CAPTAIN WILLIAM ALEXANDER Facts

Excerpts from Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical by C.L. Hunter

Captain William Alexander was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, in the year 1749. He was long and well known in Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, among numerous other persons bearing the same name, as "Capt. Black Bill Alexander," from being the reputed leader of a small band of ardent patriots who, in 1771, _blackened their faces_, and destroyed the king's powder, on its way to Hillsboro, to obey the behests of a cruel and tyrannical governor.