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SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.

CHAPTER XV.
HOPEWELL, AND THE RECORDS OF THE CONVENTION.

TEN miles west from Davidson College, and two east from the Catawba River, in Mecklenburg county, stands Hopewell church. Entering near the northwest corner, on the north side of the burying ground which lies a little south of the church, and going diagonally to the middle of the yard, you will find a low gravestone, on the top of which are sculptured two drawn swords, and beneath them the motto, Arma Libertatis. The inscription is—

In
Memory
of
FRANCIS BRADLEY,
A friend of his country,
and privately slain
by the enemies of his
country, Nov. 14th,
1780, aged 37 years.

Tradition says that this man was the largest and stoutest man in the country—hated by the few tories—and much desired as a prisoner by the British officers, for the activity and energy with which he harassed their scouts and foraging parties, and the fatal aim of his gun in taking off their sentries, particularly while the army lay at Charlotte.

On the day of his death, seeing four tories lurking near his house, he took his gun and went to capture them, or drive them from his neighborhood. A scuffle ensued, in which one of the tories succeeded in wresting his gun from his hand, and with it gave him a fatal wound.

Near by this stone you may observe a brick wall about six feet long, and two feet high, without any inscription: that is upon the grave of GENERAL DAVIDSON, who fell by the rifle-shot of a tory, at Cowan's Ferry, a few miles distant from this place, as he was resisting the crossing of the British army, in 1781, when Morgan and Green were conveying the prisoners, taken at the Cowpens, to Virginia, for safe keeping. After the army of the enemy had