Samuel McCorkle, who was to become one of North Carolina's most prominent preachers and educators in the revolutionary and early national period, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His family moved South when he was nine years old and settled in Rowan County, near Salisbury, North Carolina. Young McCorkle received his early education in the classical school of David Caldwell in Guilford County, North Carolina, and eventually attended the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), from which he graduated in 1772. He immediately began the study of theology and was licensed to preached by the Presbytery of New York. In 1776 he was invited to become the pastor of the Presbyterian church in his home village of Thyatira, North Carolina, a post he was to fill for the rest of his life. During the Revolution, he ardently supported the American cause and became recognized throughout the region as a...