Qualla: Thomas Polk

Thomas Polk: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Fitzgerald, OpenStreetMap.org, CC BY-SA 2.0. In September 1777, with Howe's army closing on Philadelphia, the Continental Congress fled and the city's bells were loaded onto wagons for an emergency evacuation. Among them was the State House Bell, the bronze instrument that would later be called the Liberty Bell. The officer assigned to escort the bell train northwest to Allentown was a colonel of the 4th North Carolina Regiment named Thomas Polk. He was a long way from home. His usual ground was a piedmont crossroads in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, where he had been a founding commissioner of a brand-new town called Charlotte.

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Image: Peter Fitzgerald, OpenStreetMap.org | CC BY-SA 2.0

Thomas Polk: From Pennsylvania to the Carolina Backcountry

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nascar1996, Public domain. Polk was born around 1732 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, to William and Margaret Taylor Polk, Scots-Irish farmers who had crossed the Atlantic a generation earlier. In 1753, at about twenty-one, he moved south to Anson County, North Carolina, joining the wave of Scots-Irish ...

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Image: Nascar1996 | Public domain

Thomas Polk: The Mecklenburg Resolves

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Cable, CC0. By the spring of 1775, Mecklenburg County's Scots-Irish Presbyterians were among the most aggressive Patriots in the South. On May 31, 1775, Polk was among the local officials who adopted the Mecklenburg Resolves, declaring laws enforced by the Crown null and void and calling for...

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Image: Eric Cable | CC0

Thomas Polk: Brandywine, Valley Forge, and the Liberty Bell

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Cable, CC0. In 1776 Polk was named colonel of the 4th North Carolina Regiment of the Continental Line. His regiment marched north in early 1777 and fought at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, where Washington's army was outflanked by Howe and forced to retreat toward Philadelphia. Da...

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Image: Eric Cable | CC0

Thomas Polk: Commissary in the Southern Campaign

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Cable, CC0. Polk's military career was not finished. In mid-1780, with the British rolling through the Carolinas, he accepted appointment as commissary general of purchases for the Continental Army in the southern theater. He used his own credit and personal assets to keep Patriot soldiers f...

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Image: Eric Cable | CC0

Thomas Polk: Founder and Host

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CarCai, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the war Polk served on the North Carolina Council of State in 1783 and 1784. In 1786 the General Assembly elected him to the Congress of the Confederation, but he never attended a session. The most-told story of his later years comes from May 1791, when President George Was...

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Image: CarCai | CC BY-SA 4.0