When we left our story two weeks ago, Col. Moses Alexander was trying to find volunteers to transport a gunpowder shipment to General Waddell in Salisbury so Waddell could put down The Regulator Movement in Alamance and other counties to our north. He put together a crew for the job and the wagons pulled out of Charlotte.
An informant took word to the conspirators at Rocky River that the wagons were in Charlotte and they would stop for the night at the muster grounds near the present-day intersection of U.S. 29 and Poplar Tent Road in Concord. (U.S. 29 essentially follows the route of The Great Wagon Road — the route the munitions wagons would have taken.)
The young men met on May 2, 1771, at the home of James White, Sr., which stood one mile from Rocky River. They blackened their faces, disguised themselves as Native Americans, and set out for the muster grounds. Mr. White’s sons started walking, expecting to meet their father as he came home from a grist mill. They had not gone far before they met him and ordered him down from his horse. If he recognized them, he did not let on.
The White brothers laid their father’s bags of flour or meal on a big flat rock near the present-day site of Rocky Ridge United Methodist Church so wild hogs could not bother them. They took his two horses, leaving him to walk home.
The conspirators, who had pledged secrecy until death, cut across the county and sometime on the night of May 2, 1771, converged on a hill near Phifer’s old muster grounds on Poplar Tent Road.
Governor William Tryon’s gunpowder wagons were in sight! Can’t you imagine how the hearts of the conspirators pounded in their chests as they hid behind trees, ducked behind large rocks and looked down on the three wagons encamped around a dying campfire?
History does not tell us who gave the command to attack, but James White, Jr. seems to have been the ringleader.
The band of patriots surprised the guards. One of the teamsters was James Caruthers. He recognized his brother, Bob, as one of the attackers. In a low voice he said, “You’ll rue this, Bob.”
“Hold your tongue, Jim,” came his brother’s reply.
The conspirators moved the guards and teamsters to safety. Then they emptied the wagons and put the gunpowder and blankets in a pile. A train of powder was laid, and James White, Jr. fired his pistol into it. The resulting explosion was heard nine miles away in the vicinity of Rocky River Presbyterian Church. Some people thought it was thunder, while others mistook it for an earthquake.
Were any of the conspirators injured? What did the nine young men do after they accomplished their objective? With four installations left in this series, you know that this is just the beginning of the story. Look for Part IV in the “Did You Know?” column on May 28.
Bibliography • Robert Kirkpatrick’s unpublished history of Rocky River Presbyterian Church written in 1854.
• The Presbyterian Congregation on Rocky River, by Thomas Hugh Spence, Jr., 1954.
• Revolutionary Incidents and Sketches of Character, by E.W. Caruthers, 1854, as quoted by Dr. Spence in his history of Rocky River Church.
• North Carolina Colonial Records
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