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SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
REV. HUMPHREY HUNTER AND THE CHURCHES OF STEELE CREEK, GOSHEN, AND UNITY.

HUMPHREY HUNTER was one of those men, who, having suffered and fought bravely in the war of American Independence, gave the strength of their manhood and the ripened experience of their age, to proclaiming the gospel of everlasting deliverance from sin and misery by the Lord Jesus Christ. Drawn by the excitement of the occasion, he mingled with the crowd that in May, 1775, listened to the Declaration of Independence in Charlotte, and carefully preserved a copy of that memorable document, the pioneer of Declarations of Independence, for the benefit of his children and of posterity. He joined in the shout of approval when Col. Polk read the paper from the court-house steps, and was among the foremost to redeem the pledge so solemnly given, "of life, and fortune, and most sacred honor," by taking arms in the defence of liberty, and suffering captivity and wounds in the sacred cause. All his matured years were given to preaching the gospel of our Lord. His first services were rendered in South Carolina. From thence he removed to Lincoln county, in North Carolina, and took charge of the congregations of Goshen and Unity, and some time after extended his services to Steele Creek, one of the oldest congregations in the State, bordering on Sugar Creek (which embraced Charlotte) on the southwest. Goshen became a preaching-place anterior to Unity, and Steele Creek long before either.

From the fact that in 1776 a call was brought into the Synod of New York and Philadelphia from Steele Greek and Providence, it is probable that the church on Steele Creek was organized by Messrs. Elihu Spencer and Alexander McWhorter, who were sent by the Synod in 1764 to the back part of North Carolina, to aid the people in organizing churches, settling their boundaries, and taking proper steps to obtain regular pastoral services. In 1765, the Synod appointed Rev. Messrs. Kerr, Duffield, Ramsay, David Caldwell, Latta, and McWhorter, to spend each half a