American Revolution and my families ties

              

With everything going on in America these days it has helped me to research my families history in the forming of this nation, which brings me to the American Revolution.

What I have found is very interesting and not very well know as it predates the Declaration of Independence signed on July 04,1776 which takes all the spot light from those times.


                                                            "The Tryon Resolves"

          On August 14, 1775 some North Carolina colonial men, as many as four dozen or so, met at the Tryon County courthouse.  That is, they crowded into Christian Mauney’s isolated log house at a country cross roads thirty some miles west of Charlotte.
         There they drafted and copied into the minutes a document they called “An Association.”   The meaning, now long obsolete, was a written pledge to carry out an enterprise. At the risk of their fortunes and their lives they were pledging to take up arms against British soldiers in defense of what they saw as their natural rights under the British constitution. The men at Mauney’s resolved that their “Association” should “be Signed by the Inhabitants of Tryon County.”

The document said,
 

The unprecedented, barbarous & bloody actions Committed by the British Troops on our American Brethren near Boston, on the 19^th of April & 20^th of May last together with the Hostile opperations & Traiterous Designs now Carrying on by the Tools of Ministerial Vengeance & Despotism for the Subjugating all British America, Sugest to us the painful Necessity of having recourse to Arms, for the preservation of those Rights & Liberties which the principles of our Constitution and the Laws of God Nature & nations have made it our Duty to Defend.

We therefore the Subscribers freeholders & Inhabitants of Tryon County, do hereby 

faithfully unite Ourselves under the most Sacred ties of Religion Honor & Love of 

Our Country, firmly to Resist force by force in defense of our Natural Freedom & 

Constitutional Rights against all Invasions, & at the same time do Solemnly Engage

to take up Arms and Risque our lives and fortunes in Maintaining the Freedom of our 

Country whenever the Wisdom & Council of the Continental Congress or our provincial

Convention shall Declare it necessary, & this Engagement we will Continue in & hold

Sacred, till a Reconciliation shall take place between Great Britain & America on 

Constitutional principles, which we most ardently desire.  And we do firmly agree to hold all such persons Inimical to the liberties of America, who shall refuse to Subscribe this Association.

These are the “subscribers”—those who inscribed their names or made their mark under 

       "An Association"  

    On the right side of this document is the signature of my Great Uncle[6] Jacob Costner.

            And on this marker placed in 1919 by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

             Jacob Costner was also a Major in the North Carolina Militia, up until his death 
Jan. 16, 1779 with his wife Elizabeth as they tried to cross the swollen South Fork River and drowned.  
                                                  He was a true American Patriot!