Governor Abner Nash

About three and a third miles southwest of here lies the grave of Abner Nash, North Carolina's second governor and the man who held the state together during the darkest stretch of the Revolutionary War. Nash took office in April seventeen eighty, and within months British forces captured Charleston and routed Patriot armies at Camden, leaving North Carolina exposed to Cornwallis's advancing army. He had no standing army, an empty treasury, and a population that was roughly half Loyalist.

He kept the state functioning through improvisation and sheer persistence, calling out militia, scraping together supplies, and corresponding furiously with Continental commanders including General Washington. Exhausted and in poor health, he declined reelection in June seventeen eighty-one, citing excessive fatigue. He went on to serve in the Continental Congress until his death in seventeen eighty-six.