburg), 24 June 1900. Bickett addressed White Supremacy Clubs and Democratic Party gatherings on the subject of the amendment in Henderson, Louisburg, Centreville, Clifton’s Mill, Wize, Warrenton, Stokes, Grifton, and Oxford.
8. “Bryan Grimes’ Home: 2,500 People Greet Him and Mr. T. W. Bickett,” The News and Observer (Raleigh), 22 July 1900; “Black Jackers,” King’s Weekly (Greenville), 24 July 1900.
9. James L. Hunt, “Disfranchisement,” NCpedia, https://www.ncpedia.org/disfranchisement, accessed August 8, 2023.
10. “Voting Rights Act (1965),” Milestone Documents, National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act, accessed October 3, 2023.
11. “T. W. Bickett a Candidate for the House,” The Franklin Times, 25 May 1906.
12. “The General Assembly,” The Franklin Times, 18 January 1907.
13. “Mr. Bickett in the Legislature,” The Franklin Times, 22 March 1907.
14. “T. W. Bickett: Member of the House of Representatives from Franklin County,” The Franklin Times, 29 March 1907.
15. “New Commissions Named,” Greensboro Patriot, 20 March 1907.
16. “Without a Parallel in Democracy’s Past,” News and Observer (Raleigh), 28 June 1908.
17. News and Observer (Raleigh), 25 June 1908.
18. “Hon. T. W. Bickett,” North Carolinian (Raleigh), 02 July 1908.
19. “A Prophecy: Attorney General Bickett for the Next Governor,” Durham Herald, 16 January 1913; “New Governor Dedicates All to Native State,” News and Observer (Raleigh), 16 January 1913.
20. “A Prophecy: Attorney General Bickett for the Next Governor,” Durham Herald, 16 January 1913.