On the morning of June 19, 1771, the cell door in the Hillsborough jail was opened and twelve men convicted of high treason and sentenced to death were led to the execution site on a small hill just east of town overlooking the Eno River.
James Emerson was one of those twelve. He had been captured at the battle of Alamance on the 16th of May--a battle in which the settlers in the backcountry of the North Carolina piedmont were considered in governor Tryon’s own words to be in “a state of war and rebellion.” The response shouted back when Tryon gave the order to fire on those who had chosen to take up arms against the oppressive British authorities was: “fire and be dammed.”
The first blood of a Revolution had been shed with that order given by Col. William Tryon, the Colonial Governor of the Colony of North Carolina.
At the gallows, Governor Tryon announced that the execution of six of the condemned would be respited to await the pleasure of the King, and six would be executed. The words of James Pugh as he stood on the barrel that would be kicked from beneath him have come down to us: His blood, he said, would be “good seed sown on good ground, which would produce a hundredfold.”
James Emerson was one of the six men whose sentence was suspended by Governor Tryon. He would live to again take up arms against troops marching under the Union Jack and against the abusive system of government imposed on the American colonies.
Emerson is buried in the Old Tick Creek burial grounds in Chatham County, where, on May 1, 2011, a small group gathered to honor his patriotism. You can read more on our website:
chathamhistory.org/resources/Documents/PDFs/ResearchArticles/RevolutionaryWarSoldierJamesEmerson.pdf
Comments above were taken from the remarks of John H. Emerson at the 2011 ceremony.
#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #WarofRegulation #AmericanRevolution #JamesEmerson #patriot #GovTryon #1770s
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