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SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.

CHAPTER XXXII.
REV. JOHN MAKEMIE WILSON, D.D., AND THE CHURCH OF ROCKY RIVER.

NURTURED in the bloody scenes of the Revolution, Mr. Wilson was pre-eminently a man of peace. "No cases come to court from that part of Mecklenburg," was said significantly of Rocky River and Philadelphia, while he was pastor of these two large and flourishing congregations, numbering, at his death, more members than any other pastoral charge in the Synod, and composing originally but one congregation, by the name of Rocky River. His early years were spent at the place of his birth, about six miles east of Charlotte, in Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, within the bounds of Sugar Creek congregation. The event of his birth took place in the year 1769. His father was from England, and in early life was engaged in mercantile business in Philadelphia. From that city he removed to North Carolina, married, and settled in Mecklenburg county, and was actively engaged with the citizens of that section of country, that Tarleton, in his Campaigns, says was "more hostile to England than any other part of America" in carrying on the struggle for Independence. He died before the British army encamped at Charlotte in 1780, leaving three children. When the ravages of the enemy in South Carolina, particularly about the time of Buford's Massacre, drove the inhabitants from their houses to seek refuge in North Carolina, the families on the Waxhaw found refuge in Mecklenburg, and widow Jackson, with her son Andrew, resided for a time at the house of widow Wilson. The two boys, Andrew and John M., were of about the same age, and worked and played together, full of the spirit of independence, little conscious of the part they would afterwards act, one in the church, and the other in the state. The place in which Andrew Jackson passed his early years was claimed by North Carolina for a long time; but is within the bounds of South Carolina, as now settled by the mutual agreement of the States.

The congregation of Sugar Creek had for its pastor Rev. Joseph Alexander, who was one of the five pastors that regularly served