Waightstill Avery
Waightstill Avery was an eminent lawyer, born in the town of Groton, Connecticut, in 1747, and graduated from Princeton College in 1766. This family had eight brothers and all true patriots; some were massacred at Fort Griswold, and some perished at Wyoming Valley. Some descendants still reside in Groton, Conn., and others in Oswego and Seneca Lake, N.Y. He studied law on the eastern shore of Maryland with Littleton Dennis. In 1769, he emigrated to North Carolina, obtained a license to practice in 1770, and settled in Charlotte. By his assiduity and ability, he soon acquired numerous friends. He was an ardent advocate of liberty but not of licentiousness.In 1778, he married near Newbern, Mrs Leah Frank, daughter of William Probart, a wealthy merchant of Snow Hill, Md., who died on a visit to London. He was a member of the Provincial Congress, which met at Hillsboro on the 21st of August, 1775. In 1776, he was a delegate to the Provincial Congress, which met at Halifax to form a State Constitution, with Hezekiah Alexander, Robert Irwin, John Phifer, and Zaccheus Wilson as colleagues. He was appointed to sign proclamation bills by this body. On the 20th of July, 1777, with William Sharpe, Joseph Winston, and Robert Lanier as associates, he made the treaty of the Long Island of the Holston with the Cherokee Indians. This treaty, made without an oath, has never been violated. In 1777, he was elected the first Attorney General of North Carolina.
In 1780, while Lord Cornwallis camped in Charlotte, some of the British soldiery, on account of his well-known advocacy of independence, set fire to his law office, and destroyed it, with all his books and papers. In 1781, he moved to Burke County, where he represented in the Commons in 1783-"84-"85 and "93; and in the Senate in 1796. He was held in high esteem by all who knew him and died at an advanced age in 1821. At his death, he was the Patriarch of the North Carolina Bar, an exemplary Christian, a pure patriot, and of sterling integrity. He left a son, the late Colonel Isaac T. Avery, who represented Burke County in the Commons in 1809 and 1810, and three daughters, one of whom married William W. Lenoir; another, Thomas Lenoir, and the remaining one, Mr. Poor, of Henderson County.
Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical by C. L. Hunter.