Transcribed from original
Contributed by Mr. Carol McLean April 20, 2006
In 1777 Lawrence O'Bryan signed a petition with other Anson County residents living on the East side of the Pee Dee River. The petition requested the General Assembly of North Carolina to cut off that part of Anson County to the East of the Pee Dee River and to form a new county. In 1779, the General Assembly voted to form the new county of Richmond. (Original at NC Archives, Raleigh, NC)
State of North Carolina. To the Honourable, the members of the Senate and House of Commons met in General Assembly. January 30, 1779. The petition of the inhabitants of the upper end of the county of Anson humbly sheweth that your petitioners labour under great hardships and disadvantages in crossing the many bad water courses in traveling to attend the county courts of the said county as jurors, and to attend at general musters and elections and other publick meetings held at the court house of the said county by living remote from said court house, it being situate in the lower end of the said county, which at the time the court house was situated there was the center of the bulks of the inhabitants there settled in the said county, but as the upper end of the said county within a few years past has grown populus and is settled with a sufficient number of taxable inhabitants to support and maintain a county expense. And at this time the county of Anson is from north to south upwards of one hundred miles in length (remainder of sentence illegible). River PeeDee runs in an angular form so that a division by the said river would relieve none of the hardships and disadvantages which your petitions labour under as the said river runs from northwest to southeast through the said county and in length of the said county from North to South, river exceeds twenty miles on an east line to the line of Cumberland County. Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray that the county of Anson be divided by the road leading from Munroe's Bridge on Drowning Creek to Colson ferry on PeeDee River, and that at a point in the said road opposite the mouth of Rocky River the said line to be begun and run a west line crossing the River PeeDee through the mouth of Rocky River and into the dividing line between this county and Mecklinburg County, and that all the land now contained within the bounds of Anson County north of the said line be a distinct county and have all the privileges that any other county in this State are entitled to and your petitioners shall in duty bound ever pray. Signed: John Haley Jacob Cockerham Wm. Morris Henery Taylor John Dove John Curry Nathan Herinton Laurence OBryen Cooper Clark Elisha Collins Farquhar McRae Welcome Ussery Isaac Armstrong Peter Usery Thomas George James Conway John Bennet Joseph Tarbutton Jeremiah Hendrick Thomas Fanning John Powell Alexander MasLennan Richard Loklear John MacRay, Junior Thos. Cockerham Christopher McRae Owen Slaughter Joseph Simpkin John Street James McMillen James McKeachey Norman McLeod Wm. Leggett Benjamin Powell George Slaughter Jeremiah Simpkin Randal Cokerham Townsend Robinson Jas. Pickett John Kembrough John Skiner John McColman Absolom Hindes James Phillips Stephen Gaylord Patrick Sanders William Baker William McDonald Samson Huckuson John Nglish John Jincans Thos Dockery Richard Adams David Collins Edward Almond Wm. Longmore William May John Bostick John Long Vinson Davis Isaac Brigman William Smith David Rich Solomon Jones John Thrower George Webb James Phillips Daniel Smith Note: There are many additional names of signers that are illegible.
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