He was a brave and energetic officer; and his name will be found in nearly every expedition which marched from Mecklenburg county to oppose the enemies of his country.  He was for many years, before and after the war, an acting Justice of the Peace, and tradition speaks of him as bearing an excellent character.  He died in 1798, aged seventy years, and is buried in the old graveyard of Rock Spring, seven miles east of Charlotte.  Many of his descendants lie buried in the graveyard at Philadelphia Church, two miles from Rock Spring, at which latter place the congregation worshipped before the Revolution, mingling with their pious devotion many touching and prayerful appeals for the final deliverance of their country from the storms of the approaching conflict of arms in a righteous cause.

Hezekiah Alexander was more of a statesman than a soldier.  He was born in Pennsylvania in 1728.  He was appointed a member of the Committee of Safety for the Salisbury district by the Provincial Congress which met at Hillsboro on the 21st of August, 1775, with General Griffith Rutherford, John Brevard, Benjamin Patton and others—­a position of much responsibility and power.  He was appointed by the Provincial Congress, in April, 1776, with William Sharpe, of Rowan county, on the Council of Safety.  He was elected a member of the Provincial Congress from Mecklenburg county, which met at Halifax on November 12th, 1776, and framed the first Constitution of the State, with Waightstill Avery, Robert Irwin, John Phifer, and Zaccheus Wilson, as colleagues.  At the Provincial Congress, which met at Halifax on the 4th of April, 1776, he was appointed Paymaster of the Fourth Regiment of North Carolina Continentals—­Thomas Polk, Colonel, James Thackston, Lieut.  Colonel, and William Davidson, Major.  He was the treasurer of “Liberty Hall Academy” (formerly “Queen’s Museum”) during its existence.  He died on the 16th of July, 1801, and lies buried in the graveyard of Sugar Creek Church, of which he had long been an active and worthy member.  The inscription on his tombstone reads thus: 

       “In memory of Hezekiah Alexander,
       Who departed this life July 16th, 1801,
       Aged 73 years.”

John McKnitt Alexander, of Scotch-Irish ancestors, was born in Pennsylvania, near the Maryland line, in 1733.  He served as an apprentice to the trade of tailor, and when his apprenticeship expired, at the age of twenty-one, he emigrated to North Carolina, joining his kinsmen and countrymen in seeking an abode in the beautiful champaign between the Yadkin and Catawba rivers—­the land of the deer and the buffalo; of “wild pea-vines” and cane-brakes, and of peaceful prosperity.  In 1759 he married Jane Bain, of the same race, from Pennsylvania, and settled in Hopewell congregation.  Prospered in his business, he soon became wealthy and an extensive landholder, and rising in the estimation of his fellow-citizens, was promoted to the magistracy and the Eldership of the Presbyterian Church.  He was a member of the Provincial Assembly in 1772, and one of the Delegates to the Convention which met at Hillsboro, on the 21st of August, 1775.