Topics Related to This Day in North Carolina History

On May 18, 1947, the North Wilkesboro Speedway opened its doors to a crowd of more than 10,000 spectators who watched Fonty Flock win the first official race held there.

On May 18, 1795, Revolutionary War veteran Joseph McDowell died in Burke County at the age of 38.The only son of “Hunting John” McDowell, a pioneer of Scotch-Irish descent who arrived in western North Carolina in the mid-1700s, Joseph was born on the family plantation, Pleasant Gardens, in what was then Burke County.

On May 17, 1771, James Few was hanged.

On May 17, 1956, Olympic gold medalist and professional boxer Charles Ray “Sugar Ray” Leonard was born in Wilmington.

On May 16, 1804, Salem Academy opened the doors of its new dormitory, South Hall, to students and officially transitioned from a day school to a boarding school.The Moravians had established the all-girls’ school in 1772 soon after the first women trekked 500 miles from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to join the community at Salem. One of their number, Elisabeth Oesterlein, became the first teacher at the school. The unmarried women of Salem, known as “single sisters,” governed the academy during this early period.

On May 16, 1771, the Battle of Alamance was fought. The two opposing forces were colonial militia, under the command of Governor William Tryon, and a band of frontier citizens known as Regulators, who raised arms against corrupt practices in local government. Tryon’s force of 1,100 men marched into Regulator country to subdue the uprisings. About 2,000 Regulators, armed with old muskets and makeshift weapons, organized near Tryon’s camp.

On May 15, 1918, Henry Beard Delany became the first black Episcopal bishop in North Carolina and only the second in the United States.

On May 15, 1950, W. E. Debnam published Weep No More, My Lady, his response to former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s newspaper column earlier that year.

On May 14, 1889, the North Carolina Granite Company was founded in Surry County by Thomas Woodroffe. It has been in continuous operation since. Now known as the North Carolina Granite Corporation, it is the world’s largest open-faced granite quarry.