Key local figure
Edmund Fanning (1737 to 1818) was a Hillsborough town commissioner, Crown prosecutor, Orange County public register and militia colonel, and assemblyman for Orange and then Hillsborough. Regulators fired shots through his roof in 1768 and leveled his house in the September 1770 riot. He commanded the left wing of Tryon's front line at Alamance in 1771.
Source: NCpedia: Fanning, Edmund
1739–1818 as the Library of Congress records it · Library of Congress authority record ↗
20 indexed works are connected with this person, and the index includes 2 works by Edmund Fanning. 1 held at OCPL →
Works in the index that concern this person directly, or were written by them. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it; background reading with wider context sits further down.
Eagle Lodge at 142 West King Street, Hillsborough, a brick Masonic building, in Historic American Buildings Survey documentation compiled after 1933: three photographs, five data pages and a caption page. Names connected with it include Edmund Fanning, William Nichols, John Berry, Samuel Hancock and members of the Lytle family. Topics include fraternal organizations and the building's use as an assembly and lecture hall.
Twin Chimneys, the house at 168 West King Street in Hillsborough, documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey after 1933 in five photographs, six data pages and a caption page. People connected with its story include Edmund Fanning, Hugh Waddell, John Knox Witherspoon and Archibald Murphy. Topics include domestic life and the Revolutionary War.
Stewart E. Dunaway's life of Edmund Fanning (1739-1818), the colonial officeholder in Hillsborough whom the Regulators singled out and who left North Carolina as a loyalist, together with the Fanning family's genealogy. Self-published through Lulu in 2011, 223 pages with illustrations, facsimiles, genealogical tables and maps. Topics include American loyalists and Hillsborough and Orange County biography and genealogy.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Fanning, Edmund, 1739-1818.
Richard Henderson's account of the mob violence he witnessed in court, written in 1770 and sent on to London. Edmund Fanning, James Hunter and Governor William Tryon all appear, and subjects include weaponry, rebellion, attack, property and civil disturbance. The violence occurred in Hillsborough, the Orange County town at the center of the Regulator quarrel. Reference CO 5/314.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Duke record: Fanning, Edmund.
Papers gathered around the Regulator troubles: printed advertisements, financial statements and the address the insurgents delivered to the governor's council on 20 June 1768. William Butler, James Hunter, Edmund Fanning and Isaac Edwards are among the men named, and the papers turn on taxes, grievances, oaths and petitions. Orange County was the center of the rising. Reference CO 5/312.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC State record: Fanning, Edmund.
First issue of the Hillsborough Historical Society Journal, July 1998, drawing on Mary Claire Engstrom's research on the town. Pieces cover William Churton, the surveyor who laid out Hillsborough; Edmund Fanning and the town in the Regulator troubles and the Revolution; the Third Provincial Congress, which met at Hillsborough in 1775; and figures and places of the old town: Mary Burke, known as Polly, the Presbyterian minister John Knox Witherspoon, Dr. Thomas Webb and Faddis Tavern.
Why this is here: Their name appears in the record.
University Publications of America issued this two reel microfilm edition in 1993, reproducing the Walter Alves papers of 1771 to 1858 with a printed reel guide. Alves, 1768 to 1819, was an Orange County landowner, and the material runs to real estate investment in North Carolina and Tennessee, Scottish American families, and letters with Richard Bennehan, William Boylan and John Wickham.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Fanning, Edmund, 1739-1818.
Letters of the historian George Bancroft, 1845 to 1885, 22 items. Fifteen are transcripts of letters addressed to UNC president David L. Swain about the state's history: the Regulators, the Loyalists, the Mecklenburg Declaration, Tryon and Martin as governors, and Edmund Fanning and Hermon Husbands, both central to the Regulator troubles in Hillsborough.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the DPLA record: Fanning, Edmund, 1739-1818.
Letter of 2 December 1783 from William Johnston, Orange County legislator and agent for the loyalist Edmund Fanning, to Adlai Osborn of Rowan County, about selling Fanning's Rowan lands to satisfy a judgment. Johnston also remarks on the death of former governor Thomas Burke. A photocopy. State Archives of North Carolina, PC.644.
Why this is here: Their name appears in the record.
Reports and papers of the joint select committees of the North Carolina General Assembly from its April to May 1780 session, in 223 images. Items include a Virginia governor's letter on naval officers and duties at the Ocracoke channel, committee appointments, and Henry Mounger's petition on where Montgomery County's public buildings should stand. Orange County is among the many counties touched.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Digital Collections record: Fanning, Edmund, 1739-1818.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Messages, reports and referrals of the General Assembly's joint select committees from October and November 1779, 97 pages in all. Business ranges over public money and depreciation, army supply, militia, taxation, land titles and appointments, and names include Governor Richard Caswell, Abner Nash, Edmund Fanning and the printer James Davis. Orange County is among the counties touched.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Digital Collections record: Fanning, Edmund, 1739-1818.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
North Carolina Senate bill of 26 October 1779 to vest title to certain lands in Abner Nash, later governor. It touches confiscated property, surveys, wills and executors, with lands in Granville, Guilford, Randolph and Jones counties. Edmund Fanning, the Hillsborough loyalist, and Thomas Hart figure in it. Seven images.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Digital Collections record: Fanning, Edmund, 1739-1818.
NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
Thirteen Orange County items from the second series of American Loyalist claims to the British Audit Office (AO 13), dated 1770 to 1786. Memorials, certificates, letters and lists document property losses of merchants and attorneys, among them Edmund Fanning, the Hillsborough official targeted by the Regulators who later sided with the Crown.
Why this is here: Their name appears in the record.
Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough, forwarded this 1770 letter to Governor Tryon about rebellious groups in Hillsborough, the Orange County seat. Edmund Fanning, Francis Nash, William Johnston and James Monro are named, and the topics are intelligence, civil disturbance, destruction, crime and attack. From Colonial Office volume CO 5/314 part 1, North Carolina correspondence of the Secretary of State, September 1770 to August 1771.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Duke record: Fanning, Edmund.
Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this person. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled.
Stewart E. Dunaway's life of Edmund Fanning (1739-1818), the colonial officeholder in Hillsborough whom the Regulators singled out and who left North Carolina as a loyalist, together with the Fanning family's genealogy. Self-published through Lulu in 2011, 223 pages with illustrations, facsimiles, genealogical tables and maps. Topics include American loyalists and Hillsborough and Orange County biography and genealogy.
Dated events connected with this person: sixteen of 28, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 28 dated events in the chronology →
Fanning, a lawyer who came to the county town in 1762, qualified as register in March 1763. He went on to buy several town lots and build a large house on the later site of the Masonic Lodge.
People: Edmund Fanning
Orange County farmers first organized in 1766 to question county officers about taxes and fees, a Sandy Creek effort that Herman Husband led and that lapsed in 1767. In early 1768 a new association, soon called the Regulation, pledged to pay no taxes or fees beyond what the law allowed.
Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events
People: Herman Husband · Edmund Fanning · William Tryon
After Tryon read the Council his cold reply to the Regulators' petition, which forbade further meetings and told them to let the taxes be collected, Fanning was called into the room and formally thanked with his men for their behavior in the recent troubles.
People: Edmund Fanning · William Tryon
Francis Nash reported to Edmund Fanning that Strudwick's tenants had formed an association to hold his lands against him and had met in the Haw Fields the day before he wrote.
People: Francis Nash · Edmund Fanning
Answering Fanning, the governor issued one proclamation to the people and another to militia officers in Bute, Halifax, Granville, Rowan, Mecklenburg, Cumberland and Johnston counties to stand ready to march to his aid.
People: William Tryon · Edmund Fanning
With Edmund Fanning away at the Halifax court, Lieutenant Colonel Gray reported the Hillsborough horse rescue and was ordered to raise seven militia companies. Only 120 men came with arms, and the officers judged that no more than 150 men in the county could be relied on, so they agreed to a truce and named three men to meet the Regulator leaders on April 20.
People: Edmund Fanning
After the May confrontation at Hillsborough, the county officers sent Husband, through Ralph McNair, a petition of their own drafting in which the Regulators would call their conduct illegal and withdraw their charges. McNair warned that Fanning would report the case to Tryon as treason if it was refused, and the Regulators instead named their own committee to lay their papers before the governor.
Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events
People: Herman Husband · Edmund Fanning · Ralph McNair
Tryon reached Hillsborough on September 19 with 195 Rowan and 310 Mecklenburg volunteers, and two days later 699 Orange and 120 Granville militia joined them. With gentlemen volunteers, artillery and officers the force came to 1,461 men, a quarter of the Assembly among its officers.
People: William Tryon · Edmund Fanning · Thomas Lloyd (died 1792) · Thomas Hart
Martin Howard, Maurice Moore and Richard Henderson sat at the Hillsborough District Superior Court term in which Edmund Fanning was found guilty and Regulators including William Butler were tried.
People: Maurice Moore · Richard Henderson · Edmund Fanning · William Butler (Regulator) · Herman Husband
Found guilty at the September court on five counts of taking excess fees for registering deeds, and fined a penny on each, Fanning at once gave up the office of register.
People: Edmund Fanning
With no troops in town, many Regulators came to the March 1769 court to prosecute the officers, with little success. Herman Husband was tried and acquitted, James Hunter's case was continued, and Fanning was tried again on the old fee charge and formally convicted.
People: Herman Husband · James Hunter · Edmund Fanning
Just after the September 1770 riot, Francis Nash, Edmund Fanning, Alexander Martin, Thomas Henderson, Jesse Benton, William Johnston, Adlai Osborne and others formed an association for mutual aid and protection. Many members lived too far apart to help one another in a sudden emergency.
Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events
People: Francis Nash · Edmund Fanning · Alexander Martin · Jesse Benton · William Johnston · Adlai Osborne
Hillsborough became a borough, with its own member in the Assembly, and a chartered market town. Edmund Fanning sat for the new borough when the Assembly met at New Bern that December.
People: Edmund Fanning
About 150 Regulators crowded the Hillsborough Superior Court, beat the lawyer John Williams, Edmund Fanning and others, and forced Judge Richard Henderson to adjourn; he fled that night. The next day the crowd tore down Fanning's house and wrote mocking judgments on the court docket.
Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events
People: Herman Husband · Edmund Fanning · Richard Henderson · Alexander Martin · Thomas Hart
Meeting at New Bern on the Hillsborough dispatches, the Council heard the Attorney General's opinion that pulling down Fanning's house and the assaults amounted to a riot, and ordered a proclamation requiring every justice of the peace to pursue the persons who assembled at Hillsborough on September 24 and 25. It advised putting off the Assembly to November 30.
Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events
People: William Tryon · Edmund Fanning
After the matter was raised with Governor Martin in March 1772, he urged Fanning, by then surveyor general of New York, to drop his suits over the destruction of his Hillsborough property, and Fanning had them discontinued, leaving his 1,500 pound claim to the Assembly. The House refused to pay it in March 1773.
Part of The Regulator crisis, 1766–1771 · 90 events
People: Edmund Fanning · Josiah Martin
People named in the same dated entries as Edmund Fanning, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.
The index lists works with an Orange County connection. To find everything else about Edmund Fanning, search these catalogs.
Searched with the Library of Congress heading Fanning, Edmund, 1739-1818, so the results are about this person and not others with the same name. Each link opens that catalog’s own results in a new tab. The Friends have not reviewed what they return.
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Picture: Edmund Fanning. Public domain. Lossing, Benson. Pictorial Fieldbook of the Revolution. 1852. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers. Volume II.
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