North Carolina's Revolutionary Founders by Jeff Broadwater Troy L. Kickler

Author:Jeff Broadwater, Troy L. Kickler [Jeff Broadwater, Troy L. Kickler]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781469651200
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2019-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

7. The Political Views of Richard Caswell and the Founding of the New Nation

Lloyd Johnson

Richard Caswell was the first and fifth governor of North Carolina, and he played a major role in the success of the Revolution in the state. With over twenty years of experience in the state assembly, he was popular among the citizens and became known as an advocate for the people. Caswell served as a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses held in Philadelphia. He coauthored the state’s constitution in 1776, championed popular sovereignty, and was an early advocate of public schools and the establishment of a state university. As governor, he strengthened North Carolina’s ties to the federal government. He supported revising the Articles of Confederation and became a proponent of the creation of a strong United States Constitution with separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

Richard Caswell was born in Baltimore County in the tiny seaport town of Joppa, Maryland, on 3 August 1729. The son of Richard Caswell and Christian Dallam, he was educated at an Anglican parish school in Maryland and worked in his father’s mercantile business. At sixteen his family migrated from Maryland to eastern North Carolina, settling in a section of Johnston County that later became Dobbs County and is today Lenoir County. After he arrived in North Carolina, Caswell received his first government position, an apprentice to the surveyor general, and two years later he became a deputy surveyor general. In 1748 Caswell served as the deputy clerk of Johnston County, and a year later he was the clerk of court. In 1753 he became the sheriff of Johnston County, and soon after he began to read law under William Herritage, a prominent attorney and a member of the North Carolina assembly. Caswell’s first wife was Mary Mackilwean, the daughter of James Mackilwean, the surveyor general. They had one son, William. Mary died in 1757, and Caswell married Sarah Herritage, the daughter of William Herritage, on 20 June 1758. Together they had eight children. Caswell accumulated over 9,000 acres of land, mostly situated in Dobbs County, but his holdings included land in Johnston, Orange, Cumberland, Tryon, Carteret, Washington, and Greene Counties and some western land in what later became Tennessee.1

Caswell’s residence was “Red House,” located near Stringer’s Ferry on the Neuse River about a mile west of present-day Kinston. He was elected to the assembly, at the age of twenty-five, to represent Johnston County in 1754. That same year he also served as a militia officer and soon rose to the rank of lieutenant and later captain, a position he held for nearly ten years. He served in the assembly for over twenty years, and his first committee assignments dealt with revising the laws governing surplus lands. This subject created some tension among the settlers and the land agents. According to one biographer, “The quarrels over the fees, quit rents, and fraudulent practices of the land agents finally produced the Enfield Riots in 1759.” A few years later Caswell was one of the commissioners who surveyed the boundary between Johnston and Pitt Counties.

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