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Three NC founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence.
All were Masons.
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Joseph Hewes. William Hooper. John Penn. All three were Founding Fathers of our nation. All signed the Declaration of Independence. All came from North Carolina. All were Masons.
An imposing monument honoring all three stands nobly within Guilford Courthouse National Military Park. Efforts to rebury them all in that one historic spot fell short of success. Hooper and Penn are indeed buried at Guilford Courthouse but Hewes remains at Christ Church in Philadelphia.
All died young: Hewes at 50, Hooper at 48 and Penn at 48.
While Hewes, Hooper and Penn played no role in the great Revolutionary battle fought at Guilford Courthouse, African American soldiers served in both American and British armies in that historic event.
Consider this.
On March 15, 1781, the largest and most hotly contested battle in the Revolutionary War’s Southern Campaign was fought at the NC back-country hamlet of Guilford Courthouse. Major General Nathanael Greene moved his army of 4,400 American militia and Continentals here to confront 1,900 veteran regulars and German allies commanded by Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis—also a Mason.
Two and one-half hours of intense and brutal fighting followed. Cornwallis, in spite of being outnumbered more than two to one, forced Greene to retreat. But while Greene’s retreat preserved the strength of his army at a cost of six percent of his men, Cornwallis’ victory cost him 25 percent of his army and almost a third of his officers.
Guilford Courthouse proved to be the high water mark of British military operations of the Revolutionary War. But weakened in his campaign against Greene, Cornwallis moved 200 miles to the coast with hopes of success in Virginia. Instead, seven months later, Lord Cornwallis was surrendering to the combined American and French forces under General George Washington at Yorktown.
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Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
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