Found on a quiet rural road, this roadside marker and monument commememorates an act of defiance by Patriots in 1775

"Here in August 1775 was formulated and signed the Tryon County Declaration of Rights and Independence from British tyranny"

Just north of Bessemer City on NC-274 is a small historical marker. Placed in 1949, it joined a monument erected in 1919 by the Col Frederick Hambright Chapter of the Daughters of The American Revolution. Hambright, and the other men listed on the stone and bronze monument, were signers of a the Tryon County Declaration of Rights and Independence.

  Inked and signed at the Tryon Courthouse during August of 1775, the declaration proffered by these men was a public statement that, when placed alongside the Mecklenburg Declaration and similar other documents, solidly placed the backcountry areas of North and South Carolin on the path of revolt.

  The marker probably isn't complete. In fact, at least one Patriot known to have been there, John Wells, is not listed. But that isn't a surprise, as Tryon County doesn't exist anymore and any official records were likely never properly secured. It was an act of Rebellion and keeping a signed list was dangerous. But these were men of honor and they stood by their pledge. The contribution of many Patriots will forever remain unknown. While their offspring may look at that as an injustice, and it is, the individual Patriots knew of their deeds and found their own reward as they looked around and found a country based upon a Constitution that worked as it was intended.

Tablets remember the signers and Patriots of 1775  

The two tablets were placed in 1919, one by family members of Christian Mauney and the other by the Colonel Frederick Hambright Chapter of DAR.