Cash, 302 FIFTH REGIMENT INFANTRY COMPANY K Private Cash, A. G.; en. August 8, 1862. Chambers,45-46 At the June term of 1753, the Court proceeded to select a place for the erection of a courthouse, pillory, stocks, and gaol. The action of the Court is substantially as follows: “The courthouse, gaol, and stocks shall be located where the ‘Irish Settlement’ forks, one fork leading to John Brandon’s, Esq., and the other fork along the old wagon road over Grant’s Creek, called Sill’s Path, and near the most convenient spring.” John Brandon, as stated before, lived six miles south of Salisbury, on the Concord Road, and “Sill’s Path” was probably the Beattie’s Ford Road, crossing Sill’s Creek about seventeen miles west of Salisbury. The most “convenient spring” is thought to be a spring in the garden of the late Dr. Alexander Long, where Jacob Franck’s ordinary and still-house were afterwards established, the lot afterwards owned by Matthew Troy, the father-in-law of the late Maxwell Chambers. The exact site of the courthouse was the center of our present Public Square, at the intersection of Corbin and Innes Streets, where the great town well now is. Tradition says that this spot-originally considerably higher than it now is-was a famous “deer-stand,” where the rifleman stood, 46 HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNT Y and with unerring aim brought down the fleet-footed doe or an tlered stag, as he fled before the music-making pack of hounds. 60 In a plan of the town made about sixty years ago, now lying before the writer, these lots are marked as belonging to Troy, Chambers, Caldwell, Thomas Dixon, H. C. Jones, Dr. Polk, John Beard, Louis Beard, Lauman, Brown, Woodson, etc. These lots, originally constituting the Common, had probably been recently sold, perhaps as a financial enterprise to relieve the town of some unfortunate debt, or to carry out some promising scheme of internal improvement that was destined never to see light. It is a matter of profound astonishment that town corporations will part with grounds that would make desirable parks or breathing places, for a mere trifle, and condemn the citizens to live in a long, unbroken line of houses, unrelieved by shade, when they might so easily retain a Common or Park, where the inhabitants might resort at will in summer weather, and refresh themselves by breathing the pure air that comes whispering through the rustling leaves of the trees. It is really more difficult, in some of our larger towns, to escape from the dust and glare of the streets and painted houses into a pleasant and shady retreat, than it is in the great cities where the land is worth hundreds of dollars per square yard. 61, The gentlemen who were authorized, as Town Commissioners, to put these regulations into exec ution were prominent citizens, selected for their standing and their fitness for t he high trust, and were generally the owners of a large real estate in the town. The list is as follows: William Steel, John Dunn, Maxwell Chambers, John Louis Beard; Thomas Frohock, Wm. Temple Coles, Matthew Troy, Peter Rep, James Kerr, Alexander Martin, and Daniel Little. These Commissioners were appointed by the General Assembly, and in ease of a vacancy, the place was to be supplied by appointment of the Justices of the Rowan Inferior Court. Holding their offices for a term of years, or during life, these Commissioners would be able to mature and carry out extended schemes of improvement, without having before their eyes the constant fear of being left out the next year if they should chance to offend any of the people by the conscientious and faithful discharge of unpopular duties. This was the conservatism of monarchy, and doubtless it had its evils as well as the fickleness and instability of popular democracy. Perhaps the best results would be secured by a policy lying between these two extremes. 103-104, The events at the opening of the war are to he accounted for, first on the principle that old men, especially lawyers, are slow and cautious in exchanging their allegiance. None knows so well as they what are the results that follow in the wake of revolution. They are in the habit of looking at results and consequences. A second cause is found in the characteristic violence and intolerance of such times of excitement and struggle. Reports fly rapidly and gain ready credence. That Committee of Safety actually resolved that good old Maxwell Chambers, their Treasurer, be publicly advertised 104 HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY as an enemy to the common cause of liberty, for raising the price of his goods above that of the year past. Furthermore Dunn and Boote were men of great influence, and the easiest way to dispose of them was to send them away without a hearing. No doubt, if granted a hearing, they would have cleared themselves of all acts or purposes of hostility to American liberty. But this the Committee did not know. Colonel Kennon, being the leader in this affair, seems to have removed from Salisbury to Georgia, at or about the time that Dunn and Boote returned. So far as known to the writer he lived an honored and useful life in the State of his adoption. One of his descendants was in Salisbury a few years ago, but he knew little of his ancestor. 106, This Committee of Safety began its sessions, according to these Minutes, on the eighth of August, 1774, seventeen days before the assembling of the first North Carolina Provincial Congress. This committee was probably chosen at the time appointed for electing. members to the General Assembly of the Province, or it may have come into existence before that time in obedience to the wishes of the people. The members of the committee20were chosen from all parts of this grand old county, and numbered twenty-five. The following is a list of their names: James M, McCay, Andrew Neal, George Cathey, Alexander Bobbins, Francis McCorkle, Matthew Icke, Maxwell Chambers, Henry Harmon, Abraham Denton, William Davidson, Samuel Young, John Brevard, William Kennon, George Henry Barringer, Robert Bell, John Bickerstaff, John Cowden, John Lewis Beard, John Nesbit, Charles McDowell, Robert Blackburn, Christopher Beekman, William Sharpe, John Johnson, and Morgan Bryan. 109, Having affirmed their political creed, the Committee adjourned until the twenty-second of September, 1774. At the next meeting, William Kennon appears as chairman and Adlai Osborne as clerk. Their first business was to read and approve the resolves of the Provincial Congress that had met in the interval, and take steps towards carrying them out. Maxwell Chambers was appointed treasurer of the committee, and an order issued that each militia company in the county pay twenty pounds (£2O), proclamation money, into his hands. As there were nine companies of militia in the county, this would aggregate the sum of one hundred and eighty pounds (£180), or between four and five hundred dollars. This money was to be used by the committee at discretion, for the purchase of powder, flints, and other military munitions.