THE REGULATORS – 1764-1771- CLAN CARRUTHERS CCIS

THE REGULATORS

NORTH CAROLINA – USA

Regulators of North Carolina, (1764–71), in American colonial history, vigilance society dedicated to fighting exorbitant legal fees and the corruption of appointed officials in the frontier counties of North Carolina.

The Regulators were off the boat Scottish Highlanders and Lowlanders who had been sent to America after the Jacobite battle at Culloden.   Strong warriors who fought for what they thought was right.

Deep-seated economic and social differences had produced a distinct east-west sectionalism in North Carolina. The colonial government was dominated by the eastern areas, and even county governments were controlled by the royal governor through his power to appoint local officers. Backcountry (western) people who suffered from excessive taxes, dishonest officials, and exorbitant fees also became bitter about multiple office holdings. The regional struggle would come to a head during the administration of Royal Governor William Tryon. Tryon had angered colonists throughout North Carolina by preventing the colonial assembly from sending a delegation to the Stamp Act Congress (1765), and his attempts to enforce the Navigation Acts aroused passions further.

In the backcountry, Herman Husband, a Quaker farmer and pamphleteer, emerged as the chief spokesperson of the oppressed Piedmont farmers. Husband suggested measures for relief, but his Quaker faith prevented him from advocating violence as a recourse. Tryon manifested no sympathy for Husband’s cause and sought only to suppress the disturbance, which had by that time organized itself as the Regulators, “for regulating public grievances and abuses of power.” The Regulators agreed to pay no more taxes until satisfied that they were in accordance with the law and to pay no fees in excess of what the law allowed. They punished public officials and interfered with the courts.

Tryon quickly took steps to quash the rebellion. In the spring of 1768 the local militia was called out, but many militiamen sympathized with the Regulators’ cause, and only a few would serve. The only means found to quiet the disturbance was an alleged promise from the governor that if the Regulators would petition him for redress and return to their homes, he would see that justice was done. In his reply to their petition, however, Tryon denied that he had made any such promise, and by September 1768 he had at his command a military force of more than 1,100 men, about one-fourth of whom were officers. The Regulators assembled an opposing force of some 3,700 volunteers, but they were not prepared to contend with the trained, well-armed militia and again submitted without bloodshed. Husband and several leaders of the movement were arrested but soon released.

In 1769 Husband and John Pryor, a prominent Regulator, were elected to the colonial assembly as county representatives. The influence of the Regulators in the assembly was minimal, however, and the concerns of the western farmers continued to be unaddressed. When the superior court met at Hillsborough in September 1770, the Regulators became desperate. They directed their ire at Crown Attorney Edmund Fanning, Tryon’s close friend and a man widely perceived to be the embodiment of political corruption in North Carolina. The Regulators disrupted the court proceedings, beat Fanning, drove him from the town, and ransacked his residence. These riotous proceedings provoked Tryon to launch a second military expedition, and on May 16, 1771, with a force of about 1,000 men and officers, he met about twice that number of Regulators at Alamance, near modern-day Burlington. There, after two hours of fighting, the ammunition of the Regulators was exhausted and they were routed. Tryon reported that 9 militiamen had been killed and 61 wounded, while estimates of Regulator casualties remained a matter of speculation. About 15 Regulators were taken prisoner, and, of these, 7 were executed.

After the Battle of Alamance, many frontiersmen fled to Tennessee, but the legacy of bitterness induced the remaining Regulators to continue their own futile agitation for five more years. This insurrection was in no sense a beginning of the American Revolution. On the contrary, most of the colonial militia who fought for Tryon at Alamance would join the patriot cause, and the majority of the Regulators who remained in North Carolina were loyalists.

JOHN SPENCER BASSETT

John Spencer Bassett (1867-1928), professor of history at Trinity College (later Duke University), wrote extensively about North Carolina history, including the Regulation movement, about which he published a lengthy article in the 1894 American Historical Association Report. The Regulators were a large group of North Carolina colonists who opposed the taxation and fee system imposed by colonial officials in the late 1760s. This political argument led to a battle between the colonial militia and the Regulators in 1771. Following this battle, a few Regulators were hanged and the majority pardoned, bringing the movement to an end.

Prior to Bassett’s investigation, North Carolina historians had seen in North Carolina’s War of Regulation the beginning of the American Revolution in the colony, in part spurred by the religious beliefs of backcountry settlers. John Spencer Bassett argues in his frequently cited text that North Carolina’s Regulation movement was not a revolution and that it was only slightly tied to the unrest in other parts of the North American colonies. Bassett’s view is that the Regulators did not wish to change the form or principle of their government, but simply wanted to make the colony’s political process more equal. They wanted better economic conditions for everyone, instead of a system that benefited the colonial officials. Bassett interprets the events of the late 1760s in Orange and surrounding counties as “a peasants’ rising, a popular upheaval” .

Bassett notes that this upheaval was not religious in nature, but rather was opposed by four of the five leading denominations in the area. Indeed, Presbyterians were instrumental in helping raise troops to fight the Regulators, and a portion of Baptists excommunicated those who had taken part in the unrest. Bassett also downplays the role played by Herman Husband, the Quaker pamphleteer who is often identified as one of the movement’s leaders. To Bassett, Husband was a moderate, simply attempting to bring the various sides together, but because of his prominence as a writer and a correspondent of Benjamin Franklin, government officials continually identified him as a leader of the disgruntled faction. Bassett’s analysis of the Regulators’ uprising remains the predominant understanding of these events, although today Herman Husband is still generally recognized as a leader of the Regulators.

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CLAN CARRUTHERS – DR BRENT H CAROTHERS MD

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DR BRENT H CAROTHERS MD

 

Dr. Carothers is a board-certified pediatrician and board-certified pediatric cardiologist.

Dr. Carothers specializes in congenital and fetal heart disease with a special interest in cardiac imaging. His research background includes projects in sports medicine, childhood obesity and strain imaging after transplant. He earned his medical degree from the University of Virginia and completed his pediatrics residency at the University of North Carolina.

 

His research and fellowship in pediatric cardiology were completed at Duke University.

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University of North Carolina

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ROBERT CAROTHERS – REGULATOR REVOLUTIONARY WAR – CLAN CARRUTHERS

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Robert Carothers 1744 -1811

REVOLUTIONARY WAR HERO AND REGULATOR

FOUNDER OF NASHVILLE TENNESSEE

ROBERT CAROTHERS
(b. about 1744 – d. 1811)
Son of Hugh and Sarah Carothers
Revolutionary War Patriot of North Carolina

Robert Carothers, son of Hugh and Sarah Caruthers (Carithers, Carothers), was born before 1744, possibly in County Tyrone, Ireland. He married Margaret White about 1760 and they had a son named Robert born near Rocky River Church, North Carolina about 1762. Both Robert Carothers and his son Robert fought in the battle of King’s Mountain.

She was born in 1744 and died August 12, 1794. She is buried in the Old Linker Graveyard within 300 yards of the site of the present church. Rocky River Church is about ten miles southeast of Concord and three miles East of Harrisburg. She was the daughter of James White who emigrated from Ireland about 1742 and who married the daughter of Hugh Lawson. She had three brothers who played an important part in the Revolution. James was the eldest of six brothers and was a soldier of the Revolution. He moved to East Tennessee, in 1786, and was one of the original founders of the now flourishing city of Knoxville, Tennessee. He was distinguished for his bravery, energy, and talents and was a brigadier general in the Creek War. His remains sleep peacefully under the vines and grass of the churchyard of the First Presbyterian Church of Knoxville. His illustrious son, Hugh Lawson White, was a judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, a Senator of United States Senate, and in 1836, a candidate for the President of the United States. (History of Rowan County, by Jethro Rumple, p. 24)

Robert and Margaret Carothers lived in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, before settling in Sumner County, Tennessee after Margaret’s death. He served in the Revolution and much is found in early histories. He was at the battle of King’s Mountain. For his military services, he was granted land in Sumner County, Tennessee, and moved there in 1795. A division of his estate is found in Sumner County Deed Book 7, p. 212, dated May 3, 1815, between the legatees of Robert Caruthers descendants, viz. David Wilson, Thomas Caruthers, Sarah Caruthers, and Ezekiel Carothers, all of Sumner County, ~a parcel of land – northeast corner of Hugh Carothers tract. (William, James and Peggy are known to be dead at this time).

Robert Carothers was one of “the Cabarrus Black Boys” of the Revolutionary War. They risked their lives for their country against the tyranny of the British. On May the 27th 1930, the DAR marked the spot. The exercises read that day as taken from the Charlotte Observer as follow: “We, the people whose signatures appear below on this document, being moved through patriotic impulses to preserve inviolate this spot upon which the immortal and patriotic “Cabarrus Black Boys” fixed and destroyed the munitions of war enroute from Charleston, South Carolina, to Hillsboro, North Carolina, to strengthen the forces of Gov. Tryon of the colony of North Carolina, in his effort to put down the spirit of independence as showing the vehemence and acts of the regulations, do solemnly declare and mark this spot to be correct as it is possible this day to identify.” The actual site of the culmination of the gunpowder plot must have been on a slope about a hundred yards southeast of the old spring in Cabarrus County, about three miles from Concord on Poplar Tent road. (Wheeler’s Colonial Records of North Carolina)

In an article appearing in a special opportunity issue of Times Tribune, North Carolina, in February 1916, J. M. W. White, of Number 11 Township, a great-grandson of William White, one of the “Cabarrus Black Boys”, told the story as partly gleaned from Kirkpatrick’s History of Rocky River in which it is stated that at a sale in the Alexander neighborhood about the last of April 1771, and attended by many Rocky River people, they learned that Colonel Moses Alexander, an officer of the Crown, living about nine miles from Concord, was to take charge of a quantity of power that had been hauled from Charleston, South Carolina, by wagon and where he would turn it over to General Waddell, of the British forces. The Rocky River folks immediately returned to their homes and organized a company, and arrangements were made with William Alexander to notify them when the wagons left Charleston. This he did on May 2, 1771, according to history.

The following is a condensation of the story as maintained in Wheeler’s Colonial Records of North Carolina: Major James White, William White, and John White, three brothers, reared on Rocky River, and their cousin William White, Robert Carothers, their brother-in-law, Benjamin Cockrane, James Ashmore, and Joshua Hadley (it is said, William Alexander of Sugar Creek, although his name is not given in Wheeler’s account), having resolved to destroy powder designed to be used against their countrymen, bound themselves by solemn oath not to betray one another. To prevent detection, they blacked themselves and succeeded in deceiving even the father of the White brothers, whom they met returning from mill and from whom they demanded horses. Coming upon the three wagons containing powder, flint, and blankets, whose drivers were encamped on what was then called Phifer’s Hill, three miles west of Concord, on the road to Charlotte and Salisbury, midway between these two places near what is called Long’s Tavern, the heroic “Black Boys” unloaded the wagon’s kegs; threw the powder and flint into a pile, tore the blankets in strips, made a train of powder a considerable distance from the pile, then fired a pistol shot into the train causing a terrific explosion. A stave from the pile is said to have struck Major James White on the forehead inflicting a wound, the scar of which he carried to the day of his death.

When the deed was made known to the Royal officers, dire threats were made against the “traitors of his Majesty” and a pardon was offered to any of the “Black Boys” who would betray his comrades. It is said Ashmore and Hadley, half-brothers, wishing to avail themselves of the pardon, set out unknown to each other to tell Colonel Alexander the identification of the “Black Boys” and met accidentally at his house. In consequence, the “Black Boys” had to escape from their homes and flee into the province of Georgia, where they remained for years. Wheeler insists that Ashmore fled from his country, lived a miserable life and died unwept, unsung, and unhonored and that Hadley became intemperate and cruel to his family and later was beaten by some of the “Black Boys” and their friends, attired in female attire.

Other historians assert that the two repented of their treachery, entered the Continental Army and helped defend the country they had once betrayed. Major James White became a distinguished officer of the Continental Army, riding a fleet horse named “Stono” and proving a veritable pest to the British. Some of the “Black Boys” served under the celebrated “Swamp Fox”, General Marion in his guerrilla warfare.” From Sketches of Western North Carolina, by C. L. Hunter, the following account is taken.

Previous to the battle of Almance on the 16th May 1771, ­at length, Colonel Moses Alexander, a magistrate under the colonial government, succeeded in getting wagons by impressment to convey the munitions to Hillsboro to obey the behest of a tyrannical governor. The following individuals, viz. James, William, and John White, brothers; and William White, a cousin; all born on Rocky River and one mile from Rocky River Church, Robert Carothers, their brother-in-law, Robert Davis, Benjamin Cockrane, James Ashmore, and Joshua Hadley, bound themselves by solemn oath not to divulge the secret object of their contemplated mission, and, in order to prevent section, blackened their faces preparatory to their intended destruction work. They were joined and led in this and other expeditions by William Alexander of the Sugar Creek Congregation, a brave soldier, and afterwards known and distinguished from others bearing the same name as “Captain Black Bill Alexander” and whose sword now hangs in Liberty Hall in Davidson College.

They set out in the evening, while the father of the Whites was away from home with the two horses, each carrying a bag of grain. The White boys were on foot but fortunately met their father and demanded the horses. The old gentlemen, not knowing who they were, pleaded heartily for the horses until he could carry his burden home but his petitions were in vain. They ordered him to dismount, placed the bags of meal by the side of the road, then mounted the horses and joined their comrades and in short space of time came up with the wagons encamped on “Phifer’s Hill” three miles west of Concord, on the road to Charlotte from Salisbury. They immediately unloaded the wagons, stove in the heads of the kegs, threw the powder in a pile, making a train of powder a considerable distance from the pile, and then Major James White fired a pistol in the train, which produced a tremendous explosion. A stave from a pile struck White and cut him severely on the forehead.

As the bold exploit became known to Col. Moses Alexander, he put his whole ingenuity to work to find out who could have performed such a foul deed against His Majesty. The transaction remained a mystery for some time. A pardon was made to any one who would turn King s evidence. Ashmore and Hadley, being half-brothers and of the same rotten material, set out unknown to the others to avail themselves of the pardon, and accidentally met on the threshold of Colonel Alexander’s. The rest of the “Black Boys” fled into the State of Georgia where they had to remain for awhile. The Governor held out insinuations that if they returned and confessed their guilt, they should be pardoned. In a short time they returned to their homes.

As soon as it became known to Col. Alexander, he raised a guard consisting of himself, his two brothers Jake and John, and a few others, and surrounded the house of old man White, the father of the boys. Carothers, the son-in-law of White happened to be at his house at the time. To make the capture doubly sure, Alexander placed a guard at each door. One of the guards wishing to favor the escape of Carothers struck up a quarrel with Moses Alexander at the door, while his brother, David Alexander, whispered to Mrs. White if there were any of them within, they might pass unnoticed by him; in the meantime out goes Carothers, and in a few jumps was in the river, which fortunately flowed near the mansion. The alarm and pursuit followed but was fruitless.

Thus at another time, the royalists heard of some of the boys being in a harvest field and set out to capture them. One in the company rode up and raised his hand which was a signal. On that occasion they pursued Robert Davis so closely that he jumped his horse thirty feet down a bank into the river and dared then to follow. The “Black Boys” frequently would lie concealed in the woods while the neighbors brought them food. When the “Black Boys” were pursued by the Loyalists, the Whigs would collect in bodies consisting of twenty or thirty men, ready to pounce on the pursers if they captured any of the boys. They kept themselves concealed until patriotic sentiment grew so rapidly that it was no longer necessary, May 20, 1775. “When the cause of the Revolution opened, these same “Black Boys” stood up manfully for the cause of American freedom, and nobly assisted in achieving on many a hard fought battlefield, the independence of our country.”^[1]

Previous to the battle of Alamance on the 16th May 1771, at length, Colonel Moses Alexander, a magistrate under the colonial government, succeeded in getting wagons by impressment to convey the munitions to Hillsboro to obey the behest of a tyrannical governor. The following individuals, viz. James, William, and John White, brothers; and William White, a cousin; all born on Rocky River and one mile from Rocky River Church, Robert Carothers, their brother in law, Robert Davis, Benjamin Cockrane, James Ashmore, and Joshua Hadley, bound themselves by solemn oath not to divulge the secret object of their contemplated mission, and, in order to prevent section, blackened their faces preparatory to their intended destruction work. They were joined and led in this and other expeditions by William Alexander of the Sugar Creek Congregation, a brave soldier, and afterwards known and distinguished from others bearing the same name as “Captain Black Bill Alexander” and whose sword now hangs in Liberty Hall in Davidson College.

One of the earliest of the Carothers / Caruthers / Carruthers family to settle in North Carolina was Robert Carothers, along with his brothers. Excellent research on this side of the family has been provided by Warren Woodrow Carothers, supplementing research done in the 1930’s and 1940’s by S. M. Carothers. While more articles on early North Carolina family members will be provided, this first one on Robert Carothers starts the process.

Compiled December 1996 by Warren W. Carothers
Parts taken from the work of E. M. wright and Ludelle Cathey Dickey

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