On 10 October 1766, about twelve neighborhood representatives met at the appointed site, Maddock’s Mill, and the men waited all day for officials to appear. At last, toward evening, James Watson, clerk of the court, arrived. He brought a message from Edmund Fanning, who at the time was Orange County assemblyman, public register of deeds, militia colonel, and judge of the superior court of Salisbury. Fanning had fully intended to attend, Watson told the men, but had changed his mind within the last two days, when he noticed that the Associators had used the word “judiciously” in their proclamation. He could not, by his presence, condone such a usurpation of power on the part of the people, and in fact he now looked on the meeting “as an Insurrection.” Besides, he could not “brook the meanness of being summoned to a Mill, the Court House appearing to him, a more suitable place.” –Kars
NC highway historical marker-Hart’s Mill in Orange County
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