Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

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1819 - Life in the Backcountry

A new invention called an iron cook stove promises to modernize the American kitchen. But most Mecklenburgers will still use fireplaces to heat their homes and cook, since wood is cheap and plentiful. Kitchen chores are strenuous. There are heavy pots to lift and hang over the fire. Food for winter must be salted, pickled or dried to prevent spoilage. Visitors may bring delicacies such as oranges, chocolates, or spices from Charleston, South Carolina, where goods arrive by ships from foreign countries. But such expensive luxuries are uncommon in Charlotte.

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1780 - King's Mountain

October 7, 1780 - On a long, low ridge to the west of Charlotte, frontiersmen from Georgia, Virginia, and both Carolinas are fighting a band of British militiamen led by Major Patrick Ferguson. Although they are evenly matched with about 900 men each, the determined Americans surround the British and trap them at the top of Kings Mountain. Twenty-eight Americans lose their lives and 68 suffer injuries, but they kill, wound or capture nearly all of the British troops in a stunning victory that helps bring about the end of the Revolutionary War.

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1800 - A Growing County

The population of Mecklenburg County reaches 19,400. There are more than twice as many people living here now as there were just 14 years ago, even with the loss of the Cabarrus County acreage and population in 1792.

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1790 - Backcountry Hardships

Even after the hardships of the war years, peacetime life is not easy. Food spoils quickly. The only refrigeration comes from springhouses, small buildings cooled by underground springs of water. Doctors know little about the causes of illness. The treatment for fevers, coughs or other ailments is bloodletting: A doctor will drain up to a pint of blood from a person who is ill. It will be many years before physicians will discover that bloodletting does no good and often harms a patient.

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1781 - Guilford Courthouse

March 15, 1781 - Four thousand American soldiers meet half that number of British at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, near Greensboro. Three hours later when the fighting stops, neither side can claim victory. But this battle helps convince Britain's General Cornwallis to abandon the Carolinas.

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1715 - Economic Beginnings

Trading becomes more important as natives and settlers learn to live together. Indians are expert hunters, and offer animal furs or skins, along with the pottery they make. Settlers bring metal tools and fine cloth to trade. But fighting breaks out when some Catawba and Yamassee Indians think they are treated unfairly by the settlers.

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1758 - Religion and Revolution

January, 1759 - Families who settle near each other hope to attract a preacher for their new communities. The outspoken Rev. Alexander Craighead moves from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to what will soon become Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Craighead is active in the Independence Movement, which encourages worshipers to resist control by the British rulers.

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1775 - Mecklenburg Militia

May 19, 1775 - Colonel Thomas Polk is leader of Mecklenburg's citizen army, called a militia. He has asked citizens to send representatives to meet at the Charlotte courthouse. They are planning ways to protect their freedom from British rule when a messenger arrives with news of the battles of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. Furious, the citizens decide to cut all ties with Britain.

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1729 - Royal Colony

The Proprietors (with the exception of the Earl of Granville) sell their shares to the Crown, and North Carolina becomes a royal colony. The governor is now appointed directly by the King.

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1759 - A Child Called Peter

A contagious and deadly disease called smallpox leaves Peter Harris an orphan. The Catawba Indian boy is welcomed into Thomas Spratt's home in Charlotte. Harris will remain close with his adoptive white family throughout his life. He will fight for the Americans during the Revolutionary War, and be buried in Spratt's family graveyard when he dies.

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