On June 20, 1780, at the Battle of Ramsour’s Mill, Col. Francis Locke and his Patriot force stormed the defenses of the Loyalist militia led by Maj. John Moore.
Farmers, not soldiers, determined the outcome of most Revolutionary War battles fought in North Carolina, as most of the skirmishes and battles were fought between Loyalist and colonial militias. Few participants had ever received formal military training. The engagement at Ramsour’s Mill was no exception to this rule.
On June 20, 1921, the Southern Furniture Exposition opened in High Point.
On June 19, 1771, six Regulators were hanged in Hillsborough following the Battle of Alamance on May 17.
On June 18, 1875, the Right Reverend Thomas Atkinson, Bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina, consecrated St. Mark’s Church in Wilmington. The congregation was the first Episcopal Church for African Americans in North Carolina.
On June 18, 1867, the state-run artificial limbs factory in Raleigh closed due to a lack of business. The state had been operating the plant through Jewett’s Patent Leg Company for about 18 months in order to fulfill the needs of the state’s Confederate amputees.
North Carolina was the first of the former Confederate states to offer artificial limbs to its maimed citizens. The temporary factory was set up in Raleigh near a railroad terminus. A system was developed whereby the amputees bore no out-of-pocket expenses in visiting Raleigh for prosthetic fittings.
On June 17, 1961, the Flat Rock Playhouse in Henderson County’s village of Flat Rock was named the state theater of North Carolina. The venue is home to the Vagabond Players, the oldest Equity acting troupe in the state.
The ensemble formed in 1937 in New York City under the direction of Robroy Farquhar. In 1940, the Vagabond Players made their way south to North Carolina and performed for two summer seasons in a converted grist mill–the Old Mill Playhouse–near Highland Lake.
On June 17, 1742, William Hooper, one of North Carolina’s three signers of the Declaration of Independence, was born. Hooper grew up in Boston and attended Harvard before moving to Wilmington and opening a law office there in 1764. Within a few years he was active in politics.