Mr. Knox responded, “Maybe Sophie would agree to a nice, quiet service here in our home. I’m sure our pastor will not insist on a stamped marriage certificate.”

Standing just inside the window behind a curtain, Sophie smiled to herself, went to her room, and began laying out the bonnet, veil, and lacy dress that she would be wearing during the ceremony in the front parlor, as she had been planning since the first day she had met Henry Pratt.

CHAPTER 3

A Corrupt Royal Government

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Pratt moved to Orange County, North Carolina, and set up housekeeping in the growing settlement called Childsburg in the late winter of 1765, the year before the town’s name was to be changed to Hillsborough. This was the trading center for a community in the foothills of western North Carolina, lying almost equidistant from the Neuse and Haw rivers. Many backcountry farmers had moved in from Pennsylvania, to escape the restrictive Quaker oligarchy or just seeking new land. Some families had lost their previous jobs or property, and others were dissatisfied with their relatively inferior economic and social status in the coastal regions. They were a highly diverse population, who had come originally from England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, and a few from Scandinavia. They paid little attention to organized religion, except for those in a nearby settlement of Quakers. All the newcomers considered themselves to be pioneers, establishing a new society whose overall premise was freedom and individuality. By choice and necessity, they were almost totally self-sufficient, importing just a few staples like iron, rum, gunpowder, and salt, and exporting mostly animal pelts and cattle. As soon as the farm families could meet their own needs for food grain and a garden, they cleared additional land for cash crops, mostly tobacco, and sometimes flax and indigo.

When Henry told the community officials that he was an experienced shoemaker, they welcomed him with enthusiasm and immediately offered him a choice of several empty lots near the center of town. But knowing the characteristics of a tannery, Henry suggested instead a site on the eastern outskirts of the village near a small stream so that he could wash his hides and the prevailing westerly breezes would carry the obnoxious odor of curing hides away from other residents. He and Sophie built a small shop with living quarters upstairs, very similar to what he had known in Philadelphia.