Dobbs County, NC - Governor Richard Caswell Written by W. Keats Sparrow for the Richard Caswell Memorial Service St Mary’s Episcopal Church, Kinston, NC August 12, 2007 Governor Richard Caswell As a teenager, Maryland native Richard Caswell (3 August 1729-10 November 1789) migrated to North Carolina, his home for the rest of his life. Bright, ingratiating, ambitious, versatile, and with a sound elementary education obtained from his parish school in Maryland, Caswell served as an apprentice under the Surveyor General of North Carolina and soon became a surveyor, a lucrative and well respected profession in the colonial era, and in time he also studied law and became an attorney. He entered public life early and served briefly as Sheriff of Johnston (later Dobbs and then Lenoir) County and as a cavalry officer in the county militia. In 1753, Caswell advanced politically from the local to the state level when Johnston County elected him to the Assembly, and he would remain active in state governance, rising to ever-greater levels of responsibility, for the rest of his life. In 1758, he co-sponsored the bill to divide Johnston County and create Dobbs County, named for Royal Governor Arthur Dobbs, and in 1762 he sponsored the bill to establish Kingston (now Kinston) at Atkins’s Bank on the Neuse River, North Carolina’s 20th official town, and helped lay out its original plan. In 1771, he led Royal Governor William Tryon’s right wing in Tryon’s victory over the insurgent Regulators at the Battle of Alamance, and in 1773 Royal Governor Josiah Martin appointed him an Associate Justice of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. As unrest grew over the onerous Townshend Acts, Caswell gradually shifted his allegiance from the Crown to the Patriot cause, and after representing North Carolina at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1775, he returned home a dedicated Revolutionary. Soon thereafter, on 27 February 1776, he led the Patriots in a stunning triumph over the Loyalists at the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge, the first clear-cut American victory of the war. His victory cast the die for North Carolina as a Patriot state and discouraged the British from focusing their primary military efforts on the South for the next four years. North Carolina’s first hero, Caswell became the state’s first Governor, serving three consecutive terms, and afterwards became Major General of the State Militia, helping to drive British invaders from North Carolina late in the war. After the war, Caswell served as Comptroller General before he was re- elected Governor and served three more terms. He was Speaker of the Senate in Fayetteville when he suffered a stroke and died a few days later, at age 61, and his body is thought to be buried in the Caswell Cemetery in Kinston. He was married twice, first to Mary Mackilwean and second to Sarah Herritage, who together with several children survived him. He was an Anglican and, at the time of his death, was Grand Master of the North Carolina Masons. It was said of him after his death that “he was one of the most powerful men that ever lived in this or any other country” and that he was “among the first of patriots and best of men.” His contributions to North Carolina justify the oft-used sobriquet “father of his state.” WKS ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.org/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Keats Sparrow - keatssparrow@yahoo.com ______________________________________________________________________