Collecting Carolina Cards
Introduce your students to North Carolina’s role in the American Revolution with this special series of Collecting Carolina Cards, free sets of downloadable trading cards. Each card features a person, place, or event that helps paint a clearer picture of the era. We hope educators enjoy this flexible tool to support classroom discussion or short activities.
What makes learning about history through museums unique? The artifacts!
Museums tell the stories of people who lived in the past in multiple ways. One way to tell these stories is by using artifacts—things that people made and used, things they held in their hands, or things that held great importance to them. Currently, we’re remembering a time of great importance for our nation: our 250th birthday. But 1776 was a long time ago, and few things still survive from back then. So we’re showing off these special objects that played a role in making our country and state.
Why is this a revolutionary artifact? It may not look like much, but this object held the key (wink, wink) to making North Carolina “First in Freedom.” It opened the door to the building in Halifax where the Fourth Provincial Congress approved the Halifax Resolves on April 12, 1776. That document instructed the colony’s delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to vote for independence—making us the first colony to officially call for freedom from Great Britain.
What are these objects and what do they have to do with the Edenton Tea Party? Historians don’t believe that the 51 women who signed the 1774 Edenton Resolves gathered (or held a party) for the signing. But their pledge not to buy British tea and other goods was one of the earliest organized political actions by American women. These tea caddies—special containers used to store loose tea leaves—descended in the families of women (Penelope Barker, white caddy, and Mary and Lydia Bonner, blue caddy) who signed the Resolves.
Revolutionary War soldiers had to carry gunpowder for their muskets in a separate container to keep it safe, dry, and ready to load when needed. Many soldiers used a “powder horn” for this—and most of these were made from actual animal horns. (This example is from a cow.) Joel Lane—who sold the land used to found our state capital, Raleigh—carried this hand-carved powder horn during the war.
Do you know what this object is? It’s shaped like an old-fashioned pocket watch, but it is an even older way of telling time. When the compass is pointing to true north, the user lifts the foldable sundial (called a gnomon) upright and lines it up with the compass needle. Then the sun casts a shadow from that standing piece across the correct hour. (Numbers for the hours are engraved along the outer rim.) French naval officer Gabriel du Brutz, who later settled in Fayetteville, owned this sundial and had it with him during the Battle of Yorktown in 1781.
What does a broken plate have to do with a Revolutionary War battle? British officers often traveled and camped in relative luxury, with nice furniture—and even fancy dishes! Colonel Joseph McDowell from North Carolina reportedly took this plate from British major Patrick Ferguson’s baggage after Ferguson was killed during the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780.