Signal Beacons of Gandor used in NC mountains during the revolution?
Local folklore in and around Wilkes and Caldwell Counties in
NC reveal the story of Martin Gambill. His 100-mile journey to warn the Patriots
of the British invasion into the mountains is the stuff of Legends. The story goes that the watch fires that had
been placed upon the top of the mountains as an early warning system did not
reach into the Watauga area where a good portion of the Liberty men
resided. Thus he volunteered to ride
with the news. (1)(2)
Historical record of watch fires in the North Carolina
theater of operations is spotty at best.
It will take longer to research than this author has available as of
this writing. We find evidence of
similar watch fires used in the northern theaters of operation as Washington
ordered them placed in the Hudson Hills in New York and the Watchung Mountains of
New Jersey. The latter of these was
memorialized in a Baron Dekalb report.
In the Watchung Mountains these fires of freedom had three
main purposes: “to call out the militia, to indicate
the approach direction of the British and to direct the subsequent movements of
the militia.” There were also instructions on their construction
and placements. Twenty-three signal pyres
were constructed in the New Jersey mountainsides and manned by close to two
dozen soldiers each. (3)
Later, DeKalb fought and died at the Battle of Camden, SC in the
Southern Theater of Operations months before Kings Mountain. General Gates, his
commanding officer at Camden, was still around Hillsborough, NC and recognized
by the Patriots there as having Continental authority. It is not a hard leap to suspect that there
is some truth to the legend of these watch-fires, even if they did not look quite as stately as the fictitious Gandor beacons.
Though the record is thin on these watch fires being a part of the
Southern Continental strategy, it certainly causes this author to want to dig
deeper. It is not hard to fathom signal fires on the top of Table Rock, Grandmother and Grandfather Mountains and the smaller precipices further down Highway 64, or even into the Pisgah National Forest. It harkens back to the warning fires of the Peel towers in Scottish
castles. (4)
And these Patriots were most definitely
of the Scots Irish heritage.
Freedom Reigns!
Freedom Reigns!
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