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History Timeline

1775 - Captain Jack's Ride

June 3, 1775 - Captain James Jack arrives in Philadelphia. He has traveled from Charlotte to inform the Second Continental Congress of the Mecklenburgers' proclamation of freedom. But he never presents the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence to Congress. Some believe he realized the Meck Dec was worded so angrily that it would hurt chances of regaining peace with Britain.

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1706 - First North Carolina Town

Bath becomes the first incorporated town in North Carolina.

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1772 - Moravian Girls School

Salem Female Academy opens. In these colonial days, few women can obtain the education afforded to men. Mecklenburg families who want their daughters to receive higher education send the young women to Salem, nearly 100 miles away.

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1775 - Mecklenburg Declaration

May 20, 1775 - The Mecklenburgers announce their freedom with a proclamation called the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. The document dissolves forever the colonists' bonds with Britain. In the anxious days that follow these emotional events, people will disagree when recalling exactly what happened. Some will doubt the Meck Dec ever existed. Even two hundred years later historians will debate these questions, but the May 20 date will be commemorated on North Carolina's state flag.

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1712 - Carolina Divides

May 9, 1712 - The center of government is in Charleston, inaccessible to people in the colony's northern and western parts. In addition, legislation designed to recognize the Church of England as the established church creates a division between the Anglicans on one side and on the other the Presbyterians and the Quakers thus increasing political tensions in the state. To solve these problems, the Lords Proprietors divide the colony in two: North and South Carolina. Edward Hyde (1667-1712) becomes the first governor of the newly formed colony of North Carolina.

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1755 - Great Wagon Road

Northern colonies in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia are becoming crowded, and settlers move south to North Carolina. They follow Thomas Spratt's route, now called the great wagon road. Many of the families seek religious and economic freedom. Some have come from Germany. Others come from Scotland via Ireland; they become known as the Scots-Irish.

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1775 - Crown's Strong Arm

August 1775 - It becomes clear that no solution is possible for the bitter disagreements between the American colonists and the rulers in their homeland. The British monarchy sends 20,000 Hessian soldiers to America. But these men from Germany are not fighting because they are loyal to Britain -- they are soldiers who are paid to fight, called mercenaries.

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1715 - Economic Beginnings

Trading becomes more important as natives and settlers learn to live together. Indians are expert hunters, and offer animal furs or skins, along with the pottery they make. Settlers bring metal tools and fine cloth to trade. But fighting breaks out when some Catawba and Yamassee Indians think they are treated unfairly by the settlers.

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1758 - Religion and Revolution

January, 1759 - Families who settle near each other hope to attract a preacher for their new communities. The outspoken Rev. Alexander Craighead moves from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to what will soon become Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Craighead is active in the Independence Movement, which encourages worshipers to resist control by the British rulers.

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1775 - Mecklenburg Militia

May 19, 1775 - Colonel Thomas Polk is leader of Mecklenburg's citizen army, called a militia. He has asked citizens to send representatives to meet at the Charlotte courthouse. They are planning ways to protect their freedom from British rule when a messenger arrives with news of the battles of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. Furious, the citizens decide to cut all ties with Britain.

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