HISTORICAL SKETCHES

CANE CREEK BAPTIST CHURCH

Number 25: MAY 2008 www.canecreek.org 6901 Orange Grove Rd., Hillsborough, NC 27278

CANE CREEK AND THE WAR OF REGULATION

Imagine yourself as an early settler in the 1760s or early '70s trying to eek out a living for yourself and your family. You raise a few crops and would love to sell the surplus to earn a bit of cash. You can make most of the things you need or trade for them. But taxes can only be paid with cash. Alas, the markets for your crops are far away and the roads are so poor that there is almost no opportunity to turn your crop into cash. Or maybe you do take a crop to an eastern market. Your pay would probably not be cash but instead would be a warehouse receipt. Then the sheriff comes along and demands that you pay him a ten-shilling tax to finance the construction of a palace in Edenton for Governor Tryon. The sheriff will not accept a warehouse receipt in payment. When you protest that you have no actual money, the sheriff "distrains" (confiscates) one of your mules instead. You would be furious.

Or imagine that you are a new settler seeking to stake a claim on some "open" land on which to build a home and grow crops to support yourself and your family. There was a customary charge to be paid the surveyor to lay off your tract and to the Granville land agent to take care of making out the deed, and, of course, the cost of the land itself. But the land agent demands that you pay double the customary fee and there is no doubt that this extra amount goes directly into his pocket. Edmund Fanning, a Hillsborough lawyer, was well known to routinely charge four times the allowable fee to process a land grant.

Or imagine that a young couple wanted to get married. Colonial authorities refused to recognize a marriage as legal unless it was performed by a minister of the Anglican Church. And to add injury to insult, Governor Tryon attempted to establish Anglican "vestries" throughout the state and tax the residents in order to build churches and pay ministers.

A group of settlers became so frustrated that they decided to come together to form an insurgency to bring about some form of regulation on County authorities. They called themselves "Regulators" and held their first meeting in August 1766 near Sandy Creek in what was then western Orange County. It is probably no coincidence that Sandy Creek was also the location of the first Baptist church in these parts, founded by Shubal Stearns. At first, the Regulators petitioned Governor Tryon to make County officials adhere to legal taxes and fees instead of doubling or tripling them and keeping the balance. Tryon rebuffed the petitions but did warn the Hillsborough "courthouse gang" to stick to legal fees. I should note that the Colonial British notion of a county office (such as sheriff, magistrate, judge, registrar, etc.) differs from what we are familiar with today. An office was a gift of the Governor and, while it came with no salary, it was a property right, which could be bought, sold, or passed on to one's son. It was a valuable asset because one charged a fee for services rendered. The official fee to register a deed might be, for example, five shillings. So if you charge twenty shillings, you send five to the Governor and keep fifteen for yourself.

In 1768, with indignation building, the sheriff distrained a Regulator's horse for non-payment of taxes. Indignant Regulators rode into Hillsborough, rescued the horse, and shot up Edmund Fanning's house. Fanning appealed to Tryon saying that, "the late orderly and well regulated County of Orange is now the very nest and bosom of rioting and rebellion." Things quieted down for a while. But over the next two years the Regulators built up their strength and elected representative to the colonial Assembly.

In 1770, there was unrest throughout the western counties. Another standoff occurred in Hillsborough where some Regulators faced trial. The Regulators marched into town, beat the judge senseless, took over the court, acquitted and released all the prisoners. They then trashed Fanning's house, rode him out of town, and returned to their farms.

Their feeling against Fanning escalated until they issued their own decree declaring Fanning an outlaw to be killed on sight. Things came to a head in May 1771 when a fresh bunch of Regulators were scheduled to stand trial in Hillsborough. Tryon, knowing that a showdown was at hand, ordered other North Carolina counties to muster their militias and march with him to Orange County. Two thousand furious Regulators assembled and were met by about 1500 militia. The Regulators asked for an audience with Tryon but he refused and gave them an hour to lay down their arms and disperse. They refused and Tryon attacked. At the so-called Battle of Alamance, the well-trained militia routed the disorganized rag-tag Regulators. Both sides lost nine men but the battle was entirely one sided. This defeat ended the "War of Regulation." Tryon ordered the Regulators to sign an oath of allegiance to the Crown. Over 6000 did so. But others, many of them Baptists, simply packed up, left the state, and headed south and west. Interestingly, this is one reason for the sudden spread of a Shubal Stearns type of Baptist practice, which slowly evolved into the Southern Baptist Convention. Tryon's successor, Governor Martin, addressed many of the old complaints and the former Regulators came to grudgingly admire him. But when the Revolution broke out in 1776, they turned against him and most supported the patriot's side. When General Cornwallis occupied Hillsborough in 1781 looking for recruits, he complained that, "I could not get one hundred men in all of the Regulator's Country to stay with us even as a militia."

What does any of this have to do with us here at Cane Creek? I think it may have affected the timing of our founding and our original denominational affiliation. I have looked over a list of 883 known Regulators and have found no Cates, Kirks, Brewers, O'Daniels or any other names of local landowners. The only names that come close to our neighborhood are Edwards, Lloyds, McDaniels, Strowds, Thompsons, and Woodys. All this happened before our church was established in 1789. I think it is no accident that our church was not established before the Revolution although there were enough settlers by then to have supported a church. I suspect that our ancestors did not support the Regulators outright (although some may have kept their sympathies to themselves) and instead tried to steer a middle course. But everyone was aware of Tryon's opinion of who was behind the Regulator movement. He thought the trouble was centered among the Quakers and Baptists of Orange County, "the first no friend and the latter an avowed enemy of the mother church (the Anglicans)." It seems reasonable to me that Cane Creekers thought it prudent to keep the Baptists at arm's length during these troubled times. Then the Revolution broke out and things didn't settle down until after Cornwallis's surrender in 1781. Our church was founded in 1789 by a minister, Thomas Cate, who was ordained at Haw River Baptist Church. But we would still have nothing to do with Baptists. It was not until 1807 that we joined the Sandy Creek Association and became a Baptist Church.

(I want to thank Jack Ray for reading this Sketch for accuracy ) Ed Johnson