Historical Heavyweights: Charlotte founding father resented British overlords
Historical Heavyweights: Charlotte founding father resented British overlords
Plus: Top news of the week — Storms batter city with winds and record rainfall; CMS shakes up leadership, structure; Knights put up for sale; Gastonia ditches its bus service
Good morning! Today is Saturday, January 13, 2024. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger’s Weekend Edition.
Need to subscribe — or upgrade your Ledger e-newsletter subscription? Details here.
Editor’s note: We won’t publish a newsletter on Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We’ll be back in your email inbox on Wednesday morning.
Today’s Charlotte Ledger is sponsored by the event venue at McColl Center. McColl Center is the unique and artistic venue where your company's event, celebration, or social gathering becomes a masterpiece. Schedule a tour and learn more.
Ephraim Brevard: From the backwoods to prominence, physician helped drive Mecklenburg’s Revolutionary fervor.
Editor’s note: You see their names on street signs or parks, but who were some of the big-name people from decades ago who shaped Charlotte? They have fascinating stories, and for the next few Saturdays, we’re sharing them with you.
by John Short
If you had to create a recipe for a Charlotte founding father, there are a handful of essential ingredients — and Ephraim Brevard brought them all to the table.
The arc for many of Charlotte’s founders includes a birthplace outside the Carolinas and an education at what is now Princeton. Then, on to a career in Charlotte where they found themselves signing the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and ultimately becoming swept up in Revolutionary fervor.
A pedigree with some kind of connection to the Polk or Alexander families doesn’t hurt, either.
Brevard checked all these boxes, and did so in dramatic fashion.
So pure are his Charlotte and backcountry bona fides, his name is scattered throughout the Piedmont and Western North Carolina to this day.
But why does he deserve a namesake town, street name, and stop on the Charlotte Liberty Walk in Uptown?
A bronze plaque for Brevard that is part of Charlotte Liberty Walk, which tells the story of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County during the American Revolution. Interestingly, researchers say there are no known paintings of Brevard around today to give us an idea of what he looked like. (Mecklenburg Historical Association)
Brevard was born in 1744 in Maryland, but his family moved to what is now Iredell County when he was four years old. Despite blindness in one eye, Brevard moved to New Jersey in 1768 to continue his education at Nassau Hall of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton). He would continue his studies in medicine in Philadelphia before ultimately returning to the Charlotte region and establishing himself in the community.
As a pillar of the growing Charlotte leadership, Brevard was involved with the establishment of Queens College, an early educational outpost that Charlottean settlers sought to create to educate their children in Presbyterian traditions.
To have the school officially recognized by the provisional British government, the trustees of the school, of which Brevard was one, lobbied for a charter to operate the school as a Presbyterian institution.
The British government denied the charter unless a minister of the Church of England was headmaster. The Trustees, including Brevard, rejected this proposal and established the school as a Presbyterian institution, later changing its name to Liberty Hall as a show of obstinance to the British overlords.
Ultimately, the school dissolved after the Revolutionary War, but this skirmish over the religious affiliation of the school left a bad taste in the mouths of Charlotte’s founding fathers, and is thought to have roused the desire of 27 early Charlotteans to write the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence (MeckDec), which declared independence from Britain on May 20, 1775. Brevard, 31, was among them.
While the MeckDec’s veracity is disputed by some of little faith, Brevard retains his document-signing bona fides, serving as secretary in the meeting that adopted the very real and verifiable Mecklenburg Resolves, signed 11 days later on May 31, 1775.
Whether you claim team MeckDec or AmDec, the situation with the colonial government deteriorated, and at the onset of the Revolutionary War in 1776, Brevard joined General Griffin Rutherford's North Carolina Campaign to prevent the Cherokee from allying with the British against the Continental Army.
During this time, Brevard married into both the influential Spratt and Polk families, marrying Martha Polk, the daughter of Thomas and Susannah Spratt Polk. In the Carolina backcountry of the late 1700s, his union amounted to overnight adoption into Charlotte Royalty.
Sadly, Martha died at a young age months later, leaving Brevard as a widower and single father to their only child. After Martha’s death, Brevard again took up military service, joining the Southern Continental Army as an assistant surgeon. He joined the North Carolina Continental Line, and ultimately was part of the 5,000 soldiers that surrendered at the fall of Charleston in 1780, the largest surrender of American troops until the Civil War.
Brevard survived the capture and ultimately would leave Charleston in ill health as a prisoner of war, attempting a dramatic trek back to his mother’s home in Iredell County.
Brevard would make it as far as Mecklenburg County, only to succumb to the effects of his illness in July of 1781 at the home of his friend and fellow founding father, John McKnitt Alexander.
Brevard’s legacy in Charlotte and the surrounding area is evident today. Brevard Street in uptown Charlotte cuts through the heart of the city. The town of Brevard incorporated in 1861 and chose to honor Ephraim Brevard as its namesake on May 20, 1861, 86 years after Brevard signed the MeckDec.
While his final resting place is unknown, Brevard’s home is memorialized in uptown Charlotte along the Charlotte Liberty Walk at Marker 16, in front of the Ritz-Carlton on College and East Trade streets.
John Short is a freelance writer and co-host of The Charlotte Podcast who loves digging up Charlotte’s past and pondering its future. Say hey when you see him on the streetcar.
➡️ This is our third season of “Historical Heavyweights.” For previous installments of this feature — including profiles of settler Thomas Polk, doctor J.T. Williams, businessman Edward Dilworth Latta, westside visionary Henry L. McCrorey, snack pioneer Philip Van Every and more — check out our Historical Heavyweights page.
This week in Charlotte: Storms bring flooding and power outages; city’s crime rate rises; Veep visits Charlotte middle school; Spectrum Center plans renovations
On Saturdays, The Ledger sifts through the local news of the week and links to the top articles — even if they appeared somewhere else. We’ll help you get caught up. That’s what Saturdays are for.
Local News
Effects of Tuesday’s storm: (Ledger, WFAE) Severe storms hit Charlotte earlier this week, causing flooding, tree damage and power outages. The storm set a new Jan. 9 record for rain in Charlotte with 2.48 inches.
Charlotte crime up in 2023: (WCNC, Observer) Charlotte’s crime rate rose 14% in 2023, fueled by a 120% spike in stolen vehicles — mostly Kias and Hyundais. Violent crime was flat, including an 11% drop in homicides. Republican state and local leaders are collaborating on a legislative agenda to address crime in Charlotte including reducing recidivism and youth crime, as well as concerns about people being released under low or no bonds.
Education
CMS shakes up leadership and structure: (Ledger) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is undergoing a transformative shift in its leadership model, moving from the existing learning communities structure to a grade-level-based approach for overseeing schools, aiming to support 186 schools in the 2024-25 academic year.
Kamala Harris visits Charlotte school: (WFAE) Vice President Kamala Harris visited Eastway Middle School to announce new funding for school mental health services and discuss the effect of gun violence on students.
Politics
City council committee green-lights some criminal penalties: (Observer) The Charlotte City Council’s Housing, Safety and Community Committee voted 3-2 to recommend reinstating criminal penalties for eight city ordinances, including public intoxication, public masturbation and panhandling. The move would enable Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police to issue criminal citations or make arrests for violations.
Tax incentives for uptown office towers? Charlotte City Council members on Monday were briefed on the high number of office vacancies uptown and around the city, and on Wednesday, Charlotte Center City Partners announced the winners of a design competition to reinvent struggling uptown towers. It appears to be part of an effort by city staff and uptown backers to push for local government incentives to try to reverse the trend.
Business
BofA lowers values on uptown property: (Ledger) Several uptown property owners, including Bank of America, successfully appealed the property revaluations of high-value parcels in Mecklenburg County, resulting in lower assessed values and reduced property taxes.
Carolinas Chinese Chamber of Commerce rebrands: (Ledger) The Carolinas Chinese Chamber of Commerce is rebranding as the Carolinas AAPI Business Alliance to better include non-Chinese Asian-owned businesses across North and South Carolina, aiming to unite and represent a more diverse Asian business community.
Sports
Knights for sale: (WFAE) The Charlotte Knights minor league baseball team is up for sale by owner and local businessman Don Beaver, who first purchased the team in 1997 for $10M.
Spectrum Center renovations: (WFAE) Hornets Sports and Entertainment unveiled plans for Spectrum Center renovations that will include more lower-level seats, a renovated concourse and upgraded suites and clubs. The overhaul is expected to start in May and is supported by more than $200M in funding from the city.
From the Ledger family of newsletters
Charlotte’s ‘doctor of bras’ is in: Julia Rich, known as “Peaches,” is a certified lingerie fit specialist at Nordstrom at SouthPark Mall, earning celebrity status for guessing a woman's bra size just by looking at her. Before she became a fit specialist 17 years ago, she traveled around the world performing as a Tina Turner and Diana Ross impersonator.
CATS removes 1/2 of its light rail cars: The North Carolina Department of Transportation has directed the Charlotte Area Transit System to take around half of its Blue Line trains out of service after inspectors found “abnormal movement” on one wheel of an older train.
6 hot rezonings to watch: Several significant rezoning decisions in 2024 will shape the fate of over 3,900 housing units across the city, with opposition arising from nearby residents who have concerns about traffic, wildlife, stormwater runoff and neighborhood aesthetics.
Pickleball ‘titans’ discuss sport’s popularity: The Rotary Club of Charlotte featured a discussion on the growing popularity of pickleball in the city, with leaders in the local pickleball scene including Craig Lemley, Allan Haseley and Jim Kucera.
Affordable housing development planned for Aldersgate: Aldersgate senior living community, recovering from financial issues, plans to build 236 apartments for low- and middle-income seniors and families on its campus as part of its corrective action plan.
Free mulch after storm: Tree trimming companies working in neighborhoods often provide mulch for free, and homeowners can approach crews for deliveries.
🎧 New podcast episode: The latest episode of the Charlotte Ledger Podcast features Dee O'Dell of U.S. Bank, discussing his entry into banking, the changes in banking, philanthropy, and leadership in Charlotte over the past two decades, the role of banks and charities in the city's development, and insights into the economy.
Just how dry is ‘Dry January?’ According to a Ledger analysis of state liquor sales data, sales in Mecklenburg County dropped by 20% in January 2022 and 24% in January 2023 compared to the monthly average for the prior six months.
Carole Williams Holmes was a soprano known for her love of family, faith and music. She passed away on Nov. 18 at her Lake Norman home at the age of 84.
Why Gastonia is getting rid of its buses: Gastonia is set to become the largest city in the state to replace its fixed-route transit system with on-demand rides using Via Transportation. The city council approved a $1.65 million contract with Via, and the microtransit service is expected to start on July 1.
Correction
An article in Friday’s newsletter about the Aldersgate retirement community planning a low- and middle-income housing development gave the wrong explanation of the acronym “CAP.” It stands for “corrective active plan.”
Need to sign up for this e-newsletter? We offer a free version, as well as paid memberships for full access to all 4 of our local newsletters:
➡️ Opt in or out of different newsletters on your “My Account” page.
➡️ Learn more about The Charlotte Ledger
The Charlotte Ledger is a locally owned media company that delivers smart and essential news through e-newsletters and on a website. We strive for fairness and accuracy and will correct all known errors. The content reflects the independent editorial judgment of The Charlotte Ledger. Any advertising, paid marketing, or sponsored content will be clearly labeled.
Like what we are doing? Feel free to forward this along and to tell a friend.
Social media: On Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Sponsorship information/customer service: email support@cltledger.com.
Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Business manager: Brie Chrisman, BC Creative