Pearson-Bryan - Settling a Fist Fight
How to Settle a Fist Fight and a Trial for Treason
The Two Contenders
Lieutenant Richmond Pearson, late of Davie county when a part of Rowan, was born in Dinwiddie county, Virginia, in 1770, and at the age of nineteen years, came to North Carolina and settled in the forks of the Yadkin River.As the war of the Revolution broke out, he was a Lieutenant in Captain Bryan"s company (afterward, Colonel Bryan was a celebrated Tory.
Captain Bryan became a Tory commander.
At the First Muster: Pearson Refused to Load His Gun
After the Declaration of Independence, at the first muster, he requested someone he could rely on to load their guns. When Captain Bryan came on the ground, he ordered all the men into ranks. Pearson refused and tendered his commission to Bryan, whereupon he ordered him under arrest.Settle it with a Fist Fight
This was resisted, and Pearson was told the men had their guns loaded. They then came to a conversation, and the crowd agreed with it, as matters stood, that Bryan and Pearson, on a fixed day, should settle this national affair by a fair fistfight. Whichever whipped, the company should belong to the conqueror's side, Whig or Tory.The parties met at the appointed time and place, and the Lieutenant proved to be the victor. From this time, the Fork Company was for liberty, and Bryan's crowd on Dutchman's Creek were Loyalists.
On with the War
When Lord Cornwallis came south, Captain Pearson, with his company, endeavored to harass his advance. He was present at Cowan's Ford on the 1st of February, 1781, where General Davidson fell in attempting to resist the passage of the British.After the war, Captain Pearson was a successful merchant and an enterprising planter. He died in 1819, leaving three sons and one daughter.
The reader may be curious to know the fate of Colonel Samuel Bryan, who commanded the Tory regiment in the forks of the Yadkin River, which was roughly handled and cut to pieces by Colonel Davie and his brave associates at the battle of the Hanging Rock.
About the time Major Craig evacuated Wilmington in 1781, Colonel Bryan, Lieutenant Colonel John Hampton and Captain Nicholas White, of the same regiment, returned to the forks of the Yadkin River where they were arrested and tried for high treason under the act of 1777, entitled "An Act for declaring what Crimes and Practices against the State shall be Treason,"
The 1781 Trail of the Tories for Treason
Judges Spencer and Williams presided. The prosecution was ably conducted by the Attorney General, Alfred Moore, and the defense by Richard Henderson, John Penn, John Kinchen, and William R. Davie, indeed a fine array of legal talent.Public indignation was so incredibly excited that Governor Burke found it necessary, after the trial, to protect the prisoners from violence by a military guard.