Cornelius Harnett: The Samuel Adams of North Carolina

About a quarter mile north stood the home of Cornelius Harnett, born in seventeen twenty-three, a Wilmington merchant who became one of the most consequential patriots North Carolina produced. He helped form the Sons of Liberty here in Wilmington, led resistance to the Stamp Act in seventeen sixty-five, and was often compared to Samuel Adams. As a leader of the Provincial Council that produced the Halifax Resolves in seventeen seventy-six, he helped make North Carolina the first colony to formally call for independence from Britain.

He served in the Continental Congress and signed the Articles of Confederation. Captured during a British raid in seventeen eighty-one, he died shortly after his release, broken in health but not in conviction.