C. L. Hunter's SKETCHES OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA and the Ewart Clan

Hunter gives a vivid picture of the Committee of Safety man, Robert Ewart, my GGGGG Grandfather and my GGGGG Grandfather (you know those Scots), as the center of a clan who fought together at King's Mountain, some of them officially under the command of one of Ewart's sons-in-law, James Johnston, some of them just leaving the farm with a gun and walking over to fight the British. We pretty much have official lists of the Overmountain men, but don't have such lists for the handful of locals who defied their Tory neighbors and took arms against Ferguson, inflamed by "Tarleton's Quarter" and Tarleton's new threats. We know only if they were officially in James Johnston's Company and lived long enough to file for pension under the 1832 law. How did Hunter know so much detail about the children of Robert Ewart and their marriages? I decided to find out yesterday. Hunter married a daughter of Peter Forney (for whom see Google). James Johnston's son William married a daughter of Peter Forney. William's mother was Jane Ewart. So Hunter's children were first cousins of William's children. He knew what he was talking about, and had known all the principal players all his life because of his father's place in the area as Presbyterian minister and as hero in Wheeler's "Historical Sketches" of the terrific "pine knot" story, in which, unarmed, he bested a mounted British Lieutenant. This all bears more investigation, but I'm happy to know that the information was current in the family. Hunter knew specific locations and knew not only family members but also objects such as engraved powder horns and on-the-spot notations of dates of battles. Some of the Revolutionary fighters were still alive when Hunter married. Peter was. I don't think Hunter would have given any misinformation deliberately. I just wish he had given more about some of the Ewart sons-n-law, such as Thomas Hill and Joseph Jack.