The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence (MecDec) is the name given to a document that was allegedly produced when the residents of Mecklenburg County declared themselves "free and independent people." The so-called declaration did not surface until 1819, 44 years after the event, when it was published in the Raleigh Register at the behest of U.S. senator Nathaniel Macon. The original document was supposedly destroyed in a fire in 1800, and the published text was reconstructed from memory by John McKnitt Alexander and given to Macon by his son, William Alexander. William Polk, the son of the organizer of the Charlotte meeting, gathered testimony from several elderly men who claimed to have been present. Mecklenburgers immediately started celebrating the date.
The authenticity of the document was not seriously questioned until the posthumous publication of the works of Thomas Jefferson in 1829. In a letter of July 9, 1819 to John Adams, Jefferson dismissed the Mecklenburg Declaration as a hoax. The North Carolina legislature in 1830-31 was so aroused by this development that it established a committee to investigate. As committee chairman Thomas G. Polk organized the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Mecklenburg Declaration, it is not surprising that his committee gathered evidence to support the contention that the declaration was authentic.
There is still no resolution on the authenticity of the MecDec and scholars continue to argue whether the story is true or a fabrication. So do your own research and decide whose side you're on.
A few days after the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and Mecklenburg Resolves were signed, Captain James Jack was deputized to deliver the words of liberty to the North Carolina delegates at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. On his trip north, after reading the documents in Salisbury, a group of angry Loyalists attempted to detain Captain Jack for treason against Great Britain. He escaped and arrived in Philadelphia to deliver the papers to delegates Richard Caswell, William Hooper, and Joseph Hewes. Since members of Congress were at this time hopeful of a reconciliation with Great Britain, the Mecklenburg action was deemed "premature" and was not presented to Congress.
You must do two things to log this cache:
1. There is a sand-colored inscription on the wall about 20 feet from the statue of Captain Jack and in the direction that he's riding. E-mail or message me the LAST WORD in the first line of the inscription.
2. (optional) Take a photo of yourself, GPS or geocaching item at GZ that includes the statue of Captain Jack and include in your log.
Virtual Rewards 4.0 - 2024-2025
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between January 17, 2024 and January 17, 2025. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 4.0 on the Geocaching Blog.