http://ncdar.org/CrossnoreChapter/

Crossnore Chapter NSDAR, 200 Chapel Dr, PO Box 386, Crossnore, NC (2026)

10/18/2026

⛏ So… what exactly were the “First Parallel” and “Second Parallel” at Yorktown?

If you’ve ever looked at a map of the Siege of Yorktown, you’ve probably seen the words First Parallel and Second Parallel and wondered what in the world they meant. They weren’t just two lines showing where the American and French troops stood. In the military language of the 18th century, a parallel was a fortified trench dug roughly parallel to the enemy’s defenses. It gave soldiers a protected place from which to work, move artillery, and continue pushing closer to the opposing army.

At Yorktown, the French and American forces used this method with remarkable patience. Rather than throwing thousands of men against the British fortifications, they gradually dug their way toward them. On the night of October 6, 1781, Allied troops began constructing the First Parallel, several hundred yards from the British defenses. Men worked through the darkness, digging trenches and preparing positions for artillery while the British fired upon them. Once the parallel was established, the Allies could bring their guns forward and begin pounding the British lines from a much more protected position.

But the First Parallel was only the beginning. The whole purpose of the siege was to keep moving closer, and on October 11, the Allies began digging the Second Parallel, considerably nearer to the British defenses. This brought the artillery within much more effective range and put tremendous pressure on Cornwallis and his men. There was, however, a problem - two British redoubts stood in the way. (A redoubt was a small hiding spot made of dirt or earth where soldiers could protect themselves from enemy attacks.)

Those redoubts were small but heavily defended fortifications, and they had to be taken before the Second Parallel could be completed. On the night of October 14, American and French troops attacked. American forces under Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton stormed Redoubt No. 10, while French troops attacked Redoubt No. 9. Both positions were captured, allowing the Allies to finish the Second Parallel and move their artillery even closer.

That is what makes the parallels at Yorktown so fascinating. The siege was not simply a matter of soldiers charging across an open field. It was a carefully planned process of digging, building, moving artillery, and inching closer to the British defenses. The First Parallel gave the Allies a protected position from which to begin their bombardment. The Second Parallel brought them close enough to make the British position increasingly difficult to defend.

By October 17, Cornwallis was asking for a ceasefire. Two days later, on October 19, 1781, the British army formally surrendered.

So when you see those two lines on a Yorktown map, remember what they represent. They mark the ground that French and American soldiers literally dug their way across in the darkness, one trench at a time, while the British defenses grew steadily more difficult to hold.

And there is something rather remarkable about that. The Revolution was fought with muskets, cannon, ships, and bayonets - but at Yorktown, it was also fought with shovels, engineering, and an extraordinary amount of hard, exhausting work.

Today, the earthworks and archaeological remains at Yorktown help us understand just how much of that story is still written into the landscape.

📷: https://revolutionarywar.us/

10/17/2026

🇺🇸 🇫🇷 In 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette was 67 years old and he had not been back to America in nearly 50 years. Yet when he returned, Americans turned out by the thousands to see him. He eventually traveled 6,000 miles through all 24 states, by carriage, horseback, and steamboat.

The stories from that journey are remarkable!

In Philadelphia, an estimated 160,000 people turned out to celebrate him. In New York, Boston, and other cities, enormous crowds gathered. Everywhere he went there were parades, dinners, speeches, Masonic gatherings, schoolchildren, veterans, and ordinary people who simply wanted to shake the hand of a man who had fought alongside Washington.

But Lafayette didn't just meet presidents and politicians.He visited schools for Black children and spoke carefully but unmistakably about slavery. He met Native Americans, including a woman who had preserved a 50-year-old letter Lafayette had written to her father during the Revolution.

And then there was Washington. Lafayette had been only 19 when he first came to America. He had lost his own father as a young child, Washington had no biological children, and their relationship became remarkably close. Nearly 50 years later, Lafayette returned to Mount Vernon to visit Washington's tomb and introduce his son to the man he had revered.

There is also a fascinating political story running through the tour. Lafayette was in Washington during the disputed 1824 presidential election between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Lafayette's story, though, is why Americans loved him so much. He wasn't simply a Frenchman who helped America win its independence. He represented something larger - a revolutionary who had seen two revolutions. He had witnessed America's experiment with constitutional government succeed, while the French Revolution descended into violence, terror, and eventually Napoleon's dictatorship.

Lafayette never seemed to forget that heroes don't make history alone. When Americans praised him, he repeatedly turned the attention back toward the soldiers and citizens who had fought alongside him. As we celebrate America 250, I think that's a pretty timely story. 🇺🇸

10/16/2026

🕌 A Muslim sultan in southern India became one of the heroes the new Americans were rooting for.

In 1780, while George Washington was struggling to keep the American Revolution alive, another war was raging thousands of miles away in southern India and American revolutionaries were paying attention.

His name was Haidar Ali, and he was the Muslim ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, a powerful state in southern India. For years, he had been resisting the expanding influence of the British East India Company.

Then, in 1780, Hyder Ali launched a major campaign against the British. He moved into the southern region of India with a large army and in September 1780 his forces inflicted a devastating defeat on a British force at the Battle of Pollilur. The news traveled rapidly through the international press and correspondence networks.

Americans were fascinated! Why? Because Britain was fighting a war on two enormous fronts - they were trying to defeat Washington's army in North America while simultaneously fighting Hyder Ali and his allies in India. British troops, ships, money and supplies had to be divided between theaters thousands of miles apart.

To Americans fighting for independence, that was very good news. John Adams was following this war in India and in 1780, while serving in Europe, he received reports about Hyder Ali's campaigns and transmitted information about the fighting to Congress. His communications helped bring news of the Indian war directly before the Continental Congress.

Other American leaders followed the conflict as well. In 1782, James Madison wrote about Hyder Ali's success against the British commander Sir Eyre Coote. American newspapers carried reports from India, and the victories of the Muslim ruler fighting Britain became part of the revolutionary conversation.

To show their appreciation, they named a warship after him. In 1782, Philadelphia merchants fitted out a vessel for the defense of Delaware Bay and named her Hyder Ally. Her captain was a young Continental naval officer named Joshua Barney and her purpose was to protect American shipping while challenging British vessels operating in Delaware Bay.

Hyder Ali wasn't fighting for American independence - he was fighting to defend and expand Mysore's power and to resist British expansion in India. There was no formal American-Mysorean alliance comparable to the Franco-American alliance and yet his war had consequences for the American Revolution.

Every British soldier, ship and pound of military expenditure committed to India was part of a much larger imperial war. The American Revolution was not a self-contained conflict happening only between Boston and Yorktown. It was one theater in a worldwide struggle involving Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, India and the Caribbean.

And that is why the story of Hyder Ali belongs in the story of America's 250th anniversary. 🇺🇸

📷: A 1790's steel engraving of King Hyder Ali

10/15/2026

On July 28, 1776, just weeks after the Declaration of Independence was adopted, a Jewish merchant named Jonas Phillips sat down in Philadelphia and did something rather daring. He took one of the newly printed copies of the Declaration of Independence and tucked it inside a letter bound for Europe.

Phillips was a German-born Jewish immigrant who had become a successful Philadelphia merchant. He was also an enthusiastic Patriot. His intended recipient was Gumpel Samson, a Jewish relative and business associate in Amsterdam. Because Britain was at war with the American colonies and communications were being intercepted, Phillips sent the letter by a roundabout route through the Dutch Caribbean ... and he wrote the letter in Yiddish.

Phillips actually acknowledged that he could express himself better in English but Yiddish offered something English did not - secrecy. If the British intercepted the letter, they would have a much harder time understanding what he had written.

It didn't quite work. The British intercepted the package. Unable to understand the Yiddish, they apparently suspected the letter was written in some sort of code. The letter and the precious copy of the Declaration tucked inside it never reached Amsterdam. Instead, both ended up preserved among British records.

Phillips was decidedly bullish on the American cause. He confidently told his correspondent that the Americans had an army of 100,000 “rookim” - a Yiddish word meaning something along the lines of “tough guys.” He predicted that the war would bankrupt Britain and believed the Americans would prevail. He then got down to the practical business of requesting goods to be shipped to America.

There is something wonderfully human about that letter. The American Revolution was not experienced only by famous generals and Founding Fathers. It was lived by immigrants, merchants, farmers, women, enslaved people, free people, Catholics, Baptists, Jews and people who spoke languages other than English.

Jonas Phillips looked at this new nation taking shape and decided that its Declaration was worth sending across an ocean. The British intercepted his message but they couldn't read it and because of that, a Jewish Patriot's Yiddish letter and the Declaration of Independence he enclosed with it survived for us to read nearly 250 years later.

10/14/2026

Imagine waking up one morning in August 1776 and discovering that nearly 9,000 enemy soldiers had simply disappeared.

That is essentially what happened to the British Army on Long Island.

On August 27, 1776, George Washington’s Continental Army suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Long Island. The Americans retreated into fortifications around Brooklyn Heights, with the East River behind them and a much larger British army closing in. There was nowhere obvious to go. If the British attacked in force, Washington risked losing not only a battle, but the army itself.

Washington and his officers made the difficult decision to withdraw from Long Island. But this would have to be no ordinary retreat. It had to happen in complete secrecy and in the darkness of night.

American soldiers began moving toward the East River. Campfires were left burning in the abandoned positions to make it appear that the army was still there. Wagon wheels were muffled. Soldiers were ordered to remain silent. And the men chosen to do much of the ferrying were Colonel John Glover’s Marblehead regiment - Massachusetts fishermen and sailors who knew how to handle boats in difficult conditions.

All night long, they ferried soldiers, artillery, horses, am******on and supplies across the East River toward Manhattan. It was an enormous undertaking, made even more dangerous by wind, darkness and the British army waiting only a short distance away.

Then, just when the evacuation was reaching its most dangerous stage, nature seemed to lend a hand. A thick fog settled over the river and the American positions. Visibility became so poor that the remaining troops could move toward the boats without being easily seen by the British.

But the escape nearly went wrong. At one point, American troops who were supposed to remain behind as a rear guard began withdrawing, apparently because of a mistaken order. Washington encountered them and realized that part of the defensive line had been left dangerously exposed. Somehow, the British did not notice.

Washington stayed until the final stages of the evacuation. By dawn on August 30, the Continental Army was gone. The British entered the American fortifications expecting to find thousands of prisoners. Instead, they found empty trenches and dying campfires.

Captain George Collier of the British Navy recorded his astonishment: “To my inexpressible astonishment & concern the Rebel army have all escaped across the River to New York!”

They had - approximately 9,000 American soldiers had slipped away during the night, carrying much of their equipment with them. Washington later reported to Congress that the retreat had been accomplished without the loss of men or am******on. The Americans had lost the Battle of Long Island. They would soon lose New York City as well. But Washington had accomplished something critically important - he had saved the Continental Army from destruction.

It is tempting to call it a miracle. The wind shifted, the darkness helped, and the fog arrived at precisely the right time. The British failed to realize what was happening until it was too late, but behind the mystery was careful planning, disciplined soldiers, skilled sailors, deception, courage, and a commander who understood that sometimes winning a war means knowing when you cannot afford to win a battle.

On that August morning in 1776, the British expected to capture Washington’s army. Instead, they found empty trenches. 💥

10/13/2026

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton was never merely the woman standing beside Alexander Hamilton. 🌸🌷

Born in 1757 into the wealthy and politically influential Schuyler family of New York, Elizabeth grew up during a period of extraordinary upheaval. Her father, Philip Schuyler, was a Continental Army major general, businessman, politician, and one of the most prominent men in New York. The Schuyler home was deeply connected to the people and events shaping the American Revolution.

In 1779, Elizabeth went to stay with her aunt in Morristown, New Jersey, where the Continental Army was wintering. There, in February 1780, she met (or, more precisely, became reacquainted with) Alexander Hamilton. They quickly fell in love and married on December 14, 1780, at the Schuyler family home in Albany.

Their marriage lasted nearly 24 years and they had eight children. Elizabeth managed an often-demanding household while Hamilton's military, legal, and political careers kept him away for long stretches. She was practical, capable, and deeply involved in the life of her family. She even oversaw much of the day-to-day development of their country home, The Grange, and kept close track of its construction expenses.

Their family also endured profound loss. In 1801, their eldest son, Philip, was killed in a duel defending his father's reputation. Three years later, on July 12, 1804, Alexander Hamilton died after his famous duel with Aaron Burr. Elizabeth was 46 years old.

And this is where Elizabeth's story becomes particularly remarkable. She would live another fifty years.

After Hamilton's death, Elizabeth devoted herself to preserving his papers, correspondence, and legacy. She tracked down documents, interviewed people who had known him, and worked with her son John Church Hamilton to organize Hamilton's writings and papers and see his biography published. She was not a disinterested observer - she was deeply invested in how her husband's life would be remembered, but she became an important participant in creating the historical record we still study today.

But Elizabeth's legacy was never only about Alexander. In 1806, she helped found the New York Orphan Asylum Society (now Graham Windham), New York City's first private orphanage. She devoted decades to caring for children who had lost their parents or lived in poverty. In 1821, she became the organization's first directress, a position she held for 27 years. She raised money, secured property, and helped oversee the care and education of the children.

She also helped establish the Hamilton Free School in Washington Heights, continuing her commitment to educating children who might otherwise have had little access to opportunity. And she stayed active in public life well into old age. In her 90s, Elizabeth and her friend Dolley Madison helped raise money for the Washington Monument.

Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton died in Washington, D.C., on November 9, 1854, at the age of 97. She was buried beside Alexander at Trinity Church in New York City.

For generations, her story was often reduced to a few familiar words ... Alexander Hamilton's wife ... but the historical record tells us something much richer.

Elizabeth was a daughter of the Revolution, a wife and mother, a philanthropist, an advocate for children, a keeper of papers and memories, and an active participant in shaping how one of America's most controversial Founders would be remembered.

10/12/2026

At Yorktown, one of the British ships didn’t simply sink. It became a floating fire.

On the afternoon of October 10, 1781, HMS Charon was caught in the middle of the fighting on the York River. The British fleet was trapped at Yorktown while French and American forces were pounding the British positions with artillery. Then a red-hot cannonball struck the ship.

The shot hit Charon’s weather deck and lodged in the wooden planks. The wood began to burn, but the sailors managed to pry the cannonball loose and throw it into a bucket of water. For a moment, it looked as though they had the situation under control.

Then another red-hot cannonball struck.

This one lodged inside the ship, in the sail room. The glowing shot ignited the canvas and wood around it, and the fire quickly spread below deck. Smoke and heat drove the crew upward as the flames grew stronger. Before long, the sailors could no longer control the fire.

And then something even more dangerous happened - the burning ship began to drift. Carried by the wind and tide, Charon became a floating source of fire in the middle of the British fleet, threatening other vessels around her.

The scene continued into the following day. Other British ships were badly damaged, and eventually some vessels were deliberately sunk or scuttled. On October 18, Cornwallis surrendered.

It is easy to picture Yorktown as something that happened entirely on land -soldiers in trenches, artillery firing across the fields, and the British defenses slowly being surrounded. But the York River was part of the battlefield, too.

Imagine standing along the river in October 1781 and watching the scene unfold -ships burning, cannonballs striking the water and wooden hulls, smoke hanging over the river, and damaged vessels beginning to disappear beneath the surface.

Remarkably, that underwater battlefield is still there. The mud, sand, and shell of the York River have preserved portions of the vessels lost during the siege, and archaeologists continue to study what remains. More than two centuries later, the river is still holding pieces of the story of those final days at Yorktown.

Yorktown wasn't just a battle you could see from the shore. Part of the story went beneath the water and it is still waiting there to be discovered! 🌊

10/11/2026

Our country was shaped by ordinary people who were willing to serve something larger than themselves.

Sometimes that service is visible and sometimes it happens quietly, without much recognition at all. Today thousands of women across America will pause to pray, reflect, and give thanks for their families, their communities, and their country.

The date is special to our organization ... on October 11, 1890, eighteen women gathered in Washington, D.C., to formally organize the Daughters of the American Revolution. They believed that remembering the past ought to lead to something more than remembrance. It should lead to service! 🇺🇸

More than 135 years later, Daughters across the country continue that tradition by setting aside the Sunday closest to October 11 for prayer, meditation, thanksgiving, and reflection. It is a chance to step away from the noise for a little while, remember those who came before us, give thanks for the people and places we call home, and seek wisdom for the work that still lies ahead.

Prayer doesn't have to look exactly the same for everybody. For some, it may mean prayer within their own faith tradition. For others, it may mean quiet meditation, reflection, or simply sitting still for a few minutes with a grateful heart. We may come from different traditions and backgrounds, but there is something wonderfully human about taking a little time to consider what we have been given and what we might give in return.

So on October 11, Daughters across America will pause together. Perhaps you will, too. Take a little time to remember, to give thanks, to seek guidance, and to consider how you might serve those around you. In a world that seems to move faster by the day, a few quiet moments spent in reflection can be a mighty fine place to begin.

God. Home. Country. 🇺🇸

10/10/2026

The annual Mountain Edition of 'Our State' is out, and this one is especially fitting for those who care about preserving and sharing North Carolina history!

🍁 The Mystery Over Brown Mountain looks at the legends and strange sightings that have been passed down through generations.

🍁 "4 Tar Heel Tall Tales" explores the folklore that grew out of mountain communities and was carried from one generation to the next.

🍁 "5 Painters Pulling Inspiration From the Blue Ridge" introduces artists who are preserving the character and beauty of Western North Carolina through their work.

And then there are the places themselves - the ridgelines, hollows, trails, communities, and old roads that remind readers that North Carolina history isn't confined to museums and archives. It's all around us.

That is part of what makes the work of DAR so meaningful - we aren't just looking backward. We're still finding the stories, protecting the places, honoring the people who came before us, and making sure the next generation knows where they came from. So much of our heritage survives because somebody cared enough to remember it, and somebody else cared enough to tell the story again.

That’s how history stays alive because around here, there's usually a story behind the view. 🍁

10/09/2026

MATRIARCH WANTED NC MANOR SEALED FOREVER: The matriarch of Moses Cone manor wrote in her will that she wanted the mansion closed forever after her death - but her final wishes were not granted.

Built around 1900, today Moses Cone’s manor is open for public visits. The mountaintop manor still overlooks the rolling green hillsides, farmland and orchards that once sustained the Cone family.

Visitors can ride the same old horse-drawn carriages down stagecoach trails from a time before automobiles were commonplace. Thousands visit each year, weaving through the magical and historic landscape.

Bertha Cone managed and protected the estate for decades after her husband’s death - and she explicitly stated in her will that the manor be permanently closed to the public, the doors locked. A private woman, she didn’t like the idea of strangers poking through the space that had been her and her husband’s private domain.

She did, however, allow the beautiful historic grounds would remain open for guests - a final gift from her and her husband.

Instead, her private home was donated to the National Park Service and opened to thousands of guests each year for tours.

Some say her spirit still watches over the manor. Many claim to see the silhouette of a petite woman with a stern face looking out the dark upper windows after the manor is closed for the day.

Others claim to hear disembodied footsteps and the sound of rocking chairs swaying on their own on the upper levels.

Bertha also spent her final years battling to keep the Blue Ridge Parkway from being constructed through her property — another final wish that was revoked after she passed. Today, Moses Cone Memorial Park sits along the Blue Ridge Parkway and is open for thousands of guests.

Perhaps Bertha simply cannot rest.

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