North Carolina played a critical, often overlooked, role in our nation’s founding. We at the North Carolina History Project have put together this timeline of our state’s contributions to the American Revolution. The following timeline chronologically lays out some of the most important events in North Carolina’s revolutionary history and links out to our more...
To academic historians and amateur (or avocational) historians: We explored the North Carolina Historical Review to find articles about the American Revolution. I hope these summaries (written by a person, not AI) will whet your appetite for the longer versions. (A link to each article on JSTOR is provided for each.) Did North Carolina’s Revolution...
The North Carolina Historical Review includes a rich collection of articles about the American Revolution. This list was compiled by Kathryn McKee and Jane Shaw Stroup.
Pyle’s Defeat occurred in February 1781 near the end of the Revolution. It was a savage blow to British hopes, as Lt. Gen. Charles, Lord Cornwallis attempted to stop the Patriots’ momentum.
The subject of Scottish folklore and myth, Flora MacDonald assisted Prince Charles Stuart in his escape from King George II. In 1774, she moved to North Carolina, where her Loyalist husband and son fought in the Battle of Moores Creek.
The Edenton Tea Party was one of the earliest organized women’s political actions in United States history. On October 25, 1774, Mrs. Penelope Barker organized, at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth King, fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina. Together they formed an alliance wholeheartedly supporting the American cause against “taxation without representation.”
The Llewelyn Conspiracy
Less than a year after North Carolina adopted its first state constitution, a secret conspiracy threatened the authority of the state’s revolutionary government. In the summer of 1777, John Llewelyn (also called Lewelling*), a well-off plantation owner from Martin County in eastern North Carolina, brought together a like-minded group of men who were dissatisfied with...
Black Regiments in North Carolina in the Civil War
In August 1861, Union forces captured two forts on Hatteras Island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Although a small win, this was the first Civil War victory by the Union. An important result was the creation of four black North Carolina regiments, three infantry and one artillery. Those Union regiments fought capably and helped win...
Benjamin Cleveland
You may have heard of the term “living large.” Benjamin Cleveland, one of North Carolina’s heroes of the American Revolution, embodied that phrase in many ways. Known primarily as a colonel in the Wilkes County militia who joined with the Overmountain Men and led his forces to victory in the 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain,...
Anne Tyler (1941 – )
Born on October 25,1941, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, award-winning author Anne Tyler spent many of her formative years in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is considered one of America’s most influential contemporary authors.
Janet Schaw
Janet Schaw was a Scottish traveler and writer whose journal provides a firsthand account of life in North Carolina at the beginning of the American Revolution. Schaw traveled to the Cape Fear region in 1775, where she spent several months observing life in the towns of Brunswick and Wilmington and the surrounding areas. Her writings...
Charles N. Hunter
Charles Norfleet Hunter (1852–1931) was a North Carolina educator, journalist, author, and civic leader who worked to advance educational and economic opportunities for African Americans during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born into slavery in Raleigh, Hunter became a prominent black educator after the Civil War and helped establish the North Carolina Industrial...
The Whalers of Diamond City
Today, the Cape Lookout National Seashore includes three barrier islands along North Carolina’s southern coast. One of those is Shackleford Banks, the westernmost island, stretching nine miles eastward from the Beaufort Inlet. Known for its wild horse population and primitive landscape, it was once home to a prosperous nineteenth-century whaling community called Diamond City. Diamond...
American Revolution in North Carolina: A Timeline
North Carolina played a critical, often overlooked, role in our nation’s founding. We at the North Carolina History Project have put together this timeline of our state’s contributions to the American Revolution. The following timeline chronologically lays out some of the most important events in North Carolina’s revolutionary history and links out to our more...
The Episcopal Church of St. John in the Wilderness
St. John in the Wilderness is historically recognized as the first Episcopal parish established in Western North Carolina. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
Lee Smith (1944 – )
Smith has earned recognition as one of the most important writers of southern and Appalachian literature. A recipient of many awards, she was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in 2009.
Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967)
In the autumn of 1945, a steam engine train rolled into the Flat Rock Depot carrying more than twenty tons of books, manuscripts, furniture, awards, and personal belongings bound for 1928 Little River Road in Henderson County, North Carolina. Around the same time, Carl Sandburg and his wife Lilian made the journey from Michigan by...
Fort Johnston and the American Revolution
In July 1775, Patriot militiamen carried out the first military operation of the Revolutionary War in what became the Tar Heel State. There was no pitched battle. No one died. But the Patriots made their point: Reasserting British control over North Carolina would be no easy task. Three months earlier, they’d forced Josiah Martin, the...