Colonel Benjamin Cleaveland: The Hero of a Hundred Fights with the Tories!
Colonel Benjamin Cleaveland, one of the distinguished heroes of King's Mountain and in honor of whom Cleaveland County is named, lived and died in Wilkes County, Georgia, at a good old age.In 1775, he first entered the service as Ensign in the second regiment of troops and acted bravely and conspicuously in the battles of King's Mountain and Guilford Courthouse." A severe impediment in his speech prevented him from entering public life. He is frequently spoken of in the mountain country as the "hero of a hundred fights with the Tories." He was the Surveyor of Wilkes County and resided at the Little Hickerson place for many years.
The Capture of Colonel Benjamin Cleaveland
General William Lenoir provided this exciting story in Wheeler's Historical Sketches.Riddle Knob, in Watauga County, derives its name from a circumstance of the capture of Colonel Benjamin Cleaveland, during the Revolution, by a party of Tories headed by men of this name and adds the charm of heroic association to the loveliness of its unrivaled scenery. Cleaveland had been a terror to the Tories. Two notorious characters of their band (Jones and Coil) had been apprehended by him and hung. Cleaveland had gone alone, on some private business, to NewRiverr and was taken prisoner by the Tories at the Old Fields on that stream. They demanded that he should furnish passes for them. Being an indifferent penman, he spent some time preparing these papers, and he was in no hurry as he believed that they would kill him when they had obtained them. While thus engaged Captain Robert Cleaveland, his brother, with a party followed him, knowing the dangerous proximity of the Tories. They came up with the Tories and fired on them. Colonel Cleaveland slid off the log to prevent being shot while the Tories fled, thus escaping certain destruction.
Sometime after this circumstance, the same Riddle and his son and another were taken and brought before Cleaveland, and he hung all three of them near the Mulberry meeting house, now Wilkesboro. The depredations of the Tories were so frequent, and their conduct so savage, that summary punishment was demanded by the necessities of the times. This Cleaveland inflicted without ceremony.