This Date in History | Six Regulators Hanged

[05C40]

This is kind of a strange connection but bear with me. My Deddy was missing all but his thumb on his left hand. He lost those fingers in a molasses mill when he was in his late teens. His first cousin Shelton was missing two fingers. I think his accident occurred in a sawmill. Great Uncle June Ivey was shy his entire left hand. There was, frankly, a pretty steady stream of men with missing digits and parts that passed through #BonleeHardware when I think back on it.

Chalk it up to close work with machines that cut, crush, and rip and a general lack of safety regulations. Combine that with a period (1940-50s) when the lumber business boomed and you get those waylaid fingers, toes, and hands. I only remember one missing leg but along with fingers were some absent arms too.

In the photo you can see how my Deddy would stand for photographs, his right hand covering the injury. The missing fingers never really seemed to bother him in doing most things. It did keep him from being a baseball player or ever playing catch with me. Otherwise at least by the time I came along he had figured out alternative ways of making do. To watch him tie his shoe was a wonder and he put a nail in between his thumb and nub of a hand, took good aim and drove it deep with a decisive first whack of his hammer. He even had a nimble way of buttoning his shirt that was downright graceful. Cufflinks were tough but they are for most everybody.

His disability made him big on thinking things through before tackling a task. Today you’d call that visualizing. I saw him move refrigerators and heavy objects many times by ‘walking’ it or even more cleverly by using a towel or piece of cardboard wedged beneath as a slide. He worked with gravity, and leverage was his pal. So many times I watched him pause rather than rush in on a task as he imagined the steps to come.

I’m not really sure exactly what this has to do with a 19th century prosthetic leg factory in the Raleigh except to suggest that North Carolinians have a long history of losing limbs and body parts and coming up with work-arounds. #OTD (June 18) in 1867 the state artificial limb factory closed, having provided prosthetics to 1500+ Confederate vets. North Carolina was the 1st of the defeated states to offer this service. The factory was in Raleigh. N.C.’s Limb Replacement Program

In the photograph below cropped from a larger family portrait note that Deddy, standing by Momma with his father Willis, Uncle Gene, and Aunt Ethel, has covered his fingerless hand with his hale and hearty one. He did that in every posed photo I have ever seen. In another photo he stands with Uncle Cecil, both be-hatted and by a late ‘30s sedan, and has placed his left hand behind him. The image of him, youngish, slim and suited, was taken before his accident and thus show his fingers. I so clearly remember standing by my Momma as we looked down at Deddy in his casket, his right hand covering the left, hiding one last time the fundamental challenge, always overcome, of his long (93 years) and exceptional life.

My Dad had very limited use of his right arm due to it gettting shot-up in WW2. Due to shrapnel (fragments from a Japanese mortar) in his brain he had to take Dilantin for the rest of his life. I remember one time when I was young and before I could drive, he was driving and had to pull over into a side area at a gas station. Once he stopped I asked if he needed anything from the gas station. He just waived his hand at me. So we sat there quietly for about 10 minutes. Finally he told he had just had a seizure. Explained that he was in no danger of an accident, he just didn't know where he was going, but knew enough to pull over and wait. I was a little freaked out, but as he was my father, I was young, and he did handle everything well, I decided that he knew what he was doing. Normally the Dilantin worked and these events seldom happened. In his mid-70's he voluntarily surrendered his licence.

 

[donbosco]

Chathamites fought as Regulators in 1771, that is if there had been such a thing as a Chathamite in those days. Chatham County, my — in some ways estranged — homeland, only came into being in the aftermath of The War of the Regulation — and quite literally because of The War of the Regulation. To create a few more electoral units in what counted as The Wild West in The 1770s, the county was designed to bring more representation to the Colonial Assembly and pacify the cantankerous and constantly protesting local not-so-subjected subjects of the British Crown.

The colonizer hierarchy in The East calculated that throwing such a bone to the backcountry would appease the region. Indeed, it was enough for some. The test came five years later, in 1776, when some of the former Regulators stood loyal to the British Crown while others ultimately found the idea of reform lacking and struck for the revolutionary idea of independence and the severance of their relationship with The King. Of course it is even more complicated than that and historians uncover new/old individual stories regularly that enrich the narrative. Mostly though we’re taught stories that render our past into simple, easily digestible and non-heartburn-inducing bites.

The truth, for example, about the hanged Regulator James Few remains in dispute.

One example is that there is now arguably good evidence that there was no Regulator firebrand named James Pugh executed — #OnThisDay (June 19) in 1771. If indeed there was a Pugh hanged it was more likely James’ older brother Enoch. (See The North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 90, No. 2 (April 2013), pp. 173-196, "James Pugh, Regulator Sharpshooter: A Conundrum Unfolded,” author Stephen Compton). Perhaps that’s the ‘beauty?’ of eschewing the details in the classroom. Alas, I can’t, nor do I want, to do that in mine.

But just for good measure here is James’ grave in Randolph County with a clearly marked death date of 1810 (James Pugh (1749-1810) – Find a Grave...). Records show Enoch as having died in 1771 but his place of burial is unknown.

Nevertheless, #OTD (June 19) in 1771 Six Regulators were hanged in Hillsborough, Orange County. They had participated in the Battle Of Alamance, rebelling vs corrupt and dishonest agents of British colonial government. Legend has it that Regulator James Pugh’s last words were, “Our Blood will be as good seed in good ground that will soon produce one hundred fold.” Nevertheless, if a Pugh spoke those words it was probably Enoch, and pretty clearly not James. Regulators Hanged in Hillsborough

At any rate, it makes for a good story just probably not an exactly accurate one. The plaque shown in the photograph here can be found at the Alamance Battleground State Historic Site Burlington, NC. Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina | Colonial Column (Battle of Alamance), Burlington

 

[Centerpiece]

On this date in history

 

[donbosco]

Quickly and to sum up...

• On this date, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and issued General Order No. 3, announcing:
  
  

  "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free."

• Texas had been relatively untouched by fighting, so many enslaved people there hadn’t yet heard of their freedom — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Juneteenth marks the day the Emancipation Proclamation was finally enforced in the last Confederate state with substantial slavery.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

Quickly and to sum up...

• On this date, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, and issued General Order No. 3, announcing:
  
  
• Texas had been relatively untouched by fighting, so many enslaved people there hadn’t yet heard of their freedom — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Juneteenth marks the day the Emancipation Proclamation was finally enforced in the last Confederate state with substantial slavery.

Interesting that this was the event picked. I do think the end of slavery should be celebrated with its own day and the day it was enforced in the last Confederate State seems like a reasonable choice but there were other options. Does anyone know why this was chosen versus say the day the emancipation proclamation was issued (Jan 1) or the day the 13th amendment was ratified (Dec 6)?

I guess it makes sense that you wouldn't want to share the celebration with New Years day. I wonder if Juneteenth was a summer holiday versus December 6th which is kind of crowded on the holiday calendar?

 

[donbosco]

Interesting that this was the event picked. I do think the end of slavery should be celebrated with its own day and the day it was enforced in the last Confederate State seems like a reasonable choice but there were other options. Does anyone know why this was chosen versus say the day the emancipation proclamation was issued (Jan 1) or the day the 13th amendment was ratified (Dec 6)?

I guess it makes sense that you wouldn't want to share the celebration with New Years day. I wonder if Juneteenth was a summer holiday versus December 6th which is kind of crowded on the holiday calendar?

One factor I believe is that African Americans in Texas were already celebrating the date and it spread to other states from there.