old, moved to Tennessee, and became a member of congress from Tennessee in the Thirty-third (1853,-'55) Thirty-fourth, (1855, 1957,) also, Thirty-sixth Congress, (1859,-'60.) On the meeting of the Thirty-seventh Congress (1861,-'63) he was elected clerk of the house, the duties of which he discharged with fidelity and ability. He is a lawyer by profession, of large observation of men and measures, and possesses rare conversational powers equalled by few persons in this or any other country.
Many other names cluster around this ancient county, the memories of whom deserve to be cherished. The Baxters, Bells, Doziers, the Etheridges, (Willis, Caleb and Joseph W.) Ferrebees, Halls, Jones, Lindsays, Salyear Simmons, and others; but our limits do not allow the space, and we leave this duty to some son of Currituck to rescue these materials from the corroding tooth of time.
CHAPTER XVII.
DAVIDSON COUNTY.
THE revolutionary history of this county is connected with that of Rowan County, from which it was taken in 1822.
James Madison Leach resides in this county. He is a native of Randolph County, born 1821, educated chiefly at home. He was for a time a cadet of the military academy at West Point. He read law with his brother. Julian E. Leach, and attained much distinction at the bar as an able, astute, and successful advocate. But his fame is chiefly based upon his success as a statesman. In 1848, he was elected to the legislature, and continuously to 1856, and in 1856 he was one of the Filmore electors. He was elected to the senate in 1865,-'66,-'67, and again in 1879. He was elected a member of the Thirty-fourth Congress, 1859,-'61, his opponent being General A. M. Scales.
In the war he entered the confederate army, and served as colonel of the eleventh regiment of North Carolina troops. But on being elected a member of the confederate congress, 1864,-'65, he resigned his commission in the army.
Since the war he has served as a member of the Forty-second and Forty-third Congresses, 1871,-'75.
The political career of General Leach has been brilliant and successful. In no instance has he ever been defeated in an election be fore the people. His shrewdness as a politician, his powers as an orator and logician, combined with a pleasing address, render him invincible.
He married in 1846, Lizzie Montgomery Lewis, and has an interesting family of three sons, Wilmont, Henry Archer and James M. to inherit his name and reputation.
DUPLIN COUNTY.
The men of this ancient county in revolutionary times, proved their devotion to the cause of liberty. They united in wresting their independence from England, in a declaration in 1777, the original is on file in the clerk's office of the county, they held that, "The King of England, nor any other foreign power, had any right to the sovereignty of this state;
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