A Scots-Irish family, the Jacks came to America in the early eighteenth century. Several Jack brothers immigrated to Pennsylvania from Ireland in about 1730. One of the brothers, Patrick Jack, moved to Rowan County in North Carolina about 1760. Patrick Jack had nine children. One of his children, James Jack, was born in Pennsylvania in the 1730s and moved with other members of his father’s family to North Carolina. In 1766, James Jack married Margaret Houston. In 1772, James Jack moved to the home of his father, Patrick Jack, in Mecklenburg County, and, in February 1773, James Jack and his family moved with his father to Charlotte.^[1]

Patrick Jack opened a tavern in Charlotte. The tavern was located at 211 West Trade Street close to the courthouse and James Jack helped his father with the business. The business prospered and the Jack family acquired property in the area. The Jack family was on the revolutionary side during the war, and the tavern would have been a center of news and discussion during the revolutionary crisis.^[2]

In May 1775, leaders of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, met at the courthouse in Charlotte. News of the battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts prompted these Mecklenburg leaders to protest against the actions of the British. Local tradition maintains that the leaders issued a declaration of independence, the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, and/or a set of resolves, the Mecklenburg Resolves. James Jack was solicited to deliver the document(s) to the North Carolina delegates meeting at the Second Continental Congress underway in Philadelphia.

Carrying the document(s), James Jack rode from Charlotte to Philadelphia and back, a distance of over 1100 miles. On the way, he stopped in Salisbury and the documents were read at a session of the general court. Two loyalist lawyers, Benjamin Booth and John Dunn, attempted to have Jack arrested, but Jack was able to escape. The lawyers were later arrested by revolutionary forces.

James Jack delivered the document(s) to the North Carolina delegates in Philadelphia: Richard Caswell, William Hooper, and Joseph Hewes. However, at that time the Congress was preparing to adopt a petition to the king attempting reconciliation and the inflammatory resolutions from Mecklenburg County were considered premature.^[3]

On the way back from Philadelphia to Charlotte, James Jack probably stopped at the Moravian community at Salem. The Salem Diary records: “July 7, 1775. This afternoon a man of Mecklenburg, who had been sent as an express from there to Congress in Philadelphia, upon his returning journey delivered here a circular to Mr. Traugott Bagge. . . . “ Traugott Bagge commented in 1783:

I cannot leave unmentioned at the end of the 1775th year that already in the summer of that year, that is May, June or July, the County of Mecklenburg in North Carolina declared itself free and independent of England, and made such arrangements for the administration of the laws among themselves, as later the Continental Congress made for all. This Congress, however, considered the proceedings premature.^[4]

In 1819, James Jack described the events of May and June 1775:

Having seen in the newspapers some pieces respecting the Declaration of Independence by the people of Mecklenburg County in the State of North Carolina, in May, 1775, and being solicited to state what I know of that transaction, I would observe that for some time previous to, and at the time those resolutions were agreed upon, I resided in the town of Charlotte, Mecklenburg County; was privy to a number of meetings of some of the most influential and leading characters of that county on the subject before the final adoption of the resolutions and at the time they were adopted. Among those who appeared to take the lead may be mentioned Hezekiah Alexander, who generally acted as chairman, John McKnitt Alexander, as secretary, Abraham Alexander, Adam Alexander, Major John Davidson, Major (after General) William Davidson, Colonel Thomas Polk, Ezekiel Polk, Dr. Ephraim Brevard, Samuel Martin, Duncan Ochletree, William Wilson, Robert Irwin.

When the Resolutions were finally agreed on, they were publicly proclaimed from the court house door in the town of Charlotte, and received with every demonstration of joy by the inhabitants.

I was then solicited to be the bearer of the proceedings to Congress. I set out the following month, say June, and in passing through Salisbury, the General Court was sitting; at the request of the court I handed a copy of the resolutions to Colonel Kennon, an attorney, and they were read aloud in open court. Major William Davidson and Mr. Avery, an attorney, called on me at my lodgings the evening after, and observed they had heard of but one person, a Mr. Beard, but approved of them. I then proceeded to Philadelphia, and delivered the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence of May, 1775, to Richard Caswell and William Hooper, the delegates to Congress from the State of North Carolina.

During the Revolutionary War, James Jack served as a captain in the revolutionary militia. He probably served under Thomas Polk in the Snow Campaign of 1775 against Loyalists in the backcountry of South Carolina, and raised a company which served in Griffith Rutherford’s campaign against the Cherokee in 1776. The Cherokee made an alliance with the British in 1776 and Rutherford’s brutal campaign destroyed thirty-six Cherokee villages. The Cherokee sued for peace the next year and were no longer a threat during the war.

James Jack was probably with the militia standing against the General Charles Cornwallis and the British army at Charlotte in September 1780. Cornwallis occupied Charlotte, and, at that time, Patrick Jack, who was old and sick, was dragged out in the street and his home and property burned; Patrick Jack died shortly afterwards. James Jack probably served with General Thomas Polk in 1781 and joined General Nathanael Greene at Rugeley’s Mills. At the end of the war, James Jack was not wealthy. He had advanced money for the cause and claimed some 7,446 pounds from the State of North Carolina for revolutionary services. In 1783, James Jack moved to Georgia and settled in Wilkes County. He died in 1822.