sun, like a mighty giant, threw off the black mantle and came forth in all his strength, beauty, and majesty, rejoicing our hearts with the same glorious beams that had been hid for a time.
"And thus, as our friend was a star of the first magnitude, we contemplate his death as a temporary eclipse, and believe that when the shadows of earth have passed away, the brilliant intellect that dazzled us below, will shine out with renewed effulgence above. We cannot but think, too, that a man of his rare sweetness of temper and forgetfulness of self, will find congenial companionship, amid the rejoicing and unselfish hosts of Heaven throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity."
Randolph A. Shotwell, represented Mecklenburg county in 1876. He is a native of Virginia--born in West Liberty, December 14, 1844. He was at school in Pennsylvania when the war commenced; and determining to unite his fortunes with those of his native land, "ran the blockade" through Washington and the Federal lines, and joined the 8th Virginia Volunteers, in time for the battle of Leesburg, and was engaged in many battles and skirmishes including among them Gettysburg.
In 1864 he was captured while scouting, and held as a spy, and suffered many privations and hardships. After the war was over he came, in 1866 to North Carolina, and started the Journal of Commerce with Col. S. D. Pool. In 1868 he started the Vindicator at Rutherford. In 1870 he established the Citizen at Asheville. He was arrested and carried to Raleigh, where he was tried before Judge Bond for an alleged connection with the Invisible empire, and condemned. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment in the Albany Penitentiary and a fine of $5,000. At the intercession of Colonel Moseby, Plato Durham, and others, a pardon was issued by President Grant.
On his return (November 1872) he became associated with General D. H. Hill as editor, and acted as such until 1877. He was elected (1876) a member of the Legislature from Mecklenburg county, by 821 majority.
Robert Payne Waring is one of the worthiest citizens of Mecklenburg county. He was graduated at the University of Virginia, and became a commonwealth's attorney from 1855 to 1859, when he was appointed United States Consul to St. Thomas Island in the Danish Indies. He filled this responsible and honorable position with signal ability, reflecting great credit upon our government. In June, 1861, he returned to the United States where he was arrested and held as a prisoner of state, in New York, until October following. After the most thorough investigation, no charge could be presented against him. He had only, with his usual urbanity, lifted his cap in passing a vessel on the water which bore the emblem of the infant Confederacy.
Upon his release, he returned to North Carolina, raised a company in June 1862, served as captain till April, 1865, when he was captured and kept at Camp Chase until July of the same year. He then returned to his home in Charlotte, North Carolina, and became editor of the Daily Times.
So fearless and outspoken was his condemnation of the polititico-military administration, that he was arrested by the military commandant, in time of peace, and tried before a court martial where he was defended by Hon. B. F. Moore, and Ed. Graham Haywood. Conviction was a foregone conclusion, and he was offered the alternative of paying a fine of $300, in three days, or suffering six months imprisonment in Fort Macon.
Such treatment gave him notoriety and his paper a wider circulation. It was by his able editorials he contributed largely to the change of administration at the ballot box. Mr. Waring had been elector on the Buchanan ticket. In 1870 he was sent to the Legislature, where an important and novel question met him at the threshold: "Should North Carolina place herself
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