Individual Most Historically Influential ON North Carolina?

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gtyellowjacket said:
Andrew Jackson for his expulsion of the Cherokee in Western NC, his expansion of Democracy to poorer Americans, and his actions to delay the civil war.

Andrew Johnson for his mismanagement of reconstruction.

I'd say Jackson because of his expansion of Democracy that he hasn't gotten enough credit for lately. But in generations past, his legacy was up there in the realm of Jefferson and Madison.
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The Presidential Trio certainly deserve mention...Jackson and Johnson for the things you mention and James K. Polk for presiding over the doubling of the size of the U.S.
 
donbosco said:
The Presidential Trio certainly deserve mention...Jackson and Johnson for the things you mention and James K. Polk for presiding over the doubling of the size of the U.S.
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Definitely Polk was a big deal for the US. Almost forgotten now, but he really had a big impact. I think he had a little less impact specifically on NC than the other two.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
Definitely Polk was a big deal for the US. Almost forgotten now, but he really had a big impact. I think he had a little less impact specifically on NC than the other two.
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Odd in that he stepped down after a single term...doing that was a campaign promise as I understand it. He's also the only president that we know definitively actually engaged in slave trading from the Oval Office.
 
donbosco said:
Odd in that he stepped down after a single term...doing that was a campaign promise as I understand it. He's also the only president that we know definitively actually engaged in slave trading from the Oval Office.
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That's very interesting. I did not know that he was the only one known to have engaged in slave trading in office. Kind of surprised the early guys didn't at least buy and sell some slaves as I would expect it to have been pretty common at the time.

I think George Washington at one point in his life made a pledge not to break up families which would imply that he would be willing to buy and sell slaves as long as it didn't break up families. Maybe that would be a bigger limitation than I think. And of course that's no indication that he actually did it in office.
 
gtyellowjacket said:
That's very interesting. I did not know that he was the only one known to have engaged in slave trading in office. Kind of surprised the early guys didn't at least buy and sell some slaves as I would expect it to have been pretty common at the time.

I think George Washington at one point in his life made a pledge not to break up families which would imply that he would be willing to buy and sell slaves as long as it didn't break up families. Maybe that would be a bigger limitation than I think. And of course that's no indication that he actually did it in office.
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It is certainly possible that other president's traded slaves while in office, and Polk actually seems to have hid that he was doing it, but the evidence has surfaced. ( The Enslaved Households of President James K. Polk ).

Washington did a strange (thoughtless?) thing in his will...stating that his slaves be freed upon the death of his wife Martha. That would seem to put Martha in a certain amount of jeopardy in regard to life around Mt. Vernon.
 
donbosco said:
It is certainly possible that other president's traded slaves while in office, and Polk actually seems to have hid that he was doing it, but the evidence has surfaced. ( The Enslaved Households of President James K. Polk ).

Washington did a strange (thoughtless?) thing in his will...stating that his slaves be freed upon the death of his wife Martha. That would seem to put Martha in a certain amount of jeopardy in regard to life around Mt. Vernon.
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Yes. I believe there was a suspicious fire that was a bit of encouragement to unbind her life to manumission.
 
Pauli Murray

Golden Frinks

Hugh Williamson signed The Constitution

Levi Coffin (architect of the Underground Railroad)

Richard Gatling --> Guess?
 
That leads me to think about William Richardson Davie -- come to discover that he was born in England and died in Sub Carolina. He is, nevertheless, The Father of The University of North Carolina.
 
My vote for the individuals who had the greatest impact on what we preceive to be North Carolina would be a pair of Royal Governors: Gabriel Johnston (1734 - 1752) and Arthur Dobbs (1754 - 1764). Johnston was instrumental in encouraging the settlement of his fellow Scots into North Carolina via the Cape Fear River. Dodds was instrumental the resettlement of "Scotch-Irish" into North Carolina via the "Great Wagon Road" from Pennsylvania. Both these groups of people greatly changed what North Carolina became and who we still preceive ourselves to be. Most of my ancestry can be traced to one or the other of these two "great migrations." And I think the same can be said for a lot of native North Carolinians. The basic fundamental ideas of ordered liberty that I hold dear can be traced back to these two groups.

Note 1: I know that Scot refers to people in or from Scotland. And I know Scotch is a distilled alcoholic spirit that originated in Scotland. But a portion of my forebears referred to themselves as "Scotch-Irish" and so I use that terminology out of respect for and admiration of them.

Note 2: The entire concept of slavery is so antethetical to what both these groups claimed to believe, that I simply cannot understand why they allowed it to exist In North Carolina and later fought and died to preserve it. The only possible explanation I have ever come up with for this particular moral blindness among my ancestors is found in 1 Timothy 6:10.
 
I certainly wouldn't call him the most influential or the greatest citizen of our state (or anywhere close), but if you want to look at a NC resident who was such a failure that they had a major impact on North Carolina history - and in his case his incompetency was actually a positive impact in the long run - then I'd suggest Confederate General Braxton Bragg, for whom Fort Bragg was originally named. He is widely regarded as one of the worst generals on either side during the war, and lost nearly every battle he led except for Chickamauga, where he got lots of help from James Longstreet, and he threw away any advantages from that victory a few months later with a crushing defeat at Chattanooga to Grant. He later helped lose Wilmington and Fort Fisher to the Union.

By losing battle after battle in the West and being despised by nearly everyone who knew him (except for Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who stubbornly supported him almost to the bitter end) he played a large role in losing the war for the Confederates, which for North Carolina was ultimately a great thing. I've always found it amusing that Fort Bragg was named after such an incompetent and widely hated general.
 
@05C40 -- "The basic fundamental ideas of ordered liberty that I hold dear can be traced back to these two groups."

Are you familiar with David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed?
 
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