Newspapers / The State’s Voice (Dunn, … / Sept. 1, 1933, edition 1 / Page 1
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HtBST OKIiEGB USMM% i^BRARY A PAPER FOR THINKING PEOPLE DUNN, N. C., SEPTEMBER 1, 1B33. NUMBER 16 VOL. I, &rv BeloW 1# an article, or communication, from Dr. Geo. W. Paschal, in which a protest is made against the Voice’s grouping most of the Regulators who re mained in the Alamance section as Tories during the1 Revolution. Ag I have already- ascribed to Doctor 'Paschal.the highest standing among North Corolina, historians. I can only submit gracefully to his correc tion. Capt Ashe and .other historians stand similarly ■* corrected, unless they can bring authority for the us vttal classification. • > ‘ T v x ’ Doctor Paschal not only knows North Carolina his tory in general, but being reared in the Regulator sec-. tion must have made even a more intense study. of r the subject at issue than of most of the North Caro lina historical subjects. Just as the writer has al v ways been interested in Moore's Creek Bridge history because of the fact that ancestors lived near the bat tle ground. Dr. Paschal has been similarly interested, in the history of the Regulation. I could not pretend to match my knowledge of the matter with his. Ac cordingly, I here attach his communication with the '•< assurance thatit deserves the respectful consideration ; of the historically-minded of the state. . However, as said inthe the article criticised, the Regulators could not much have been hlamd if they had failed to cast in their lot with the Revolutionary leaders who had formerly harassed them under the Try on regime, just as the Highlanders, oath-bound af ter Culloden. are not to be-blamed for mustering un- ' der the royal banner. Below is Dr. Paschal’s article: . dear Peterson: ‘ I-have read your article in the last issue of the State’s Voice in which you state-that Regulators he« few- of -almost every other class except In FrankHn and Warren became Tories, hut I should -like to see any evidence that-would show that the Regulators as a class became Tories. Captain Ashe indeed says , time t and again that the Regulators became Tories, repeat ing the} stories whieh the men- of the Wilming ton section used in their efforts to excuse themselves for having shot the Regulators down on the field of Alamance and afterwards trampling down tl^eir fields ! bf wheat and clover and burning their houses and taking1 their corn and .wheat and cattle, proving van dals as bad as ever plundered enemy cities in Europe. But .neither Captain Ashe.nor any one else has given any evidence to show that the Regulators as a class or any great number of them became Tories. They show indeed that the Regulators appreciated the justice that Governor Josiah Martin, after inves tigation, accorded them—a something that some of the Cape Fear writerg of to-day are not willing to ac-! - cord them. 80 long as the Regulators thought the issue*was between Martin and1 tli© men who had fol lowed Tryon and obeyed his orders to burn their field* i they showed that they were friends of Martin. Bfe fore the battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge a few of them, ' about fifty from Chatham County, possibly a hundred from Guilford, none from Orange, assembled in Moore County and some of them marched to Fayetteville ; but the greater number returned home when they *" found tha^fhe fight was to be not to protect Martin but to shoot down Patriots. It is said that some . hundred or two Regulators were in the vicinity when the battle was fought at Moore's Creek, but probably ' • the greater number of these had never seen Alamance and were from Anson County. It Was the Scotch -Highlanders who fought for the at Moore’s Creek. .-n,-;.,:; : 4i . Cornwallis Disappointed f After this where is there any evidence that any great nnmber of the Regulators -were anything else .; but Patriots'? Governor Martin kept telling Cornwal , y8 that the Regulators were only waiting for Corn wallis and Martin to come to their section to giva \ them their support. But fn this Martin was mistak en. Cornwallis says that he did not get a hundred recruits in all the Regulator Country. There were many more Tories in the western part of the State, -fhose who fought their neighbors at Ramsaur’s. Mill and at King’s Mountain, but they were not Regular tors. Then again consider the families of Chatham which was the center of the Regulator movement. The v pyles and the Dowds and part of the Edwardses, an^ '.gome of the Darka^nd Peopleses were Tories. Rut ... ail my ancestors were Jm|th Regulators ami Whigs. their names appearing on the Regulator list® found' • fan the Colonial Records. They utere. the Brays and and the Welshes.. Then there, were the Joneses, the Dorsetts, the Hackneys, the.Cheeks, the Alstons, the Teagues, the Headens, the Brookses, the Wilcoxes who can be shown to be both Regulators and Patriots. In the Revolutionary Wjar the Ore Hill mines and fur naces were used to make arms fro the Patriots. Hoes anybody suppose that such a plant could have been maintained in a Tory district ? Tradition is uniform that only the riff-raff were Tories; the great num bers of the people who had been Regulators, almost to a man, were also Patriots, if there is any reliance to be placed on.traditon. Here is another proof: The landholders of Chatham County generally kept theij lands undisturbed after the wftr; mj ancestors, one of them a man who sued Fanning in the Hillsboro Court, were getting grants of lands during the period of the war from the State government. ' . /, - Governor Martin Undeceived 7 In my View it is pure maligning the Regulators to Jay that they became Tories; Caruthers and other early writers, on pun North Carolina history had a different view;.it is only the apologists for the men t Who helped Tryon to hang and quarter and draw men ’ like Pugh and Merritt who in recent years aeeept the | word of Martin that the Regulators were loyalists; even Martin knew bettejr before he had got hack^to : Wiliningtou after the battle of Guilford Court-House' i David Fanning was a Tory .but he was not a Regu lator. He was hardly from the Regulator countrv, j his home being in the part of Moore or Randolph hear i High Falls, and not in Chatham County as it is now. Fanning always regarded Chatham county as Whig, territory. • • : ' ij. But i| you hive any evidence that the Regulators Were- Tories I should like to see if. Cornwallis > thought Mlartin had fooled him in saying that they. ' • I enjoyed very mnch your account of Elisabethtown, y v In fact, I enjoy all you write. ... . Truly yours, ... , / G. W. PASCHAH Wake Forest, August 25. , .. . . Two weeks ago I’was accost©# in Glarkton by la dies In a car and asked if the unveiling of the Shad raeh Wooten monument was takings place in Clark . ton that day. I informed them that I did not know, but would be-glad to find out Inquiry discovered the location as Western Prong- Baptist church, seven The ladies and the yWtfcg mart driving were Wootens, hailing from Georgia They had come from Kinston that day, but had been misdirected and were late. I was urged to go too and followed. 'But we had missed the big dinner and the fine paper read by Mrs. J. A. Brown, herself not of Wooten descent bnt acquainted with many of the family, both in; Colum bos and in Lenoir and other sections. Having asked Dr. J. Y. Joyner, present as one of the-distinguished . descendants of Sbadrach' Wooten.' whose monument was unveiled in the churchyard that day, for some of the leading points in the family history, I was referred to Mrs. Brown, who loaned me her 'manu script, from which'the following information and in some cases direct quotations are taken* ^; The Wootens In England I myself have long been acquainted -with members of this family. FOr forty years I knew Rev. Frank Wooten, Baptist minister and for years superintend ent of the Columbus county schobls, and his good wife, the former Miss M’attie Thompson; daughter of Dr. Thompson, of the Cahetuck section, covering pant of Pender and Bladen. The latter was present. I knew Rev. —.'—; Wooten, an Episcopal minister who preached' ocasionally at Burgaw forty years ago. Now I know Rev. J. C. Wooten, the M. E. pre siding elder, and conclude that, while the family is predominantly Baptist, the preachers have covered a wide denominational area. And I find in Mrs.'. Brown’s paper that Rer. Nicholas Wooten wa* dean of Canterbury Cathedral, away back in thte old days of England. The family seems innatelyl religious. The Wootens derive from Boughton, Malherby in Kent. There Thomas Wooten once entertained Queen Elizabeth and her court, possibly including Sir, Wal ter Raleigh. The Virgin Queen offered knighthood ■ to this Thomas Woofen. who for thirty years had served her" in various governmental capacities, 'but the independent old fellow declined the honor with thanks. This early Wooten is described as a , man of great learning, religion, and wealth. His Son, however, was not so high-flatted and condescended to be knighted by James 1. A daughter of this Lord Thomas Wooten, Catherine, married Lord Stanhope, and was created a countess for life by Charles II. Woolens Dr; Thomas Wooten came oyer as surgeon, or phy giciani to the Jamestown Colony* He Is thought to Mve been the fourth son of the Thomas wBo declin ed Knighthood, and therefore brother to Lord Thom as Wooten. It has been impossible to find documen tary evidence that Dr. Wooten is the founder of ^ . ' . -' - - - * ■ - - * the North. Carolina family of Wootens'. There were ■' no land grants recorded till 1633 and the first land grant to a Wooten recorded was in 1642, 36 years after'the Jamestown settlement.'The grantee, Kieh ard Wooten, could well;have heen the ^bn of Dr. Thomas Wooten. Thomas Wooten settled in the coun ty of Isle of Wight,', “which then, included what is " now liatCix'eofihfT?EIsis’' presumed to FeW* another Sofa tff the Jamestowar settler. If sd. the North Carolina Wootens are thus found !tto be de- >■ seen dan ts of one of the first English settlers in Am ' erica, since the Wootens are originally derived from Halifax county. Thomas Wooten had one . son Rich ard; that Richard had two sons, Richard and Thom'1 as. ■ V:’ *-S SHs < ; Ensign- Shadrach Wooten f ^ It develops that the. Wootens were planted in Co lumbqs from Lenoir and that Lenoir Wootens of' late days are descended from replantings in Lenoir from Columbus. The family in the eastern counties must have very nearly run out when Ensign Shad •rach Wooten, shortened to Shade Woloten, was born ' in 1759, for, aeoording to Mrs. Brown, tlje Wootens of that section and descendants of two sons of Shad- ' . rach Wooten, who remained in or moved hack to . Lenoir after their father had-.settled in Columbus. That fact unifies tbp two groups of Wootens to a greater extent than I had supposed, i .... A The father of Ensign Wooten is stated to have been Council, a name with Shade very popular with both, groups. At sixteen young Shadrach was appoint j€d ensign to Colonel- Caswell of the Minute Men and participated with him in the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge After the Revolution he settled in Lenoir and twice .represented the coqnty in the General As- „ semhly. He later bought J.0.000 acres of land in the vicinity of Western Prong church.in the present Co lumbus county, where he is buried, and. moved with his children, except John, to the tract in 1805. HIS wife died just before the removal. Her grave-is in Sandy Bottom churchyard, Lenoir county. Th$ Co lumbus tract consists of fine farm lands. He was In what is now Columbus three year? before the for mation of Columbus dounty and served on the com mittee of seven which selected the site for the county seat. Thus it was the worthy ancestor of all the. Wooten of Lenoir and the southern border counties whose memory was honored on. August. 18.. ' v :fcv; *v.i, XtI?- -''JPWiniiittiit -Descendants The son John represented Lenoir in the Legisla ture 1807-1809. My document does 'not reveal wheth er" Council Wooten, father of the late Council S. Wooten and grandfather ’of-Dr. Joyner, was a sorf of John or Allen, the two sons settling in. Lenoir. But Mrs. Brown characterizes the older Council as “an -aristocrat of ante-bellaia days, a man of influence and wealth, a member of the constitutional conven tion of 1835,” which would indicate that he was ■ - (€ontimie<i from page two) 1 '■U -» '• **■ . * ■ ::r:- ■ as ' • ' . '■ ' -
The State’s Voice (Dunn, N.C.)
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Sept. 1, 1933, edition 1
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