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Event

Regulator executions at Hillsborough, June 1771

Six Regulators hanged after the Battle of Alamance.

4 works about Regulator executions at Hillsborough, June 1771 are indexed here.

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The state marker for the six Regulators hanged at Hillsborough in June 1771
The state marker for the six Regulators hanged at Hillsborough in June 1771

In the chronology

Chronology entries for this event, in date order. See these 14 dated events in the chronology →

  1. Outlawed Regulator leaders petition Governor Martin for pardon From hiding, some in South Carolina, Jeremiah Field, Ninian Bell Hamilton, Matthew Hamilton, James Hunter, Thomas Welborn, William Butler and John Fruit asked the new governor, Josiah Martin, for pardon. The Assembly asked mercy for all but Husband, Butler and Howell, but Martin waited because Tryon had left the matter to the Crown. People: Josiah Martin, James Hunter, William Butler (Regulator) Place: Orange County · Also named: Jeremiah Field, Ninian Bell Hamilton, Matthew Hamilton, Thomas Welborn, John FruitInternet Archive: Bassett, The Regulators of North Carolina (1765-1771) (1896), p. 207
  2. Regulator leader Thomas Person is held in irons at Hillsborough After the Battle of Alamance, Governor Tryon had Thomas Person seized and held in irons in Hillsborough for three weeks, during which he was marched to the gallows and back. He was released without trial. People: Thomas Person, William Tryon Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · NCpedia: Person, Thomas
  3. William Few moves his family from Orange County to Georgia Pressed by lawsuits after he had gone surety for several people, William Few sold much of his property and moved his family to Georgia, leaving his son William to settle his affairs. The same year his son James was executed after Alamance and Tryon's army ruined the family's crops; the colonial assembly later compensated Few for the loss. People: William Few, James Few Place: Orange County · Also named: William Few Jr.Internet Archive: Archibald Henderson, ed., "Hermon Husband's Continuation of the Impartial Relation", North Carolina Historical Review 18 (1941), p. 78
  4. Battle of Alamance Governor William Tryon's militia defeated the Regulators at Alamance. James Few, captured on the field, was hanged at Tryon's camp the next day. People: William Tryon, Herman Husband, Robert Palmer, James Few Place: Present-day Alamance County; then Orange CountyNCpedia
  5. Tryon proclaims a pardon for Regulators who come into camp, lay down their arms and take the oath From the camp Tryon offered the King's free pardon for all treasons and rebellions to anyone who came in by May 21, surrendered his arms, swore allegiance, promised to pay his taxes and submitted to the law, excepting the outlawed leaders and the prisoners already in camp. Further proclamations on May 21, 24 and 31 and June 11 extended the terms. People: William Tryon Place: Tryon's camp on Alamance Creek (then Orange County)Documenting the American South, Colonial and State Records: Proclamation by William Tryon concerning a pardon for rioters, May 17, 1771
  6. Tryon's army camps a week at Sandy Creek after Alamance Five days after the battle the army marched to Sandy Creek, the home district of Husband and many Regulators, and stayed a week, taking supplies from the people and giving them the oath of allegiance. It moved west on May 29. People: William Tryon Place: Sandy Creek (then Orange County, now Randolph County)Internet Archive: Bassett, The Regulators of North Carolina (1765-1771) (1896), p. 204
  7. Tryon offers 100 pounds and a thousand acres for Husband, Hunter, Howell and Butler, dead or alive Marching back toward Hillsborough, Tryon proclaimed from Bethabara that Herman Husband, James Hunter, Rednap Howell and William Butler stood outlawed and liable to be shot by anyone, and offered one hundred pounds and one thousand acres of land to whoever brought any of them into his or General Waddell's camp. People: William Tryon, Herman Husband, James Hunter, William Butler (Regulator), Rednap Howell Place: Bethabara · Also named: Hugh WaddellDocumenting the American South, Colonial and State Records: Proclamation by William Tryon concerning a reward for the capture of Regulator leaders, June 9, 1771
  8. Tryon's army returns to Hillsborough with its Regulator prisoners The army came back on June 14 and the next day marched through town with drums beating and oak sprigs in their hats before camping a mile east. The special court of oyer and terminer, opened May 30 and adjourned to await the prisoners, then resumed and tried fourteen men for treason. People: William Tryon, Martin Howard, Richard Henderson, Maurice Moore Place: HillsboroughNash, Hillsboro, Colonial and Revolutionary (1903), p. 23
  9. Regulators are tried and executed at Hillsborough After the Battle of Alamance, Regulator prisoners were tried at Hillsborough and twelve were condemned for treason. Six were pardoned; on June 19 Governor Tryon's army marched the others to a gallows east of town and hanged them, among them Benjamin Merrill, Robert Messer, Robert Matear and James Pugh. James Few had been hanged at camp on May 17. People: William Tryon, James Few Place: Hillsborough · Also named: Benjamin Merrill, Robert Matear, James PughNC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: Regulators Hanged (G-23)
  10. Tryon takes leave of his army at Hillsborough and hands the command to Colonel Ashe Having received at Hillsborough camp the King's command to go at once to govern New York, Tryon thanked the officers and men for their conduct through the campaign, gave the army to Colonel John Ashe to march to Colonel Bryan's and disband by counties, and ordered the artillery escorted to New Bern and the horses taken in battle sold for the public. He reached New Bern on June 24 and sailed on the 30th. People: William Tryon, John Ashe Place: HillsboroughDocumenting the American South, Colonial and State Records: Order Book for William Tryon's regiment in the military campaign against the Regulators, May 1 to June 20, 1771
  11. Governor Tryon's army turns its horses onto the Few farm's crops Back at Hillsborough in mid-June 1771 after the Battle of Alamance, Governor William Tryon's army turned its horses onto the wheat, barley and oats of the Few farm a mile east of town, where William Few Sr. had given bond for Regulator leaders. The family left for Georgia that winter. People: William Few, William Tryon Place: Eno River · Also named: William Few Sr.Search the index · Nash, Hillsboro, Colonial and Revolutionary (1903), Appendix C, p. 94 · Also: NCpedia: Few, William, Jr.; Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, vol. 8, pp. 574-600: Tryon's order book in the campaign against the Regulators
  12. Tryon, now governor of New York, asks the King's free pardon for the six reprieved Regulators Writing from Fort George in New York, Tryon named the six men convicted of high treason at the Hillsborough court in June whose executions he had suspended at the army officers' request, James Stewart, James Emmerson, William Brown, Forester Mercer, James Copeland and Harmon Cox, and repeated his request that the King grant them a free pardon. People: William Tryon Place: Fort George, New York · Also named: James Stewart, James Emmerson, William Brown, Forester Mercer, James Copeland, Harmon CoxDocumenting the American South, Colonial and State Records: Letter from William Tryon to Wills Hill, Marquis of Downshire, December 14, 1771
Show all 14 dated events
  1. The county school board refuses to sell the Regulator hanging ground at Cameron Park School Asked by a Hillsboro man to sell him a small piece of the Cameron Park School grounds described as the land where the Regulators were hanged, the Board of Education said the land was not for sale and agreed to enclose the marker already there and the ground around it and keep it for historical purposes. Place: Cameron Park School grounds, HillsboroughThe News of Orange County (Hillsborough), August 6, 1959, p. 1
  2. The Colonial Dames erect a marble monument to the hanged Regulators beside the Hughes Academy schoolhouse In 1963 the North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames of America erected a marble slab monument to the six Regulators hanged at Hillsborough in June 1771, placing it next to the historic Hughes Academy schoolhouse in Hillsborough. The men's grave, thought to lie near the Eno, has never been found. Place: HillsboroughNC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: Regulators Hanged in Hillsborough

Places in this history

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows them all.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

All places and the county map →

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Correspondence containing minutes of a council held in New Bern discussing matters of trade and appeals made by civilians on behalf of those sentenced to death for stealing horses

1771

Minutes of a council sitting at New Bern in 1771, sent on with the governor's correspondence, recording debate over trade and export embargoes and petitions from civilians on behalf of men sentenced to hang for stealing horses. Governor Tryon, James Hasell, Richard Henderson and Samuel Cornell take part. Hillsborough in Orange County is also named. Reference CO 5/314.

Included because: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

Duke NC State

Governors' Papers: Richard Caswell, Correspondence, September 1779

Thomson, Charles, 1729-1824 · 1779

Governor Caswell's papers for September 1779 run to 26 images. Charles Thomson writes for the Continental Congress, and John Jay and John Ashe also appear, along with Rutherford County in the west. The Revolutionary War is the backdrop, and Orange County is among the places concerned.

Included because: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

NC Digital Collections DPLA

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

House Joint Resolutions: May 3-15

North Carolina. General Assembly · 1779

House joint resolutions of May 3 to 15, 1779, 146 images of resolutions, messages and petitions. The House appointed a chaplain and acted on requests from Walter Gibson of Bladen County, James Glasgow and Captain Francis Tartason, among many others, with matters of militia, taxation, land grants and schools.

Included because: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

NC Digital Collections

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Hillsborough District: Minute Docket Superior Court Part 1, 1768-1788

United States. District Court (North Carolina: Hillsborough District) · 1768

Minute docket, part 1, of the Superior Court for the Hillsborough District, 1768 to 1788, spanning the late colonial court and the state courts set up after the 1776 constitution. Cases involve debt, estates, theft, horse stealing, murder, treason and slavery, and names include William Tryon, Richard Henderson, Maurice Moore and Richard Caswell. 234 images.

Included because: The record names this subject alongside a heading for the county or its towns.

NC Digital Collections

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this event. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this event itself.

  • Start here · NC 975.602 TROXLER Farming Dissenters: The Regulator Movement in Piedmont North Carolina Troxler, Carole Watterson · 2011

    Carole Watterson Troxler's history of the Regulator movement in Piedmont North Carolina, from land speculation and backcountry resentment through Herman Husband and the Sandy Creek network to the petitions, court proceedings and rioting in Hillsborough and Salisbury, the Battle of Alamance in 1771 and the movement's afterlife in the Revolution. An appendix compiles names in a Regulator context. Published by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources in 2011, 221 pages with illustrations, maps and an index.

  • Start here · 975.602 KAR Breaking Loose Together: The Regulator Rebellion in Pre-revolutionary North Carolina Kars, Marjoleine · 2002

    Marjoleine Kars's history of the Regulator Rebellion of 1766 to 1771, the backcountry uprising against corrupt county officials that ended at the Battle of Alamance. Hillsborough, the Orange County seat, was a center of the Regulators' protests and the scene of their 1770 court riot. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2002, 286 pages with illustrations and maps.

  • Foundational · NC 975.656 CAM Hillsborough and the Regulators Cameron, Annie Sutton · 1964

    Annie Sutton Cameron's short account of Hillsborough during the Regulator uprising of 1766 to 1771, when backcountry farmers protested colonial officials and courts and Hillsborough, as the seat of Orange County, stood at the center of the conflict. Published by the Orange County Historical Museum in Hillsborough in 1964, 36 pages with illustrations.

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  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 975.6 POW The War of the Regulation and the Battle of Alamance, May 16, 1771 Powell, William Stevens · 1975

    William S. Powell's short account of the War of the Regulation and its end at the Battle of Alamance on May 16, 1771, when Governor Tryon's militia defeated the backcountry Regulators. The fighting took place in what was then Orange County, and Hillsborough, the county seat, had been the center of the Regulators' grievances and riots. Issued by the State Department of Archives and History, 32 pages with illustrations, facsimiles, a portrait and a folding map; this printing is dated 1976.

  • Wider context · NC 812 VER Esther Wake, Or, The Spirit of the Regulators: A Play in Four Acts Vermont, Adolph · 1913

    Adolph Vermont's four-act drama of the Regulator uprising, first performed on the University of North Carolina campus by its Summer School Dramatic Club on 4 July 1912. Scenes move from Governor Tryon's palace at New Bern to Orange County, on the Eno, at Hillsborough and on the Alamance battlefield, as the heroine, Esther Wake, pleads for the Regulator gunsmith James Pugh; N. W. Walker's introduction admits she may never have lived. Printed at Raleigh, 1913.

  • Wider context · NC BIO TRYON POW The Correspondence of William Tryon and Other Selected Papers Tryon, William · 1980

    The letters and papers of William Tryon, royal governor of North Carolina until 1771, edited by William S. Powell in two volumes, 1758 to 1767 and 1768 to 1818. They cover the Regulator troubles, from the riots at Hillsborough, the Orange County seat, to the battle of Alamance in 1771 and the hangings that followed. Tryon, builder of the New Bern palace, later governed New York. Division of Archives and History, 1980; indexed.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 285 ARN David Caldwell Arnett, Ethel Stephens · 1976

    Ethel Stephens Arnett's life of David Caldwell (1725 to 1824), pastor of the Buffalo and Alamance Presbyterian churches in Guilford County, who opened a log college in 1767 and practiced medicine he had taught himself. He was present at the Battle of Alamance in 1771, represented Guilford at the Halifax congress that adopted the state constitution in 1776, and sat in the Hillsborough convention of 1788. Greensboro, 1976, 106 pages with an index.

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Related themes

Wars & Military Service →Politics & Government →Colonial Orange County →General Assembly sessions at Hillsborough, 1778–1784 →Creation of Orange County and Hillsborough, 1752–1766 →

Picture: The state marker for the six Regulators hanged at Hillsborough in June 1771. CC BY 2.0. Photograph by the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough; via Wikimedia Commons

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