Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence - Alleged Signers

Alleged Signers

After the Mecklenburg Declaration was first published in 1819, supporters compiled a list of men who they believed had signed the document. William Polk, who said that he had heard his father Thomas Polk read the Declaration to the public, listed the names of fifteen delegates present when the Declaration was adopted; other testimony produced other names. A pamphlet issued in 1831 by the government of North Carolina listed the names of twenty-six delegates. Eventually, supporters of the Declaration settled on a list of twenty-seven or twenty-eight men who they claimed had signed the document. In alphabetical order, they are:

Modern historians have emphasized that the story of the 1775 signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration can be dated no earlier than 1819. This is no contemporaneous evidence of a signing, nor did John McKnitt Alexander mention such an event in his notes. As far as it is known, none of the "signers" ever claimed to have signed the Mecklenburg Declaration.

Most of the alleged signers were Scots-Irish Presbyterians, as were many of the early promoters of the authenticity of the Declaration. Many of the reputed signers were kinsmen, and their descendants were among the staunchest defenders of the Declaration.

Eyewitnesses who provided testimony about the 1775 meeting disagreed about the roles played by some of the alleged signers. John McKnitt Alexander wrote that he had been the secretary at the meeting, but others recalled that Ephraim Brevard had been the secretary. Alexander wrote that his kinsman Adam Alexander had issued the order for the meeting to be convened, but William Polk and other eyewitnesses insisted that Thomas Polk had called the meeting. Abraham Alexander is said to have chaired the meeting.