** I am indebted to the Honorable David L. Swain, late governor of North Carolina, and now president of the University at Chapel Hill, for the following sketeh of the publie life of Richard Caswell. Governor Swain married a grand-daughter of Governor Caswell; and from among the family papers in his possession, he sent me the subjoined interesting autograph letter, written by Caswell, to his son, from Philadelphia. *
* Richard Caswell was born in Maryland, August 3, 1729. In 1746, he was induced, by unsuccessful mercantile speculations of his father, to leave his home, and seek his fortune in the then colony of North Carolina. Bearing letters to Governor Johnston from the governor of Maryland, he soon received employment in one of the publie offices. Subsequently, he was appointed deputy surveyor of the colony, and was clerk of the County Court of Orange in 1753. He finally settled himself in Dobbs (now Lenoir) county, where he married Mary Mackilwean, who bore him a son, William. He afterward married Sarah, the daughter of William Heritage, an eminent attorney, under whom he had studied law. He had obtained a license, and practiced the profession with great success. In 1754 he was chosen a member of the Colonial Assembly from Johnston eounty, which he continued to represent till 1771. In this and the preceding year, he was made the speaker of the House of Commons. He was also colonel of the militia of his eounty, and, as such, commanded the right wing of Governor Tryon's forees at the battle of Allamance, May 16, 1771. In 1774, he was one of the delegates to Congress, with William Hooper and Joseph Hewes, and was continued in this offiee in 1775. In September of this year, having been appointed treasurer of the Southern District of North Carolina, he resigned his seat in Congress. The estimate formed by his contemporaries of Caswell's merits in this affair, is clearly shown in the resolve passed by the Provincial Congress, on the thirteenth of April, "that the thanks of this Congress be given to Colonel Richard Caswell and the brave officers and soldiers under his command, for the very essential sendee by them rendered this country at the battle of Moore's Creek and by the further fact that, on the twenty-second of the same month, the same body appointed him "brigadier general of the militia for the District of Newbern." In November of the same year, he was chosen president of the Provincial Congress, which framed the Constitution of the state, and, in December, was eleeted the first governor under it. This office he held during the stormy and perilous period of 1777, 1778, and 1779. He refused to receive any compensation for his services beyond his expenses. In 1780 he led the troops of North Carolina, under General Gates, and was engaged in the disastrous battle at Camden. In 1782 he was chosen speaker of the Senate, and controller general, and continued to discharge the duties of both offices till 1784, when he was again elected governor of the state, and re-elected in 1785 and 1786, when he ceased to be eligible under the Constitution. The Assembly of 1787 elected him a delegate to the convention which was to meet at Philadelphia in May of that year, to form a Federal Constitution, and conferred on him the extraordinary power, in case of his inability to attend, to select his successor. William Blount was selected by him, and his name is appended to that instrument. In 1789 he was eleeted senator from Dobbs county and also a member of Lhe convention whieh, in November, ratified the Federal Constitution. When the General Assembly met, he was chosen speaker of the Senate. But his course was run. His second son, Richard, had been lost on his passage by sea from Charleston to Newbern, and the father certainly entertained the opinion that he had been taken by pirates and carried to Algiers, or murdered. This and other events threw a cloud over his mind, from which he seems never to have recovered. While presiding in the Senate, on the fifth of November, he was struck with paralysis, and after lingering speechless till the tenth, he expired, in the sixtieth year of his age. His body was, after the usual honors, conveyed to his family burial-place in Lenoir, and there interred. As a statesman, his patriotism was unquestioned, his discernment was quick, and his judgment sound; as a soldier, his courage was undaunted, his vigilance untiring, and his success triumphant. Mrs. Anne White, Governor Caswell's last remaining child, died at Raleigh, on the twentieth of September, 1851, in the eighty-fourth year of her age.
*** I am indebted to Miss Margaret H. Lillington, a great grand-daughter of General Lillington, for the materials of the following brief sketeh of the publie career of that officer: John Alexander Lillington, was the son of Colonel George Lillington, an officer in the British service, who, after being engaged in an expedition against the French in the West Indies, settled upon the island of Barbadoes, and became a member of the Royal Council in 1698. In that capacity he remained during the latter part of the reign of William and Mary, and the beginning of that of Queen Anne. His son, the subject of this memoir, captivated by the glowing accounts given of the Carolina country, emigrated thither, and settled within the present limits of New Hanover county. The fine mansion delineated in the engraving, and known as Lillington Hall, is yet standing. It was built in 1734. Its location is near the great road leading from Wilmington to Newbern, on the northeast branch of the Cape Fear River, about thirty miles above Wilmington. When the "Hall" was erected, that part of Carolina was a wilderness, and the savannah or grassy opening where it stands, in the midst of vast pine forests, made it an oasis in the desert.
John Alexander inherited the military tastes of his father, and when the notes of preparation for the Revolutionary contest was heard all over the land, his skill was brought into requisition.
His patriotic principles were early made known; and when the war broke out, we find him a member of the Wilmington Committee of Safely, and a colonel of militia. In the first battle fought at. the South (Moore's Creek Bridge), described in the text, Colonel Lillington was conspicuous, with his neighbor and friend, Colonel Richard Caswell.
