At another time, the royalists heard of some of the boys being in a harvest field and set out to take them; but always having some one in their company to favor their escape, as they rode up in sight of the reapers, one of them, duly instructed, waved his hand, which the boys understood as a signal to make their departure.  On that occasion they pursued Robert Dairs so closely that it is said he jumped his horse thirty feet down a bank into the river, and dared them to follow him.

And thus the “Black Boys” fled from covert to covert to save their necks from the blood-thirsty loyalists, who were constantly hunting them like wild beasts.  They would lie concealed for weeks at a time, and the neighbors would carry them food until they fairly wearied out their pursuers.  The oath by which they bound themselves was an imprecation of the strongest kind, and the greater part of the imprecation was literally fulfilled in the sad ends of Hadley and Ashmore.  The latter fled from his country, but he lived a miserable life, and died as wretchedly as he had lived.  Hadley still remained in the country, and was known for many years to the people of Rocky River.  He was very intemperate, and in his fits of intoxication was very harsh to his family in driving them from his house in the dead hours of the night.  His neighbors, in order to chastise him for the abuse of his family, (among whom were some of the “Black Boys"), dressed themselves in female attire, went to his house by night, pulled him from his bed, drew his shirt over his head and gave him a severe whipping.  The castigation, it is said, greatly improved the future treatment of his family.  He continued, however, through life, the same miserable wretch, and died without any friendly hand to sustain him or eye to pity his deplorable end.

Frequently, when the royalists ranged the country in pursuit of the “Black Boys,” the Whigs would collect in bodies consisting of twenty-five or thirty men, ready to pounce upon the pursuers, if they had captured any of the boys.  From the allurements held out to the Boys to give themselves up, they went, at one time, nearly to Hillsboro to beg the pardon of the Governor, (Tryon), but finding out it was his intention, if he could get them into his hands, to have hanged every one of them, they returned, and kept themselves concealed until patriotic sentiment grew so rapidly from that time (1771) to the Mecklenburg Declaration, (20th of May, 1775), that concealment was no longer necessary.  When the drama of the Revolution opened, these same “Black Boys” stood up manfully for the cause of American freedom, and nobly assisted in achieving, on many a hard-fought battlefield, the independence of our country.

DR. CHARLES HARRIS.

Dr. Charles Harris was born in the eastern part of Mecklenburg county, (now Cabarrus), on the 23rd of November, 1762.  He was distinguished as a patriot, a soldier and a physician.  While pursuing his studies in Charlotte, the invasion of the town by the British army, under Lord Cornwallis, caused him to exchange the gown for the sword.  Accordingly, when a call was made for troops to resist and hold in check the invaders of his country, he joined the corps of cavalry under Col.  William R. Davie, and was with that brave and chivalric officer in much of his daring career.