xt7pvm42rv2f https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7pvm42rv2f/data/mets.xml Henderson, Archibald, 1877-1963. 1919  books b92f257h4719192009 English The Seeman printery : Durham, N. C. Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Henderson, Richard, 1735-1785. Shelby, Isaac, 1750-1826. North Carolina --History. Kentucky --History. Transylvania Colony. The Star of empire; phases of the westward movement in the old Southwest. text The Star of empire; phases of the westward movement in the old Southwest. 1919 2009 true xt7pvm42rv2f section xt7pvm42rv2f 
    
    
   1620-1020

Bxitus acta probat     The event Justifies the deed.

A proverb, first found in Ovid's 'Heroides', i.e.

the 'Epistles of Ovid*, soSstyled. (Ov.Her., 2; 85.)

It was. used by George Washington on his hook-plate.

Ovidtus ITaso, Latin Poet, flourished about 9 A.D.

OBJECTS   

Heroides is the latinized form of a Greek word

meaning demi-goddesses or heroines.

2. Mayflower Compact of November 11, 1620;

3. Landing of Pilgrim Fathers, at Plymouth, Mass., December 20, 1620;

4. The Beginnings of Free Institutions in America.

And, in commemorating these events, to testify by suitable ceremonies out abiding faith in American Institutions and our purpose to maintain them.

MEMBERS OF COMMISSION    (Appointed by the Governor of Kentucky):

SAMUEL M. WILSON, Lexington, Chairman.

SAMUEL  A. CULBERTSON, Louisville, Vice-Chairman.

ATTILLA COX, Louisville, Secretary.

JAMES R.  DUFFIN, Louisville, Treasurer.

A. R. GINN, Ashland.

R.  W.  NELSON, Newport.

WILLIAM ANDREWS, Newport.

HUGH RIDDELL, Irvine.

To promote participation of Kentucky in the National and International Celebration of the 300th Anniversary of   

1. Meeting of First American Legislative Assembly at Jamestown, Va., July 30-August 2, 1619; 
    
    
    
    
   INTRODUCTION

north carolina and kentucky

In the epic movement of American expansion, which found its true inauguration in pioneer advance and its true romance in border struggle, North Carolina and Kentucky-are united with indissoluble bonds. Three such men as Daniel Boone, Richard Henderson, and Isaac Shelby   Boone, the explorer and Indian fighter; Henderson, the colonizer and lawgiver; Shelby, the soldier and statesman   flowering at a single historical moment out of the life of North Carolina endow her with a rare distinction as a creative force in westward expansion. Kentucky would be sorely impoverished, shorn of the greater measure of the incomparable romance and wonder of her settlement, rude beginnings, and first steps in national statehood if bereft of North Carolina's epochal contribution: the exploring instinct of Christopher Gist, the pioneering genius of Daniel Boone, the strenuous leadership of Isaac Shelby, the colonizing spirit of Richard Henderson, the expansionist ideals of the canny Scots, James Hogg and William Johnston; of that sire of the "Great Pacificator," Jesse Benton; of the Harts, Thomas, Nathaniel, and David; the Hendersons, Samuel, Nathaniel, and Pleasant; the Boones, Squire and Jesse; Richard Calloway, Felix Walker, John Luttrell, John Williams, John Gray Blount, Leonard Henley Bullock, William Bailey Smith, and others less spectacular in their achievements yet little less important. They were the crest and foremost fringe of that mobile wave which welled up from the fountain source of American liberty, the ancient colony of North Carolina, swept irresistibly through the "high-swung gateway" of the Cumberland, and held the fair region of the trans-Alleghany within the circle of its protecting barrier until Kentucky had weathered the storms of border warfare and been swept triumphantly into a union of free and independent states.

In writing the history of national development, it should continually be borne in mind that not one, but two movements 
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were proceeding simultaneously along parallel lines. On the eastern slope, from the Alleghanies to the Atlantic, there was going forward the struggle of the Continental armies to exhaust and defeat the martial power of Great Britain. But simultaneously with this great dramatic conflict, of the more or less conventional military type, was occurring that guerrilla warfare and border struggle   with nature, with the wilderness, with a savage foe, with Great Britain   which was to eventuate, on the conclusion of the titanic struggle, in the addition of an imperial area of western territory to the domain of the Republic. If the sword and the musket were the symbols of the martial combat on the eastern slope, the symbols of pioneer struggle and advance in the western wilderness were the rifle and the tomahawk, the axe and the surveyor's chain.

In the present volume, the relations of North Carolina to Kentucky in the earlier phases of westward expansion in the Old Southwest will be set forth. This story will largely centre about the career of two great men   Isaac Shelby, surveyor, hero of three battles in three wars, and first executive of the commonwealth of Kentucky; and Richard Henderson, jurist, pioneer, expansionist, and president of the Colony of Transylvania. In making a study from this new angle, fresh light is thrown upon this little appreciated and imperfectly understood movement of westward expansion, which was ultimately to work such a profound and far-reaching effect upon the destiny of the nation. 
   THE STAR OF EMPIRE

PHASES OF THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT IN THE OLD SOUTHWEST

CHAPTER I The Southwestward Movement   The Shelbys

As late as the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the American settlements were largely confined to a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast, with occasional isolated settlements further in the interior. There were two main zones of settlement: the Tidewater section and the Piedmont region. Because of the great barrier of the mountain system, it was long before a way to the west was found.

Settlement progressed in two directions   westward from the coast, and southwestward, beginning in Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and extending along the broad terraces to the east of the Appalachian range. This second streaming of the population thrust into the Piedmont region a class of people differing in spirit and in tendency from their more aristocratic and complacent neighbors to the east. These settlers of the Valley of Virginia and the Carolina Piedmont were the first pioneers of the Old Southwest. In the second quarter of the century, in the Valley of Virginia free grants of a thousand acres per family were being made; and in the Piedmont region of North Carolina the proprietary of Lord Granville through his agents was disposing of lands, in six hundred and forty acre tracts, at trivial cost, and even making large free grants on the condition of seating a certain proportion of settlers. It was undoubtedly the rich lure of these cheap and even free lands in Virginia and North Carolina which set up the vast southwestwardly exodus in the second and third quarters of the century. "Inhabitants flock in here daily," wrote Governor Gabriel Johnston, of North Carolina, in 1750, "mostly from Pensilvania and other parts of America, who are overstocked with people and some directly from Eu-

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rope, they commonly seat themselves towards the West, and have got near the mountains." Squire Boone, the father of the great pioneer, removed with his entire family from Pennsylvania to Virginia and thence to North Carolina in the spring of 1750. Samuel Henderson, the father of the jurist-pioneer, removed even earlier from Hanover County, Virginia, to what was soon to be Granville County, North Carolina   at some time prior to 1742. It is believed the immigrant ancestors of the Shelby family settled in Maryland about the year 1730; and the earliest surveys and grants to Evan Shelby, junior and senior, make it reasonably certain that the Shelbys resided continuously in Maryland from 1739 or earlier until 1771 or 1772. About this time (1771-1772), the Shelby connection removed to the Holston country in that twilight zone of the debatable ground between North Carolina and Virginia. Evan Shelby settled with his family on the site of the present Bristol, Tennessee.

On December 11, 1750, near the North Mountain, in the vicinity of Hagerstown, Maryland, was born Isaac Shelby, distinguished figure in the history of the Old Southwest   the second son and third child of Evan Shelby and his first wife, Letitia Cox. Endowed with the iron constitution of his father, young Shelby was reared in a martial atmosphere and early adapted himself to the strenuous life of the pioneer. Upon their removal to King's Meadows, near Bristol, the Shelbys herded and grazed cattle on an extensive scale along the Virginia border. At Shelby's Station, the fort built by Evan Shelby, where hundreds were sometimes forted during the Revolution, the Shelbys kept a store; and here Daniel Boone, according to records still preserved, purchased supplies in preparation for his ill-fated expedition in 1773.

In 1774, as the result of showing himself to be a young man of promise, Isaac Shelby was appointed lieutenant in the militia by Colonel William Preston, the County Lieutenant of Fincastle County, Virginia. He was soon to see service; for in October of that year occurred Dunmore's War, ending with the Battle of the Great Kanawha.   The Holston men, who 
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were under the command of Col. William Christian, were the advance guard of civilization, the most daring settlers who had pushed farthest out into the western wilderness. Under Evan Shelby, one of the five captains in Col. Christian's command, were his sons: Isaac, a lieutenant, and James, a private. Of the important part played by the Shelbys in this battle I have written at length elsewhere.* Suffice it to say that in this fierce struggle, the most stubborn and hotly contested fight ever made by the Indians in the Old Southwest against the English, it was the flanking movement of the detachment in which Isaac Shelby took a leading part that turned the tide and decided the victory for the whites. Isaac Shelby, the twenty-four year old officer, played an important and heroic role in this decisive battle   the thrilling martial scene preliminary to the great drama of the Revolution.

At the close of the campaign, a small palisaded rectangle, about eighty yards long, with block houses at two of its corners, was erected at Point Pleasant by order of Lord Dun-more. This stockade, entitled Fort Blair, was strongly garrisoned, and the chief command was given to that splendid border fighter, Captain William Russell. The young Isaac Shelby, in recognition of his valued services in the recent battle, was made second in command. It was here, according to tradition, that the great Indian chief, Cornstalk, came to shake the hand of the young paleface brave, Isaac Shelby, who had led the strategic flank movement which stampeded his army.

* Isaac Shelbv: Revolutionary Patriot and Border Hero. In two parts. "North Carolina Booklet," January, 1917, and July, 1918. 
   CHAPTER II The Southwestward Movement   The Hendersons

In the middle years of the eighteenth century, attracted by the lure of rich lands in North Carolina, many families of Virginia gentry, principally from Hanover County, settled in the region ranging from Williamsborough on the east to Hillsborough on the west. These settlers were described by the quaint old diarist, Hugh McAden, as a people with "abundance of wealth and leisure for enjoyment." Some years later, Governor Josiah Martin, in speaking of the inhabitants of Granville and Bute counties, observed: "They have great preeminence, as well with respect to soil and cultivation, as to the manners and condition of the inhabitants, in which last respect the difference is so great that one would be led to think them people of another region." This society, to quote the words of Turner concerning the people of the Virginia Piedmont, was "a society naturally expansive, seeing its opportunity to deal in unoccupied lands along the frontier which continually moved toward the west, and in this era of the eighteenth century dominated by the democratic ideals of pioneers rather than by the aristocratic tendencies of slave-holding planters."

When Samuel Henderson removed to North Carolina, the great frontier county of Granville embraced an immense territory which included the present county of Granville. At this time, the country was very sparsely settled; and Samuel Henderson and his family, who were among the very earliest settlers, were the first to carry hogs and apple scions into that section. Dr. J. F. D. Smyth, an Englishman, who visited the neighborhood in 1774 and 1775, speaks of the "very fine settlement called Nutbush," and the "large body of excellent land." By 1749, Granville had about 3,000 inhabitants, in 1763 some 4,000. The adjoining county of Orange showed an equally remarkable growth in population. In the South Carolina Gazette of March 8, 1768, may be read the following interesting comment:

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"A letter from Williamsburgh, Virginia, dated October 18, 1767, says: There is scarce a history, ancient or modern, which affords an account of such a rapid and sudden increase of inhabitants in a back frontier country, as that of North Carolina.

"To justify the truth of this observation, we need only to assure you, that 20 years ago there was not 20 taxable persons within the limits of the county of Orange, in which there are now 4,000 taxable."

In his search for a settlement, the Moravian Bishop Span-genburg records that the "culture of Indian corn and raising of hogs" were the principal industries of the farmers of Granville county. Probably the largest land owner in the county at this period was William Person, who called himself "Parson," sheriff of the county in 1754.

Several years after his settlement on Nutbush Creek, Samuel Henderson was elevated to the office of high sheriff of Granville county. According to the family records, Enfield court house was the seat of Samuel Henderson's office as sheriff. Undoubtedly, the most important and onerous of his duties as sheriff was the collection of taxes. The taxables consisted of "all the white males above 16 years of age, and all mula-toes, masters and slaves, male and female, above the age of 12," and by this list the sheriff collected all the public or provincial poll. The sheriff was legally empowered to distrain for all these taxes and was entitled to a fee of two shillings and eight pence currency for every distress. The sheriff had to be a freeholder of the county in order to qualify, held his office through the Governor's appointment, and had to "find surety for 1,000 pounds sterling that he should faithfully discharge the duties of that office and account for and pay all public and private moneys by him received as sheriff."

Samuel Henderson was a man of strong and rugged frame, and always "executed his writs, subpoenas, and processes, afoot through the forest primeval, traversing a territory from Virginia on the north to Johnston county on the south, and from the mountains on the west to Northampton on the east" 
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(R. W. Winston's Address on Leonard Henderson). Most of the official duties of his office, during his absences, were performed by his deputy or by his son, Richard, the sub-sheriff. Samuel was "a man of social and benevolent disposition, his talents of the middle grade"   the words employed by his son Pleasant, in his memoir. In the event, we need not be surprised that Richard Henderson, with so active, strong, and rugged a progenitor, should develop into one of the most remarkable pioneers, colonizers and law-givers of his time. Before his death in 1784, Samuel Henderson enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing both his son and his nephew upon the highest court of law   the first in the colony, the second in the state, of North Carolina. At a somewhat later day, two of his grandsons were to win the highest legal and judicial positions the State could offer, the one the recognized leader of the bar, the other Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina.

From his father, indubitably, Richard Henderson derived his unflagging energy and powerful physique. But it was from his mother, assuredly, that he derived those remarkable qualities of originality and constructive power which in after life won him such noteworthy distinction, and enabled him to play a leading role in the initial colonization that assured the ultimate acquisition of the West. Elizabeth Williams, Richard Henderson's mother, born in Hanover county, Virginia, on November 14, 1714, was the daughter of John Williams, a wealthy emigrant from Wales. In the memoir written by her son Pleasant, she is described as a woman of exemplary life and unusual talents, possessing a "strong and comprehensive mind"   and ever "chastened by a due sense of futurity, and the advantages temporal as well as eternal of doing as she would wish to be done by" (underscored in the original memoir). She was the mother of twelve children, one of whom lived only a few days; Mary, born in Hanover county, Virginia, January 10, 1734; Richard, born in Hanover county, April 20, 1735; Nathaniel, born in Hanover county, December 1, 1736; Elizabeth, born in Hanover county, Feb- 
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ruary 19, 1738; Ann, born in Hanover county, March 13, 1739; Susanna, born in Granville county, N. C, April 23, 1742; John, born in Granville county, October 24, 1744; Samuel, born in Granville county, February 6, 1746; William, born in Granville county, March 5, 1748; Thomas, born in Granville county, March 19, 1752; and Pleasant, born in Granville county, January 9, 1756.

In consequence of the positive lack of either public schools in the county or of colleges in North Carolina, the elder children of the Henderson family, as recorded in Pleasant Henderson's memoir, were taught by a private tutor, especially engaged by their father to give them individual instruction. This was an unusual privilege in those days of hardy virtues, but limited educational facilities.

In the prosecution of the affairs of his office, Samuel Henderson was obliged to spend a large part of his time away from home. In consequence of this circumstance, as recorded by his grandson, he gave over the general direction of the education of the children, and of Richard in especial, to his wife, who, while not a woman of high culture in the exacting sense in which we employ the phrase today, has been described by her grandson as "excellent, industrious, and intelligent." Like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, Richard Henderson found the lack of a university education no bar to his success. From the evidence before us, it is clear that Richard Henderson enjoyed excellent educational advantages in receiving the individual instruction of a private tutor, fortified as this educational discipline was by the directive impress of the powerful mentality of his mother. On another score, we should not forget that his was that ideal preparatory school lauded by Luther Burbank, "the only place that is truly fit to bring up a boy or a plant   the country."

It has been said of Richard Henderson that he possessed one of the most remarkable minds for the rapid acquisition and thorough assimilation of knowledge ever produced in the South. A talented, scholarly man, as described by that cautious and accurate historian, Lyman C. Draper, Richard Henderson was 
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a profound student of law, government, and history; and his brother, who studied law under his direction for considerably more than a year, enjoyed the benefits of his unusually fine library. It was, doubtless, not so much his researches in law and history, as his active participation in the practical duties of the affairs of his father's office which gave him, as the historian Wheeler says, "that enlarged knowledge of men and things for which he became so eminently distinguished in after life." During the term of his father's office, he served successively as constable, deputy, and acting sheriff, and often transacted for his father, in all its details, the business of the shrievalty. At the expiration of his father's term of office, Richard, "fired by a noble ambition," as Judge W. H. Battle puts it, devoted himself energetically to the study of the law, the natural and inevitable medium for the display of his mental qualities.

After reading law for a twelve-month with his first cousin and senior, the capable attorney, John Williams, who lived hard by in the neighborhood, on his fine estate of "Montpelier," Richard Henderson made so bold as to apply for a license. It was the custom of that day for the prospective barrister to present himself for examination before the Chief Justice of the "General Court." The certificate of proficiency, issued by the Chief Justice to those who successfully underwent the ordeal of examination, was then presented to the Governor of the Colony, who, after satisfying himself that all requirements had been properly met, issued the official license. The following incident of Richard's experience in the effort to obtain a license, after the brief period of his study (one year), as narrated by his brother, Pleasant, furnishes an admirable illustration of the mentality and self-confidence of Richard Henderson. It is, as his brother succinctly expressed it, "an evidence of the strength of his mind."

On presenting himself for his examination, the applicant, because of his youth, was regarded with dubiety by the Chief Justice, Charles Berry. 
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"How long have you read law, and what books have you studied?" he asked.

"Twelve months," replied young Henderson, enumerating the books he had read.

We may readily imagine the scornful smile of the Chief Justice, and the tone of his brusque reply:

"It is quite unnecessary, young man, to proceed with this examination. No man in such a short space of time, and with only the books you have mentioned, can possibly have qualified himself to secure a license. My advice to you, sir, is to return home."

This put young Henderson on his mettle   for although his experience in the law was limited, his sense of justice and fair play was already highly developed. In tones ringing with manly determination, he replied:

"Sir, I am an applicant for an examination. It is your duty to examine me, and if I am found worthy, to grant me a certificate; if otherwise, to refuse it."

Struck by the force of this spirited reply, yet none the less sharply nettled by having his duty thus concisely outlined for him by this country-bred youth, the Chief Justice proceeded to give him a most rigid and searching examination. As little daunted by this running fire of questions as he had been by the discouraging advice of the Chief Justice, young Henderson survived the ordeal with brilliance. His examiner was so much impressed both by his coolness under fire and his real knowledge of the law, that on presenting him his certificate, he paid him many encomiums upon his industry, acquirements and talents. His license was forthwith granted by the Governor of the Colony. Beginning his legal career with so favorable an augury, Richard Henderson almost immediately began to win, as his brother expressed it, great success in the practice of his profession. 
   CHAPTER III Henderson, Barrister and Judge

This "very fine settlement called Nut Bush," as Smyth described it, with its "large body of excellent land," its rugged foothills, its solemn forests and fast flowing streams, brooded over by a spirit of reflective and majestic calm, was the natural milieu- for the development of the figure known to history as Colonel Richard Henderson. Gathered about him were a host of friends and neighbors, congenial and high-souled folk   the Williamses, progenitors of a long line of famous men; the Bullocks, close relatives of the Hendersons, whom they had followed to Granville county from New Hanover county, Virginia, shortly before the middle of the century; the Penns, the most famous of whom was the noted John Penn, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence ; the Hargroves, Carringtons, Ridleys, and Baskervilles, "gentle folk possessed of broad acres, troops of slaves and dogs of all degrees."

Another neighbor was the Irish Lord, George Keeling, who had been driven from his seat in Parliament and suffered the confiscation of his property on account of his intense Protestantism. He emigrated to Virginia, and established a fishery on the banks of the Rappahannock river, improvising his own nets for catching herrings. Romantic glamour attaches to the authentic story that out of the proceeds of his earnings he sent to his sweetheart, Agnes Bullock, of Wales, a sum of money sufficient to pay her transportation across the Atlantic, where the protecting arms of her faithful betrothed awaited her.

On the death of Lord Keeling, John Williams, whose father, John Williams, was the brother of Richard Henderson's mother, married the widow Keeling, nee Agnes Bullock, on November 12, 1759. Agnes Bullock, sister of Leonard Henley Bullock and daughter of John Bullock and Ann Henley (daughter of Leonard Henley and Ann Hawkins), be-

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longed to one of the most prominent and influential families of Granville county.

The youngest daughter of Lord Keeling and Agnes Bullock, Elizabeth, was married to Richard Henderson on December 28, 1763. Another daughter, Nancy, was married to Thomas Satterwhite on October 15, 1772; while a third daughter, Frances, was married to Bromfield Ridley, a prominent lawyer of Granville county, on February 18, 1770. The only child of John Williams and Agnes Bullock, the widow of Lord Keeling, was Agatha, who was married to Colonel Robert Burton, originally of Mecklenburg county, Virginia, and sometime member of the Continental Congress, on October 12, 1775.*

Richard Henderson found a worthy mate in the person of his wife, Elizabeth. "It may not be amiss to mention here," says the Hon. W. H. Battle, in his "Memoir of Leonard Henderson" (North Carolina University Magazine, lx, 1859-60), as an evidence of the simplicity and frugality of the times, as well as of the prudence and industry of the matrons of his day that his mother (Elizabeth Keeling), though the wife of one of the highest officers of the province, taught her eldest sons, as well as her daughters, to card and spin. Why Leonard was not instructed in the same housewifely accomplishment we are not informed. The splendid professional career of one of his elder brothers, Archibald, shows that though it might not have advanced, it certainly would not have obstructed his upward course to fame and fortune."

Richard Henderson's auspicious beginning at the law, in his notable tilt with Chief Justice Charles Berry, was prophetic of the eminent success he was successively to win as advocate, King's Attorney, Superior Court Judge, and ultimately lawmaker for the colony of Transylvania and the famous "Government of the Notables" on the Cumberland. His taste for the study of law, history, and literature found expression in the splendid library which he had collected; and it was in

* The original marriage bonds of all these marriages are still preserved in the court house at Oxford, N. C. 
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this library and under his tutelage, in after years, that his younger brother, Pleasant, devoted almost two years to reading and the study of legal lore. Though only twenty-eight years old at the time of his marriage, Richard Henderson had already achieved striking success in the practice of his profession. The earliest court record now to be found at Oxford, N. C, the trial docket of the County Court for the May term, 1763, shows that both Richard Henderson and his law-partner, John Williams, were engaged in an extensive practice. The court records at Salisbury, N. C, show that on September 22, 1763, Richard Henderson was appointed King's Attorney for the district of Salisbury to serve at the October term of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. This same year we find him pitted against John Williams, his senior, in a number of cases on the Crown Docket in September, at Salisbury.

The court records of the Reference Crown Docket, at the March term, 1764, for the District of Salisbury, show that a large proportion of the cases were entrusted to Richard Henderson for advocacy and trial. Here his colleagues and fellow advocates were the cultured and stately William Hooper, afterwards famous as a signer of the Declaration of Independence ; John Dunn, persecuted Loyalist and subsequently good American; John Kichen, the sagacious legal counsellor; Edmund Fanning, the gentleman adventurer, the Associate Justice; Alexander Martin, vigorous politician, afterwards Governor of North Carolina, who was frequently commissioned by the Crown to hold the District Court at Salisbury, notably in June, 1775, when Captain Jack, on his way to Philadelphia with an account of the Mecklenburg proceedings, passed through Salisbury and allowed the account to be read aloud by Col. William Kennon; and many others of future prominence and distinction. Here and at Hillsboro, he was thrown into close association with the discreet and reliable Thomas Hart, and during the earliest days of his practice at Salisbury, he formed the acquaintance, subsequently ripening into sincere regard, of the hunter, Daniel Boone, and of his father, Squire 
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Boone, who served continuously as one of the "Worshipful Justices" at the County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for many years dating from the first sittings of the court in 1753.

Richard Henderson was frequently called upon to serve as King's Attorney during the years from 1763 to 1768; and his genial nature and conspicuous ability brought him at once general popularity and high distinction. A contemporary, in speaking of Richard Henderson's practice and advocacy in the Superior Court, then the highest court of judicature in the province, pays him this distinguished tribute:

"Even there, where oratory and eloquence is as brilliant and powerful as in Westminster Hall, he soon became distinguished and eminent and his superior genius shone forth with great splendor and universal applause."

Following the dissatisfaction of the people with the constitution of the courts of law under Governor Dobbs during the years from 1760 to 1762, a "Supreme Court of Justice" was established in the districts of Edenton, Newbern, Salisbury, Wilmington and Halifax, to be composed of the Chief Justice and an assistant judge. In 1767, a new and much more elaborate court system was adopted, to endure for a period of five years. The Province was divided into six judicial districts, Hillsboro being added to those above mentioned. In each was a court to be held by the Chief Justice and two associates, the latter appointed by the Governor and allowed 500 pounds a year, for payment of which a special tax on each wheel of a pleasure carriage, and on lawsuits was laid. "This system," says Dr. Kemp P. Battle in his "History of the Supreme Court of North Carolina," (103 N. C. Reports), "was an essential departure from the English system. Instead of the judges trying questions of fact only in the districts, leaving the question of law to be heard before all the judges sitting in bank at Newbern, all the members of the court went to the court house of each district and there heard both questions of fact and questions of law.   The Nisi Prius Court and the Appellate

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Court were held in the same town by the same judges, and during the same term. A great defect was that one Judge, in the absence of the others, had all the powers of the court."

At a meeting of the Governor's Council on March 1, 1768, at Wilmington, there being present Governor Tryon and James Hassell, John Rutherford, Lewis DeRossett, William Dry, Benjamin Heron, and Samuel Strudwick, members of the Council, the Governor announced his intention to appoint Richard Henderson, Esq., of Granville, an Associate Justice, he having formerly appointed Maurice Moore as the other Associate Justice, and Stephen Dewey as Judge Advocate for the District of Ntewbern, pending the meeting of the Council. The Council journal reads: "It is the unanimous opinion of this board that the said three gentlemen are properly qualified for the several offices." At the meeting o