"I wish very much to examine the newspaper in question, and will be obliged if you will take such steps as you may conceive necessary to have it restored to the Volume from whence it has been removed, or ascertain its whereabouts.
"I have the honor, &c.,
JNO. H. WHEELER."
The following answer was received by me:
"PUBLIC ROLLS OFFICE, LONDON,
27 Feb., 1864.
"SIR: With reference to your letter of the 28th January, I am directed by the Master of the Rolls to inform you, that he has communicated with the Colonial Office on the subject, and has this day received an explanation to the following effect: That, in the opinion of the Librarian of the Foreign Office, whatever papers were removed by Mr. Turner in 1837, were subsequently replaced in the Volume, and that the omission to rub out the pencil memoranda of their being taken out by Mr. Turner, has led to the supposition that they have not been restored.
"I have the honor to be, sir,
"Your obedient servant,
"T. DUFFUS HARDY.
"Col. JOHN H. WHEELER, St. James,
London."
This, if not satisfactory, showed that this important paper was not in place--if not lost. Hon. John W. Stevenson, late United States Senator from Kentucky, who is executor of Mr. Stevenson, his father, has promised to look among his father's papers for this newspaper. But this paper is not indispensable to establish the verity of the Mecklenburg Declaration.
The sworn statement of General Joseph Graham, who was present at the place and time, (see page 228), uncontradicted and uncontradictable, states all the facts in a lucid, and impregnable manner. The masterly and unanswerable argument of Governor William A. Graham, at Charlotte, Feb. 4, 1875, exhausts the question, to say nothing of the researches of Rev. Francis L. Hawks (see page 141) and others.
Of this meeting Thomas Polk was a prominent member. Associated with him in this band of patriots was Abram Alexander, who was the Chairman of the Convention, born 1718. He had been the Chairman of the Inferior Court before and after the Revolution, and a Member of the Colonial Legislature 1774-'75. He died April 23, 1786, and is buried in the cemetery of Sugar Creek Church. He was grandfather of Dr. Cyrus Alexander, now of Cabarrus county. His eldest son, Dr. Isaac Alexander, was at the Convention, but not a member; he graduated at Princeton, N. J., in the class with James Madison and Aaron Burr, and was the first President of the Queen's Museum at Charlotte, N. C.
Adam Alexander was also a member of the Convention; he was born in 1720; was Lieutenant Colonel of a battalion of Minute Men, appointed thereto by the Provincial Congress at Johnston Court House, in 1775, with Thomas Polk, as Colonel, and Charles McLean as Major. He was appointed Colonel of Mecklenburg county, with John Phifer as Lieutenant Colonel, and John Davidson and George A. Alexander as Majors, by the Provincial Congress at Halifax, on the 4th of April, 1776. He was the father of Hon. Evan Alexander, who was educated at Princeton, and member of 9th Congress from the Salisbury district (1805-'09), elected vice Nathaniel Alexander, elected Governor. He was the grandfather of Adam Alexander Springs, the common ancestor of all the Springs family of the two Carolinas.
Adam R. Alexander, who was a member of Congress from the Memphis district, Tennessee, was another grandson. Ezra Alexander, was also a member of this body. He was a Captain in the Revolutionary War, and in 1780 fought the Tories in Lincoln county,*
* See declaration of James
Knox, on file in Pension Office.
when
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