Thomas Person was an American politician, Anti-Federalist organizer, and brigadier general in command of the Hillsborough District Brigade of the North Carolina militia during the American Revolution.
13 Facts About Thomas Person
1.
2.
Thomas Person married his cousin, Johanna Philpot; the two had no children, and his nephew William Person Little was adopted as his heir.
3.
General Thomas Person spent most of his life in service to Granville County, North Carolina.
4.
In 1756, after several years working for Earl Granville as a surveyor, Thomas Person was recommended for the position of Justice of the Peace for Granville County.
5.
Thomas Person was held for three weeks in Hillsborough but was eventually released without trial, due either to lack of evidence or his personal friendship with Edmund Fanning.
6.
In spite of his issues with Governor Tryon, Representative Thomas Person continued to serve in the state General Assembly until the beginning of the American Revolution, when he was named to the extra-legal North Carolina Provincial Congress.
7.
Thomas Person's service consisted mostly of raising troops and collecting supplies rather than fighting on the field, and he turned over command the following year to John Butler, who would lead the unit in the Battle of Guilford Court House.
8.
Thomas Person spent the rest of the war serving on the North Carolina Council of State.
9.
General Thomas Person was an early supporter of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
10.
Thomas Person granted them a gift of one thousand silver dollars to complete their chapel, which later bore his name.
11.
Thomas Person sat on the inaugural Board of Trustees and is listed on the Memorial to Founding Trustees outside Person Hall which bears his name.
12.
Thomas Person died on November 16,1800, at the home of his sister, Patty Person Taylor.
13.
Thomas Person owned at least 34 slaves that he kept at his estate, Goshen, in Granville County, North Carolina.