Mrs. Margaret Jack Wilson, third wife of Samuel Wilson, Sr., is described by all who knew her, as a woman of uncommon energy, of an amiable disposition, charitable to the poor, and a truly humble Christian. She died at the age of fifty-eight years, was never sick during her life, until a few days before her death, and is buried in Baker's graveyard. When drawing near to the close of her earthly existence, she was asked if she had a desire to live longer; she replied, "No; she was like a ship long tossed at sea and about to land at a port of rest."
In this same spot of ground, (Baker's graveyard,) five miles northeast of Beattie's Foard, on the Catawba, consecrated as the last resting-place of some of the earliest settlers of Mecklenburg county, repose the mortal remains of the Rev. John Thompson, one of the first Presbyterian missionaries in this section of the State, and who died in September, 1753. No monumental slab or head-stone is placed at his grave. Tradition says he built a cabin (or study-house) in the northwestern angle of the graveyard, and was buried beneath its floor, being the first subject of interment. John Baker, who lived in the immediate vicinity, married his daughter, and dying a few years later, gave the permanent name to the burial-ground. Here also repose the remains of Hugh Lawson, the grandfather of the Hon. Hugh Lawson White, a native of Iredell county. The only tablet to the memory of this early settler, is a rough slate rock, about one foot high and nine inches broad, on which are rudely chiseled the initial letters of his name, thus combined, HL. In subsequent years, after the erection of Hopewell Church, the most of the Wilson family and relatives were buried in the graveyard at that place.
CAPTAIN CHARLES POLK'S "MUSTER ROLL."
Among the interesting Revolutionary records of Mecklenburg county, which have been preserved, is the "Muster Roll" of Captain Charles Polk's Company of "Light Horse," with the time of service and pay of each member thereof, as follows:
"Dr. The Public of North Carolina,
"To Captain Charles Polk, for services done by him and his
Company of Light Horse, who entered the 12th of March, 1776.
"Captain, Charles Polk.
1st Lieut, William Ramsey.
2nd Lieut., John Lemmond.
1st Sergt, John Montgomery
2nd Sergt., William Galbraith (erased).
Drummer, Hugh Lindsay.
John Smith.
John Polk, Sen. (erased).
John Wylie.
John Findley.
John Galbraith.
James Hall.
John Stansill.
William —— (illegible).
John Miller.
Humphrey Hunter.
Henry Carter.
James Maxwell.
John Maxwell.
Robert Galbraith.
John McCandlis.
Nicholas Siler.
Samuel Linton.
Thomas Shelby.
James Alexander.
Robert Harris, Jun.
John Foard.
Jonathan Buckaloe.
Charles Alexander, Sen.
Henry Powell.
William Rea.
Samuel Hughes.
Charles Alexander, Jun.
William Shields.
Charles Polk, Jun.
John Purser.
William Lemmond, 'Clerk to the said company, and Shurgeon to y'e
same.'"
Remarks.—The whole expense of Captain Polk's company in this campaign for sixty-five days, including the hire of three wagons at 16s. each per day, and two thousand and five rations, at 8d. each, amounted to £683 9s. 8d. The account was proven, according to law, before Colonel Adam Alexander, one of the magistrates of the county, and audited and countersigned by Ephraim Alexander, George Mitchell and James Jack, the bearer of the Mecklenburg Declaration to Congress. The pay of a Captain was then 10s. per day; of a 1st and 2nd Lieutenant, 7s. each; of a first Sergeant, 6s. 6d.; of a 2nd Sergeant, 5s. 6d.; of the Clerk and "Shurgeon," 6s. 6d.; and of each private, 5s.
James Hall, one of the privates in this expedition, afterward became a distinguished Presbyterian minister of the gospel, and was elected on two occasions by his own congregation, in pressing emergencies, to the captaincy of a company, and acted as chaplain of the forces with which he was associated. The late Rev. John Robinson, of Poplar Tent Church, in Cabarrus county, in speaking of him, said, "when a boy at school in Charlotte (Queen's Museum), I saw James Hall pass through the town, with his three-cornered hat, the captain of a company and chaplain of the regiment." In Captain Polk's manuscript journal of his march, under Gen. Rutherford, through the mountains of North Carolina, then the unconquered haunts of wild beasts and savage Indians, he says: "On September 15th, 1776, Mr. Hall preached a sermon," prompted, as it appears, by the death of one of Captain Irwin's men on the day before.
This was probably the first sermon ever heard in these secluded mountainous valleys, now busy with the hum of civilized life. (See sketch of his services under "Iredell County.")