family register, moved to his own place, on the head of the Catawba
river, then receiving a considerable emigration. He had five children:
1. Cynthia, born on the 20th of September, 1767. 2. Patrick, born on
the 27th of September, 1769. 3. William Houston, bom on the 6th of
June, 1771. 4. Archibald, born on the 20th of April, 1773 (died
young); and 5. James, born on the 20th of September, 1775.

On the 4th of August, 1772, Captain Jack left his mountain home and
moved to the residence of his father, Patrick Jack, in Mecklenburg
county. On the 16th of February, 1773, he and his father moved from
the country, where they had been temporarily sojourning, into
"Charlotte town," prospered in business, and soon became useful and
influential citizens.

On the 26th of Sept., 1780, Lord Cornwallis, elated with his victory
at Camden, entered Charlotte, with the confident expectation of soon
restoring North Carolina to the British Crown. Patrick Jack was then
an old and infirm man, having given up the chief control of his public
house to his son, Captain James Jack; but neither age nor infirmity
could enlist the sympathies of the British soldiery. The patriotic
character of the house had become extensively known through Tory
information, and its destruction was consequently a "foregone
conclusion." The British soldiers removed its aged owner from the
feather bed upon which he was lying, emptied its contents into the
street, aid then set the house on fire! The reason assigned for this
incendiary act was, "all of old Jack's sons were in the rebel army,"
and he himself had been an active promoter of American independence.

The loss to Patrick Jack of his dwelling-house and much furniture,
accumulated through many years of patient toil and industry, was a