When the British army passed the residence of Captain Houston some of them entered the yard and house, and threatened Mrs. Houston with death if she did not quickly inform them where her husband was, and also where her gold and silver and China ware were kept, using, at the same time, very course and vulgar language. Mrs. Houston, knowing something of "woman's rights" in every civilized community, immediately asked the protection of an officer, who, obeying the better impulses of human nature, ordered the men into line and marched them off.
Mrs. Houston and "Aunt Dinah" had taken the timely precaution to hide the China ware in the tan vats and the pewter-ware in the mud immediately beneath the pole over which it was necessary to walk in conveying provisions to Captain Houston in his place of concealment. The pole was put under the water and mud every time by aunt Dinah when she returned, so that no track or trace could be discovered of her pathway into the swamp.
Captain James Houston was the father of the late Dr. Joel B. Houston, of Catawba, and the grandfather of R.B.B. Houston, Esq., who now wares the gold sleeve buttons of his patriotic ancestor with his initials, J.H. engraved upon them. Dr. J.H.G. Houston, of Alabama, who married Mary Jane Simonton, is another grandson.
The following is
CAPTAIN JAMES HOUSTON'S MUSTER ROLL.
Captain, James Houston; Lieutenant, William Davidson;
David Evins, David Byers, Robert Byers, Nat.
Ewing, Alexander Work, William Creswell, William
Erwin, John Hovis, John Thompson, John Beard, John
Poston, Robert Poston, Paul Cunningham, John M. Connell,
Moses White, Angus McCauley, Robert Brevard,
Adam Torrence, Sr., Adam Torrence, Jr., Charles Quigley,
James Gulick, Benjamin Brevard, Thomas Templeton,
John Caldwell, Joseph McCawn, James Young,
James Gray, Philip Logan (Irish), William Vint, Daniel
Bryson, John Singleton.
Many of these have descendants in Iredell at the present time, and they can refer with veneration to the names of their patriotic ancestors.
Captain James Houston died on the 2d of August, 1819, in the 73d year of his age, and is buried in Center Church, graveyard.
REV. JAMES HALL, D.D.
Rev. James Hall, a distinguished soldier of the Revolution—the Captain of a company and Chaplain of a Regiment at the same time—was born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on the 22d of August, 1744. When he was about eight years old his parents, who were Scotch-Irish, removed to North Carolina and settled in the upper part of Rowan county, (now Iredell), in the bounds of the congregation to which he afterward gave thirty-eight years of his ministerial life.