recently published, treated the whole matter as a hoax.* The publication of this letter, shortly after the decease of the writer, created considerable excitement in North. Carolina, and particularly among the descendants of the revolutionary patriots of Mecklenburg county. Measures were finally taken by the legislature of the state to collate and arrange the documents relating to the Mecklenburg declaration, with such other testimony having reference to the subject as might be obtained. These were published under the direction of Governor Stokes, in 1831; and by them, and other publications which have subsequently appeared, the authenticity of the Mecklenburg proceedings is established beyond cavil or doubt.†

Mr. Jefferson was certainly mistaken. It can no longer be questioned that the citizens of Mecklenburg county were the first to declare their independence, as the province itself was the first to empower her delegates in Congress "to concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring Independency." But it is unnecessary to calumniate the memory of Mr. Jefferson in order to render justice to North Carolina, as has been done by one of her writers. He was in error,-honestly so, as the playful tone of his letter to Mr. Adams most conclusively shows. The truth can harm no man; and that will not deprive him of one of his laurels, or detract in aught from his well-earned fame.

* Jefferson's Works, vol. iv. p. 314.

† Mecklenburg Declaration and Accompanying Documents, published under the authority of the General Assembly of North Carolina, Raleigh, 1831; Jones' Defence, p. 294, et seq.; Foote's Sketches, p. 33, et seq.; ibid., p. 204, et seq.

Journal of the Provincial Congress, (Raleigh, 1831,) p. 12. § See Introduction to Jones' Defence.

Among the most active participants in the Mecklenburg proceedings, were THOMAS POLK and EZEKIEL POLK, the former of whom resided in the immediate vicinity of Charlotte, and the latter in the neighboring province of South Carolina, just over the border. They, with other prominent and influential men, appeared to take the lead in the movement, and their opinions and their action had great weight with their fellow-citizens.* "Tradition ascribes to Thomas Polk the principal agency in bringing about the Declaration ;" and it is said that an old resident of North Carolina, a Scotchman, being asked if he knew anything in relation to the matter, replied “ Och, aye, TAM POLK declared Independence lang before anybody else!”‡

The two Polks were brothers; and the Alexanders, the chairman and clerk of the Mecklenburg meeting, and Dr. Brevard, the author of the resolutions, were their near relatives. Thomas Polk was the great uncle, and Ezekiel Polk the grandfather, of JAMES K. POLK, the late President of the United States. The founder of the Polk family in America was Robert Polk. His ancestors were of Scotch origin. They were among the colonists who settled in Ireland, and the family name is obviously the Irish corruption of Pollock. Robert Polk was born in Ireland, and was the fifth son of Robert Polk the elder, a native of the same country, who married Magdalen Tusker, the heiress of a considerable estate.

Robert Polk, the younger, married a Miss Gullet, by

* Mecklenburg Declaration and Accompanying Documents, p. 16.

† Jones' Defence, p. 295.

Mecklenburg Declaration, &c., p. 26.

whom he had several children; and among them were Thomas and Ezekiel Polk. Soon after his marriageprobably between 1735 and 1740-he removed to America with others of the Scotch Irish immigrants, and established himself in Somerset County, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Some of his descendants are still to be found in that state; and they were known for many years, in Somerset, as the republican, or democratic family, because they were the only persons in the county occupying prominent positions in society, whose political sentiments were of that complexion. Other members of the family, including Thomas, Ezekiel, and Charles Polk, followed the current of emigration which swept onward to the base of the Alleghanies, and located temporarily in the neighborhood of Carlisle, in Pennsylvania. From thence the three brothers, Thomas, Ezekiel, and Charles, removed to the southwestern frontier of North Carolina, about the year 1750, and settled in the county of Mecklenburg, then a part of Anson county, in the rich champaign country watered on the one hand by the noble Yadkin, and on the other by the romantic Catawba. Ezekiel subsequently changed his residence to South Carolina.

The citizens of Mecklenburg county were not unmindful of the pledges they had given, mutually among each other, to maintain, at every hazard, the independence which they had declared; and when the tide of war rolled thitherward, and their borders were harried with fire and sword, they remained firm and steadfast in their adherence to the cause they had espoused. In the contest for independence the Polks were especially conspicuous.

Thomas being the eldest, he was naturally looked up to as the head of the family, and was put forward more prominently: he was a delegate to the Provincial Congress, colonel of the second battalion of minute-men raised in Salisbury district, the commanding officer of the militia of Mecklenburg county, and afterwards colonel of the fourth North Carolina regiment in the Continental service. But Ezekiel was not a whit behind his brother in zeal and devotion; his support of the cause was as earnest and disinterested, his attachment to it as honest and sincere. In May, 1775, he received a captain's commission from the authorities of South Carolina, upon the recommendation of the Provincial Congress, and immediately thereafter raised a volunteer company of Rangers, who were employed against the Cherokee Indians and the Tories. So faithfully did he execute the duties required of him, that he became particularly obnoxious to the latter, and when the country was overrun by Cornwallis and his troops, he found it necessary to "take protection," in order to save himself, his family and his property, from their vengeance.

Charlotte and the adjacent country had long been regarded by the British officers in command at the South, as the harboring-place of "traitors and rebels ;" and when the Whigs of the lower counties in the two Carolinas were forced to flee before the myrmidons of Rawdon and Tarleton, they were sure to be welcomed here with open hands and hearts. After the disastrous battle of Camden, in 1780, Lord Cornwallis established the headquarters of his army at Charlotte, which he termed the "hornet's nest," and "the hotbed of rebellion." He

quartered his troops in the dwellings of its inhabitants, and fed them on the provisions and supplies forcibly taken from their stores.

A dark cloud seemed at this moment to obscure the fortunes of America. Nearly all the states south of the Potomac were overrun by the royal troops, and their Tory allies were murdering and pillaging with impunity. "The British army was chiefly subsisted by plundering the Whigs, and a system of confiscation was adopted to transfer their real estate to their Tory neighbors by forced sales, the meagre proceeds of which went into the military chest. Stimulated by revenge and encouraged by example, it is not surprising that the Tories filled the country with rapine and blood. The farms of Whigs supposed to be in arms, were ravaged, their houses rifled and burned, and their wives and children turned out to perish, or subsist on charity, which dared not let the left hand know what the right hand did, lest it should be punished as a crime. If a husband and father ventured to look after his houseless flock, he was waylaid and murdered. Prisoners were hanged or shot down in cold blood, and even members of the same families became the unrelenting executioners of each other. * * The laws were literally silent, and there were no courts to protect property or punish crime. Men hunted each other like beasts of prey, and the savages were outdone in cruelties to the living and indignities on the dead."*

It was in this hour of gloom, that many of the best and truest patriots in the land "took protection," as it was

* Kendall's Life of Jackson, pp. 42, 44.